From: "Scott Morrison" jscottmorrison@verizon.net

Subject: Lees Piano Music

Lees: Piano Music
Mirian Conti, piano
TOCC 0069

5/5 stars

Muscular Lees Piano Works from Six Decades

Benjamin Lees (b. 1924, and still writing) is one of the doyens of American composers. His music, always approachable but never easy at first hearing, has the benefit of impeccable craft, ingenuity, engaging dramatic gesture, the  element of surprise and rhythmic inventiveness. His moods can range from warm to cool, passionate to meditative, diffident to fierce. And always his music grabs you with its integrity and spirit. This disc contains solo piano music -- all of it recorded for the first time -- written over a period of six decades, from the Toccata of 1947 to the Odyssey No. 3 from 2005. Lees' music is, over this long period, of a piece and easy to identify as his own. Never one to copy compositional trends there are, nonetheless, echoes of Prokofiev, Bartok, Piston and perhaps late impressionism in his style. Still, one would never mistake one of his works for any of the composers named.
 

The Toccata (1947) was written just before Lees began his four years of study with George Antheil, whom he honors as his most important teacher. Interestingly, one does not sense a change in basic style between the pre Antheil Toccata and the works that came later, an indication that Antheil did not dictate to his student how he should write, but rather helped him free up  his own voice. The Toccata is virtuosic in the extreme -- actually this is true of  most of the works on this disc -- and seems to take as its model the devilishly difficult Prokofiev Toccata. It whirls by in just over two minutes.

'Six Ornamental Etudes' (1957), none lasting much over three minutes, are showpieces that are basically coolly kinetic but with islands of lyrical repose. (They are akin to his previously recorded 'Etudes for Piano and Orchestra' [1974]: [[ASIN:B00008BLCF Benjamin Lees: Symphony No. 2; Symphony No. 3; Symphony No. 5]]). 'Three Preludes' (1962), written for pianist Joseph Bloch, are similar in style to the 'Etudes' but are trickier rhythmically and a good deal more dramatic in impact. There is a distinct narrative feel to them but no story-lines are supplied. Make up your own! 'Sonata Breve' (1956) is a one-movement work whose sonata-style is uniquely Lees'; the main themes are not developed as one might expect but pop up in surprising contexts and guises, a kind of sonata-variation form. The work is virtuosic -- all those scurrying triplets! -- and dramatic.

The last three pieces on the the disc are Odysseys Nos. 1 (1970), 2 (1986) and 3 (2005). Each lasts ten minutes, more or less, and each has more heft than most of the previous pieces. No. 2 was written for the brilliant British pianist, John Ogdon, after Lees heard him play the No. 1 in recital. No. 3 was written for this CD's pianist, the marvelous Argentine pianist Mirian Conti. Each of the works teems with incident, engaging gesture, rhythmic variation that keeps one guessing, extended tonal and modal harmonies, and Lees' inherent narrative sense. These are, for me, the most attractive works on the disc and they reveal more and more beauty on repeated hearings. Mirian Conti, long resident in New York and noted for her devotion to music from both South and North America, is the perfect pianist for these works. She is clearly a musician of great intellectual grasp coupled with the instincts and technique of a first-class pianist. One notes her crystal clear articulation of Lees' otherwise potentially smudgeable contrapuntal lines and her understanding of the music's emotional content. She is playing a well-regulated
Hamburg Steinway and is given terrific recorded sound by recording engineer Fabiola Russo. The disc was recorded in Buenos Aires in 2006. The informative booklet notes are by the redoubtable Martin Anderson, founder of the Toccata Label and a well-known writer on contemporary music. There are also helpful notes by the composer about the pieces presented here. Mirian Conti contributes an essay about playing Lees' music.

An unqualified endorsement.

Scott Morrison

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00163JHT0/

From International Piano Selection, July-August 2008

American composer Benjamin Lees was born in China in 1924. His most influential composition tutor was George Antheil and sojourns in Helsinki, Vienna and France expanded his horizons. He met members of the Surrealist movement including Duchamp, Man Ray and Dali, which was to color his approach to composition.

Flamboyant and virtuostic, the Toccata invokes the spirit of the composer's Russian family origins. Argentinian pianist Mirian Conti tosses this off with considerable panache. The Six Ornamental Studies is a bravura work: pulsating chords, driving rhythms and contrasting moods have the shade of Rachmaninoff--who had been a seminal influence--hovering in the background. Rhythmically restless changes of pace vying with quiet passages that demand much from the performer are a feature of the three Preludes--Conti doesn't disappoint. The concise, humorous one-movement Sonata Breve allows for the development of the main subject, which pops up in unexpected places. Odyssey--written over a period of time--is the pinnacle of the composer's achievement and a tour de force for the pianist. Here he draws together all his mastery, exploiting the ranges of the instrument  to take us on his journey into the unknown. Conti's outstanding technique and insightful understanding make for a thrilling experience.

Shirley Ratcliffe

FROM THE ALLMUSIC BLOG

Listen Now

Benjamin Lees: Piano Music 1947-2005

Featured Artist

Mirian Conti

Performance: 5 Stars

Sound: 5 Stars

Release Date 2008

Time 71:31

Label

Toccata Classics[69]

AMG Album ID W 171705

Review by Uncle Dave Lewis

American composer Benjamin Lees is a known quantity among many reputable virtuosi, in music education as a pedagogue and among truly expert aficionados of twentieth century classical music. Lees has never followed any discernable trends, soaks in influences until they are barely visible, and has forged a personal style that is distinctive and unique. This goal every composer strikes out to achieve, to attain it so early in one's career as Lees did, and to produce music of consistent quality artistically and technically as Lees remains highly admirable. However, such a career path can also get you ignored; it is not sufficient, it seems, to find a workable personal style, stick to it, and grow within it at a pace where one is comfortable. At this stage of Lees' career -- late as it is -- it is most useful to have a career summary of some kind. Toccata Classics' Benjamin Lees: Piano Music 1947-2005 handsomely fits the bill; a survey of what has been a 60-year odyssey in the realm of the keyboard, played by a handpicked expert interpreter of Lees' piano output, Mirian Conti. Conti was introduced to Lees through his fellow composer David Diamond in the early '80s, and the two most recent compositions featured in this program were specifically composed for her.

A thoroughly superficial exegesis of the elements of Lees' style would include some reference to Prokofiev and Bartók, moreover there's a vague resemblance to various things of Copland, early Leonard Bernstein, and late Griffes with some correspondence to Lees' own favorite teacher, George Antheil, though most strongly in a work written just before the two first met, the Toccata (1947). In the final analysis, Lees sounds like none else; in earlier works he utilizes a romantic trajectory of line that proves an easy course to follow, even as his harmonic language tends to be tough -- though never coarse -- and neither tonal nor exclusively atonal. In later works, such as the first two pieces entitled Odyssey, the romantic line of argument gives way to a more segmented, cinematic approach to form; it does not change Lees' musical thinking so much as it provides an alternative method of telling the story. In the last work, Odyssey No. 3 (2005), Lees combines both approaches; in what might be the best, Sonata Breve (1957), Lees spins a seamless 13-minute structure out of a kind of a broken, two-part figure that is compelling, well-varied, smart, communicative, and exciting.

"I am a visceral rather than intellectual composer," Lees states in his notes for his disc, and that appears to be so, although his music is highly intellectually satisfying. It is still for relatively advanced tastes, as Lees' harmonic palette is tilted more toward the dark side than the light. However, those accustomed to Bartók should have no trouble grasping Lees, and his piano music does continue the "Great American" line of keyboard thinking that extends from long-departed figures such as Antheil, Griffes, and Copland. For those with an interest in this area, Toccata Classics' Benjamin Lees: Piano Music 1947-2005 will prove essential. Conti's performance is dedicated and authoritative, and Toccata Classics' recording is stunningly realistic.

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