Moses Pergament Volume One - A Musical Miscellany
TOCC0728 (Toccata Classics, CD)
FIRST RELEASE (3 October 2024)
Playing time: 76'28"
Tracks: 20
Booklet pages: 40
℗ 2024 Toccata Classics
© 2024 Toccata Classics
Main country of recording: Finland
Reviewer: Keith Bramich
Review of Moses Pergament Volume One - A Musical Miscellany published on 25 October 2024
Martin Malmgren, piano (tracks 1-16, 18 and 19)
Musicians from the Agora Music Collective (track 9):
Sebastian Silén, violin
Lea Tuuri, violino obbligato
Mathias Hortling, cello
Helsinki Metropolitan Orchestra (tracks 1-3)
Sasha Mäkilä, conductor (tracks 1-3)
Tomas Nuñez, cello (tracks 17-20)
Helsinki Chamber Orchestra (track 20)
Aku Sorensen, conductor (track 20)
Moses Pergament (1893-1977):
Piano Concerto (1951–52)
1 Maestoso
2 Molto adagio
3 Allegretto grazioso
4 Sorrow, Op 5, for piano (1908–9)
Lyrical Dances for piano
5 Elf Dance I (1914)
6 Elf Dance II (1915)
7 Mazurka (1912)
8 Incidental Music for Kung Salomo (‘King Solomon’):
‘Sulamith’s Dance’ for piano (1915)
9 Chanson triste, version for violin, violino obbligato,
cello and piano (1915)
Incidental Music for Esthers gästabud ('The Feast of Esther') (1936)
10 Dance
11 Adagio
Med livet som insats (‘They Staked their Lives’): Film Score (1939)
12 Act I: The Mill (1939), transcribed by Malmgren
13 Act II: Minuet (1916), transcribed by Malmgren
14 Act III: Valse lente (1939)
15 Festive Fanfare, transcribed by the composer (1961)
16 For Nicole for piano (1974)
17 Meditation for cello (1974)
18 Meditation for cello and piano (1969)
19 Melodia romantica for cello and piano (1970)
20 Fantasia differente - 'Ciélo e térra' for cello and string nonet (1969)
The neglect of Moses Pergament (1893-1977) can be ascribed in part to the complexities of his life: he was born in Finland of Lithuanian-Jewish stock, a student in Russia and a Swedish citizen by 1919. As a result, no national culture stepped forward to claim him, with his outsider status initially worsened by blatant anti-Semitism - and the gradual realisation that he was one of the most interesting Swedish composers of the mid-twentieth century then fell away again after his death. This series of recordings aim to return his music to the public ear, beginning with an album tracing the growth of his style, from early Romanticism to a spicy Bartókian vivacity, occasionally animated by Jewish melos and dance-rhythms.
First recordings.
Recorded 7-8 August 2021 in Nya Paviljongen, Grankulla (Piano Concerto), 20 March 2022 in Järvenpäätalo, Järvenpää (Fantasia differente), 30 November 2022 in Nya Paviljongen, Grankulla (cello and piano works) and 12 June 2023, 29 November 2023 and 17 March 2024 in Organo, Music Centre, Helsinki (works for solo piano), Finland.