When Henry Doktorski agreed to perform four recitals
in California this year, he decided to combine some
of the content of two forthcoming CDs, Classical
Accordion Classics and Vaudeville
Classics. The titles are self-explanatory and the
list of selections indicate the nature of the music.
Also included on the CD was a world premiere of a
piece written especially for Henry by the composer
Alan Hovhaness, Hymn. In concert Henry
included some pieces not on the CD and eliminated
others from his program; for example, his excellent
performance of Johann Ludwig Krebs' Prelude
wasn't included, nor was his version of Monti's
Czardas, but the CD includes three preludes by
Gershwin and Deiro's Egypto Fantasy, which he
didn't play in concert.
Henry has a genuine feeling for baroque music and his
performance of the Handel Suite for a Musical
Clock is excellent; he plays it with a clean,
clear and singing quality. The Air is
particularly beautiful. The Suite may
represent his best work on this CD and is comparable
to the work of an outstanding specialist in baroque
like Øivind Farmen.
I was glad to see someone include Schumann's
Träumerei on an accordion album. Henry plays
it well and with feeling. However, I would like a
stronger, dream-like quality and a greater sense of
space—the piece should float. Perhaps what might
create a more lilting quality would be a better use
of musical silence. For example, if in the opening at
the 9 second mark the note decayed more it would not
only define the phrase better, but it would set up
the mood for the rest of the piece; instead, there's
a sense of "moving right along." The problem with the
accordion is that since it can make continuous
sounds, performers are seduced into playing it that
way. Why not let notes play and exhale into silence
at the end of certain phrases? It's a primary element
in articulation and realized by most accomplished
performer's of every other instrument. Piazzolla
mastered it, even to the extent of using his air
release as a musical element. However, Henry does
exactly the right thing very nicely at 1:23. And his
expression is lovely at the end, but on the
penultimate, long sustained note there was a perfect
opportunity to let it fade into silence—and he
didn't.
He does a good job with Brahm's overly familiar
Hungarian Dance No. 5. I did think he played
it a little fast at times and seemed to overrun his
technique in certain passages; there were triplets
throughout that were shorted and ended up seeming not
as clean as they could be. He does quite well on the
contrasting slow passages and a little better on his
return to the fast passages; sometimes, however, I
thought the tempo might be getting away from him.
Henry definitely evidences a talent for modern works
—and not to make unfair comparisons—it is
interesting that Glenn Gould similarly had an
affinity for baroque and modernity (at least,
Schoenberg, Bartok, Krenek, Hindemith, Prokofiev,
etc.). Gershwin's Three Preludes can't really
be considered that modern in the sense of today's new
music, or even the five previous listed composers,
but they're good works; interesting miniatures that
contain insightful excursions into Gershwin's less
popular thinking. You might say they're images of
Gershwin's take on synthesizing jazz and
keyboard composition in a classical vein, similar to
his take on jazz and composing for an orchestra and
piano in Rhapsody in Blue. Henry's performance
of the preludes is generally quite good. My only
qualification would be: I might like a stronger sense
of swing. Jazz is all about propulsive accents and
syncopating energy and despite Henry's rhythmic
correctness on the pieces I somehow wanted a little
more Jazz Age edginess. Individually: his playing is
good throughout Allegro ben ritmato e deciso
(9)—I thought the pause and switch click at the
end was unfortunate; Andante con moto e poco
rubato (10) is bluesy, but I felt it could be a
bit bluer, a mite dirtier; the final prelude has an
aura of a "Jazz Age Big City" cityscape and Henry
catches the pace and contrast nicely. I'm glad he
performed these Gershwin miniatures and he interprets
them nicely without the advantage of dozens of other
accordion performances to inform; pianists can hear
Chopin played by thousands of others and seek a well-
worn rut or do a 180 on the rut and deliver "their
own" interpretation. Henry's interpretive choices on
the Gershwin preludes are his own and they're tasty
and insightful. If I've carped about a need for more
propulsive accents and energy it may be that the
pieces were written for the piano, which is a
percussion instrument, and at times I may have
inferred the dynamics I missed.
Henry's performance of Alan Hovhaness' brief Suite
for Accordion is very good, his execution clean.
The Solene movement is like a chant, almost
Gregorian at times, with bass and treble playing in
contrasting keys. The Presto is quasi baroque
and Henry is in his element—excellent, but over
too soon. The Allegro Vivo seems to
intentionally evoke a bagpipe with a hint of Middle
Eastern quartertones. The composer's Hymn,
which was written for Henry, interestingly toys with
the Dies Irae theme. It's not a major work,
but as a concept for the accordion it's effective and
played quite well. Henry's breath control is good;
neither Hovhaness nor any listener could ask for
more.
Henry plays Piazzolla's Oblivion with a fine
sense of lyricism. His opening run at 44 seconds is
lovely (& even better at 3:49 ff.) and equally nice
each time on its repeat. It's amazing how a few notes
can jump out at a listener. I played the CD for
others and they all perked up on the run and said,
"That's lovely; he did something there." What is it
when something like that happens? Was there a
connection between the player and something
beyond—within? An insight, an intuition
—maybe something unconscious and Henry
doesn't even know what we're talking about
—but it can happen in
even a few notes and it did here. The contrasting B
section is energetic and well played. Henry feels the
piece deeply and conveys his complex feelings of
despair, hope and reconciliation—a neurasthenic
triptych that Piazzolla felt deeply. I would like a
bit more shaping of the long, sustained notes; not to
imitate Piazzolla, but to give them their full vocal
value—they're not notes, they're laments,
incantations. And perhaps if the anguish of the A
section deepened, it would pull the whole piece
together a bit more as a "story" of a heartfelt path
towards the moment when that nicely dissonant,
arpeggiated chord at the end proclaims its
bittersweet irony. But all in all, Henry does a fine
job.
I like Henry's own composition, Rondo Polska;
it's a literal scherzo, or joke. Henry is having fun
with a simple three-note theme and the many ways he
can topsy-turvy it. It's rare that we have humor
expressed in accordion music; this is a light,
pleasant example. I haven't seen the score, but I
feel he might clean up the runs; for example, around
56 seconds and forward on the repeats of same; I
shouldn't argue with the composer, but Henry has
played so well elsewhere that he's created
expectations of qualitative equanimity.
Guido Deiro's compositions are perfect examples of
music from the Golden Age of Vaudeville, as well as
being worthy in their own right—however, keep in
mind that they're purposely showy, extroverted romps
directed at a listener's senses in a generally
cheerful, jazzy, assaultive manner. Above all,
Vaudeville was a show; it was a medium in
which a player had to capture and hold a large, not
always attentive audience's interest. The longer and
more intensely a person could enthrall his listeners
and transform them into a single, pulsating organism,
was what determined who became a headliner—the
one who drew the crowds. Guido Deiro, among all the
pianists, trumpeters, clowns, dancers, jugglers,
comics, singers and animal acts, shone as one of the
brightest stars on the circuit—and he was a man
alone on stage with a simple, acoustic accordion
—nothing more; and it put him on the theater
marquis, at the top of the bill, the unquestioned
headliner, a star; he could go by one name: Deiro!
Henry is rendering a valuable service by presenting
some of Deiro's pieces on this CD. Generally, I think
he does a fine job; however, I think as he gets
deeper into the material, he will need to make them
jazzier (rags and jazz were considered erotic, after
all)—this may be a matter of syncopated energy
and accents; unless it's just my erroneous and
idiosyncratic taste. But Deiro's music comes from the
early days of rags and jazz—it was hot stuff
for its time; this concept may be hard for us to
get in the twenty-first century, but it's there to be
gotten. Also, the pieces have certain
performance dimensions that need to be filled.
The Deiro Rag was very well played by Henry,
but I wanted it bigger, more subversive and dirtier.
The more formal pieces have a sense of operatic
pretensions (Musketeer March)—but they
have to have size, too. They can't be just a pleasant
tune the likes of which we'd hear at an accordion
club. Marches were a rage through the early 20th
century. Think of John Phillip Sousa and how even
today when the Boston Pops plays The Stars and
Stripes Forever, the audience gets excited and
claps along. Marches were like rock and roll in those
days. And Deiro's marches would certainly turn an
audience on and send them humming out the door
towards the nearest speakeasy.
I thought Henry caught the vaudeville flavor with
Deirino Mazurka. It teases the audience with
syncopation and tossed off triplets and trills. And
like most of these pieces it's brash, extroverted and
meant to be dazzling. Vaudeville music has both a
musical shape and an equally important performance
shape—a show-off structure; the performer has to
take over the music the way Sinatra took over a song.
With Henry's rendition of I Don't Care Polka I
could almost see Deiro striding around the stage. Henry
gave me a sense of the times here—energy,
excitement; adrenalin had to kick in or the accordion
player would be booed off the stage: addio
being a headliner, double addio making $6oo a
week. I think the performer had to go on stage with a
sense of, "It's the top of the ninth, two out, tie
game; World Series on the line—I've got to swing for
the fences." Vaudeville was big time, big money and
big competition. Dozens of acts were waiting in the
wings to roll over the headliner and piss on his
grave if he didn't bring down the house. So, the
compositions, I think, need to come alive with an
undercurrent of life & death, a sense of being a high
wire act; there's danger in their performance—and
that's a lot of what made them work.
Lido Tango is catchy and I'm sure it was a
popular tune. I thought Henry did well with it
—although I wasn't totally convinced about where
he placed his accents. Still, he got me humming and I
think the audience would've carried it with them out
the door. In this case, I could imagine Deiro using a
pair of dancers interpreting the tango onstage.
The Queen of the Air March must have been
written for some person (queen) and/or an event
(e.g., Amelia Earhart's 1928 & 1932 flights across
the Atlantic). It has the feeling of a timely
celebration—maybe some research would turn up the
answer. Henry starts off with exactly the right size
and energy, but drops back a notch. Generally, he has
a good sense of urgency and drive here.
Valse Caprice No. 1 is nicely done. It would offer the
audience a lyrical break in the show. It's melodic
and infectious. I thought it needed a little more
legato to break a heart or two.
Henry is terrific on Neapolitans Polka
—he's driving the piece; the runs are lightning
fast and clean (except around 1:50-2:00). I thought
he captured the real spirit of the times.
My Florence Waltz opens big and teasingly, then
serves up a moody introduction of the theme—which
is good and well played. Somehow I thought the
performance contour of the piece needed to be clearer
for the listener. Where are we being taken
emotionally and why? How is the journey structured?
The piece ought to evoke an immigrant's (and Deiro's)
nostalgia for youth and the old country—Firenze,
Italia; temps perdu: la mamma never to
be seen again, all that—unless Florence was one
of Guido's babes; in which case, never mind. I think
Henry did some shaping on Florence, but each
section needed a clear imprint of sentiment.
The final piece and obvious "big number" is Egypto
Fantasia and it's Henry's strongest rendition of
a Deiro composition. Of all the pieces it's the most
classical—and it certainly would be connected in
the popular imagination of the times with the
exciting, exotic discoveries happening in Egypt.
Remember, throughout the nineteenth century right up
to 1922 when Howard Carter and the Earl of Carnarvon
discovered King Tutankhamen's tomb—even
continuing today—tombs were unearthed and
scholars were publishing the results of translations
from hieroglyphic texts. The Rosetta Stone had been
discovered in 1799 (it was a tablet with Greek,
Demotic and hieroglyphic inscriptions elucidating the
same text). Scholars had been bringing out studies
throughout the nineteenth, early twentieth century
and Egyptian motifs were found everywhere including
the décor of many of the theaters in which vaudeville
shows took place. Deiro beautifully played upon the
popular imagination for things exotic with his
Fantasia—the piece is potent enough that
when the ending theme enters I've no doubt a modern
audience would instantly think of Lawrence of
Arabia. The Fantasia is a virtuoso number
that sets a scene and Henry paints it very well. I do
think, however, that the final restatement and climax
at 5:50 needs to be bigger, as if in anticipation of
the resounding applause that was to come.
Henry has given us an eclectic CD and the overall
achievement is quite high. It's a generous offering
at 74:10 minutes and he interestingly sustains much
of it. Many anthologies are more like auditions for
the artist than albums, but I think Henry put the
music first; he presented things he liked and wanted
to bring to our intention, worthy pieces that ought
to be heard and he did so in a forthright manner. In
a lot of ways, the disparity of the selections gives
the CD a lively, spontaneous feeling and delivers a
solid sense of fun.
Henry Doktorski:
Victoria 140-bass convertor/free-bass piano
accordion