Boris Goltz was one of the most promising students at the Leningrad Conservatory in the 1930s;
Vladimir Sofronitsky was one of Goltz's classmates in Leonid Nikolayev's piano course and also made the first recording of Goltz's music in about 1938. With the outbreak of Operation Barbarossa, Goltz conscripted into the Soviet military and fell during the siege of Leningrad in March 1942, aged only 28. Heretofore, the historical
Sofronitsky performance appears to have been the only piano work of Goltz to appear on record; pianist
Sergei Podobedov brings us the rest of this slight feast in Music & Arts' Boris Goltz: Complete Works for Solo Piano.
"Complete" means Goltz' Scherzo in E minor and his set of 24 Preludes, Op. 2 -- the Preludes date from 1934-1935, and the Scherzo anywhere from between 1934 and 1940. In a general sense, his work can be seen as an extension of the post-romantic tradition exemplified by
Rachmaninoff and
Medtner though in the specifics there are plenty of connections to contemporary trends;
Scriabin,
Prokofiev, and
Shostakovich all figure in the mix, and Goltz seems to have been aware of the then discredited theory of modal rhythm of Boleslav Yavorsky. All of these influences wind their way through this music, and as "preludes" these are only tangentially so; really they are character pieces and genre studies of various kinds. Often Goltz skillfully weaves one genre into another, and as genre itself is a kind of contract between the creator and listener, Goltz clearly wrote these highly evocative miniatures knowing that their clashes of content would evoke certain responses from his auditors. Most of us are not equipped with the set of conditions a Soviet listener in 1935 would have had, but nevertheless, these little pieces are "evocative." It's a pity Goltz did not live to create more than just the 24 of them, but in a way, all are crystalline and perfect.
Podobedov is obviously devoted to making this music available for the first time and the cause of this composer. It is a mystery why he decided to fill out Goltz' exquisite surviving 35 minutes of piano music with 20 more of familiar
Chopin fare that practically every pianist plays. Certainly, some appropriate music could have been pressed into service; Tikhon Khrennikov was also born, like Goltz, in 1913; perhaps he has piano music? Why not works of Stanchinsky or Protopopov, other Russians with significant yet small outputs for piano? The
Chopin here is dutiful and adequate, but nothing special -- if one elects to give Goltz a try -- and there is every reason to suggest that one should do so -- then chances are the last 20 minutes will be the part of this disc you will never listen to.