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Chandos
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Ernest
Bloch
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Visions and Propehcies Ernest Bloch wrote relatively little for solo piano. Virtually his entire output for the instrument dates to two comparatively brief periods. The first of these was the early 1920s when he was director of the Cleveland Institute in Ohio. During this time he composed the glittering nocturne In the Night, the ‘Poem for piano’ Nirvana, Enfantines, a set of ten pieces for children and Five Sketches in Sepia. |
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For the delightful and delicate Enfantines, Bloch simplified his idiom, creating for the most part translucent two-part textures well within the compass of young players. The pieces exercise a very direct appeal in terms of lyricism and entertainment. The Five Sketches in Sepia are short pieces – mostly only a page or two of music – which live up to the 'sketch' definition by giving the impression of spontaneous inspirations dashed down as they occurred. In fact they are obviously carefully composed, a sophisticated distillation of Bloch's various pianistic influences, with a characteristic clarity and delicacy of spacing. Twelve years were to pass between his writing of the Five Sketches and Bloch's later period of piano composition which produced his Piano Sonata and Visions and Prophecies. The Piano Sonata is probably Bloch's most substantial and significant work for solo piano. The work is in a more dissonant, harder-edged style than the piano pieces of the 1920s. Visions and Prophecies is a recomposition of Bloch's Voice in the Wilderness, a symphonic poem for orchestra with cello obligato. It is divided into five movements. The more dramatic, odd-numbered movements evoke the Old Testament prophets while the calmer, even-numbered ones are the visions. |
