Christopher Jessup The First Movements in Review
Christopher Jessup, piano
Provided to YouTube by CDBaby
Released on: 2021-06-12
The young and talented pianist Christopher Jessup has produced an album that is based on a novel premise. What if one was to play only the very first movements of some of the cornerstones of the piano repertoire? This is a provocative way to structure a recording, and I admit to having mixed feelings about this project. As Mr. Jessup surely knows, a sonata is a musical narrative, and the omission of the later movements leaves a story untold, a story with no resolution. This sense of incompleteness in the musical works extends to our knowledge of the artist as well. Can we know him fully from these partial sketches? I suspect that the pianist is offering us a tasting menu as an introduction both to him, and to the works he is playing. As a marketing ploy, it may be ingenious, especially as a way to attract new audiences to classical music. For those discovering these works for the first time however, it would be helpful to credit the composer next to the title.
Mr. Jessup is a very fine musician with a high standard of technique that is always in service to the composer. He has a brisk, clean approach to the instrument, coupled with a sense of the overall musical architecture in mind. This serves him most well in repertoire from the Classical era, represented here by the Haydn B minor Sonata, Hob. XVI: 32 and the Mozart D major, K.311. Both works were marked by beautiful, sensitive phrasing, with well-calibrated dynamics and careful attention to voicing. The Haydn was particularly well played, at a slightly faster tempo, but with its drama intact.
I found it refreshing that the pianist did not adhere to the convention of presenting the works in chronological order. The juxtaposition of the Ravel Sonatine and the Mozart, for example, is illuminating. Mr. Jessup shows an affinity for Ravel in the same way that he does for the Classicists. There is much to admire in this light, gossamer, pristine interpretation and again, the phrasing is impeccable. Similarly, his Beethoven is a model of clarity and balance, and belies a composer’s understanding of harmony and modality.
As is the case with most artists, their strengths may also prove to be their weaknesses on occasion. For this reason, I felt that both the Grieg Sonata and the Bach Italian Concerto were not convincing, due to a restraint that robbed them of their most important qualities. The Grieg lacked passion and the Bach was too polite, without the driving rhythm that makes it so purely joyous. The ” stylistic approaches” which the pianist refers to in his notes are too muted here to be effective.
Mr. Jessup very generously includes a “bonus track” to conclude this album, and it is indeed a bonus. His own composition, Le Revenant (The Ghost), develops from its opening tritone theme into a mysterious, skittering moto perpetuo that is impressive for the quality of the playing, and its coherence as a composition. I would love to hear more of his output as a composer. This will also feed him as an interpretive musician, and expand his already considerable gifts as a pianist of note.
