AMERICANIST | INTERNATIONAL PIANO REVIEW

The Americanist

Works by Ravel, Gershwin and Still

Colin Clarke

October 2022

This fascinating album presents three interwar orchestral scores in transcriptions for solo piano. Newkirk draws her programme together with an erudite booklet note exploring the making of the American myth.

Newkirk’s reading of Ravel’s La valse melds detail and atmosphere. There is a sense of unbuttoning in this performance, though it is more hallucinogenic than hectic, as if the music is fragmenting as it hurtles to its inevitable dissolution. When it comes to An American in Paris (what Newkirk neatly describes as a ‘toursty tale’) her performance is characterful but needs more emphasis on the contrasts that make Gershwin unique - the car horn evocation is a case in point. That said, her way with placement of secondary voices is extremely good.

William Grant Still was a leading member of America’s New Negro movement. His symphonic poem Africa, written in 1930, depicts the continent of its title as a land of peace, romance and superstition. Newkirk’s fabulous pacing and shading in the middle movement put her streets ahead of Mark Boozer’s pedestrian rendition for Naxos - the only other recording of Still’s piano arrangement. In the finale, too, Newkirk is a more immediate and involving, and benefits from a finer recording.

A compelling album, well worth seeking out.