Hepzibah: Italian Polka - a partial review

Wednesday, May 26, 2021

Italian Polka - a partial review

Rachmaninoff composed his Italian Polka originally for two pianos. It is played that way, or with four hands on one piano, or by a single soloist. Rachmaninoff first heard the tune in Italy, we are told, played on a street organ pulled by a donkey. He wrote it down and carried it back to Russia, where he arranged it for the Imperial Marine Guard Band https://www.windrep.org/Italian_Polka_(arr_Lucas) . It begins in E-flat minor and switches midway to E-flat major. Starts melancholy; ends joyful.

The Polka has a number of arrangers, beginning with Alexander Siloti. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=481AKTIWc7o. Not my favorite by any means. Too fast, too rigid.

The two best versions, in my view, are the ones arranged by Arcadi Volodos and Vyacheslav Gryaznov. Volodos’s version is a show-off piece and a little on the crazy side. Gryaznov’s is, for me, pure joy. I have a go at it at least once a week, and it’s one of the best pick-me-up pieces of music I know.

Listen to Anna Fedorova have at the Volodos version and you’ll see what I mean - not for the faint of heart. A real technical challenge: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5IbL5AsSGI Mind-blowing, especially since I believe she was only about twenty-one years old at the time of this recording.

My personal favorite remains the Vyacheslav Gryaznov version for its rich musicality. Also technically challenging, it seems to be the one most people choose to play. He chose to perform it when giving a concert in Italy some years ago and it launched his career. People can’t seem to get enough of it. Here he is playing at a concert in a small church in Naples, Florida. I love the “wow” from a member of the audience at the end:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tj8vzloRKQ0

When you think of classical music, you think maybe first of all of the great German composers: Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart, the Schumanns, Robert and Clara, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Handel (OK, so he gets to be called an English composer), the two Strausses, Wagner, Offenbach and all the many others. But I have a soft spot for the Russians, starting with Rachmaninoff, but also Tchaikovsky, Glinka, Borodin, Prokofiev, Rimsky-Korsakov, Moussorgsky, Scriabin, Stravinsky, and so many more. OK, Stravinsky not so much a soft spot as respect. I loved hearing Vyacheslav Gryaznov thank his predecessor Rachmaninoff for providing him with the gift that launched his career - almost exactly 100 years later.

Another version definitely worth listening to is the one by what I think is the greatest pianist of all time, at least modern times, Vladimir Horowitz. Horowitz, you may know, was actually born in Kiev, now Ukraine, but in 1903 it was part of the Russian Empire and he thought of himself as Russian. So when he returned in 1985 after abandoning his homeland for sixty years, he received a very warm welcome. To get an idea of how warm, listen to his version of the Italian Polka and to the ovation that followed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtxynUhUqFs And if you’d like to see a transcription of the Horowitz version, it’s available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMFWuGd7vSo

And, a brief discursion here, if you want to see more of that Return To Moscow Concert, it’s available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4gALGMf3Mw

All sorts of people have fooled around with the Italian Polka. There’s the Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szn0th8u39M

There’s the super jazzed up version by Igor Roma, played at the speed of light. Here is Roma doing a performance with Enrico Pace: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHdSPmIfO5U

Here’s one arranged by Fritz Kreisler, a piano-violin duet with Tobias Ringborg on the violin and Anders Kilström on the piano: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XD9GLtiUyoU

And one for two pianos, eight hands, which I like to think of as the drunk version, more gimmicky than musical: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fTvc_BHtOs

A version played by Russia’s latest child prodigy, Elisey Mysin and the man who I think is probably Russia’s leading concert pianist of today, Denis Matsuyev: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBcJ3krU3Wc

And not last, but maybe least, a version for two marimbas: (OK, that’s unfair. Sorry.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5wrdcXsvjk

Here’s a really good performance done to show off the Steingraeber E 272 Grand Piano by Oleg Volkov: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e04sbY1zeqs. You may appreciate the fact that he’s playing the Vyacheslav Gryaznov version.

Apologies to all of you who may think I’ve gilded the lily and overdone it terribly. But I hope some of you share my appreciation of how many different ways there are to make music and to vary a familiar or particularly loved piece. YouTube has provided many more, which you can easily find with a simple search.

I'll list a few more, which I consider vanilla, but no less enjoyable, versions and top of the line performances. The list is anything but exhaustive: