April 2010
Frank Siebert

Der Bildschirm gibt den Blick frei auf ein kleines Podium, das gerade genug Platz für den Yamaha-Flügel bietet. Unmittelbar dahinter sorgt ein schlichter Stoffvorhang in lichtem Hellbraun für den dezenten Kontrast zum dominanten Schwarz des Flügels. Von rechts tritt ein älterer Herr um die 70 im dunklen Anzug mit leicht schief sitzender Fliege auf, geht von hinten um den Flügel herum, verbeugt sich freundlich lächelnd unmittelbar neben der Tastatur. Das ihn beklatschende Audito¬rium ist, gemessen an der geringen Intensität des Beifalls, eher klein, was der Kameraschwenk in einen Ausschnitt des Zuschauerraums bestätigt. Vielleicht mögen es 50 Zuhörer sein, eher weniger.

Nun setzt sich der Herr an den Flügel, öffnet sein Jackett, konzentriert sich kurz und legt die Hände mit einer ruhigen, souverän-eleganten Geste auf die Tastatur.

Was in diesen Momenten wie ein eher bescheidener, aber professionell gemachter Mitschnitt eines privaten Konzertes wirkt, in dem der Hausherr sein pianistisches Können vor den Freunden der Familie zum Besten geben möchte, erhält mit dem Erklingen des ersten Klaviertons schlagartig eine neue Dimension: Völlig unverkrampft, natürlich fließend und berührend schlicht erklingt das erste Thema aus Beethovens Sonate op. 101, deren Bezeichnung „Etwas lebhaft und mit der in¬nigsten Empfindung" in all ihren Facetten zu erfühlter und erfüllter Musik verwandelt wird. Am Klavier sitzt ein absoluter Könner, ein wahrer Altmeister: Jerome Rose.

Der 1938 geborene Amerikaner bietet auf diesen vier DVDs, bei Yamaha in New York aufgenommen, großartige Zeugnisse seines Könnens. Obwohl er hierzulande einem größeren Publikum weniger bekannt sein dürfte, zählt Jerome Rose zu den Klavierlegenden unserer Zeit. Rose, der bei Adolph Baller studierte und mit Leonard Shure und Rudolf Serkin arbeitete, fasziniert durch die enorme Konzentration seines Spiels. Seine Körperhaltung und der Gesichtsausdruck sind stets entspannt, wildes Grimassieren oder eine outrierte Gestik der Arme sind Rose völlig fremd. Die Ruhe des Spiels vermittelt eine dichte Einheit zwischen Interpret und Musik. Entsprechend beeindruckend gelingen ihm die drei letzten Beethoven-Sonaten, mit gemeißelter Größe und emotionaler Intensität vorgetragen. Souverän baut er die gewaltige Architektur von Beethovens op. 111, wobei auch hier technisch die Selbstständigkeit von rechter und linker Hand zu bewundern ist. Nicht minder überzeugend sind Roses Aufführungen des romantischen Repertoires, seiner ureigenen Domäne. Schumanns C-Dur-Fantasie vermag Rose mit einem gewaltigen sinfonischen Bogen zu entfalten. Klar umrissen, geprägt von rhythmischer Brillanz trägt er die Balladen von Chopin vor, manchmal etwas kühl wirkend, dafür aber ohne falsche Rubato-Seligkeit. Mit relativ zügigen Tempi meistert er die technischen Klippen von Liszts h-Moll-Sonate und gibt das zerklüftete, zwischen Dämonie und lyrischer Emphase changierende Werk wie aus einem Atem geschaffen wieder. Bei all diesen Aufnahmen bleibt die dezent mit Überblendungen arbeitende Kamera immer auf das Spiel konzentriert.

Diese DVD-Edition, die mit weiteren Live-Auftritten fortgesetzt werden soll, konserviert wichtige Dokumente des Spätstils eines herausragenden Pianisten.


English Translation:

The first picture shows a small stage which offers exactly enough space for the Yamaha grand piano. Directly behind is a simple curtain in light brown which provides a discreet contrast to the dominant black of the piano. Entering from the right side an older man, around 70, appears on stage in a black tuxedo with a slightly tilted bow tie, goes around the piano from behind and bows with an amiable smile right next to the keyboard. The applauding audience seems rather small according to the low intensity of the clapping, which the panning shot of the camera into the audience confirms. Maybe there are 50 listeners, probably less.

Now the man sits at the piano, opens his jacket, concentrates for a moment and lays his hands with a calm, masterfully elegant gesture on the keyboard.

What seems in these moments a modest but professionally made recording of a private concert in which the host wants to present his pianistic proficiency in front of friends of the family, reaches all of a sudden a new dimension with the sound of the first piano tone: completely relaxed, naturally flowing and touchingly simple: the first theme of the Beethoven piano Sonata Op. 101 appears; while its designation "a little vivid and with the most inner feeling" is transformed in all its facets into deeply felt and fulfilled music. At the piano sits a great artist, a true master: Jerome Rose.

The American, born in 1938, offers with these four DVDs great testimonies of his mastery. Although he is less known in Europe, Jerome Rose belongs to the legendary pianists of our times. Rose, who studied with Adolph Baller and worked with Leonard Shure and Rudolf Serkin, fascinates with the enormous concentration of his playing. His posture and facial expression is always relaxed - wild grimaces or overacted gesticulations are foreign to Rose. The ease of his playing transmits a thorough unity between interpreter and music. Accordingly he succeeds in performing the three last Beethoven sonatas with chiseled grandness and emotional intensity. He masterfully builds the enormous architecture of Beethoven's Op. 111 and, all the while, the technical independence of the right and left hands are to be admired.

Not less convincing are Rose's performances of the romantic repertoire - his special domain. He unfolds Schumann's Fantasie in C Major in one tremendous symphonic arc. He performs Chopin's Ballades lucidly with rhythmical brilliance; sometimes a bit cool, but therefore without a false rubato sugar-coating. With relatively swift tempi he masters the technical cliffs of Liszt's B minor Sonata and renders the jagged work, which constantly changes between demonic and lyrical emotions, as if it were created out of one breath. The camera stays concentrated all the time on the playing while working with discreet cross-fades.

This DVD edition, which is to be continued with further live performances, represents an important document for the observation of the artistry of an outstanding pianist.

May-June 2010
Ernst Hoffmann

Mit solchen Aufnahmen kann man sich bei den Yamaha Artist Services in New York natürlich schmücken. Immer wieder spiegelt sich das Antlitz des großartigen Pianisten Jerome Rose an der Frontseite des Yamaha Flügels, so dass auch der für Werbung unzugänglichste Betrachter den Firmennamen nicht vergisst. Abgesehen von diesem Neben-effekt ist Rose eine umwerfende Interpretation ausgewählter Liszt-Werke gelungen, die ihresgleichen sucht. Zudem enthält die DVD einen sehens- und hörenswerten Beitrag des Pianisten zu Liszts Mephisto-Walzer aus dem Jahr 2003 sowie eine Auswahl der „Années de pèlerinage " in einer BBC-Aufnahme von 1975. Das Hauptmaterial dieser DVD stammt allerdings von einem Recital des vergangenen Jahres in New York. Besonnenheit und kontrollierte Kraft bestimmen Roses Haltung bei diesen nicht nur technisch, sondern strukturell ungemein schwierigen Liszt-Werken. Rose weiß genau, dass die Wirkungen der großen Ausbrüche sich potenzieren, wenn man sie aus völliger Ruhe erwachsen lässt. Wo nötig lotet dieser Pianist die Extreme aus und die Läufe gleichen Eruptionen voller Gewalt. Gerade die b-Moll-Sonate ist pure Neue Musik, die weit in die Moderne vorausweist. Die zerrissenen Phrasen zu Beginn könnten auch Ende des 20. Jahrhunderts komponiert worden sein. Roses Ausstrahlung hierbei ist ungemein souverän. Man sieht sein Antlitz trotz der Anstrengung nur wenig gerötet, überwiegend verharrt er in ruhiger Position und öffnet nur ein wenig den Mund, als ob er während des Spiels in irgendeiner imaginären Sprache mit sich selber spräche. Gelungen sind auch die pseudosakrale Andachtshaltung in der „Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude " und die Spontaneität bei den Petrarca-Sonetten 47, 104 und 123.

English Translation:

With videos like this Yamaha Artist Services in New York can certainly show off: again and again the face of the fabulous pianist Jerome Rose is reflected on the front side of the Yamaha grand piano so that even an observer who is normally unapproachable for advertisement doesn't forget the company’s name.

Rose presents a stunning and peerless interpretation of selected Liszt works and, in addition, the DVD contains a very interesting contribution of the pianist from 2003 of Liszt's Mephisto Waltz, as well as a selection from the “Années de pèlerinage” in a BBC recording from 1975, while the main material of this DVD stems from a recital in New York which he played last year.

Deliberateness and controlled strength rule Rose’s attitude towards these not only technical, but also structurally extremely difficult works by Liszt. Rose knows very well that the impact of big eruptions becomes even bigger if they develop out of total calmness. Where it is necessary the pianist goes for the extremes and his scales resemble violent eruptions.

Especially the b minor sonata is pure New Music which already anticipates modernity. The torn phrases at the beginning could also have been written at the end of the 20th century. Rose's charisma in these passages is extraordinary. Rose's face hardly shows the strain; he stays most of the time in the same calm position and opens his mouth just slightly as if speaking an imaginary language with himself while playing. Also the quasi-sacral meditation posture in the "Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude" and the spontaneity in the Petrarch Sonnets 47, 104, and 123 are very convincing.

May-June 2010
Ernst Hoffmann

Dass Schumann Jerome Roses Leib-und Magenkomponist ist, spürt man beim ersten Takt des „Carnaval" op. 9. Es fließt und singt und jede Steigerung ist organisch ohne jede Kraftanstrengung und Verkrampfung. Eine hohe Anschlagskultur ist dem amerikanischen Pianisten eigen, der in den Vereinigten Staaten weit bekannter ist als hierzulande, obwohl er mit den Münchner Philharmonikern, den Wiener Symphoniker oder der London Symphony schon aufsehenerregende Auftritte hatte. Die Liszt-Gesellschaft in Budapest verlieh seinen bei Vox erschienenen Liszt-Aufnahmen den „Grand Prix du Disque". Die Aufnahme der großen Schumann-Klavierwerke „Carnaval" op. 9, Fantasie C-Dur op. 17 und Humoreske op. 20 nun fand in dem kleinen Saal des Yamaha Artist Services New York natürlich auf einem exklusiven Yamaha-Flügel vor zwei Jahren statt. Etwas düster ist die Atmosphäre, und der ockergelbe Vorhang an der Bühnenwand verleiht dem Ganzen einen verstaubten Eindruck, was man von Roses fantastischem Spiel gewiss nicht sagen kann. Fein balanciert er die Phrasen aus. Keine übertriebene Dynamik, aber ein hohes Maß an Energetik prägen sein Schumann-Bild. Jerome Rose wirkt ungemein souverän und völlig befreit. Innere Ruhe und Ausgeglichenheit herrschen auch in den schnellen Sätzen vor, nichts wirkt erzwungen oder hektisch und doch brillant und hochvirtuos.
Die Kamera konzentriert sich auf die Hände und die Tastatur. Meist hat Rose die Augen geschlossen und ruht in sich selber, was in kurzen Einblendungen dokumentiert wird. Im Bonus-Track spricht Rose von seinem Debüt mit 15 Jahren, als er Schumanns Klavierkonzert zur Aufführung brachte, von den Besonderheiten in Schumanns Klaviermusik und seinen Ausbildungsjahren an der Juilliard School of Music.


English Translation:


It is apparent from the first measure of the 'Carnaval' that Schumann is Jerome Rose's absolute specialty. Everything is flowing and singing and every climax is organic without any forcefulness or tension. The pianist, who is much more known in the U.S. than in Europe - although he had sensational appearances with the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, and the London Symphony Orchestra - exhibits a highly sophisticated culture of attack. The Liszt Society of Budapest awarded his Liszt recordings for the Vox label with the 'Grand Prix du Disque'.

The presented large works for piano by Schumann, the 'Carnaval' op. 9, the Fantasie in C major op.17 and the Humoreske op. 20, were recorded two years ago in the small hall of Yamaha Artist Services in New York on an exclusive Yamaha Grand Piano. The atmosphere is a little bleak and the ocher yellow curtain in the background transmits a dusty impression - something which certainly can not be said about Rose's fantastic playing. He balances phrases with great refinement. No exaggerated dynamics, but highly energetic playing is conveyed by his Schumann interpretation. Jerome Rose seems very poised and completely liberated. Inner calmness and equilibrium also rule the fast movements - nothing seems forced or hectic and yet his playing is brilliant and highly virtuosic.

The camera concentrates on the hand and the keyboard. Rose's eyes are mostly closed and he is resting in himself, which is documented in short flashes.

In the Bonus track Rose talks about his debut at the age of 15 - when he played Schumann's piano concerto, about the characteristics of Schumann's piano music, and about his years as a student at the Juilliard School of Music.

May/June 2010
Julian Haylock

Schumann
Carnaval op.9. Fantasie in C op.17. Humoreske op.20.
Jerome Rose (pf).
Medici Classics M50039, 86 minutes

Schumann's piano works encompass some of the most daunting challenges in the solo repertoire. Not only must the player disentangle the various leading voices from the music's predominately middle-range saturated textures, but do so in a way that feels entirely natural. Additionally, Schumann affords us tantalising glimpses into his fantasy worlds, which must nevertheless retain their musical focus at all times.

Jerome Rose has been intimately associated with Schumann's music since the beginning of his career, and demonstrates an ability to evoke precisely the right sound world and tempo giusto for each flight of musical fancy. Set against the background of a masked ball, a series of brilliantly etched characters swirl swiftly past in Carnaval, including such traditional pantomime figures as Pierrot and Harlequin, but also the composers Paganini and Chopin. Rose manages to bring each portrait compellingly alive while ensuring that it retains its place in the structural continuum. The result is a tour-de-force of musical imagination and pianistic ingenuity.

No less absorbing is Rose's ability to make even the most potentially disparate passages of the Humoreske cohere with inevitability. Yet it is the Fantasie that provides the greatest musical challenge here, and Rose rises to the occasion magnificently, riding the tide of Schumann's volatile imagination with commanding eloquence.

Spring 2010
Malcolm Troup

MEDICI CLASSICS DVD Jerome Rose plays Liszt
(Sonata in B minor; Benediction de Dieu; Funerailles; Annees de Pelerinage (Sonnetti de Petrarca 47, 104 and 123; Vallee d'Obermann)

Jerome Rose's final word on the classics of our piano literature, which started out so magistrally with his last three Beethoven Sonatas and a Brahms recital (see Issue #89), has now reached its apogee with the Great Romantics - Liszt and Schumann - and it is the Liszt which commands our attention today. Nothing sentimentalized or overly aggrandized about his version of the redoutable Sonata (with which the programme begins) as happens all too frequently with lesser mortals! Instead we have Rose's stripped-down view of a Cape Canaveral-style spacecraft set to withstand light-years of space-travel to the most distant galaxies. How well the tight Lisztian infrastructure stands up to, nay invites, such treatment - a marvel of aerodynamics from start to finish! After the forebodingly Wagnerian fall of the octaves at the start, Rose opens up the engine to the full for lift-off while the sheer exhilaration of the flight strains all Liszt's interlocking thematic engineering to the full though never the dauntless fingers of Rose at the controls. Most pianists would fail at such uncompromising speeds to let the music speak out but not so Rose in this vertiginous attempt on his part to put the Sonata's space-worthiness to the test for 21st-century skies.. It is a case of seeing is believing since, all the time, we have Rose's fingers both in our DVD sights and in our ears thus forcing us to confirm from all angles the prodigious nature of this experiment in three centuries of time-travel. Particularly notable are the hurtling double-octave passages throughout, the brittle sardonic laughter of the Mephistophelean scherzo-section (of this four-movements-in-one sonata) reminding Faust-aka-Rose of the negative consequences of his unholy Pact before it drives him into one final pounding orgiastic bid to break through the sound-barrier of his contract. All in vain, the foreclosure of the Pact cannot be gainsaid, with only the faintest hint of redemption hanging in the balance until the final B in profundis is sounded only to be as abruptly snatched away. This is an account of the Rose-Faust-Liszt pact which, while unquestionably achieving its intergalactic vision, at the same time places the architecture of the Sonata on a par with the all-glass-and-steel architecture of Gehrig and Liebeskind, and roots it fully in the age into which we have now entered.

Nothing could have struck a starker contrast to this "Music of the Future" than the perfect beatitude of the Benediction de Dieu dans la Solitude which followed — arising as it does from a vibrant silence with Rose's eloquent left-hand thumb-melody gliding among the Aeolian harp-like filigrees of the right hand, magically combining forces though seemingly independent of one another -the antithesis in their timeless heterophony of the driving intensity of the Sonata, while always eschewing the Victorian mawkishness which with other lesser pianists can often lie close to the surface of this music. Nevertheless, the long-breathed erotically-charged climax, when it comes, is worthy of anything in the Second Act of Tristan. Moreover, the Benediction - one of Liszt's own favourite pieces - had the distinction of being the first piano music to have a whole bar of notated silence in the autograph and it is this 'pregnant silence', sometimes competing with the sound for the last say, which both Liszt and Rose go in search of until the last lingering chords let this silence envelop us.

Funerailles, written for the fallen in the Hungarian Revolution, comes next in this superbly-crafted example of programme-building, replacing the departed soul's free flight heavenwards with the anguish of those left to mourn the dead heroes. As the funeral cortege moves out of sight, the pent-up left-hand octaves burst forth more breathtakingly than ever.

The rest of the DVD is made up of three Petrarch Sonnetts 47, 104 and 123 from the Second Year — Italy - of the Annees de Pelerinage and finishing with the "Vallee d'Obermann" from the First Year — Switzerland. These are poetic emotions recollected in tranquillity like the tales an old minstrel might recount of a bygone age to a strummed accompaniment on harp, lyre or even guitar. Just as Liszt, with pianistic hubris held high, had often sought to rival the collective weight of an entire orchestra in his masterly transcription of the Tannhauser Overture, here we have him disputing the need for a singer at all, despite having originally composed them as songs, so sure was he of expressing their 'programme' through his piano alone. With what sure a hand he conjures up in 104 the poetic conceits and contradictions as embodied in Petrarch's text: "I burn in the ice of your disdain" and "I would fane suffer death than live in suffering" or words to that effect. No. 123, on the other hand, is an advance-study in purest Impressionism and vaporous sonorities. Chopin may well have imitated bel canto in his music but here we have Liszt taking over the role of singer and accompanist alike - as he was later to perfect in his many magical song transcriptions. The poetry inherent in these shorter pieces literally pours out of Rose's fingers, sensitive to each nuance or mood fluctuation in his musical narrative. A perfect way to bring us back to the good earth of shorter-term human emotions as against the transcendental flights to which this DVD has subjected us to till now.

To round off Rose's ascent to Parnassus, we have the Vallee d 'Obermann in which a modest tenor-melody, from unremarkable beginnings, undergoes one thematic transformation after another until by the end Lisztian triumphalism carries all before it in an unparalleled and supremely virtuoso demonstration of two of the best his bag of tricks has to offer: cyclical themes and thematic transformation. And not only does Jerome Rose never miss a trick either but here has a field-day in showing what his reserves of power and infallible musical-mountaineering can do in going over the top of Obermann without once losing the plot or betraying Liszt at his mightiest.

April 21, 2010
Gary Lemco

Jerome Rose plays BEETHOVEN Live in Concert

Program: Sonata No. 28 in A Major, Op. 101; Sonata No. 30 in E Major, Op. 109; Sonata No. 31 in A-flat Major, Op. 110; Sonata No. 32 in C Minor, Op. 111
Studio: Medici Classics DVD M50029 (Distr. by VAI)
Video: 1.78:1 for 16:9 Color
Audio: PCM Stereo
All regions
Length: 86 minutes
Rating: ****

Jerome Rose (b. 1938), a veteran of the Busoni Competition and pupil of both Leonard Shure and Rudolf Serkin, has earned the sobriquet as “the last Romantic pianist,” which might even be true, given the mortality rate of our keyboard giants with roots to the early 20th Century. The set of four late Beethoven sonatas derives from the Yamaha Artist Services studio, New York, 2008 before a modest audience.

Without ceremony, Rose enters the plastic, economical world of Op. 101, one of Beethoven’s compressed studies in Classical form, a close kin of the F Minor Quartet, Op. 95. Rose eschews grand gestures and rhetorical flourishes, rather soberly addressing the falling figures that define the first movement’s interior world. Video production by Asaf Blasberg occasionally resorts to double exposure or split-screen technique to parallel the music’s polyphony. A strong attack in the martial second movement perhaps pays homage to the Serkin influence in Rose’s pedagogy, the figures keen and chiseled. In stature and in the thickness of his fingers, Rose reminds me at one of Andor Foldes and Nikita Magaloff. A searching intellect informs the several lines his hands evolve in the course of this fluid aggressive movement. More intimate plumbing of the musical depths occurs in the third movement, though detached in Rose’s plastic evocation of longing, almost hinting at Debussy. The music segues to the introductory bars only to explode—by way of a strong trill--in percussive counterpoint, which Rose molds in expressive periods. A forceful potent coda concludes a gratifying, eminently controlled rendition of this subtle work.

A rather brisk tempo establishes the Aeolian harp motif for the E Major Sonata, whose passions seem ever restrained, though they reach well beyond the near stars. An urgent, even obsessive impulse infiltrates the mercurial design, a haunted sense of tragedy that acts a foil to the lyrical outpourings in the upper registers. Attacca to the blistering Prestissimo, a relatively merciless excursion into bravura pyrotechnics; although here, too, a fateful message lies in its inexorable wake. Then, the first of Beethoven’s many late explorations of the variation form, opening with a plaintive song that permits us a glimpse into (six) by-ways of the human psyche. The more elaborate variants, with their double trills and multiple-hand effects allow us insight to Beethoven’s own improvisatory style. Yet, the repeated figures on a pedal point and the shimmering arpeggios create a resonant intensity that transcends more virtuosity. A touch of Bach polyphony tinges the final moments, strong, aggressive, only to melt back into the original song’s infinite compassion.

The A-flat Major Sonata, perhaps a paean to lost love, allows Rose a moment of emotional repose in the opening movement, his singing tone and taut line moving in liquid harmony. Though, here too, the rising figures and scale patterns move in nostalgic affinities toward some higher realm. Rose emphasizes the E-flat Major motifs as dramatically resonant and anticipatory of the second movement, Allegro molto. The Prestissimo Rose takes as a manic gavotte in jerky accents whose middle section runs off at neurotic angles. Operatic vocalism and aggressive polyphonic treatment combine for the last movement, which pianist Alfred Brendel sees as comprising six distinct sections. Rose accentuates the Arioso dolente aspects of the score, often rocking the figures in a transparent lullaby despite the learned counterpoint that marks the fugue. The hammer blows of fate that announce the liquid version of the fugue might well have spoken to Mahler, the ensuing passion quite convinced of its right to triumph. We can see that Rose himself has been palpably moved by this music.

Last, the fateful C Minor Sonata, Op. 111, to which Rose applies a chromatic canvas, an agon in chiaroscuro. The pursuant Allegro con brio ed appassionato maintains polyphonic sobriety and passionate ferocity, quite capable of breaking out of its self-imposed chains. More than once, we can hear pre-echoes of the Liszt B Minor Sonata in the midst of epic struggles. Rose imparts a dance quality to the variations of the second movement, distilled as it is by learned processes of subdivision and aggressive rhythmic patterns, several of which pre-date jazz elements. The introduction of the trill as a liberating force will not exert such power again until Scriabin. At the conclusion of Beethoven’s monumental harmonic labyrinth, Rose savors the fermata to the full, his having accomplished a trek of monumental proportions.

In his brief Bonus feature, Rose shares pedagogy as it affects this evening’s program: his having assumed the Op. 101 at age 16, and playing it for Robert Casadesus and Rudolf Serkin, the latter of whom remarked, “You don’t seem to know what you are doing.” So, off for studies with Leonard Shure—Schnabel’s American assistant—and beyond to work with a pupil of Egon Petri, the Busoni acolyte. Op. 110 Rose added at La Scala in Milan; the Op. 111 became a part of his work in Britain for the BBC. In Vienna, Rose heard Wilhelm Backhaus, a great influence, and Rose heard Myra Hess in England. He shares this Austro-Hungarian-German-Russian pedigree happily and thoughtfully, and his musicianship is all the more powerful for it.

April 2010
Laurence Vittes

Playing a demanding Schumann recital in front of a small audience in an unprepossessing setting, dressed in a modest suit with no pretense in his manner, Jerome Rose is a musician who simply wants to be heard. His résumé tells of abundant virtuosity, of competitions won and of other, deeper musical adventures. His repertoire is a personal take on the late-Romantic core repertoire Artur Schnabel left behind. He must have an ambivalent relationship with fame. He performs regularly, including masterclasses, at universities around the world, an international globe-trotting musical life.

Rose was mentored by Schnabel student Leonard Shure inheriting an apparent precept that nothing be thrown down onto the keyboard that does not come freshly imagined, directly from the heart. It was one of the first classical music “methods”. He starts slowly, musically mumbling a bit like a method pianist would, and when “Coquette” rouses him and he finds his groove it’s like you’ve heard it happening for the first time.

Rose also shares Schumann’s own love for the piano. So, when the "Davidsbündler" march brings Carnaval to its close, the piano has taken over in physical exultation; if there’s anything like humanity in his playing, it’s only of the most abstract variety. The result is very deep.

On a bonus track, Rose speaks briefly about Schumann. “I’m attracted by the vastness of his personality,” he says, “the somewhat neurotic nature of the man, and that he tried so hard to reach transcendental moments.”

The pianist’s warm sound coupled to the Yamaha X35 he is playing are rewarded with excellent piano sound in an intimate acoustic environment that benefits exponentially from the volume you can afford to apply. The camerawork is dignified and unobtrusive, focusing mainly on documenting Rose’s common-sense fingerwork and taking an occasional wondering look at his mostly impassive physiognomy.

March 21, 2010
Ron Hubbard

Did Franz Schubert know what was coming? Did the 31-year-old composer write his final three piano sonatas as meditations on the imminence of his own death? There's evidence to support the idea, but none more compelling than within the music itself, which overflows with a complex and conflicting combination of emotions. And when an experienced pianist gets his hands on those final sonatas, listeners can be taken to depths to which a younger player can only aspire.

Such was the case Saturday night when one of America's grand masters of the piano, Jerome Rose, performed a recital at St. Paul's Sundin Music Hall. Playing two of Schubert's last three sonatas and adding a compelling Frederic Chopin ballade, Rose showed not only interpretive individuality but also an emotional expressiveness that offered intriguing insights into the composer's mind-set in his final year.

Rose opened the concert with Schubert's C-minor Sonata, D. 958, emphasizing the singing in the score, with echoes of the stark, sad and lovely "Winterreise" song cycle that the composer had recently completed. But Rose also summoned up blasts of thunder, Schubert seemingly railing at the fates like his recently departed colleague, Beethoven. The demonic tarantella of the finale sounded like a dance with death, darkly playful and bubbling with menace.

This thirst for the dance emerged again in Chopin's Ballade No. 3 in A flat. It may not have been one of the mazurkas, polonaises or polkas that Chopin favored, but Rose nevertheless gave the piece an interpretation that was light on its feet. That is until he gradually turned up the volume and intensity on its lilting theme until it sounded like a fit of rage. It was a performance of rare power.

The program concluded with Schubert's final sonata, the D. 960 in B flat. On the opening movement, Rose seized every opportunity to emphasize repeated chords reminiscent of the rap of fate knocking at the opening of Beethoven's "Waldstein" sonata (or, more famously, the opening notes of his Fifth Symphony). But the most powerful moments came when the pianist brought a profound sense of resignation to the second movement. After one last delicate dance on the Scherzo, Rose seemed to swirl the gamut of emotions together on a gripping finale.

Rose is also a renowned professor of piano. At 1:30 p.m. today, he returns to Sundin Music Hall (1531 Hewitt Ave., St. Paul) to lead a free master class.

March/April 2010
Bertrand Boissard

Peu connu en France, le pianiste américain Jérome Rose (né en 1938), est très estimé outre-Atlantique. Il s’est forgé la réputation d’un spécialiste de Liszt, qu’il a notamment enregistré pour Vox. 1er Prix du concours Busoni en 1961, élève à la Juilliard school, il a reçu l’enseignement de Rudolf Serkin. Estimant que ses dons sont insuffisamment reconnus, il a décidé de créer Medici Classics: de nombreux DVD sont déjà parus, qui ont pour but avéré de transmettre une part de son héritage artistique. Ces témoignages vidéo ont été enregistrés dan les salons Yamaha de new York, en petit comité et bénéficient d’une excellente technique. Dans le DVD Schumann, il trouve le bon son dans le 1er mouvement de la Fantaisie op. 17, proposant une lecture flamboyante et noble, d’une belle polyphonie. Son Carnaval, à la rythmique parfois flucruante, peut décontenancer. Le DVD Liszt est passionnant: l’air de ne pas y toucher, avec une économie de moyens étonnante, il pénètre profondément dans la Sonate en si mineur. Le split-screen (écran divisé en plusieurs parties, jusqu’à quatre ici) permet de voir un trait sous plusieurs angles à la fois et, comme dans un film de Brian de Palma, instaure une forme de suspense. Mais que l’on se rassure le pianiste survit à la fin. La main gauche de Jérome Rose est particulièrement puissante (Funérailles), la droite très souple et il captive de bout en bout dans Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude, oeuvre souvent jouée avec componction et qui est ici formidablement vivante et radieuse. Des images d’archives de la BBC des années 70 laissent entrevoir un tout autre jeu, beaucoup plus extérieur, une virtuosité ailée à la Cziffra, dans des extraits des Années de Pèlerinage.


Jerome Rose: An American Master to Discover

Little known in France, the American pianist Jerome Rose (born in 1938) is highly regarded across the Atlantic. He forged a reputation as a Liszt specialist, whose works he notably recorded for Vox. A First Prize winner of the Busoni in 1961 and a pupil at The Juilliard School, he received training from Rudolf Serkin. Believing that his gifts were insufficiently recognized, he decided to create Medici Classics: from which numerous DVDs have already appeared, with the purpose of passing on a part of his artistic heritage. These video testimonies were recorded in the Yamaha Artist Salon in New York, an intimate setting, benefiting from excellent (recording) technique. In the Schumann DVD, Rose finds beautiful voicing in the First movement of the Fantasie, Op. 17, and issues a blazing and noble reading of beautiful polyphony. His Carnaval, fluctuating rhythm throughout, disconcerns. The Liszt DVD is enthralling: unmoving, with an astonishing economy of motion, he deeply penetrates the Sonata in B minor. The split-screen (the screen divided into many parts, up to four here) permits one to see a feature from many angles at one time, as in a Brian de Palma film, creating a form of suspense. But rest assured that the pianist survives at the end. The left hand of Jerome Rose is particularly powerful (Funérailles), the line in the right very flexible and he captivates from beginning to end in the Benediction de Dieu dans la solitude, a work often played with compunction that here is formidably living and radiant. The BBC archival images from the 70’s let us see other playing that is much more external, with a winged virtuosity like Cziffra, in excerpts from the Années de Pèlerinage.

March/April 2010
Julian Haylock

Recorded live at Yamaha Artist Services in New York between 2007 and 2009, Jerome Rose performs some of the most hallowed pieces of the piano repertoire with an exemplary poise and technical ease that is as engrossing to watch as it is to listen to. His sleight-of-hand, engagingly relaxed style makes even the most note-splattered pages appear deceptively easy, almost as though there was no physical effort involved. Yet behind Rose's almost Arrau-like demeanour - watching his gently cosseting finger action is an education in itself- lies a probing musical intelligence that, in terms of its unaffected naturalness and clarity of focus, is reminiscent of the great Louis Kentner.

Rose's tantalising combination of interpretative warmth and structural directness is at its most revelatory in the late Beethoven sonatas. The Prestissimo of op. 109 and Allegro molto of op. 110 possess a no-nonsense, Pollini-like rigour, yet are the polar-opposite of the Italian's essentially vertical attack. Rose's cantabile touch really comes into its own in the op. 111 Sonata, which exchanges Barenboim's high-tensile fire-and-drive for an epic grandeur that ensures the opening movements restless thrusting never becomes merely oppressive.

Rose's Chopin lies closer to Rubinstein's aristocratic benevolence than Malcuzynski's intense sparkle, yet his emotional grip of the emotionally wide-ranging ballades and sonatas is reminiscent at times of Krystian Zimerman. The way Rose initially keeps the A flat Ballade's final coda on a tight rein before spontaneously surging away is unforgettable, as is his deeply poetic playing of the potentially diffuse F minor Ballade. To watch Rose's hands rippling effortlessly over the keys in the scherzo and finale of the B minor sonata, with absolute precision, is a timely reminder that it is possible to play at high velocity and voltage without hammering the instrument into submission.

Liszt's was one of the most complex of creative minds. In his music the spiritually sublime and the irrepressibly vulgar, the genuinely dramatic and the melodramatic rub shoulders, often to mesmerising effect, and nowhere more memorably than in the B minor Sonata. Rose holds the mighty edifice together with gripping insight, never allowing the music to descend into emotional free-fall. One can only sit and marvel at Rose's supreme musical poise and technical control - his thundering octaves and the finger-breaking fugue are nonchalantly thrown off — even if the devil-may-care effrontery of Liszt's more outlandish demands is slightly underplayed here. That said, Rose's refusal to play to the gallery works wonders in the shorter pieces, most especially the three Petrarch Sonnets which resonate in the memory long after the music has stopped.

All three discs are blessed with unobtrusively revealing camera work and excellent sound quality.

Spring 2009
Malcolm Troup

Beethoven was a composer born on the cusp of change: ancien regime into revolution; classicicism into Romanticism: fortepiano into pianoforte; salon into concert hall. As a result, the interpretation of his music cannot help but be influenced by which side of the Great Divide we take our stand while the difference between classical/Romantic boils down to articulation versus seamless flow. That the latter still finds favour in our ears testifies to how recently its monopoly has been abrogated — mainly through the cult of authenticity's rediscovery of articulation — but both approaches have arguments intheir favour and both have produced outstanding exponents. One such is the DVD before us today. Over the last few years, Jerome Rose has produced a stream of superlative recordings of Chopin, Liszt and Brahms worthy to stand both as a Summa of the 20th/21st centuries' understanding of these composers and as the personal monument of a great pianist eager to leave his mark on his age if only as grooves in a diskette. Only now he has penetrated to the inner core of the pianist's gospel - the so-called New Testament of Beethoven's 32 Sonatas -to voice his valediction through the sounds of Beethoven's own prolonged farewell to the piano. Now his playing has become polished like granite, with a smooth surface gainsaying the toughness beneath. This is vintage Beethoven which has been kept bottled up and aged for a lifetime as if to be drunk deep for one last time.

Unlike its next in line Opus 106, which waged war against the puny limits of the Stein piano, Opus 101 is comfortable within its notation (except for its curious crescendo on a chord) and its modest demands on the instrument - that is, until the split-second dotted rhythm of the march summons Rose's fingers to the parade-ground. But on the way thence each phrase is lovingly rounded, unhurried like the exhalation of a lingeringly long breath which makes us unheedful of the odd fermata. How confident is the spirit of this music with each upbeat or phrase-shape inflected upwards until the movement itself disappears skywards to land on its first perfect cadence. But when it does come, Rose in a master-stroke and by musical means alone makes us realize that the whole movement is but a perfect cadence - dominant to tonic! No need to read Schenker when Rose is in command - all these niceties of construction are painlessly revealed to us in his actual playing. Textures are made to order for Rose's artistry at making each note sing its own song in this gloriously homophonic tapestry of lines into chords! Sometimes, thanks to the counterpoint of the DVD cameras, we have the added thrill of following the uncanny independence of Rose's fingers from three different angles at once. The same upward-striving tendency is evident in the second and third movements as well but for the wonderful Db major section of the march which seems to anticipate late Beethoven in wishing to strip music down to pure vibration.

The genius of Jerome Rose lies in putting into execution what Bettina von Arnim was reported to have told Goethe: that Beethoven truly believed that music mediates between the spiritual and the sensuous, as in the first movement of Op.101, where its outpouring of pure melody on the dominant makes us forget all else. For all that the slow movement could be interpreted as a lead-in (albeit with built-in flashback) to the onslaught of the fugue, Rose prefers to let time stand still as he lovingly traces its Baroque arabesques before turning his unfaltering fingers loose on the wide leaps and rhythmic volatility of the Finale. Rose is never to be deterred in his search for the Idea behind the passing show, whether in terms of ethos, structure, Ursatz or other unifying principle of construction to which, as Busoni said in his Essence of Music "the virtuosity of the true Beethoven player must remain subservient".

It was Beethoven who introduced the principle that every work had to be a new creation - a principle still honoured by Boulez today. Nowhere is this more true than in the monumental distinctiveness of the last three sonatas and Rose finds with uncanny certitude within himself the irreplaceable key to each. His insouciant ripple of alternating pairs of semiquavers at the outset of Op. 109 seems to have been set in motion even before they reach our ears, until of a sudden they collide with the Adagio interjection which Rose treats like the grand improvisation it so patently is - until the two polarities find a kind of grudging interlock toward the end. The Prestissimo — a paean to contrary motion - then breaks in as peremptorily as did the March in Op. 101 only to be exorcised by the sort of hymnlike tune which Haydn brought back with him from Protestant England and which Beethoven intones with diatonic piety. From the return of the theme in Variation Six, we have the sort of long-term build-up of which Rose is an acknowledged pastmaster : first the trill heralded by crotchets on B, then in quavers until a trill proper begins in semiquavers leading into demisemiquavers before it dives to a low bass trill on the dominant while the semiquavers turn into broken chordal figuration in the treble with the trill travelling hither and yon until the second part of the tune is pinpointed in syncopation against it in the treble as it descends over two octaves to permit the movement to finish as it began.

However songful Opus 110 appears to be at first hearing, its building blocks are of the simplest - conjunct-motion ascending and descending scales - to bind together the entire work. And again, as in Op.101, a fugue is used to restore objectivity after the emotional outpouring of the Adagio which in Rose's hands becomes a deeply moving experience. After his spine-chilling descent into the underworld in crushing G major chords we ascend with him to the cool line-drawing of the now inverted fugue. Out of a blanket of augmentation and diminution, the fugal theme bursts forth triumphantly exchanging polyphony for homophony as if to remind us, over an Alberti-style bass, how its melodic profile has dominated so much of the previous action of the Sonata before Rose's virtuoso keyboard-wide volley of arpeggios sends it packing. Unlike so many Beethoven interpretations where, as Barfield puts it: "performances often fail because the mind of the pianist is in opposition to his technique", Jerome Rose never takes the easy option nor allows his fingers to slip into traditional ruts without re-examining everything. Listening to Rose is like confirming in music what science has already taught us about the area of the brain set aside for the fine control of the hand because all roads, of which each of Rose's fingers counts as one, lead irrevocably to a brain which, having been steeped in Beethoven for a lifetime, is now "more Beethoven than Beethoven's".

Trills are late Beethoven's great new time-binding discovery which do for single notes on the piano what the violas and French horns did for the prolongation of the classical orchestral sound, overcoming the decay-rate of single notes to quicken them into a metaphor for lingering string or vocal sound. In the Arietta of Op.111, the faultless coordination of a Jerome Rose is essential to keep this imaginary soundscape ringing in our ears until it finishes as a veritable triple prayer-wheel of trills. Sometimes one feels Beethoven to be playing mind-games with his interpreters and listeners as to which of them can suspend self-consciousness and self-doubt the longest over such rarefied reaches while, on the other hand, glorying in the sheer unchained physicality of the first movement. Throughout it all Rose remains a brooding imperturbable presence while his fingers dart off to every nook and cranny of the keyboard to search out whatever treasure Beethoven may have hidden there. That is why Arrau always used to insist on retaining the original lay-out of the hands on the staves, if not of Beethoven's fingering itself, in recognition that the sheer strain of reaching the passage in question (what Stockhausen used to call action-time) is as much a part of the intended effect as any mere expression marks. After such trills, both Opp.109 and 111 unwind in the same way with the same kind of melody-sparklers piercing the closing sound-curtain of our consciousness.

The fact that the supreme climax in both these sonatas comes in the form of variations - seeking identity under a multiplicity of disguises — is but another clue to Beethoven's inveterate quest for unity, as argued so overwhelmingly by Rose, whether in monothematicism and cyclic forms in Op. 110 or in his recourse to fugue in Opp.101, 109 (variations), 110 (last movement) and Op.111 (development). In Lafontaine's fable, Beethoven has turned from being the hare condemned to know many things cursorily to the hedgehog who knows one thing through and through - as Rose makes clear to us in the course of this Promethean journey to the authentic heart of Beethoven.

November/December 2008
Hans-Dieter Grünefeld

A concert is a concert. Quintessential for our judgement is, what, how and by whom we hear it. In a film, however, the visual presentation additionally guides our attention. Therefore, the Direction for the live concert “Jerome Rose plays Beethoven Sonatas” came up with something inventive.

The spatial variability of camera positions was very restricted in the small hall of Yamaha Artists Services in New York. In order not to stay in a dull atmosphere of bleak documentation, four standard perspectives – frontal, sideways from the pianist, as well as sideways and from above the stage - are used in fast, smooth cuts. That’s why Jerome Rose appears quite relaxed while playing the Sonata Op. 101; his interpretation is guided by inner composure. Especially concerning the sound, the dissonances have, as in Sonata Op. 109, a clear function, and they are not retouched by him.

He brings the emotional build-up of ‘innigster Empfindung’ back to calmness by an almost seamless reduction of dynamics. One realizes and sees that Rose has been familiar with these sonatas since his youth, as he explains in the “Notes on Beethoven”.

The optic presentation changes for the Adagio of the Sonata Op. 110 as the picture is cut into four simultaneous images. That way, one isn’t drawn into the music so much, but rather has a certain distance to Jerome Rose’s introverted emotional facets through the movement of one’s eyes. Since such splitting of images is just one option of the camera direction and used often, the perception of Sonata Op. 111 with its dark “appassionato” becomes a more relaxed viewing pleasure.

So this production shows both Jerome Rose as a subtle Beethoven interpreter, and also a film concept by which the listening/viewing of piano music gets an aesthetic justification.

January 2009
Jed Distler

Much as I enjoyed Jerome Rose's earlier audio versions of Beethoven's last three sonatas, these more recent (2008) live remakes on DVD are better. For one, the flexible acoustics distinguishing New York's Yamaha Artist Services Salon and the absolutely gorgeous concert grand placed at Rose's disposal add noticeable colour, resonance and breathing room to his interpretations. In turn, Rose obviously responds to these congenial conditions with more inflected, reposeful slower movements. For example, in Op. 111 the first movement introduction's downward suspensions (bars 11, 12, and 13) convey far greater tension and continuity.

Rose also makes effortless sense of the elusive tempo relationships binding Op. 110's concluding movement, and shapes the poetic opening movements of Op. 101 and Op. 109 with the kind of controlled freedom that defines what George Szell meant by how a musicain should "think with the heart and feel with the brain". This also applies to the Op. 111 Arietta's canny dynamic scaling, authoritative melodic projection and soaring long line. Occasional rapid runs and gnarly textures push Rose's seasoned technique to the edge, causing him to rush (Op. 101's finale, for instance), but that's what "live" is about.

The camerawork preserves an accurate visual record of Rose's body language at the keyboard, yet why don't we see any continuous footage that connects pianist to audience, or vice versa? Strangely, you only see applauding audience members via insert-like shots. A bonus feature offers Rose's thoughtful, detailed yet easy-to-follow verbal comments on the music.

January/February 2009
Pianiste, B.A.

Served by a very beautiful concert grand, Jerome Rose produces a depth of sound that is remarkable, brilliant playing, but not overly demonstrative, at the service of the wishes of the composer. The position of his hands and of his arms at the piano will be spoken of by connoisseurs.

July 15, 2008
Allan Kozinn

By any measure, the International Keyboard Institute & Festival is the grandest offering in the procession of hybrid seminars and concert series that make up the summer schedule at Mannes College the New School for Music. It runs two weeks, more then twice the length of the other institutes. Its daily schedule is packed with master classes (four most days) and concerts (two every evening), as well as a competition.

This year’s installment began on Sunday evening with a recital by Jerome Rose, the institute’s founder and director. Mr. Rose is a pianist who never met a triple forte he didn’t like or couldn’t make just a bit more thunderous, and he favors repertory that rewards this preference. Why not? He has the fingers, the power and the sense of color and drama to present the barnstormers of the Romantic repertory in a fiery light. At times during his account of Liszt’s “Mephisto Waltz” No. 1, which closed his program, the ambient haze produced by strings of fortissimo chords suggested the sulfurous cloud that Liszt might have imagined surrounding his protagonist.

That isn’t to say that muscularity and outsize gesture were all Mr. Rose had in his arsenal. The gentler sections of Schumann’s “Humoreske,” if never quite supple, were elastic enough to touch on Schumann’s tender side, if only briefly between more impetuous outbursts. Parts of Beethoven’s Sonata in A flat (Op. 110) were enlivened by phrasing that suggested an almost improvisatory ebb and flow, and in the work’s closing fugue, clarity and proportion were as crucial to Mr. Rose’s high-energy reading as tension and drive.

Other comparatively graceful moments took root in the descriptive passages of Liszt’s “Vallée d’Obermann” and the more meditative strands of his “Sonetto 47 del Petrarca.” But these moments seemed not to engage Mr. Rose nearly as much as the feistier, flashier ones, and in retrospect, most seemed less like poetry than like glorified placeholders: instances of contrasting calm between waves of forceful, broad-boned piano sound. Those waves could be thrilling in a purely visceral way, particularly in the Liszt works.

Click here to download this review in PDF format.

Spring 2008
Malcolm Troup

Jerome Rose's new and, believe it or not, first commercially-made DVD, contains not only an incomparable Chopin recital devoted to seven of that composer's major masterpieces, not only a rare opportunity to see the virtuoso in real life in interview with David Dubal, but at the same time a masterclass (for all who will but listen) in the arcane art of authentic Chopin interpretation. Where else can one find that fluidity, even in the slowest motion, that breakaway speed as in the second Ballade while appearing never to be in a hurry, that singing legato in the same Ballade, that sculpted sound where the same phrase (vide the opening of Ballade No.4) emerges each time newly minted? The fact that here we can see as well as hear Rose in action adds to our amazement at how the aural effect can be in such seemless accord with the visual kinesthesis: every physical act on his part seemingly in inverse proportion to the aural impact of his ever-shifting gradations of tone from the pp of the 'Funeral March' Finale to the creative fff chaos released in the closing pages of Ballade No A - truly an "art which concealeth art".
Amazing, too, the hands spread out almost straight-fingered on the keys so that only the warmest richest sounds would be produced by the fleshy parts of the finger-tips whatever the volume - the old German over-arched hand-position would never work for his velvety 'softly-softly' tread on the keys of his Yamaha searching out and palpating whatever tonal mysteries other pianist have been unable to reach.
From the very start of the familiar first Ballade to the two Sonatas, one struggled to lay one's finger on the pulse of this master-musician, how he stole in on all our preconceptions and took us unawares. Was it the ebb and flow of his phrasing where an elongation here would trigger off an acceleration there as if to balance up the time-flow despite yielding to felicities by the wayside or was it something else — his power to 'frame' a phrase, detaching it ever so slightly from its context - like lighting on a painting - with never enough to dislocate it or fragment it? The source of Jerry's art is a constant wonderment to us all, like a natural phenomenon calling for an explanation and finding none. He could as easily be sitting there like some imperturbable round- and smooth-faced Gautama of the keyboard with the music streaming out of his fingers by an act of mind alone — an ideal state as envisaged by those modern day pedagogues who put the brain in the place the fingers used to occupy.
The Ab major Ballade, as it opens up from the centre of the keyboard like a flower unfolding, was the very act of physically stretching made audible — an ever-wider-ranging process which only found its fulfillment in the exultant climax before careening crazily up and down the keyboard.
The uncanny repose of Rose's platform- manner makes it seem no longer a case of one performance so much as the valedictory distillation of a lifetime of such performances. Thus the diminished 'drop' of the Chopin Bb minor Sonata, like the sprung platform of the hangman's scaffold, kicks in as a veritable voice of doom before sending the fingers scuttling off in all directions vainly seeking escape from their grim sentence.
The Scherzo, though a miracle of Rose's deftness and dispatch, gives no quarter either as it beats out its doomsday tattoo - the rat-a-tat-tat of the execution squad - to which Rose offers the swansong of the Trio as a moving bel canto plea. The Funeral March itself is truly cast in stone, the same Db major again acting as a temporary soulful reprieve. In Rose's fingers, now more spatulate than ever, it sings out the saddest song that ever you did hear — the individual phrases set apart ever so slightly, as only Rose knows how to do, with his eloquent left hand contributing equally to the poetry.
Never has the Finale been more spectral and sotto voce with Rose like a quantum physicist making hallucinatory patterns appear and disappear in these cascades of subatomic particles. Rose gave the whole Sonata the breathless unicity of a four-act theatre-piece in which we were never allowed to escape for long from the grim shadow of death.
The B minor Sonata found Chopin and Rose now occupying the Olympian highground, all such passion spent, with Rose showing off the lofty architectonics of the work to perfection before a Finale in which the momentum of Chopin's attempt to anticipate Wagner's 'Ride of the Valkyries' was ratcheted up by Rose to fever pitch before its triumphant consummation.
In the following informative interview with David Dubal, Jerome Rose tells us in words what turns him on in Chopin as if his heaven-storming fingers have not already informed us of that much more eloquently and convincingly. Nevertheless it is good to confirm as eye¬witnesses what a deep-feeling, rounded and lovable human being is this Jerome Rose when not enthroned by rights on his proverbial podium!

March 2008
Korea

One can describe Jerome Rose as “the Last Romantic of our own age”, a fervent pianist giving numerous recitals and master classes all over the world, a founder of the International Keyboard Institute and Festival and a faculty member of the Mannes College in New York.
However the most impressive aspect about pianist Jerome Rose is his performance itself expressed with such maturity and natural flow. In his recital at Sejong Chamber Hall on January 19th, one could find true freedom in his music that only a man who has overcome life’s turmoil and pathos could bring.

In Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 30 in E major, Op. 109, Mr. Rose certainly digested the huge scale of sonority and dynamics. His expression was genuine and did not have any extravagant style.

Schumann’s Carnaval, Op. 9 started with a magnificent force. The piece as a whole had a dynamic flow while the caricature of each movement had clear characteristics with vitality and exuberance. The melody line was sensitive yet firmly expressed. His approach to music was fearless and convincing.

The second half started with Beethoven’s Late Piano Sonata. The first movement of Op. 110 No. 31 had a light and illuminant touch. Mr. Rose evidently proved himself as “The Romantic” in his tone color and the natural flow that connected the movements as in one piece. The fugue had a clear structure and tension was built gradually to the end.

The last piece was Liszt’s Mephisto Waltz No. 1. His passionate expression and precise articulation brought out the work’s brilliant and dynamic atmosphere most efficiently.

The presentation was most appreciated for the originality in expression that the pianist brought in his performance.

January/Feburary 2008
Carsten Durer

"Jerome Rose ist ein Pianist den man wirklich nicht übersehen kann."
Jerome Rose is a pianist you truly can not overlook.


"Und wenn Rose immer wieder als 'großer Romantiker' beschrieben wird, dann kann man dies nach dem ansehen dieser DVD bestens nachvollziehen."
Time and again, Rose is being described as the 'Great Romantic'. After seeing this DVD, one comes to fully understand why.


"Rose ist ein Pianist der mit immensen Lockerheit am Flügel spielt, entspannt spielt, allerdings mit einer immensen inneren Anspannung."
Rose plays with incredible ease, relaxed, yet with an immense inner tension.

February 2008
Jed Distler

In the 1970's Jerome Rose first attracted attention with a series of releases on the Vox label, mainly devoted to Liszt, along with some excellent Schumann. Thirty years later he returned to the recording scene with his own label. Medici Classics, resulting in a mini-flood of new releases. His first DVD stems from Chopin performances taped in 2007 in New York. Although the pianist acknowledges applause
before and after each work, one never actually sees audience members. In any case, the Ballades are interpretatively and sonically superior to Rose's previous, audio-only traversals on Medici. The lyrical sections are equally forthright and direct, yet have more room to breathe, as do the Second Ballade's agitated A minor sections, plus the First's and Fourth's exciting yet well proportioned codas. Furthermore, Rose's body language comnmunicates fluidity and poise, and this informs his knack for hitting upon steady yet flexible tempi that are neither too fast or too slow, save for the B flat minor Sonata's slightly protracted Funeral March. On the other hand, Rose's left-hand underpinnings and firm sense of line persuasively propel the difficult-to-sustain Largo of the B minor Sonata, in contrast to certain overly introspective
readings that die on the vine (Lang Lang, this means you!). In a conversation with David Dubal, where the camera strangely avoids showing interviewer and subject in the same frame, Rose's thoughtful, perceptive comments show how the pianist is equally articulate about Chopin away from the keyboard. Recommended.
Four Ballades; Piano Sonatas No. 2 and No. 3

November 2007
Robert Dumm

Rose grips and holds the amazing visions of Brahms through the macabre Scherzo...Brahms continues by parading bits of msuical material from past movements..Rose savors, characterizes, and cleanly articulates them all. He compacts the melee of material by keeping his lively tempo... Rose's subtle surge of both tempo and dynamics with each musical section drives and powers his vision to match the composer's own. Rose's clear articulation (in the Handel Variations) closely scrutinizes each of the 25 variations.

September 2007
Jed Distler

As a budding music student in the mid-1970's, newly converted to the gospel according to Franz Liszt, my objective in life was how to get to know this vast repertoire on a limited budget. So when Jerome Rose's complete "Années de pèlerinage" appeared in the form of a Vox Box, how could I refuse? It wasn't just inexpensive, it was dirt cheap. While the recordings offered zilch in the way of nuance, colour and dynamic range, you still could realise that Rose was a knowing, confident Lisztian: bold, direct, more interested in getting the narrative across than dulcet tones. That said, a marvellous sense of melodic projection shapes and sustains lyrical, instrospective selections such as "Pastorale", "Les cloches de Genève", "Sposalizio" and the "Sonetto 123 del Petrarca". Rose's gauntly reproduced sonority certainly befits Book 3's bleaker, starker selections (the second and longer of the two pieces entitled "Aux cyprès de la Villa d'Este"). And when flat-out virtuosity is called for, Rose responds in kind, as the gaunt propulsion of his octave work in "Orage", "Vallée d'Obermann" and the "Dante Sonata" bears out. I only question Rose's unconvincingly slow tempo for "Eglogue" - hardly the "Allegretto con moto" Liszt had in mind. While this release may prove a tough sell in light of today's competition, one certainly hears why it was held in high regard.

August 2007
Karl Winkler

Jerome Rose (Klavier) spielte bei seinem Dozentenkonzert am Dienstag (7.8.) im Wiener Saal Werke von Beethoven, Schumann, Müllenbach, Liszt und Chopin.

08/08/07 In Liszts "Tanz in der Dorfschänke" schien der Leibhaftige persönlich aufzuspielen, prasselnd ging ein Funkenregen nieder, und der Walzer erlaubte keine Verschnaufpause, wurde zu einer raschen Verführung mit drohendem Unterton. Ungebremst ließ Jerome Rose das Gebälk buchstäblich zusammenkrachen, ein tollkühner Ausbruch, dann war die Spelunke abgebrannt.

So spielte er sich die Wut über den verlorenen Faden von der Seele. Wenige Sekunden vor dem Ende eines großen Programms war er ihm gerissen, in Chopins grollendem Presto-Finale der zweiten Klaviersonate. Man hätte ihn so auch nicht gehen lassen wollen, denn reich war die Ernte dieses brillanten Romantikers am Klavier. Schon im Scherzo des op.35 hatte er mühelos federnd die Oktavenetüde in den Schatten gestellt, um im Mittelteil dafür viele Stimmen eindringlich zum Leben zu erwecken. In Erinnerung bleibt auch der heftig artikulierte erste Satz und die große Klage der Marche funèbre, der düstere Halbtonschritt des Basses, der den Trauerkondukt um die Kathedrale geleitete.
Begonnen hatte der Abend mit Beethovens Sonate op.31/3, sehr gebunden und beinahe mild, aber schon die Durchführung des ersten Satzes zerlegte das Material. Kein Lautstärkekontrast ist da eingeebnet, ohne dass Rose indes die Lautstärke übertriebe. Auch nicht das Tempo, selbst wenn es für Augenblicke schien, er müsse sich sehr beherrschen, um sich nicht selbst zu überholen.

Schumanns Fantasie op.17 kommt diesem Temperament ideal entgegen. Da darf er loslegen, die Aufschwünge sind ungeheuer, kurze Momente des Innehaltens werden umso bedeutsamer. Und mitten im großen Schwung tauchen überraschend, sorgfältig gezeichnet, kleine Verzierungen auf, zerbrechliche Schiffchen auf stürmischer See. Fantastisch die Temporegie, frei und natürlich (Rose atmet nicht nur mit, er singt auch mit, manchmal hört man es). Herrlich körperhaft ist sein Ton, dicht bis in die tiefsten Bässe, eine Fähigkeit, die nur den Besten zur Verfügung steht.

Der Direktor der Sommerakademie, Alexander Müllenbach, durfte sich gleich nach der Pause besonders freuen: "Unter dem Regenbogen" heißt eine Sammlung von elf Stücken, die er 1991 geschrieben hat, technisch sich steigernd vom Anfänger bis zum Lehrer. Jerome Rose spielte die letzten drei, liebevoll und mit Witz (Nr.11: "Katzen aller Arten"), manche Wendung ließ an eine – durchaus eigenständige – Debussy-Nachfolge denken.

Jerome Rose, Jahrgang 1938 und bestens in Form, ist fast unmittelbar von seinem renommierten International Keyboard Institute & Festival in New York (15. bis 29.Juli) zur Sommerakademie des Mozarteums nach Salzburg gekommen. Man möchte ihn gerne wieder hier sehen und hören.

Jerome Rose, geboren 1938, studierte u.a. bei Rudolf Serkin. Er ist Gewinner des Busoni-Wettbewerbs 1961 und des Grand Prix der Budapester Liszt Gesellschaft für seine Liszt-Aufnahmen. Gründer und Leiter des International Keyboard Institute & Festival, New York City (heuer u.a. mit Jeffrey Swann, Michel Béroff, Marc-André Hamelin). Jerome Roseveröffentlicht seine Aufnahmen (auch frühere) unter seinem eigenen Label Medici Classics.

July 2007
Robert Dumm

When I first heard Jerome Rose in 1989, the West coast pianist had come to give a workshop on the arrangements of 12 mazurkas for voice and piano made by Pauline Viardot, the great mezzo-soprano who was Chopin’s friend.

In our interview then I found an eager, erudite mind of sensibility and bursting ideas. Rose steered his career by his personal interests, doing things for their own sake, like recording more Liszt than anyone had, before the Liszt revival. His early performances showed a builder, whose every note fit into his entire plan. You always felt his grand design, though sometimes the seams showed.

Twenty years later Rose is still the builder, with plenty of artistic growth to show on his first DVD, Jerome Rose Plays Chopin, Live in Concert. Happily given to Chopin’s idea of bel canto in six of the compositer’s most expansive compositions, he comes on stage, faces his audience, eyes half closed with a blissful smile, and sits for Chopin’s first Ballade in G Minor, Op. 23. The born storyteller sense the poetic power of the legend about to unfold and dives head first into the narrative stream. Gone are the seams.

Rose trusts his intuition and lets the music well from inside, guiding each phrase by subtle rubatos or restraint, phrases whose end notes bloom organically into new phrases, ideal for ballades. The Ballades to come are in the order Chopin composed them: Ballade No. 2 in F, Op. 38; Ballade No. 3 in A flat, Op. 47; Ballade No. 4 in F Minor, Op. 52. Weeping chromaticism like a Divine Comedy of human dreaming.

In each ballade Rose knows and clearly shows the exact means. He suspends a note, pedals a pause that turns dreams to nightmare as the lulling dance rhythm accelerates, only to crash in a resonant silence. Rose makes it happen every time.

The artist’s combination of long vision with articulate detail works as well for the two Chopin sonatas that end the DVD – the dramatic, conflicted Funerla March Sonata, Op. 35 in B flat Minor and the angelically lyrical B Minor Sonata, Op. 58, where Rose sings every note of an endless melody in a bel canto style.

Rose’s timing of tensions is superb. He builds with achingly gradual restraint through the dominant harmony that returns the prodigal theme at last intact. It is doubly affirmative, symphonically augmented to the relif of all – in a wash of Romantic agony. The DVD is full of such moments, and you will want to hear it again and again.

As an extra, Rose speaks with his friend David Dubal about Chopin’s genius, full-bloom in his early concert pieces and strongly individual to the end.

June 13, 2007
Adriana Vargas

El intérprete demostró no solo dominio en su instrumento, sino comprensión y armonía hacia las obras de estos tres grandes de la música clásica. El segundo concierto del festival de piano del Teatro Isauro Martínez, estuvo cargado de la pasión interpretativa del norteamericano Jerome Rose, pianista que ha recorrido la mayor parte del repertorio de este instrumento en los grandes compositores.

Ayer deleitó a los laguneros con obras de Beethoven, Schumann y Chopin, pasando de la rapidez y eficacia técnica en el primero, a la melancolía y pasión en los dos últimos.

El intérprete demostró no solo dominio en su instrumento, sino comprensión y armonía hacia las obras de estos tres grandes de la música clásica.

Desde hace tres años, el TIM se ha convertido en la sede de este importante festival que comenzó en la sala Beethoven de Monterrey y ha ido captando cada vez más público aficionado a los sonidos de este instrumento.

El segundo concierto de esta serie, gozó de la presencia de un público que llenó casi tres cuartas partes del teatro, lo que demuestra un interés por cultivar el gusto hacia las obras más importantes de este instrumento.

El programa de Jerome Rose comenzó con la Sonata en Mi Bemol mayor número 3 de Beethoven, dividida en cuatro movimientos en los que el pianista demostró dominio técnico, rapidez y gracia.

El Allegro fue interpretado con destreza, parta continuar con el scherzo: Allegretto Vivace, el Menuetto un poco más lento y suave, para concluir con el Presto con fuoco y un alegre final.

Los aplausos no se hicieron esperar y el ejecutante continuó con la Fantasía en Do Mayor de Schumann, comenzando con un primer movimiento apasionado, que irrumpió con su sonido en todo el eco del teatro y su expresión permaneció durante varios minutos.

Y es que según ha expresado el propio compositor, el primer movimiento es la pieza más apasionada que ha compuesto.

De esa pasión, siguió la melancolía del segundo movimiento Moderado, que continuó con una atmósfera romántica durante toda la obra y de un gran contenido emocional.

De esta melancolía, Jerome Rose hizo celebrar su expresividad por el público, para finalizar con la Sonata 2 en si bemol de Chopin, dividida en Grave Doppio Movimiento, Scherzo, Marcha Fúnebre y Presto.


Claves

Trayectoria

La carrera de Rose comenzó cuando el músico tenía tan solo 15 años, en un concierto con la San Francisco Symphony, posteriormente se graduó del Mannes College y del Juliard School of Music.

Ha tocado con las orquestas Filarmónica de Berlín, Filarmónica de Munich, Viena Symphony, Santa Cecilia en Roma, entre otras.

Además, se presenta seguido en Londres con la London Philharmonic.
Torreón, Mexico

Spring 2007
Malcolm Troup

This exemplary recording came the closest I have ever heard to capturing the spirit of the “Hats off, gentlemen a Genius!" Brahms as he first appeared at the door of the Schumanns' home in Düsseldorf and, if so, explains why Schumann asked him to hold his thunder until he had summoned Clara to hear this new pianistic phenomenon. Jerome Rose captures to perfection the majestic tempi, the lush orchestral sonorities, the abrupt changes of mood, the daredevil leaps of the young Brahms intent on piling Ossia cut Pelion - one mighty gesture after another - enough to put any lesser pianist off his stroke. Rose held it all together allowing it to expand organically from one end of the movement to the other. Not a detail escaped him: neither the elegantly shaped Db section in the development (through to the return of the main subject in the flattened supertonic) or his innate adjudication of exactly the right amount of weight to differentiate Brahms' pianistic 'songs' from their accompaniment. What he did with shifting nuances to confer its dolcissimo character on the Poco piu lento passage beggared belief and can only be compared to his genial soave inflection in Var. 12 of the Handel-Variations. The slower the piano became as it changed from the unutterably tender Andante molto espressivo ppp to Adagio, the more miraculously he maintained the onward flow of the music which all too easily can sag into stagnation. Then the Scherzo burst upon the scene with a lusty gallumphing tempo suggestive of the louche Hamburg Reeperbahn where the young Brahms was employed to entertain the clientele. But Rose's fleetness of finger never slackened and the pp molto leggiero could not have been bettered. The dark colours of Rose's inexhaustible palette had us breathing the air of other planets in the transformed Rückblick that followed.

Once into the Finale, we had another demonstration of Rose's rapid-­fire alternation from clipped to sustained, ffto pp, with only seconds to spare. Noteworthy, too, is the sonorous gravitas he achieves in his rolling arpeggiations - a sine qua non of Brahmsian piano writing - both here and in the Handel-Variation No. I3. The molto agitato semiquavers gave us a foretaste of the whirlwind Presto (or should we sayPrestississimo) which lay ahead, once the German patriotic college-song had Been got out of the way, and before the music resumed its grandiose march to the finish. With the punctilious trills of Handel's theme, starting dutifully on the upper note, we know that we are in for a fastidious display of the mature Brahms, determined to hold his waning passions in check while showing off his consummate craft in the art of variation. Splendid as they are under Rose's impeccable fingers, Brahms had the example of Beethoven firmly in his sights - not only in his 'Diabelli' but also the fugue of the 'Hammerklavier' the thick textures and ending of which it so clearly resembles. But whereas the Diabelli- Variations are at the same time antiquarian as well as daringly experimental, those of Brahms are, for all their virtuoso demands on the performer, academic - a sort of 'quod erat demonstrandum' putting the variation-form in its place, so to speak, if not on the shelf. Jerome Rose seems to sense this in his playing of them - both masterly and restrained at the same time. What makes it such a joy, however, is the effortless way in which his brain, rather than his fingers, seems to be playing with these ingenious patterns. So often what one gets in the 'Handel' is a sensation of honest sweat expended in a worthy cause - here Rose adopts what amounts to a ludic style which from Variation 14 to well-nigh 25 provides a classic lesson in how to lighten the touch, underplaying the density of Brahms' textures, while retaining all his genius. Indeed these recordings serve magnificently to chronicle the two sides of Brahms' genius - the firebrand younger Brahms of the Sonata, with whom both the Schumanns fell ill love, and Brahms the neo-classicist of these retrospective Variations. Could it be that a certain falling- off in drive and volume in the build-up to the last two pages of the Variations - needful to balance the witty discussion of the theme which preceded them - somewhat dampened this reviewer's enthusiasm?

March/April 2007
Carsten Dürer

Jerome Rose, Paul Badura-Skoda und Annie Fischer - drei vollkommen unterschiedliche Pianisten mit Neuveröffentlichungen alter, aber nicht allzu alter Einspielungen auf dem CD-Markt: grandiose Hörerlebnisse!


Genau kann man das Aufnah¬medatum dieser Gesamtein¬spielung der Zyklen “Années de Pèlerinage", der Wanderjahre von Franz Liszt aufgrund der fehlen¬den Angaben im Booklet nicht be¬stimmen. Doch, da these Einspie¬lung bereits 1975 den “Grand Prix du Disque" der Ungarischen Franz Liszt Gesellschaft mit Sitz in Buda¬pest erhalten hat, sprechen wir von einer Aufnahme vom Beginn der 70er Jahre. Der amerikanische Pia¬nist Jerome Rose hat gut daran ge¬tan, diese Gesamteinspielung nun nochmals - digital überarbeitet - herauszugeben. Denn zum einen ist es tatsächlich so, dass in den ver¬gangenen Jahren immer wieder Teile dieser Zyklen in ein Liszt-Pro¬gramm eingefügt auf CD erschei¬nen, nur seltenst aber die komplet¬ten Zyklen eingespielt werden. Zum anderen aber ist die vorliegende Einspielung eine, die Jerome Rose auf der absolut pianistischen Höhe zeigt. Wie er die Musik Liszts, ihre Virtuosität einerseits, die Lyrik and Trauer, die Düsternis and Freude darzustellen versteht, zeigt, dass er sich mit Liszt sein Leben lang be¬schäftigt hat - auch zu diesem Zeit¬punkt. Schade nur, dass Rose - und das hört man sogleich - keinen bril¬lanten Flügel zur Verfügung hatte. Extrem hart and klirrend klingt das Instrument im Diskant, etwas muf¬fig in den Mitten. Dennoch weiss Je¬rome Rose auch aus diesem Instru¬ment famose Klänge zu zaubern, ihm Weichheiten in den Petrarca¬Sonetten zu entlocken, es aufbrau¬sen zu lassen, wenn der dramatische Höhepunkt von “La Vallée d'Ober¬mann" erreicht wird. Überhaupt scheint Rose vor allem an der Durchsichtigkeit and Darstellung von Liszts Leidenschaft, umgesetzt in Klaviermusik, zu liegen denn an virtuoser Selbstdarstellung. Wie in¬tensiv klingt da das mit viel Ruhe angegangene “Sposalizio" oder das andächtige “Angelus". Jerome Rose zeigt sich hier als Pianist, der hinter die Noten sieht, der Liszts sensible Seele zu verstehen scheint. Und so ist diese Gesamtaufnahme ein gran¬dioses Beispiel aus der Hochzeit ei¬nes Pianisten, der immer noch aktiv ist. Schade, dass über ihn und die Aufnahmen selbst keinerlei Infor¬mationen im Booklet enthalten sind.

February 2007
Jed Distler

Pianist Jerome Rose's liner-notes cite his youthful impression of "the eternal youth and fervour" with which Arthur Rubinstein played Brahms's F minor Sonata in his sixties. Maybe today's twenty-something pianists similarly will respond to the sixty-something Rose's big­-boned, impassioned interpretation. He dives into the outer movements' declamatory phrases and gnarly textures as if his life depended on it, and imbues the central Scherzo movement with infectious swagger and lilt. He shapes the Andante espressivo in large, flexible yet cohesive arcs, and does so with the Intermezzo as he anchors the long-lined phrases by firmly articulating the underpinning funeral march rhythms. There are occasional instances of over-pedalling plus a few "notes that got away" that make me wonder if Rose records long takes in order to keep the music's energy up and the big picture in focus. If so, more power to him. In the Handel Variations, Rose's effortlessly effected transitions, fluid tempo relationships and astutely proportioned rubato reveal that a seasoned, experienced Brahmsian is in charge. He sometimes varies his voicing on the repeats in a manner more organic than wilful, much as how one perceives the horizon at different times during the day. And certain unorthodox touches prove convincing, such as Rose's unusually slow and subjective Variation 19 (marked vivace). Yet I'm also bothered by the pianist's heavy-handed articulation of Variation 1 and the final variations, his tendency to rush note values in Variations 13 and 14, plus the valedictory fugue's overly insistent, pounded-out passages. While other pianists more successfully fuse power and finesse in these works (Arrau, Katchen, Ax, Hatto and Rösel), Jerome Rose's Brahms still conveys undeniable communicative immediacy, abetted in part by Joseph Patrych's excellent engineering.

January/February 2007
Julian Haylock

What a relief to turn to Jerome Rose in Brahms's epic Third Sonata, who tantalisingly conveys a sense of surging emotions barely restrained by the music's complex emotional logic. Not since Julius Katchen's all-encompassing mid-1960s account for Decca (the 1949 version doesn't relax with such glowing contentment) have I felt so acutely aware of the dichotomy between surging restlessness and supreme calm that lies at the heart of this glorious work. The same extraordinary sense of inevitability, of a pianist totally at one with himself and what he wants to say, spills over into the Handel Variations, which radiates bonhomie throughout even the blackest of printed terrain. It would have been useful to have a separate track for each variation, especially for so rich and emotionally multi-layered a performance. Highly recommended.

November/December 2006
Anja Renczikowski

Thanks to his self-founded label Medici Classics, Jerome Rose has once again, in addition to his various pedagogical activities, come to the consciousness of piano lovers. Known as a Liszt specialist, he recently also released recordings with music of Schumann, Beethoven, and Schubert: expressive and with his own vision. This is also what his Brahms interpretation sounds like. The dynamics and rhythm are handled in a generous, spontaneous, and flexible manner - and yet, or exactly because of it, his personality shows through.

November/December 2006
Michael Ullman

In one of my favorite passages, Nietzsche, who usually philosophizes with a hammer, tells us that the modern world has to learn to pay homage. Jerome Rose has no such problem. In his notes to this disc, he tells us that one of the greatest musical experiences in his life came when he was 16 and listening to the second movement of Artur Rubinstein's then recent recording (1959) of Brahms's Third Piano Sonata. The effect on Rose was "hair-raising," unforgettable. He then goes on to suggest that he was the right age to listen to this piece by a 20-year-old composer.

I am not sure that is entirely a compliment. The piece is typically clangorous, almost uniquely so in Brahms's oeuvre, and almost shockingly dramatic. Some of its most appealing themes unfold over a hyperactive left hand, thumping repeated chords. And yet, as I listen - particularly to Rubinstein's recording, but also to recordings by Julius Katchen, Nelson Freire, and this new one by Jerome Rose - I hear a piece that consistently surprises, that leads in unexpected directions, that is the product not only of a young composer eager to shock and impress, but of a restless musical intellect sincerely seeking new paths. Sometimes, in Brahms, we hear a struggle between passion and intellect; at others, their seemingly perfect reconciliation. Here, the surface is stormy, perhaps too stormy at times, and yet the sequence of thoughts is intriguing.

That's how I hear it anyway. Rose plays the piece as boldly as anyone does, but nearly, to the extent of the Rubinstein, his rendition is able to bring out the melodic interest in the first movement, the hair-raising passion of the second, and the almost zany rhythmic qualities of the third. And so on. Rose is a major pianist in my book, a thoughtful virtuoso. If I still prefer the Rubinstein - well, I know it so much better. Rose plays with power, precision, and care. His Handel Variations is, of course, much milder than the Sonata performance, and he is equally skilled at evoking its grace and neo-Classical shapeliness. So I am pleased to add these performances to a small group of Brahms recordings I consider especially eloquent and convincing.

November/December 2006
Paul L. Althouse

Brahms's greatest piano sonata with perhaps his best set of piano variations. In the sonata I was struck again and again by how well Rose has gauged the wide variety of style in the piece. The opening has just the right strength and hesitation to suggest weight and effort; the lyrical sections (second theme of 1, II, and IV) have just enough rubato to be tender and touching; the scherzo has just the right spring; and so forth. The best I can say for this performance (and it's saying a lot) is that it is constantly interesting and fascinating. Just to keep myself anchored to reality, I listened also to Kissin's recent recording of the sonata. He has, as we know, Special Fingers; and in complicated, difficult passages, his playing is cleaner and crisper than Rose's. But make no mistake, Rose has more than enough technique to play these pieces, and his playing brings you to admire Brahms rather than his fingers. The Handel Variations are no less fine. The many moods are superbly caught, and the piece holds together uncommonly well. As in the sonata we can note other pianists who have their trills and passage work a little clean­er, but Rose's musical understanding and view of the large picture are as fine as any. His playing commands our interest, so I am happy to recommend this enthusiastically.

July 18, 2006
Allan Kozinn

The International Keyboard Institute and Festival is the biggest of Mannes College’s back-to-back schedule of summer programs. It runs for two full weeks, with master classes, lectures, demonstrations and recitals open to the public every day from 9 a.m. to about 10 p.m.

Audiences are usually packed more tightly into Mannes’s concert hall for the keyboard event than for the college’s other festivals (which examine Beethoven, contemporary music and the classical guitar. There is even an official T-shirt (for $20) in the lobby.

Jerome Rose, the festival’s founder and director, gave the opening recital on Sunday evening in a program calibrated to his strengths, which include the sonic heft, broad gestures and grand scale of Romanticism.

Even so, Mr. Rose began with two works from outside the Romantic repertory, which isn’t to say that he recognized such a distinction. He played Mozart’s Sonata in C minor (K. 457) as a full-fledged Romantic score with a big, strong tone that made its textures sound thicker than they are. With that tonal weight established, proportions of all kinds inevitably change. So while Mr. Rose’s dynamics were essentially those of the score, their effects was magnified to Lisztian proportions.

Paul Schoenfield’s “Intermezzo” (2002) is a graceful, slowly building rumination in a language so conservative that it could almost pass as a lost Chopin work. That was how Mr. Rose played it, and it was an approach that worked once you accepted that Mr. Schoenfield, always an eclectic composer, was intent on pursuing an unequivocally nostalgic notion here.

Mr. Rose closed the first half of the program with a thundering account of Schumann’s G minor Sonata (Op. 22) that put the music’s audacious outbursts into high relief, but didn’t skimp on its gentler qualities, like the singing melody line in the Adagio. Similar qualities — with a greater emphasis on poetry and lilting themes than on thunder, though there was some of that as well — enlivened the four Chopin Ballades, which Mr. Rose played after the intermission.

July 18, 2006
Fred Kirshnit

Every generation has its "last Romantic," a pianist who captures, to an extraordinary degree, the windswept spirit of the late 19th-century Lisztian camp. Josef Hofmann was the first last Romantic, bringing into the 1930s and '40s the wisdom of the previous century. A decade later, Vladimir Horowitz followed suit. The 1960s brought Artur Rubinstein, who learned from masters who learned from masters of the original stripe. And in more modern times, the last Romantic was the cult figure Shura Cherkassky.

Jerome Rose might be considered the last Romantic of our own age. A Liszt specialist, he was known in his youth as a formidable advocate for the golden age's most virtuosic piano music. Later, he became a scholar and eventually founded the annual International Keyboard Institute & Festival at the Mannes College of Music. The festival, which features no less than 28 concerts over two weeks, opened Sunday evening with a recitalist none other than Mr. Rose himself.

His appearance did not go unnoticed: The hall was bursting. Fans sat on the floor, stood at the back, even perched cross-legged atop some of the spare pianos in the room. All was in place for a superb recital. But the recitalist started off on the wrong foot. The leonine Mr. Rose presented the opening work, Mozart's Sonata in C minor, K. 457, as if it were written by some minor acolyte or epigone of Liszt. Stylistically anachronistic, the performance was also surprisingly inaccurate: Entire passages were seemingly uttered extemporaneously and fingered cavalierly. I feared it was to be a bumpy night.

Thankfully, Mr. Rose righted the ship immediately thereafter. With the following work, the world premiere of "Intermezzo" by Paul Schoenfield, the pianist employed both printed music and a page-turner, and appeared to reproduce the score, even the occasional minor second that rendered this otherwise melodious music discordant, faithfully.

Once Mr.Rose plunged headlong into the Romantic, he was in steady waters. Curiously, there appeared to be a direct ratio between the degree of technical difficulty and Mr. Rose's facilities with a particular piece. This unique recitalist soundly traversed Robert Schumann's notoriously devilish Sonata in G minor, Op. 22. He made child's play of many of its most difficult passages, producing a limpid and powerfully drawn rendition.

For better or worse, everything about Mr. Rose — his aesthetic, his style, and his sporadic shortcomings of dexterity — came together for a memorable reading of Chopin's Four Ballades. Yes, all four were played in order, even though the composer never intended for them to be offered as such. How Mr. Rose chose to perform these magnificent essays will certainly create controversy, and that is a good thing for music that depends so much on its frisson. He insisted on living on the edge throughout, creating generous slathers of rubato, heart-stopping pauses, big dynamic contrasts, and runs and trills begun just slightly after their downbeat.

If hearing all the notes in their proper place is your cup of tea, then you will probably not care much for Jerome Rose. But if the tingling sensation of the unexpected in your spine is the reason you come to hear such emotional music, then you could do much worse than a program by this necromancer who celebrates the Romantic pianist as the kissing cousin of that other emerging artist of the 19th century, the circus performer. For me, these daring experiments were mighty as a rose.

July 2005
Tim Stein

Jerome Rose, the esteemed American pianist and teacher, was a student of both Leonard Shure (himself a student of Artur Schnabel) and Rudolf Serkin, and is a faculty member of the Mannes College of Music. He brings a lifetime's experience to this new Medici release of music by Liszt. At one time Liszt's B minor Sonata, the highlight of this disc, was deemed too difficult by far for most pianists even to attempt to play in private, never mind to play it for public consumption. Now, though most pianists have it as a standard work in their reper­toire, few manage to marry successfully the huge technical and musical demands of a one-movement piece that lasts almost half an hour.

Rose, however rises to almost every challenge. Like Liszt himself, Rose seems to offer an underlying musical logic that propels the music forward from first note to last. It is a powerfully argued performance devoid of ego and artifice. but at the same time offering its own unique perspective. Perhaps there have been more hair-raising performances from the likes of Horowitz, Richter and Argerich, and more subtle, introspective readings from the likes of Arrau and Brendel. But any performance that can shed new light on a masterpiece such as this deserves to be heard, especially when coupled with truly virtuosic performances of the Don Juan Fantasy and the first of Liszt's Mephisto Waltzes. Warmly recorded (though with a touch of steeliness in the upper registers), this is a disc to he highly recommended.

Winter 2005
Malcolm Troup

Already well-known for his matchless interpretations of the two Liszt Concertos and Totentanz with the Budapest Philharmonic on MONARCH CLASSICS, not to speak of his Transcendental Etudes on the same label, we have here Jerome Rose's final word on the subject of Liszt's supreme masterpiece, the Sonata in B minor, flanked by two of Liszt's most virtuoso creations, the Don Juan Fantasy and the Mephisto Waltz - for those who can bring it off, the equivalent of a pianistic triathlon. For long, the Sonata was considered a trophy recording - a status ­symbol for all world-beating virtuosi to covet - hence the reams of discs which abound. But Rose's version does not belong to this arriviste breed - rather it is the distillation of a lifetime's experience of playing a work to the point where the work becomes a rich surrogate for that life itself- a musical equivalent, minus the sensationalism, of what Oscar Wilde set out to explore in his story of Dorian Gray. The two, Rose's life and Liszt's sonata, have become as intertwined as a hand in a glove though whose the hand (Rose's?) and whose the glove (Liszt's?) have, considering the extraordinary aesthetic symbiosis achieved, become a moot question.

Where most pianists run amok with so many temptations to excess, Rose's long-breathed line and infallible sense of timing let everything fall into place as in an epic narrative. From the forebodingly long-drawn-out Wagnerian trombones of the opening Lento assai, he presents his five thematic protagonists, each set apart within its own time-frame - enough to identify it, leaving aside the melodic profile, in whatever guise it recurs, even when the motivic work is obscured in figuration. And yet these stammered cells with their respective pregnant pauses, once made known, can take off in the "sempre forte e agitato" at a speed-of-light and fluidity beggaring belief. Even the daunting octaves which follow cannot abate this forward drive and, for all their jagged passion, are as clean, accurate and scrupulously pedalled as any I have heard. Rose gives no quarter, unlike those pianists whose lack of long-term planning sags inevitably into sectionalisation, so goal-oriented is he in achieving Liszt's targets, from each of which he opens out to us a new landscape as fresh and challenging as the one before. The power and grandeur of his chordal-playing, so beautifully captured in this recording when it bursts upon us in the Grandioso or later in the Adagio, makes us hear homophony and polyphony as a pair of archetypal dualities which, like diatonicism and chromaticism, vie in their Faustian struggle for the soul of this sonata. Nowhere is this more starkly conveyed than in the alternating block-chords and pleading recit of the slow movement-an anvil chorus taking turns with a disembodied soprano voice.

A whole book could also be written about Rose's art of the transition - always concealing the seams of what for perfunctory pianists soon become sections - as when he veils with pedal the delicious melting into the Andante sostenuto in which he gives full value both to the turns, to the remonstrating Ieft hand, to the generous (sometimes overgenerous) arpeggiations and, above all, to the pearly portamenti which he shakes out of his sleeve with such consummate grace.

The Reminiscences of “Don Juan” - once considered the ne plus ultra of the 19th century pianist's bag of tricks – begins as if the Meyerbeer of Les Huguenots rather than Mozart had been its composer- no opera giocosa this but "grand opera" delivered on the "grand" piano in Rose's best "grand manner”. Indeed the opening verged on Grand Guignol with its denunciations from beyond the grave and sinister sliding octave scales, both diatonic and chromatic varieties, which must have served Liszt as the initial Mozartian inspiration for his own thundering interlocked octaves. In the same way, the duet lay-out of the middle section ("La ci darem la mano"), as well as giving the gallery something to whistle, allows Liszt, with Rose close behind, to take off to alternate extremes of the keyboard to maximum effect. Between them, they prolong the foreplay and postpone the consummation of this courtly seduction scene by endless roulades in alt., each one more corruscating than the last. At last, voices and bodies couple together in a tender Allegretto, soon to be curdled into a minor mode to herald a terrifying chromatic nemesis. With a flick of Rose's wrist, Liszt turns love (Var.I) into its opposite, war (Var.II) marked by military marches and swagger. It is at this point - bedevilled by the right-hand's scales in thirds - that tempo and tension somewhat slacken at the expense of the build-up to the Presto. For all that the Presto is flawlessly executed, some of the devil-may-care abandon is thus lost. But by the time the Commendatore puts in his last call for repentance to the miscreant Don, we are on our feet cheering Rose to the rafters.

Meanwhile Mephisto has been suffering reverses quite long enough! Now he mounts Rose like a Haitian voodoo deity, driving him to ever more risky feats of pianistic tight-rope-walking. If anything, it is with Rose's piano, rather than with Rose himself, that I would split hairs - the Es in the middle range of the keyboard seem to be pulling their punches which, for a piece trading so much on that pitch throughout, is a serious matter. But no such trifle can deter Rose, who surely by now has all but sold his soul to Mephisto, from bringing the whole farrago to a breath­taking photo-finish - never once relinquishing his relentless three-in-a-­bar!

Maybe one could conceive of Rose playing all of this better in heaven (if not in hell), released from earthly ties and tribulations, but for this earthly coil one can't imagine anyone doing these three masterpieces greater justice than in this sumptuous performance where grandeur and finesse are mixed in equal parts.

November 2005
David Gregson

To describe La Jolla's Athenaeum as an "intimate" performance environment would be an understatement. Many La Jolla living rooms are larger, and, in fact, some of these local living spaces get used for serious concerts from time to time. While the Athenaeum's Spanish-Renaissance-style structure, which has commanded the corner of Girard and Wall Streets since 1921, looks plenty large enough, the portion most often employed for piano recitals is the small "rotunda" wing added to the main building way back in 1957. In those days the majority of the space was rented by the City of San Diego for the operation of a branch of the public library.

Athenaeum recitals are high among the potent joys of the cultural life of our city, and they certainly do not get any better than last night's program offered by pianist Jerome Rose, an artist possessing both superb taste, a poet's sensibility and a virtually flawless technique. But, when you watch him, he appears to be all business. Many lesser artists toss their heads about in feigned ecstasies and raise their arms dramatically into the air like high-speed construction derricks. Rose sticks to the task at hand. He played all his selections sans score, and if he made a single mistake all evening, it does not merit mention. What impressed was the tremendous degree of his involvement in and understanding of the music he was playing. For those who do not know of his extensive career as a recording artist, I have provided a link to his website above (just click on his underlined name) and have appended an artist biography download to this review.

Nowhere during this nourishing program was I so impressed as during the two throw-away encores (simply announced as "A Chopin waltz" -- and then, "Another Chopin waltz." ) These appear to have been the Waltz in A minor ("Valse brillante"), Op. 34, No. 2 and Waltz in A-Flat ("Valse brillante"), Op. 34., No. 1, although I am only positive about the A minor one. I could have listened to this kind of thing all night -- his feeling for the composer is evidently so thoroughly ingrained. The music breathes exactly as it should -- beguiling, glistening, haunting, seductive. It's impossible to heap enough praise.

Rose began his recital with yet another item unlisted on the printed program, Schubert's E-Flat Impromptu, Op. 90 (please don't ask me the Deutsche number! D.899 maybe?), and continued on with the very serious Schubert Sonata in C Minor, D. 958, a piece that tries to emulate Beethoven's sonatas here and there, nowhere more tellingly, I think, than in the crazy rhythmic hesitations of the third-movement Scherzo. At their most intriguing, both Beethoven and Schubert seem to be experimenting with form in their works, and to get all the disparate parts into some coherent whole must always be a challenge for any performer. Rose managed to tie everything together without so much as the bat of an eye or the drop of a bead of sweat. He might have been "channeling" the composer, everything was so persuasive and made so much sense. He followed this up with a lovely traversal of Chopin's Ballade No. 3 in A Flat Major, Op. 47.

Never a great Liszt fan myself, I am usually suspicious of Liszt specialists, but not Rose. He seems to see into the heart of the matter. I was not surprised to find him playing Liszt's Vallée d'Obermann from Années de Pèlerinage," Première Année: Suisse (No. 6) (try typing that little title from memory!) because this is one of those truly wonderful works where the composer seems to be searching for something in the finest 19th-century Byronic manner. Rose even prefaced his performance with a brief reading of a poem by Byron -- that great Romantic doomed and suffering lost soul, always questing, always posturing and showing off -- and who also managed to become the Elvis Presley of 19th century literature!

Then, in an apparent effort to burn down the Athenaeum, Rose tore through Liszt's Mephisto Waltz, No. 1. Being in a small room hearing works like these is overwhelming -- a little like being in Disney Hall for Mahler's Resurrection Symphony.

August 2005
Bryce Morrison

Plenty of dazzling moments, as befits a virtuoso, but fine musical sense, too. Jerome Rose, who won first prize in the 1961 Busoni International Piano Competition (a competition notorious for not offering first prizes), has returned with a vengeance, recording many of the greatest masterpieces of the repertoire. His most recent offering is of three intimidating examples of the virtuoso repertoire and it is greatly to his credit that, although passionate and sincere, he is less inclined to leave his personal stamp on the music than to share his sense of Liszt's quality.

Rose hardly recreates the Sonata in its first audacity (it was considered incomprehensible and unplayable until Horowitz took it so formidably in hand) but sees it in a lucid, modern perspective, never labouring his points but balancing sense and sensibility with enviably clarity and assurance. In the Don Juan Fantasy he may be less athletic or sure-fingered than, say, Earl Wild or Bolet, but his playing could hardly be more clear­sighted. There are dazzling moments (the velocissimo plunge just before the final blaze) but overall you end feeling refreshed and elated rather than exhausted or temporarily impressed by a more forced
or hectic approach.

Oddly, Rose refers in his notes to Liszt's 'many Mephisto Waltzes' (there are four, and the fourth is incomplete) but if he holds the first Waltz's diabolic frisson at arm's length his performance is never less than dextrous and musicianly. Medici Classics' sound is warm and natural and this is very much a record for those who continue to regard Liszt as possessing 'too much of the tinsel and the drum' (Clara Schumann).

Spring 2005
Malcolm Troup

Jerome Rose is a supreme Classicist by training and by temperament: proportions, balance and restraint are his watchwords. That is no doubt why he was not fully prepared for Schubert's shooting his bolt - a rare example of musical premature ejaculation - in the first 14 bars of his C minor Sonata D958 before settling into less challenging routines. In 1828, when Schubert first came to terms with his rightful status as heir to Beethoven, it was still not easy for him to aim at the Olympic heights of Romanticism (which was all about mountain peaks) rather than the Elysian fields of Classicism where he had been content to gambol previously. The trappings of Romanticism, which Beethoven had embraced, came to Schubert from outside, predominantly from the opera­ house of Weber and Rossini, where he had had little success. It had been a question of introducing the odd purple patch of thunder-and-lightning or `Wolf's Glen' until, like his idol, he could begin to interiorise the real Romantic agony. As it is, it takes him a whole four octaves to achieve the same ascent from C to Ab that it had taken Beethoven less than one octave to accomplish in the theme of his 32 Variations in c minor which had served Schubert as a model. In D958, it is still difficult to give these sudden spasms their due so it is only after Jerome Rose leads us into the lovely countersubject that he is once more in his element. At his Schubertian best, Rose has a knack of avoiding the bar-line by walking off with it as if it were a present to be unwrapped in his own time. The results here are deliciously melting but in other contexts, - say the Scherzo of D979, this tendency to sectionalise comes between us and the forward flow of the music. But let's not cavil in view of the riches spilling over on every page: the spooky chromatic bass-line, for one, as it slithers and slides back into the recap and later brings the movement to a defeated close with a four- against-three­ beat cross-rhythm to shatter what little fortitude remains. The Adagio (a rare tempo-marking among these later sonatas) is more early-Beethoven than the first movement for all that people say and Jerome does it to perfection as also the Scherzo with its odd 3,4,5 phrase­ structure and the ghostly hunt of the finale.

As if the piling-up of fermata and general pauses isn't enough for Schubert, we could almost describe D959 in A major as the `comma' sonata for the number of `breaths' introduced for the purpose of singling out phrases or even single bars - a `tradition' on the verge of becoming as nagging a mannerism as the mesa de voce in `authentic' Baroque string-playing. Fortunately, Rose keeps a tight grip on this and, in any case, the lordly opening of the Allegro would hardly offer up its secrets without it. The first page or two of the development has much in common with D960 (bar 173 to the end) but whereas Rose's bright objective tone works a treat in D959, it quite misses the veiled luminous quality of D960 which it spells out too literally. The Andantino again found Rose in top form, frightening the living daylights out of us in blackest F# minor before vowing vengeance in recit. No wonder that the opening section returns with a triplet frisson now embedded in the rnelody in token of what we have been through. A sheer delight in Rose's knowing hands was the ingenuous little Ländler, passing itself off as a Trio while still coquettishly reminding us of the Sonata's mighty opening motto. Likewise the Rondo finale was Schubert and Rose at their reciprocal best - straight-sailing Gemütlichkeit, but for some F#/C# minor squalls midway. Its headlong closing Presto was a marvel of crispness and clarity although, to my taste, the last few ff bars can never be grand enough to counter the preceding prolixity.

The glorious D960 was made to order for a pianist like Rose who has the uncanny art of getting every note of a chord to register audibly, even at pp level, without sacrificing the line of the song. Both in the triplets of the theme's restatement in the exposition and in the following triplet climax of the development, Rose's drive was undauntable. It may seem a contradiction in terms to say that the Andante sostenuto, pp practically throughout, could have done with more tonal contrasts and p subito like that of his inspired slide from C# major to C major. The lilting finale smoothed all our cares away but, after so much sublime pianism, could we not throw restraint and even accuracy aside for once and let passion rip in the final Presto?

Finally, it would be doing this excellent recording an injustice if I were to say that it is the "Wanderer” Fantasie by which it will be remembered the longest - perhaps because it was the work I happened to put on first. But the fact remains that it is one of the finest performances to come my way of a work that has been neglected just because its exorbitant technical demands conspire against its musical transcendence, couched as it is in a Biedermeier style looking back to Hummel rather than forward to Liszt. For all that, it so fascinated Liszt that he made two versions of it - one for marginally simplified solo piano and the other better known for piano and orchestra. But here we have the luxury of the full-blooded original played by a master-pianist who has long since established his credentials as a consummate Schubertian.

May/June 2005
Paul Ingram

The Sonata from Rose is big-scale, a virtuosic approach to what remains a fearsome challenge. The sight of those notes, crammed into the measures on the page, is always daunting. Rose presents a valid third way, to go with Brendel’s cerebration and spiritual control, and Richter’s great, spur-of the moment fantasy. Rose has lived with the work for a lifetime, but on the day he has decided to abandon caution. This virtuosity isn’t flashy: it’s dark, and steely, with no trace of unctuousness for the big tunes. The percussive chords are brutal in the extreme. It’s as though Rose has found some tormented Romantic literary background for the work. There are more effortless versions in the catalog, but Rose wrestles manfully, and the sense of struggle seems apt, if sometimes fierce. The fugue is demonic, and for Rose, this masterpiece is about the unbearable realities of life rather than an essay in cool formal innovation. Not a safe first choice, but well worth hearing by those who think they know the Sonata. The cumulative effect of this approach conveys courage, rather than insensitivity.

For the huge Don Juan fantasy, Rose does his best to grow a third hand, as all pianists must. The Mephisto Waltz receives a serious interpretation, raising the stature of the disc. The last three minutes of the Waltz are terribly difficult to sustain, but by then Rose is swept away in the kind of meaningful, technical control that compels the musical attention. Devilry, not circus antics. Good stuff.

January 2005
Russell Platt

The year’s best CDs, in alphabetical order.

Issue of 2005-01-17

Schubert, “Winterreise”— Recordings from two utterly different tenors illuminate Schubert’s desolate cycle… Jon Fredric West (on Medici Classics), with Jerome Rose at the piano, harks back to an age when hefty Wagnerian voices tackled this piece with unabashed emotion.

Winter 2004
Malcolm Troup

For a performer to be wholly at one with another performer’s interpretation is a phenomenon little short of miraculous but that is what happened to me when I sat down with my critic’s cap on to listen to Jerome Rose playing Op.109. And, as if to prove the miracle scientifically by dint of its duplicability, lo and behold the same thing happened in Op.110! Only in the opening Allegro of Op.111, after its grandiloquent French overture and a bass trill as finely articulated as the drum-roll before the Day of Judgment, was Sturm und Drang’s “last stand” allowed to get the upper hand over Jovian majesty, with sudden accelerandi threatening to devour each semiquaver grouping and making the difference in tempo of the second subject unduly notorious. Even before the Arietta had soothed away this last outburst of pianistic hubris, Rose had laid the first movement’s plagal cadence to rest in a hum of bass vibration to match the Arietta’s ethereal filigree. Rose led us through each diminution which followed with an Olympian logic which defied any further earthly backsliding – grace had finally won out over gravity, to use the words of Simone Weill.

To make an inventory of plus-points would risk reducing this act of magical recreation to a commonplace: one could dwell on Rose’s powerful but never overpowering bass sonorities, his admirable restraint in curbing any tendency to crescendo when none such is called for, the wonderful evenness of touch in Variation 3 (Op.109), the timeless effortlessness of his double- and triple-trilling, the piano subitos scrupulously oberved, the hairsbreadth nuances in timing, the ineffable way Rose let the harmonies of the variations speak without ever trying to overload the topmost note, the inner-directed separating and rounding off of phrases in the development of the first movement of Op.109, the gloriously unhurried entrance of the fugal subject in the bass in Op.110 and the strength of mind to follow the musical impulse wherever it might lead.

At the risk of doffing my critic’s cap in sign of total submission, or having it wrenched ingloriously from my head for failing to find fault, I must declare that this was playing, like Beethoven’s music itself, born of a lifetime’s experience with an inherent rightness about it that precludes arguments and banishes doubts. Every contour of the music's course is picked up by Mr. Rose’s unfailing ear (in real life the first thing one notices about him for its imposing dimensions), lovingly traced by his searching musicianship before being given its final epiphany by his infallible fingers. All pianists and piano-teachers should set this recording alongside their Schnabel, Arrau and Kempff as establishing a new 21st-century gold standard of Beethoven-playing at its finest!

August 2004
John Bell Young

There are those who think of Schubert as an early romantic composer who churned out one lovely and memorable tune after another. But the facts suggest something else entirely. Indeed, what drives virtually every one of his works, whatever their particular métier, is the complexity of their harmonic and rhythmic vocabulary. But beyond the formal organization of the notes there is something disturbing that lies beneath, giving voice to the extraordinary angst of a tormented soul and an enlightened thinker.

In his newly released survey of the magisterial posthumous sonatas, Jerome Rose, an immensely authoritative pianist, leaves no stone unturned in his search for musical substance. Indeed, Mr. Rose is no lightweight, contradicting an approach towards Schubert’s piano music that was once considered as acceptable as it was stylish.

Mr. Rose dismisses any idea of Schubert as an idle dreamer or vapid tunesmith, revealing him instead as a composer whose aesthetics embrace conflict as the prevailing raison’ d’etre, yielding as much to darkness as much as to light. Mr. Rose is a musician who not only recognizes but also delivers Schubert’s wanderlust with just the seriousness of purpose it demands. Never failing to dig deep, he refuses to marginalize even so much as the full value of a structurally significant upbeat (witness the opening bars of the A major sonata, where he illuminates and fortifies the eighth note upbeats en route to the following measures).

His readings are fascinating for several significant reasons. Indeed, his penchant for exploring the darker side of Schubert’s troubled spirit is a welcome interpretive antidote to the customary and usual superficial readings that make a meal of every melody. Unlike Schnabel, for example, whose equally substantive interpretations strive to communicate joy, Mr. Rose is interested in Schubert’s essential pessimism, and in the immanent critique –the argument, if you will -- his compositions make on their own behalf. The compositionally codified Alpine schwung that Schnabel (and later, Walter Klien) depended upon to elicit Schubert’s peculiar charms is not, for Mr. Rose, the central focus in music that is as endearing as it is psychologically terrifying. From this perspective, Mr. Rose, whose ability to bring compositional issues into such intense focus is utterly remarkable, bears much in common with Rudolf Serkin, and to a certain extent, Alfred Brendel.

Witness, for example, his magisterial command of the closing Allegro of the C minor sonata, one of Schubert’s last. A rondo in the form of a tarantella, it is an enormous work that would break down utterly in the absence of a taut and strictly perpetuated rhythm. Its cross currents rely on close intervals to suavely articulate its ghostly ride across bar lines, breaking occasionally into larger intervallic structures (the always sunny major sixth), as if to come up for air, or perhaps a final breath. In sustaining rhythmic tension without compromise or wayward rubatos, Mr. Rose takes advantage of those larger intervals to effectively punctuate the music’s rhythmic profile. This kind of strategic planning, though indispensable, is also the very thing that allows a savvy artist to both exploit tension and deliver Schubert’s message powerfully and in tact, as it were.

In both the Wanderer Fantasy and the great B flat Sonata – surely among the finest readings on record in Mr. Rose’s stunning performances – it is precisely such tension, so admirably realized here, that grips the listener and won’t let go. In a work so often played by competent pianists it is a rare occasion to detect some new thread or idea heretofore unexplored. Yet Mr. Rose does just that. No doubt his understanding Schubert is in part inspired by his intimate knowledge of Schubert’s vocal literature. Witness his account of the first movement of the B flat Sonata. In less experienced hands it more often than not becomes little more than a dreamy caricature of itself, demeaned to a petty pianistic songfest and unctuously comfortable entertainment whose sprawling melodies are delivered with polite reverence.

Not so for Mr. Rose, who will have nothing of that sort. On the contrary, for him, its perspectives are bleak, its outlook dark, and its melancholy immense. And yet it redeems its nobility precisely by virtue of its struggle to transcend any superficial beauty. Thus does Mr. Rose refuse to make of it a slack, linear experience, preferring instead to harvest the counterpoint for its agonizing dissonances, so deftly interiorized, for the cumulative rhythmic power that lends it compositional inevitability.

Save for Brendel and Schnabel, more satisfying and intellectually cogent performances than these would be hard to come by. What more can one ask for?

July/August 2004
Peter J. Rabinowitz

Jerome Rose, a former pupil of Rudolf Serkin, is most famous for his Liszt (in fact, he taped the Liszt arrangement of the Wanderer Fantasy years before recording the original). No surprise, then, that his Schubert is both extroverted and forward-looking. These are arguably Schubert’s most substantial works for the piano; and they get large-scale, authoritative performances marked by bold rhythms, gruff tone and am often thrilling sense of high-romantic drama - made more thrilling still by a structural understanding that gives the points of arrival a stunning sense of inevitability. Although Rose is certainly capable of haunting reticence (the Adagio of the Wanderer Fantasy is a good example), there's no attempt here to make Schubert pretty. Accents are often biting (try the opening of the C minor), and Schubert’s more daring harmonic experiments (for instance, to the tortured dissonances in the first movement of the A major) are brought to the fore. It’s not that the playing is relentless, much less brutal: Rose inflects the more lyrical passages with a disarming rubato (try, for instance, the second theme in the first movement of the C minor), and there’s a sunny brightness to the finale of the B flat major. Nor, for that matter, is Rose excessively earnest: there's plenty of rough-and-tumble play in the third movement of the A major. But those who turn to Schubert for naive simplicity - much less for the kind of spiritual contemplation found in Richter's provocative performances of the B flat major - will certainly find Rose on the assertive side; and while Rose hardly scants the details (in particular, details of articulation), his readings can fairly be called plain-spoken, especially compared to Paul Lewis’s magnificently eventful readings of the A major and B flat major sonatas that showed up last year. Certainly, no one will accuse Rose of either diffidence or fussiness. Not everything works. Although dynamic shading on a local level is often arresting, long-range dynamic contrasts are sometimes reined in, cushioning the power of the big crescendo passages. Then, too, a touch of stiffness and strain mars some of the repetitious rhythms (say, in the finale of the C minor). All in all, though, these are sturdy performances that should bring some deserved attention to a seriously under-appreciated pianist.

July 15, 2004
Anthony Tommasini

It seems that the respected pianist Jerome Rose, a senior faculty member at the Mannes College of Music, just can't get enough of his instrument. During July, a slow time both in the New York concert season and at the college, he runs the International Keyboard Institute and Festival, which he founded in 1999.

The event brings together student pianists, noted artists, important pedagogues and historians for two full weeks of recitals, master classes and lectures, all open to the public. The sixth annual festival, which has attracted some 100 participants, kicked off Sunday night with a recital by Mr. Rose. The auditorium at the Mannes College, on West 85th Street in Manhattan, was packed.

Mr. Rose traditionally claims pride of place by opening the festival. Still, it must have been challenging to play for an audience in which there were pianists, both fledgling and the famous, everywhere.

Though Mr. Rose built his reputation with virtuosic Romantic-era repertory, he began his program with one of the most elegantly subdued works of the late Viennese classical period: Schubert's Sonata in G (D. 894), written in 1826.

For me it was not the best match of repertory with artistic temperament and pianistic approach. In the haunting opening movement, which begins with a ruminative theme in boldly sustained chords, sometimes hardly a ripple of activity, Mr. Rose seemed always to be holding back, and that cautious quality permeated the other three movements, even the Menuetto, the work's most hardy music. Also, he stretched and shaped Schubert's melodic phrases with an extremely free sense of rhythmic rubato, which, again to my taste, turned fussy.

After this 40-minute sonata, Mr. Rose ended his recital with another of the same length: Brahms's early, stormy Sonata No. 3 in F minor. The young Brahms had orchestral floods of sound in mind when he composed this work, and even on a modern Steinway the writing pushes the piano to its limits of power and sonority. Seeming much more at home, Mr. Rose tore into the work, fearlessly playing the opening flourish, with its leaps from thunderous low octaves up to brawny outbursts of chords.

The festival continues with daytime workshops and master classes and nightly recitals by artists ranging from the brilliant and adventurous Marc-Andre Hamelin (tomorrow night) to the ageless virtuoso and showman Earl Wild (Saturday night), through July 25.

July 13, 2004
Adam Baer

Classifying the quirky personalities that feed the unique world of Virtuoso Piano Wonkdom - White loner physicist-types, obsessive packs of Asian graduate students, eccentric trustafarians ripped from the script of "The Royal Tenenbaums" - could make for an interesting program of psychological research. For those interested in making their own investigation, an annual migration of the species is currently under way to Mannes College of Music. The fourth International Keyboard Institute and Festival was launched Sunday by its esteemed founder, the pianist Jerome Rose, and continues through July 25.

As in festivals past, Mr. Rose plays host this summer to a quirky roster, including the Canadian virtuoso pianist-composer Marc-Andre Hamelin (July 16) and Juilliard performance scholar David Dubal (July 19). But this year the festival celebrates Steinway's 150th anniversary and therefore turns slightly more mainstream with the appearances of Her Majesty Alicia de Larrocha (in a master class on July 20) and the Beaux Arts Trio's octogenarian founder Menahem Pressler (July 24).

To kick things off Sunday, Mr. Rose presented a piano-recital appreciation with a meaty solo menu of Schubert's beloved G Major Sonata, D. 894, and Brahms's early, more obscure, and youthfully rambunctious Third Sonata, in F minor, Op. 5. This was a piano concert for piano lovers, and Mr. Rose is one of the finest poets of the kevboard.

But what makes Mr. Rose so beloved in the piano world is his ability to perform music phenomenally well with the affectations of connoisseurship - he plays expertly for experts. Part and parcel of that, perhaps, is a certain lack of showmanship. That is what has always kept him on the edge of a major performing career, and that is what made Sunday's concert so hard to connect with despite the ovations.

In the Schubert, a forlorn and often serene work, Mr. Rose's signature effects appeared in the form of extremely even-voiced, soft-touch chords, patiently timed dotted rhythms, inhumanly long vocal lines, and supple rubatos. His orchestrational method of keyboard tonepainting rendered repetitive left hand figures as the dark retorts of a cello section, while dancing righthand pirouettes the playful shimmers of a sweet violin band.

The playing was pristine - tone rich, beautifully contoured, often on the slow side with transparent color gradations at every deceptive minor key landing. But it was playing for pianists and the hermetic band of elitist critics who love them, and I wanted more strangeness, more direct communication. The work was too much of a classical sculpture or epic poem, too distant, when it could have been more personal.

At its conclusion Mr. Rose blurred the overtones of an improvisational run of chromatic notes, the sort of novel turn I would have liked to see more of. By then, however, it was too late to be touched.

Mr. Rose's way with Brahms was different, at least at the beginning. He attacked the opening gestures, flaunting clangorous punctuations before introducing a sharply staccatoed bass figure that drove home the first movement and the chordal tunes that make it sing. Singing became an obsession, however, in the slow second movement - in the melodies, there was too much beauty for beauty's sake. And the great, gradual climax of joy made of grandly resonant pedal tones felt a bit too premeditated.

More honest was the jolly scherzo - here was young Hamburg Brahms, he of drinking games and prostitutes. But the dreamlike intermezzo and its deliberate fog left me cold. The free-wheeling Lisztian quality of the last powerfully played movement realized the work's youthful, exaggerative qualities as well as possible, but - like much of the rest of the concert - its calibrated perfection was isolating.

July 2004
Phil Muse

Pianist Jerome Rose is at the top of his form on his Medici Classics label in stunning performances of Franz Schubert's Three Posthumous Sonatas and the "Wanderer" Fantasie. The sonatas took the classical piano sonata as far as the form could go before it had to turn in other directions (to literary programs, for example), and the Fantasie opened new directions for, among, others, Franz Liszt.

It's hard to decide where to begin in discussing the "Posthumous" Sonatas, landmarks of keyboard music. Schubert wrote all three within the space of just three weeks in September of 1828, only two months before his death at the age of 31. There is no other instance in music history of so much white-hot creativity in so short a period: even Mozart required three months in the summer of 1788 to pen his three last symphonies, and he was in good health. Schubert, on the other hand, knew he was dying when he wrote the sonatas. While it would be tempting to view them as his deathbed confession, it seems more reasonable to assume that he had a lot of great music inside him that craved expression on paper while there was yet time.

Generally speaking, all three sonatas contend in different ways with a tragic view of life, which was inescapable under the circumstances. Very, very generally, we might characterize the Sonata in C minor, D.958 as the doomed tragic poet of the three, the Sonata in A major, D.959 as the triumphant hero, and the Sonata in B-flat major, D.960 as the enlightened mystic who has moved beyond pain and suffering to a better world. I say very generally because all three deal with tragedy, though it becomes less immediate and more a matter of pain recollected as we move through the Deutsch numbers.

For want of space, I'm going to concentrate on the first, and hardest to love, of the trio, the C minor Sonata. It is the densest of the three, requiring only 30 minutes to perform as compared with 40-plus for D.959 and 960. Alfred Brendel called it "predominately somber, passionate yet icy." From the explosive opening motif, followed by an extended meditation that grows perceptibly darker and more menacing, we know we are in for serious business. There is something sinister about the first-movement development that Rose conveys to us very well.

The second movement, marked Andante sostenuto, begins as softly as a prayer, but this mood is soon swept aside by stormy passages filled with angry outbursts and breaks in continuity that are a trademark in this work. In the middle section, Schubert moves from the C-sharp minor of the opening to a radiant A major, offering us hope amid the disquieting surroundings. The fleet, light-textured scherzo movement provides the briefest respite before we are plunged headlong into the finale, a "death gallop" if ever there was one. As booklet annotator Stephen Wigler rightly observes, even the few moments of transition here do not provide relief: rather, "they are terrifying because of the terrible inevitability of the resumption of the movement's obsessive and driven subject." We sense why the C-minor Sonata is performed less frequently than its companions even as we admire its powerful intensity.

After the Posthumous Sonatas, the glorious "Wanderer" Fantasy of six years earlier comes almost as a "holiday for piano," though its virtuosic demands are very great. Schubert himself broke down in frustration when attempting to play the (very) loud peroration at the end of the finale, although of course this moment is less daunting for a pianist with the immense technical prowess of Jerome Rose. The Fantasy is a marvel of transformation, in which a single highly rhythmical theme is used to link and unify each of the four movements, which are played without breaks. As many years as I've heard this wonderful work, it has a way of coming up fresh in each new interpretation - and never have it heard it performed with more brilliance and conviction than here.

May/June 2004
Robert Nemecek

Rose ist ein Interpret, bei dem sich ungewöhnliche manuelle, Fähigkeiten mit einem feinen Gespür für den spezifischen Ton eines Komposnisten verbinden. Seine bei Medici Classics erschienenen Einspielungen der romantischen Grossmeister Chopin, Schumann und Liszt zeugen von einer geradezu innigen Vertrautheit mit dieser Materie.

April 2004
Jessica Duchen

FOUR STARS: Distinguished pianist Jerome Rose does justice to Beethoven’s transcendent last words on the piano sonata. Heavyweight, luminous performances.

March 2004
Nalen Anthoni

If Charles Rosen is right and Davidsbündlertänze is ‘Schumann's most private and one of his most poetic works', how far may a pianist go to interpret its privacy and poetry? Jerome Rose goes very far to analyse the thoughts of a composer who suffered psychological instability. His rhythm in the ruminative sections, like Nos. 5 and 7, is unusually flexible, thereby unsettling in its inferences. Phrases are slowed or speeded up, and the line is bent and straightened at will, while some of the fast movements are frenetic, and just as unsettling. Rose doesn't disguise the extremes, but the structure is never in danger of collapse because he is always in control. Kreisleriana is private, too, ’the juxtaposition of rage and mystery' (Dr Peter Ostwald) with intimations of madness that shocked Clara Schumann. From an opening movement where agitation is emphasised by his treatment of the sforzandi in the bass line, Rose builds up inexorably to the mystery in No. 6 and the rage in No. 7. He sees these sections as forming a climax that moves from nebulous searching to blazing fury, and the impression of emotion spent in most of No. 8, the finale, is equally graphically presented. There are moments when Rose could play more softly but this criticism is offset by his ability to draw big sonorities without pounding the piano. Both performances are remarkable products of a wide-ranging imagination but they might be too outspoken for some tastes.

August/September 2003
Calum MacDonald

Jerome Rose is a distinguished pianist of experience, intellectual stature and real insight. He plays these masterpieces with utter dedication and the kind of sovereign, omnicompetent technique that it is impertinent to praise. (So instead I’ll enter a small criticism, of the apparent heaviness of his touch – though this may really be an effect of the rather close recording, and in any case it’s only a minor distraction in performances of such sincerity and conviction.) I especially liked the way he delineates the spacious and purposeful architecture of the finale of op. 110, and he well conveys the spiritual aura that enwraps this music – most of all in the finale of op. 111 – without losing any of the necessary sense of thrust and physicality in the fast movements. But competition is never more cut-throat than in Beethoven’s late sonatas; or to put it more grandly, this is a field tilled by the gods. It’s entirely understandable that an artist of Rose’s quality should wish to measure himself against his peers, by performing and recording these works – perhaps even now the very summit of the repertoire, not for difficulty but for humanity and sublimity. Yet the hard question, is, can he – or many other equally god-gifted pianists – make these sonatas yield anything that we have not already had revealed to us in the recordings of Brendel, or Gilels, or Kempff, or Solomon? In the presence of such giants, even very, very good performances like these seem, well, a bit surplus to requirements. But if you’re untroubled by such thoughts and simply want great music superbly played, you can buy this disc with confidence.

March 2004
Phil Muse

Robert Schumann once twitted Chopin with having bound four of his wildest children together and termed the result a sonata. Ironically, the same might be said of Schumann's own piano sonatas. In fact, the greatest challenge facing the interpreter is to make coherent what unity there is in each piece, in spite of the seeming incoherence of the materials. But, as booklet annotator Harris Goldsmith puts it, Schumann "came within a stone's throw of structural mastery," and it is just this tension between aspiration and achievement that makes Schumann so fascinating. He was truly a composer whose reach exceeded his grasp - but what an amazing reach!

Nowhere do we see this more clearly than in his three Piano Sonatas in F# minor, Op.11; F minor, Op.14; and G minor, Op.22. What they require of the pianist is not only demon technical ability, but also the maturity and artistic insight of one who has lived with Schumann. Such an artist is Jerome Rose, and the results are immensely satisfying. Nowhere is the structure more discursive than in Opus 11, but Rose makes the work a plausible whole through a similarity of mood and feeling. The second movement, marked Aria, is a 3-minute effusion of love sentiment reminding us that Schumann had the pianist Clara Wieck - the future Clara Schumann - very much in mind at this time. A rambunctious Scherzo with accents (intentionally) in all the wrong places, shifting rhythms and changing points of attack, is calculated to create hazards for a performer less adept than Jerome Rose.

Opus 14 was termed by its publisher (not Schumann himself) a "concerto without orchestra," and has been trying to live down the tag ever since. Actually, despite the sonata's sprawling dimensions, it is highly idiomatic music that could only have been written for the piano. The best known movement here is the third, an Andatnino in the form of a set of freewheeling variations on a theme of Clara Wieck (Clara, again! The boy couldn't get her off his mind). The finale, conceived with Clara's technical brilliance in mind, is marked Prestissimo possible (as fast as possible), then humorously calls for the performer to play "faster still" (an impossibility which Rose does not fall for).

Likewise, Opus 22 is marked at the outset so rasch wie moglich (as fast as possible), and later on, Schumann calls for acceleration. Towards the end when the opening melody reappears, he marks it "even faster." This time, the man is on the level, and Rose builds the climax of this movement stage by stage with consummate skill. The haunting, long-lined melody of the slow movement, based on the melody of Schumann's song Im Herbst (In Autumn), contrasts effectively with the velocity of the outer movements.

May/June 2004
Susan Kagan

As shown in his recent Beethoven CD (Monarch Classics M 20012), Jerome Rose can be relied upon for straightforward, unmannered musicianship. His readings are faithful to the score and without exaggeration; he plays cleanly, and uses the pedal sparingly. The last three Schubert sonatas, like Beethoven’s last three, are profoundly individual in character and expression, and Rose is most successful in those that demand a strong and well-organized treatment. Not surprisingly, then, it is Schubert’s “Beethovenian” C-Minor Sonata, D 958, that seems to best suit Rose’s gifts. The first movement is intense and dramatic, with due attention to dynamic changes and phrasing. (It should be noted that he takes the first movement repeats in all three sonatas.) The magnificent slow movement, in Schubert’s favorite rondo form, with its stormy outbursts between calm returns of the theme, is beautifully played, with the melody singing in the right hand; Rose is especially deft at bringing out that melody when it is woven into the middle range in the final statement of the theme. The wild tarantella of the finale is brilliant—manic but controlled. Rose’s approach is very similar to that of the gifted pianist Paul Lewis, whose recent recording appeared on Harmonia Mundi. The A-Major Sonata also has its forceful moments in the first movement, but generally a more lyrical character prevails (as it does throughout most of the sonata). Rose’s reading stresses the lyrical aspects, and he plays the haunting coda most effectively. In the slow movement, characterized by highly dramatic “storm” sections (but now in a minor key), the pianist evokes the emotional content of the movement very eloquently. The Scherzo is delightfully playful and brilliant, and in the finale, the quasi-fugal section in the episode at the center of the Rondo is played with vivid contrasts between the contrapuntal voices. The B-flat Sonata, which has been recorded by myriad pianists in the last two decades, is somewhat less satisfying. In the first movement Rose seems to have problems with the piano; the left hand is bumpy, the bass trills uneven and muddy, and some notes do not sound—surely problems that could have been dealt with in recording and editing. The rest of the sonata is very good, and the tempos throughout are perfect. Finally, there is Rose’s reading of the “Wanderer” Fantasy, which is everything it should be—technically adept, fiery, meltingly lyrical in the piercing slow movement, and in brilliant command of the keyboard in the fugal finale. This performance of the “Wanderer,” perhaps Schubert’s best known large-scale piano composition, so beloved by audiences and so often recorded, ranks among the best.

December 2003
Bettina Neumann

With the classical record industry in crisis, the marketing of stars seems ever more important. But as Bettina Neumann reflects, quality isn’t always reflected in the marketplace.

As anyone with long experience of teaching young pianists can attest, many outstanding talents go largely unrewarded in the musical marketplaces of the modern world. Now in his sixties, Jerome Rose has had a perfectly respectable career, but he is very much more than a respectable pianist, and very much less than a household name, even in his native United States. It is an unfortunate accident of fate that his latest release, of the last three Schubert sonatas [Medici Classics M30072], should coincide with Perahia’s of the same repertoire (though with Rose you also get a highly commendable account of the Wanderer Fantasy). I confess that while his name was certainly familiar to me, this is the first of Rose’s recordings to come my way. And very impressive it is too. Here is a musician and pianist of uncommon authority, with an equal command of small-scale detail and large-scale structure. His tonal palette is wide-ranging, his sound, even at its biggest, is full of grandeur and intensity, while remaining a stranger to stridency, and his rhythmic vocabulary is comparably varied and deftly applied. Very occasionally he allows the meter to get the upper hand and the phrase falls victim to the beat, but on the whole there is a suppleness and asymmetry of melodic inflection without which the songfulness of Schubert can never be fully released. There is a keen understanding and projection of harmonic rhythm, and an exceptional sensitivity to the motive power of textural variety. But this checklist of virtues should not give the impression that Rose is an ‘intellectual’ or academic pianist. Far from it. He is a player of powerfully communicative instinct. The playing is consistently expressive, dramatic and tender by turns, and like Perahia, he captures the emotional ambiguity, the joy and latent anguish of the composer’s inner world, with unfettered but unshowy eloquence. Having noted that he has also recorded the three Schumann sonatas and the last three Beethoven sonatas (but not yet the three Brahms sonatas) I managed to get hold of the latter [Monarch M20012], which is equally impressive. This awe-inspiring trilogy marks the apex as well as the end of Beethoven’s career as a sonata composer and requires musicianship and technique of the highest order. Rose’s accounts can hold their own in the highest company, surpassing a goodly number of far more famous players. Pianistically even more commanding than in the Schubert (the seamless pianissimo trills near the end of Op 111 outclass a number of his most eminent ‘rivals’), Rose is closely observant of the composer’s markings but never pedantically so. And here we find no idiosyncrasy at all. There is nothing whatever to distract from the music, whose transcendent stature is never in doubt.

July-August, 2003
Steven J. Haller

This isn't new; it was recorded in 1993 and is listed in my seven-year-old Schwann as a Vox set coupled with the Transcendental Etudes (reviewed below). Jerome Rose has now started up his own label, Monarch Records, and there's even a website, http://www.jeromerose.com where these recordings and others may be found. I'm sorry it took so long for me to make their acquaintance.

Certainly this is a much better account than the Artisie with Norman Krieger reviewed a couple issues back, though his Totentanz at least offers Rose some competition. Opening with the familiar Dies Irae plainchant in the stentorian horns, Rose at once compels attention with his command of the slashing chords and crisp glissandos, then settles down for a poetic statement of the theme in more lyrical guise. Through all the shifting moods that follow, Rose demonstrates an admirable flexibility and consummate skill, expertly fielding the trenchant diablerie. Yet I was most impressed with his deeply felt treatment of the pensive Variation 4, just as his whirlwind account of the ensuing fugue had me on the edge of my seat. All through the piece it is clear that conductor Saccani was of one mind with Rose, and I am pleased that for once Variation 6 resounding in the horns was not dragged out interminably, setting up the powerful closeout.

Likewise in the E-flat Concerto Rose gives a commanding account of the opening pages, with due respect to the maestoso marking, as sonorous as you could wish; yet phrasing seems quite ex tern pore just as it surely was with Liszt. In fact, I found it rather refreshing that even in a standard like this you could never be sure how he'd play out the next phrase--yet it is always at the service of the music, an illuminating treatment of the solo line. In the quasi adagio section, Rose is deeply affecting, allowing the music to unfold in timeless fashion; indeed, I could imagine Liszt at the keyboard, lost in thought and no doubt gently swaying from side to side. Rose nimbly traverses the fanciful allegretto vivace, yet exhibits an enchanting delicacy, bringing out the humor of the piece as if with tongue in cheek, with the aid of the insistent triangle. But it's clear from the return of the opening statement and the closing allegro marziale animato that Rose is not concerned merely with effect, even in this music that fairly cries out for such treatment; there's fire and flash aplenty, but there is weight as well, though even Rose can't resist that last sprint to the final bar.

The A-major Concerto is a far more reflective work that calls for a certain restraint, and the unhurried opening pages set the pace. Rose enters gently, reverently, yet without ever losing sight of the long line, soon joining with the solo cello in a rapt colloquy. As the music gathers in strength, Rose gives it the grand treatment, building to the bold and brassy climax some six minutes in. Yet clearly for Rose the emotional center of the concerto is the tempo del andante that follows, deeply felt and satisfying. With the return of the full orchestra (allegro deciso) the Budapest trombones go all out; and following a gratefully lyrical reading of the songful un poco meno mosso, Rose and the Hungarian players join forces for an effective close.

Given that the recording dates back some years, a trace of hardness in louder passages may be forgiven; and although the top end of the piano can be a mite clattery (as in the opening glissandos of Totentanz), the deep bass more than compensates. This is not a airing of the Liszt concertos that explores hidden meanings in every phrase like Richter or goes all out for visceral excitement like Janis; these are quite simply exemplary performances at a low cost that will make a splendid introduction to the music, and the excellent notes by Richard Freed are almost worth the price of admission.

January/February 2003
Susan Kagan

Jerome Rose displays his strengths as a versatile musician in this new recording of that magnum opus for piano, the three last sonatas of Beethoven. The pianist’s previous recordings (some originally on the Vox Classics label) have concentrated on the Romantic repertoire—Chopin, Schumann, and Liszt—where his brilliant technique has been shown to advantage. The demands of late Beethoven require a good deal more from a pianist in the way of feeling and expression, and Rose meets them admirably. An overall observation is that he follows the score with scrupulous fidelity in regard to dynamics, tempo changes, and other aspects of Beethoven’s expressive indications. (Since Rose was a student of Leonard Shure, and thus a second-generation adherent of the Schnabel tradition, one would hardly expect less.)

Most notable throughout this program is the propulsive energy in the fast movements that characterized Rose’s Schumann disc (Fanfare 19:3). In the opening movement of op. 111, he tears into the Allegro with an almost reckless abandon (but clearly in full control). The contrasts in dynamics and changes in tempo throughout the first movement of op. 109—indeed, throughout all three sonatas—are carefully followed. In the first movement of opus 110, with its meditative character, Rose plays with considerable flexibility of tempo, making the most of the small climaxes and nuances of rubato indicated by Beethoven. He handles technical difficulties with fluent ease; the long trills at the end of op. 111 are seamless; the counterpoint of the fugal sections, and especially the two fugues of op. 110, is clearly delineated. The finale of op. 110 is magnificent, as the pianist moves from the haunting recitative (where Beethoven calls for five changes of tempo within four measures) through the shifts between Arioso dolente and fugue, to the magisterial stretto that ends the final fugue.

In short, this release recalls the virtues of Pollini’s admirable traversal of these works, with even a bit more fire and intensity.

January/February 2003
Peter Burwasser

It is very instructive that these sonatas are presented in chronological order. One hears, with the op. 11, written when the composer was 25, the Schumann signature intact. Here is headstrong emotion and theatricality, a bold and original sense of harmony, and a depth and complexity of texture that now sounds like a precursor to the monster works of the 20th century for solo piano by Boulez, Messiaen, Carter, Barraque, and others. But there is, as well, a certain callowness, or over ambition, that can render the music a bit clattery and even tiresome. Certainly the final movement, which clocks in at 11 and one-half minutes in Rose’s performance, seems to go on forever.

By the time Schumann gets to the so-called “Concerto Without an Orchestra” (the pretentious subtitle was supplied by the first publisher, not the composer), a quality of maturity imbues the music, which has greater cohesion and a more refined dove-tailing of motifs, although it too, in this listener’s humble opinion, seems too long, for all its brilliance. The Sonata in G Minor is a little more than half the length of the preceding two, and this concision is highly welcome, especially as it is accompanied by a profusion of striking melodic and harmonic ideas. This last sonata of Schumann is, both formally and by virtue of content, the strongest of the three.

American pianist Jerome Rose has made the music of Schumann a central part of his repertoire, and the insights and intimacy that he reveals in this voluptuous material are deeply satisfying. He eschews the sort of grandiose, noisy manner exemplified by Horowitz in his famous reading of op. 14, instead offering clarity and rhythmic logic. Rose cannot render the exuberance of Schumann with any particular sense of control, nor should he have to. Because of the miracle of recorded sound, we can dip in and out of this glorious sound world at will, sampling sweet morsels a bit at a time, or tearing into big chunks of rich, gooey cake with ravenous gluttony.

March/April 2003
Michael Ullman

When I was first learning about classical music in some detail, my like-minded friends and I—all indigent—often focused on inexpensive items like Vox boxes. I discovered Brendel that way, but I know I first heard of Jerome Rose through his Vox recordings of Liszt, recordings many people adored. I had, and still have, a problem listening to Liszt, who seems to me uncomfortably sentimental when he is not being outrageously showy. Transcendental? Bosh, as a Dickens character would (politely) say.

So I never warmed to Rose either. Recently, though, Rose has responded boldly to a lull in his recording career by starting his own record company, Monarch Classics, which so far features his own recordings. Fanfare readers will already have encountered Susan Kagan’s glowing account of Rose’s (and Monarch’s) recording of late Beethoven sonatas, as well as Peter Burwasser’s review of the first of a Jerome Rose Schumann series. With those recordings, and with this second Schumann disc and the Chopin reviewed elsewhere in this issue, Rose has moved into a repertoire that is much more to my taste. I am just now appreciating the depth and range of Rose’s musicianship, his technical facility, of course, but also the disciplined passion of his playing, its nuanced energy, and frequent charm. There’s the almost innocent grace with which he approaches the middle section of the fourth number of Kreisleriana. It is marked Sehr langsam, an indication that Rose takes seriously. His rendition is considerably slower than the equally admirable recording by Pollini issued last year on Deutsche Grammophon.

That is not to criticize Pollini. These short works, and the playful numbers of the Davidsbundlertanze, respond well to varied treatments. Rose’s is notable for its sobriety as well as occasional dash, for the touching poise and restraint we hear on pieces like “Wie aus der Ferne,” and for his vigor and humor on the piece marked “Wild und lustig.” The challenge of these short pieces is not, as with late Beethoven, to illuminate the deep structure of the work while intriguing us with the details. Rather, a pianist needs to express the varied moods— innocently wistful, humorous, exuberant—found here without emphasizing the frequent technical difficulties. Rose is everywhere successful at conveying Schumann’s shifting moods without pulling the pieces apart. This is, in short, a superior Schumann recording, to be placed alongside Pollini’s and compared to old favorites such as the Annie Fischer Kreisleriana. A minor glitch. The track listings go up to 27, but that is only because number 23 has been skipped on the listing. This error shows that Rose, pianist, businessman, scholar, and promoter of good music, is fallible.

March/April 2003
Michael Ullman

Jerome Rose was a student of Leonard Schure, who was a student of Schnabel. That direct, though segmented, connection with my favorite classical pianist interests me, as it did Fanfare’s Peter Rabinowitz, whose interview with Rose appeared in the January/February 2003 issue. Schnabel’s playing provoked in me, as in many others, a rapt attention to the overall structure as well as the details of a piece, even as lengthy a piece as the “Hammerklavier” sonata. That attention depended of course on the pianist’s handling of each phrase, as well as his instinct for rhythmic structure. At his best, Schnabel illuminated every note while eschewing local effects. He made the moment significant while simultaneously allowing us to escape it through its relationship to the whole. Of course, Schnabel wasn’t particularly interested in Chopin, let alone Liszt, whom he used to demonstrate bad music to students. Liszt was nonetheless an early specialty of Jerome Rose, who has newly recorded the four Chopin Ballades. Perhaps Rose’s early repertoire (he’s recently recorded late Beethoven) was his way of dealing with the anxiety of influence, or perhaps it’s just independence.

He shows that independence in his Chopin playing. I hope it is not a sign of intellectual laziness on my part that, although I admire greatly the performances by Pollini, Ashkenazy, Richter, and Perahia, for instance, my favorite performance of the four Chopin Ballades is the first that I knew: Artur Rubinstein’s from 1959, now reissued as part of the Rubinstein collection. That said, I find much of what Jerome Rose does here bewitching: It is in some ways freer, more whimsical, with greater contrasts, than Rubinstein’s. Rose muses a bit on the First Ballade, for instance, pushes the tempo expectantly, and then moves towards large climaxes. Some of his phrases seem to come in bursts. At least in comparison to Rubinstein, he stresses the bold whimsicality of Chopin’s writing, its quicksilver shifts. That doesn’t sound like a Schnabel disciple, yet these ballades respond to many interpretative approaches, and Rose manages to hold each piece together in a satisfying way. He plays the quiet opening phrases of the Fourth Ballade innocently but with just enough of a hint of the energetic development to come. The Fantasy shows, unsurprisingly, a similar technique and approach. Rose’s ballades are convincing performances by a major pianist.

2003
Jed Distler

Casual browsers in search of Beethoven's last three piano sonatas understandably might pass over this release in light of numerous more distinguished versions crowding the bins. However, it's their loss, for Jerome Rose's superb pianism and insightful musicianship easily holds its own in the company of Kempff, Arrau, Serkin, Gulda, Goode, Hungerford, Frank, and most recently, Freddy Kempf. Rose is less concerned with color than Arrau or Kempff: his gaunt, compact sonority and dynamic intensity is closer to Gulda, Frank, and Serkin (the latter with whom he studied). Rose barely pauses between Op. 109's first two movements, and serves up the music in impassioned, flexible paragraphs. The slow-moving chords that make up the variation movement's theme take on the character of a string quartet by way of Rose's focused voice leading. You can argue that the chains of trills don't reach Schnabelean or Arrauvian heights of ecstasy, or that Variation Three's knotty 16th-notes are not so crisply dispatched as those of Gould, Richter, or Goode. But Op. 110 proves no less inspired and detailed through Rose's generally fleet and suave reading. As with Op. 109, Rose also makes a clear distinction between Beethoven's legato versus non-slurred phrasing (second movement, bars 25-26 and similar places).

If Op. 111's first-movement introduction is broad to the point of standing still (the downward suspensions in bars 11 through 13 are static and self-conscious), the pianist's hurling sweep takes Beethoven's Allegro con brio ed appasionato directive at more than face value--and we readily forgive a few untidy moments in the heat of battle. Rose begins the Arietta with hushed concentration, although the momentum slackens as the variations progress, when Rose unwittingly un-syncopates some of the jazzy dotted rhythms (here Pollini's proficiency remains awesome). All told, this release constitutes some of Jerome Rose's finest playing on disc.