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Claude Loyola Allgén's Fantasia - A Mess or a Masterpiece? · The Piano Maven with Jed Distler

• 0:07
  This is Jed Disler, and welcome to The Piano
• 0:10
  Maven, your friendly podcast guide to piano recordings.
• 0:14
  Paid subscribers get downloads at the start of
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  each month and access to Zoom chats, and a new
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  feature you will also get that will preview the
• 0:26
  content of upcoming episodes. You can find a
• 0:29
  link in the episode's description to my Substack
• 0:33
  page where you can subscribe. So please consider
• 0:37
  a subscription to help keep the Piano Maven afloat
• 0:41
  and in operation. On September 18th, 1990, the
• 0:46
  70 -year -old Swedish composer Claude Loyola
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  Algen was tragically burned to death as a fire
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  swept through his house. home. Apparently, he
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  had fallen asleep with a lit candle, which was
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  the only source of power in his home. The composer
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  had lived in poverty for many, many years, and
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  the utilities company had shut off the electricity
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  when he stopped paying the bills. As a consequence,
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  many of Algen's manuscript scores were destroyed,
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  although a good number did survive the tragedy.
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  Over the course of his 70 years, Algen composed
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  prolifically, and he often turned out works of
• 1:35
  great length and complexity. For example, there's
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  an unaccompanied violin sonata that he wrote,
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  I think in 1989, that lasts around two hours
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  and 40 minutes, and in fact it's been recorded.
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  By contrast, his largest solo piano opus that
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  I'm aware of is a mere bagatelle. And because
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  it clocks in at only around 49 minutes. And it
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  is this work, the Piano Fantasia, that I'm going
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  to talk about on this episode. But let me talk
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  about Algen first. He was born in Calcutta, but
• 2:16
  raised in Sweden. basically operated most of
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  his life outside of the proverbial box, fancying
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  himself as a kind of outlier in the musical community.
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  Now, there have been lots of composers who had
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  a similar attitude, who did this by choice and
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  by temperament. Think about Sarabji, for example,
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  or Alan Pedersen, or my late friend Andrew Violette.
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  Like some of these composers, Algen had a reputation
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  for eccentricity, as well as being difficult
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  to deal with. And that partially explained the
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  lack of recognition throughout most of his career,
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  along with his general isolation from the musical
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  mainstream. Anyway... A pianist named Mats Persson
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  got wind of this Fantasia by Algen, and he managed
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  to get a copy of the score and to eventually
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  meet Algen in person. And Mats Persson devoted
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  lots of time toward mastering the Fantasia. And
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  in 1999, his commercial recording of the Fantasia
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  appeared. on a label called Alice Music Production,
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  and it came with really extensive and valuable
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  annotations. It was really quite a production
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  and a very beautiful package in terms of its
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  presentation. I actually did not receive this
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  particular disc for review. I had heard about
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  the Algen Fantasia purely by chance, and of course
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  I was intrigued. So I started doing deep research
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  before I eventually managed to find a copy of
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  this rare disc through a record store in Milan
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  in Italy that specialized in rare and hard -to
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  -find CDs and LPs, the store called La Bottega
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  Discantica. Now, it was not cheap, I admit, but
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  of course now you can find this recording on
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  YouTube. Anyway, when I listened to Algen's Fantasia
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  for the first time, I couldn't decide if this
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  big work was a hodgepodge of disconnected ideas
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  or a cleverly ordered collage of sorts. I still
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  can't make up my mind. So I'm really curious
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  what you will think about this work. So I've
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  included a YouTube link to this recording that
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  is accompanied by a scrolling score. When Mats
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  Persson first looked at the score, his first
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  thoughts basically were, oh my God, what a mess.
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  You've got all of these stylistically diverse
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  ideas flying. all over the place helter skelter
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  there are rainstorms of dissonant counterpoint
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  and then all of a sudden you have a habanera
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  that pops up out of nowhere and it sounds not
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  unlike that habanera from Bizet's opera Carmen
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  and then you find patches of obsessive repetition
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  for which purpose I have no clue and there are
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  also are lyrical melodies from time to time that
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  sound like they're being improvised by a barroom
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  piano player at three in the morning. Some sections
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  of the Fantasia contain really ingenuous piano
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  writing, but other parts sound as if Algen had
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  absolutely no clue about how to write effectively
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  for the piano. You're going back and forth between
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  music that's relatively clear and accessible,
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  plus passages that just don't seem to make a
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  lick of sense. So all I can say is that you give
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  Claude Loyola Algin's Fantasia a try. Maybe you'll
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  get impatient after the first five or ten minutes,
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  as I first did. But really, try to make the attempt
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  to tough it out for its 49 -minute duration.
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  I mean, you have no trouble sitting through mindless
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  TV shows or wasting 49 minutes on social media
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  looking through your Instagram or Facebook accounts.
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  So as such, I think you can probably give...
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  49 minutes of your time over to experiencing
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  this admittedly problematic, yet genuinely fascinating
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  work. This is Jed Disler, and you've been listening
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  to The Piano Maven, your friendly podcast guide
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  to piano recordings. And let me know what you
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  think about the Algen Fantasia. I'm very curious.
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  And in the meantime, I look forward to being
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  with you for our next episode.