Robert Nathaniel Dett - Piano Suite "Enchantment"

Performed by Kamilla Kakhkharova Bendersky. May 2021, Seully Hall.
The recording was done by Vladyslav Ustiuhov.
PROGRAM NOTES
Robert Nathaniel Dett (October 11, 1882 - October 2, 1943) was a Canadian-American Black composer, organist, pianist, and music professor. The piano suite “Enchantment” was written by R. Dett in 1922. “Enchantment” is a unique example of Dett’s ability to combine a variety of musical and pianistic styles with African-American folk songs and spirituals to create his own distinct individual sound world. Dett’s piano music is highly expressive, full of dramatism, virtuosity, and beautiful heartfelt melodies. Just by looking at Dett’s score, one could see a connection to composers like Listz, Debussy, Chopin, and Grieg. However, his music offers a new take on 19th-20th century romantic pianism. In this piano suite dramatism, expressivity and virtuosity are fused together with bold modulations, tonal ambiguity, and dashing African folk tunes.
"Enchantment" is a programmatic piece consisting of four movements. Similar to Liszt’s Years of Pilgrimage Dett uses a short poem by Adam Gottlob Oehlenschläger (1779 - 1850), a Danish poet and playwright, for a programmatic source:
“What seek you? Say! And what do you expect?”
“I know not what: the Unknown I would have!”
“What’s known to me is endless; I would go Beyond the end. The last word still is wanting.”
Additionally, a short description is preceded each movement.
The first movement (00:05) - “INCANTATION”: “a soul obsessed by a desire for the unattainable, journeying on an endless quest, wanders into a pagan temple, and there yields to an overpowering impulse of the moment to utter Incantation before the shrine of an unknown goddess.”
The second movement (05:16) - “SONG OF THE SHRINE'': “from somewhere far within the shrine a mysterious voice answers - a voice of molten melody singing love that may not be.”
The third movement (09:45) - “DANCE OF DESIRE”: “a drum beats, and a gong sounds; strange shapes assemble for a carnival of passion, into whose company and revelry the soul finds itself drawn irresistibly. In the urge of the music, the Incantation mingles with the now mocking Song of the Shrine. After a mad swirl, there is a final crash, at the sound of which the apparitions vanish.”
The fourth movement (13:40) - “BEYOND THE DREAM”: “and, as in a vision, the soul sees itself transfigured, appearing unto itself as an ever-shifting shoal of pale, opalescent fire, from which there rises in a visible exhalation, like smoke from smoldering incense, the still unsatisfied longing for the unattainable.”