"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross."
-- Sinclair Lewis
Friday, May 18, 2012
Sunday Classics preview: Beginning at the beginning, we listen to Beethoven's first piano sonata
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Was Glenn Gould a tad, er, eccentric? To put it mildly. Was he also a bloody genius? Just listen.
by Ken
Our magic number this week is 32 -- the number of piano sonatas Beethoven wrote, ranging in date of composition from 1795 to 1822. You would think that the last sonatas, in which Beethoven carries the form into his new modes of musical understanding, would be the hardest to play. They're certainly not easy, the the early sonatas, rooted as they are in the world of Haydn and Mozart and yet unmistakably partaking of not just a new voice but a new way of hearing the world, are actually harder for most pianists.
The shining exception was Glenn Gould, who was an exception to an awful lot of "you would expect"-type rules. Back in December 2008, thinking about Tchaikovsky's general coolness toward Beethoven --
sent me back to thinking about the late Glenn Gould (1932-1982), the eccentric (to put it mildly) Canadian pianist, who had something close to unmitigated contempt for later Beethoven. Unlike most of us, who see the composer's artistic development as a process of unparalleled broadening and deepening, Gould thought Beethoven became ponderous, pompous, and tedious -- generally unbearable.
Again, this doesn't tell us nearly as much about Beethoven as it does about Gould, but that's still much less interesting than the case Gould made on behalf of the earlier Beethoven works, both in his writings and, in the case of the piano works, in his performances. To the works he believed in, he brought to bear the full resources of his singular imagination, and as a result, many of the earlier sonatas -- works too often thought of as way stations on the path to the composer's "greater" later sonatas -- achieve an emotional stature we rarely encounter.
(Among the Beethoven string quartets, you shouldn't be surprised to learn that Gould had no sympathy for the late ones, reckoned by most of us the composer's most searching and visionary imaginings, and not much more for the daring middle ones. But the Early Quartets, the six quartets of Op. 18 -- ah, these he loved! What a shame it is that we can't hear performances of them lit up with the kind of passion, not a word we often associate with the severely repressed Gould, and insight that abound in Gould's performances of the early sonatas.)
Tonight, finally, I'm going to try to make good on those claims about the passion and insight that imbue GG's performances of early Beethoven. For contrast, we're going to hear his rendering of the F minor Sonata, Op. 2, No. 1, alongside that of the greatest Beethoven pianist of them all, Artur Schnabel.
We've heard Schnabel play Beethoven before: in March 2010 the first movement of the Fourth Piano Concerto from the first recording of the piece I got to know, Schnabel's with Frederick Stock and the Chicago Symphony and his recording of the Farewell (Lebewohl, or Les Adieux) Sonata, No. 27 and the childlike little bagatelle Für Elise; and in March 2010 a composite performance of the Fourth Piano Concerto assembled from his three commercial recordings of the piece. His Op. 2, No. 1 is remarkable in its own right (with Schnabel you never get "generic"-sounding performances of anything), but almost (gasp!) conventional in approach next to Gould's performance.
Gould jumps the piece far beyond the musical world of Haydn and Mozart, which seems ironic considering his feelings about Beethoven's evolution toward his later modes of musical thinking. But again, I'm not so much interested in the theories as in the results. Just listen to the unforced yet heroic drive of the Menuetto.
BEETHOVEN: Piano Sonata No. 1 in F minor, Op. 2, No. 1: i. Allegro ii. Adagio iii. Menuetto iv. Prestissimo
Artur Schnabel, piano. EMI, recorded in London, Apr. 23-24 and 28, 1934
Glenn Gould, piano. CBS/Sony, recorded in Toronto, Nov. 9, 1974
Sunday Classics: In the piano concertos, we hear Beethoven in hard-fought sort-of-harmony with the universe
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No less than Van Cliburn introduces the piano-playing Serkins, Rudolf (1903-1991) and Peter (born 1947), playing Schubert's four-hand Military March in G, D. 733, No. 2, on the occasion of Serkin père's 85th birthday in 1988, from a 1988 concert featuring 26 pianists, issued by VAI.
"Rudolf Serkin was once asked, jokingly of course, if Beethoven had composed the Choral Fantasy for Marlboro. The piece has everything Marlboro could have wanted for its final concert: an orchestra in which everyone could play; solos within the orchestra; ensemble playing among various instruments; piano solo; and a chorus for everyone else in the Marlboro community. Rudolf Serkin responded, with his characteristic smile, 'No, Beethoven didn't compose it for Marlboro.... But he approves.'"
What Christopher Serkin, a distinguished law professor, discreetly doesn't mention here -- though his last name is certainly suggestive -- is that Rudolf Serkin, a co-founder of the Marlboro Music Festival who was for decades its presiding artistic spirit -- was his grandfather, and Peter Serkin, whom he later mentions conducts the Choral Fantasy performance included in this Marlboro anniversary issue, is his uncle. (Peter Serkin, while a dramatically different sort of musician from his father, established himself at an early age as one of the leading pianists of his generation. It's kind of weird, for me at least, to think that young Peter is now in his 60s.)
Not many serious music people take the Choral Fantasy seriously, and for a long time I didn't get either. At some point the pieces fell into place, and that was thanks mostly to Rudolf Serkin's recordings. However, I was unaccountably unaware of something Christopher Serkin points out in his comment: "For almost 40 years, the Choral Fantasy was the last piece in the last [Marlboro Festival] concert of the summer." He goes on:
Especially in recent years when Marlboro has been exclusively a chamber music festival, the Choral Fantasy was the one time during the summer when all of the chamber musicians would come together into an orchestra, and the results were invariably magical. In any given year, the orchestra would include a mixture of some of the great luminaries of the musical world playing alongside brilliant younger musicians -- soloists and chamber musicians briefly forming an orchestra. For that one moment, it could be the greatest orchestra in the world. . . .
Despite all of the remarkable Choral Fantasy performances over the years, this CD marks the first time that a Marlboro recording of the piece has been released. Whatever one's view of the work itself, it represents Marlboro to many of us who have spent summers there.
[Note: You know where Amazon asks, at the end of each "customer review," "Was this review helpful to you?" When I looked, "27 out of 28 people found the following review helpful." I made it 28 out of 29. I'm wondering what the deal is with the person who didn't find this review helpful.]
We're going to talk more about the piece later. For now, let's just plunge into Serkin's first recording, made in 1962 as the second-side LP filler for his new recording of the Beethoven Third Concerto with Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic.
BEETHOVEN: Fantasy in C for Piano, Chorus, and Orchestra, Op. 80
The most obvious observation to be made is that the Choral Fantasy of 1808 (thus at roughly the time of the Sixth Symphony, the Pastoral is a dry run for the monumental finale of the Ninth Symphony, which culminates in a setting of Schiller's Ode to Joy including four vocal soloists and chorus, composed more than a decade later. As in the finale of the Ninth, Beethoven takes us through a winding, surprise-filled landscape before we reach the unexpected choral destination. Wikipedia has German and English texts in a pleasantly sympathetic article on the Choral Fantasy, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choral_Fantasy. Here's Decca's translation:
Enticingly fair and lovely sound the harmonies of our life, and from a sense of beauty arise glowers that bloom forever.
Peace and joy flow hand in hand like the changing play of the waves; what was crowded together in chaos and hostility now shapes itself into exalted feeling.
When music's enchantment reigns and poetry's consecration speaks, wondrous things take shape; night and storm change to light.
Outer peace, inner bliss are the rulers of the happy man. But the spring sun of the arts causes light to flow from both.
Great things that have penetrated the heart blossom anew and beautifully on high, and the spirit that has soared up is always echoed by a chorus of spirits.
Take them, then, you noble souls, gladly, these gifts of noble art. When love and strength are wedded together mankind is rewarded with divine grace.
Rudolf Serkin, piano; Westminster Choir, New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein, cond. Columbia/CBS/Sony, recorded May 1, 1962
THERE'S SOMETHING SPECIAL ABOUT BEETHOVEN'S FIVE PIANO CONCERTOS
It may be with his five piano concertos that Beethoven's link to Mozart feels most direct. They were written more than anything for the composers' own use, as exceedingly public demonstrations of what they could do. The concerto we know as Beethoven's Second could be one that Mozart never lived to write.
(Let's get the numbering straight: No, I'm not concerned about the earlier concerto or two Beethoven wrote. The "canon" is appropriately five concertos. But the first two have come down to us numbered wrong. The one we know as No. 2, which could pass for a concerto Mozart never lived to write, was composed first, and then "No. 1," the mighty C major Concerto, which recalls Mozart's grandest concerto, No. 25, also in C major, and expands it yet another step.)
The C major Concerto is thought to have been written in 1798 and revised in 1800, whereupon Beethoven seems to have set to work almost immediately on a companion piece in C minor, which also has an illustrious antecedent in Mozart's No. 24. We've already heard the finale of Beethoven's C minor Concerto. Let's listen now to the whole thing, in what I'm calling an "all-Rubinstein performance," assembled from his first three recordings of the piece. (I didn't consider using the fourth, from his third and final Beethoven concerto cycle, from 1975, with his young keyboard colleague Daniel Barenboim conducting, which I actually quite like, for all the evidence of Rubinstein's advancing age. But I don't have it on CD, which I guess says something about just how much I like it, at least relative to the earlier versions.)
BEETHOVEN: Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, Op. 37 ALL-RUBINSTEIN PERFORMANCE
i. Allegro con brio
Arthur Rubinstein, piano; Symphony of the Air, Josef Krips, cond. RCA/BMG, recorded April 1956 ii. Largo
Arthur Rubinstein, piano; Boston Symphony Orchestra, Erich Leinsdorf, cond. RCA/BMG, recorded Apr. 5-6, 1965 iii. Rondo: Allegro
Arthur Rubinstein, piano; NBC Symphony Orchestra, Arturo Toscanini, cond. RCA/BMG, recorded live, Oct. 29, 1944
ABOUT THE THIRD CONCERTO'S LINEAGE
You don't have to take my word -- listen for yourself. It seemed obvious to go with hour honorees Rubinstein and Serkin (and then, which of their recordings?), so I just picked one of each.
MOZART: Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor, K. 491: i. Allegro
Arthur Rubinstein, piano; RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra, Josef Krips, cond. RCA/BMG, recorded Apr. 20, 1958
Rudolf Serkin, piano; London Symphony Orchestra, Claudio Abbado, cond. DG, recorded October 1985
BEETHOVEN: Piano Concerto No. 1 in C, Op. 15: i. Allegro con brio
Arthur Rubinstein, piano; Boston Symphony Orchestra, Erich Leinsdorf, cond. RCA/BMG, recorded Dec. 20, 1967
Rudolf Serkin, piano; Boston Symphony Orchestra, Seiji Ozawa, cond. Telarc, recorded Oct. 5, 1983
Here, then, is an "all-star" performance of the Third Concerto.
BEETHOVEN: Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, Op. 37 ALL-STAR PERFORMANCE
i. Allegro con brio
Murray Perahia, piano; Concertgebouw Orchestra, Bernard Haitink, cond. CBS/Sony, recorded c1985 ii. Largo
Sviatoslav Richter, piano; Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Kurt Sanderling, cond. DG, recorded Sept. 28-30, 1962 iii. Rondo: Allegro
Rudolf Firkusny, piano; Philharmonia Orchestra, Walter Süsskind, cond. EMI, recorded c1958
We've already talked about the remarkable opening of Beethoven's Fourth Concerto, in last night's preview, so why don't we just go right into it? Note that the scale of the concluding Rondo has grown conspicuously over its predecessor, but between these mammoth outer movements, Beethoven chose to go short with the slow movement, which is nevertheless a piece of considerable emotional weight. Our "all-Schnabel performance" consists of one movement from each of Since Artur Schnabel's three recordings (about which more in a moment).
BEETHOVEN: Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, Op. 58 ALL-SCHNABEL PERFORMANCE
i. Allegro moderato
Artur Schnabel, piano; London Philharmonic Orchestra, Malcolm Sargent, cond. HMV/EMI, recorded Feb. 16, 1933 ii. Andante con moto
Artur Schnabel, piano; Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Frederick Stock, cond. RCA/BMG, recorded 1942 iii. Rondo: Vivace
Artur Schnabel, piano; Philharmonia Orchestra, Issay Dobrowen, cond. HMV/EMI, recorded June 5-7, 1946
Schnabel's 1932-35 Beethoven concerto cycle remains a recording landmark, not just historically but musically, and again -- as with the Pearl transfers of the equally legendary Beethoven sonata recordings -- my piano maven Leo tipped me off to one transfer from the 78s that's so far superior to any other he's heard as to make it an all-or-nothing proposition. This one, however, is readily available: It's Naxos's, done by Mark Obert-Thorn.
THE LATER SCHNABEL BEETHOVEN CONCERTOS
In 1946-47 EMI had the excellent idea of rerecording Schnabel in the Beethoven concertos, taking advantage of all the improvements in recording technology, and two concertos were recorded each year. (In 1942, as we know, Schnabel had rerecorded No. 4 with the Chicago Symphony under Frederick Stock. They also recorded No. 5, the Emperor. Schnabel never did rerecord No. 1.)
Even though Schnabel was still Schnabel -- and it should be said that, while he put up with it, he hated the recording process -- and two very good conductors, Issay Dobrowen and Alceo Galliera, were engaged (though Galliera, who was brought in for the 1947 Emperor, was only 37, and possibly more influenceable if anyone had wished to influence him), not many music lovers have ever been wildly enthusiastic about the remakes, which objectively seem like Schnabel performances but just don't seem to have the inner life of the real thing. (This sounds horribly pat coming so soon after my vicious attack on Walter Legge for systematically draining outstanding musicians' recorded performances of the connective tissue that made their real performances sound so different, but the symptoms do seem to fit. Do I have to tell you who produced those 1946-47 recordings?
With that, let's have one final go at the Fourth Concerto:
BEETHOVEN: Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, Op. 58 ALL-STAR PERFORMANCE
i. Allegro moderato
Leon Fleisher, piano; Cleveland Orchestra, George Szell, cond. Epic/CBS/Sony, recorded Jan. 10, 1959 ii. Andante con moto
Wilhelm Kempff, piano; Berlin Philharmonic, Ferdinand Leitner, cond. DG, recorded July 1961 iii. Rondo: Vivace
Emil Gilels, piano; Philharmonia Orchestra, Leopold Ludwig, cond. EMI, recorded Apr. 26-May 1, 1957
THE LINE ENDS WITH THE EMPEROR
After the Fourth Concerto, Beethoven did return to the piano concerto once more, to produce the grandest and most majestic of the series, the Emperor. It's possible that this is as far as he could have taken the concerto form, but we'll never know, because although his voluminous musical sketchbooks do contain sketches for a sixth concerto, it was never written, and apparently for the simplest of reasons: The composer's hearing had deteriorated to the point where public performance with an orchestra was no longer a realistic possibility.
His most remarkable music was yet to be written, and in a quantity that seems astonishing under the circumstances. But it was increasingly music that he heard only in his head, and not surprisingly his gaze turned increasingly inward. He also had increasingly less need of a form that enabled him to express harmony, however hard-fought, with the universe.
TO RETURN FINALLY TO THE CHORAL FANTASY
Though its opus number is higher, the Choral Fantasy was written shortly before the Emperor, and while it can seem like a wild hodgepodge, to its admirers its wildness is one of its glories.
I'm not going to attempt a detailed analysis. Wikipedia's article, as I noted earlier, does a surprisingly effective job of it. I'm just going to suggest a way of listening to it, focusing on the hysterically overwrought piano solo that occupies roughly the first four minutes.
I think it's important to recognize that it is overwrought. I've just been listening to Vladimir Ashkenazy's self-conducted recording, which rounds out the Beethoven concerto cycle from which we heard the first movement of the Fourth Concerto last night. Ashkenazy plays the music with the utmost beauty; I'm quite sure I've never heard it played with this roundness and finish of tone. He makes it all sound quite logical, quite reasonable, and really rather unintersting, even pointless. Not surprisingly, his performance really has nowhere to go from there.
I don't want to suggest anything quite as extreme as "parody," but there is definitely the sense of a grand orator, a rhetorician trying desperately to express matters too grand and important to be readily within reach, at least at this particular moment, and coming off as maybe slightly hysterical. I'm not sure I would go so far as to suggest that it's even "humorous," but surely there is something going on in the innards of this solo, which doesn't seem able to figure out where it's trying to get let alone how to get there. The word "ironic" comes to mind, or maybe better "laconic."
And here we're in terrain where Rudolf Serkin ruled. I know I'm risking accusations of gross ethnic stereotyping, but I don't think of Germans as being an especially humorous people. Oh sure, there are funny Germans, but by and large it doesn't seem to be a trait that comes quite naturally. But irony, laconic-ness (laconicity?), a sense of the wry -- this is something that is far from uncommon among cultured Germans, and this I sense Serkin had a large supply of. Attitudinally, in other words, I think he was born to champion the Choral Fantasy.
BEETHOVEN: Fantasy in C for Piano, Chorus, and Orchestra, Op. 80
Rudolf Serkin, piano; Nan Nall (s), Beverly Morgan (ms), Shirley Close (ms), Gene Tucker (t), Sanford Sylvan (b), David Evitts (b), Marlboro Festival Chorus and Orchestra, Peter Serkin, cond. Sony, recorded live, Aug. 9, 1981
When the orchestra finally makes its relatively inconspicuous entrance, there's a sort of sense that it's extending a hand, trying to guide the piano gently back from the precipice. And sure enough, with a little working out the piano is able to get it together enough to announce, now with some confidence, the simple, charming little ditty that will eventually provide the grand vocal finale in the way that the dittylike "Ode to Joy" tune later would in the finale of the Ninth Symphony. Whereupon the orchestra takes up the tune for a set of quite charming variations, at first with minimal contribution from the piano, which eventually rallies to make its own contribution.
As I mentioned last night, there is now a fourth commercially issued Serkin recording of the Choral Fantasy, with Orfeo's release of the Beethoven concerto cycle he did in 1977 with Rafael Kubelik and the Bavarian Radio Symphony, which included the Choral Fantasy. Now that I know it exists, I'll be watching for a copy that falls within my "cheapskate" price range, but for the moment you're spared.
We do have one last recording, though, and this one has the best singers and chorus.
BEETHOVEN: Fantasy in C for Piano, Chorus, and Orchestra, Op. 80
Rudolf Serkin, piano; Faye Robinson (s), Mary Burgess (s), Lili Chookasian (c), Kenneth Riegel (t), David Gordon (b), Julien Robbins (bs); Tanglewood Festival Chorus, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Seiji Ozawa, cond. Telarc, recorded Oct. 2 and 4, 1982
REVIEWING THIS WEEK'S PREVIEWS
Friday:Beethoven and the "heart of the piano concerto" Rondo from Piano Concerto No. 3 played by Arthur Rubinstein, with the Symphony of the Air under Josef Krips); also by Krystian Zimerman (video, with the Vienna Philharmonic under Leonard Bernstein) and by Evgeny Kissin (with the London Symphony under Sir Colin Davis). Plus Rubinstein "Beethoven bonus": Moonlight Sonata.
Saturday:Down in the basement with Beethoven 1st movement of Concerto No. 4, played by Artur Schnabel, with the Chicago Symphony under Frederick Stock (1942); also by Claudio Arrau (video, with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Riccardo Muti), by Arthur Rubinstein (with the Symphony of the Air under Krips), and by Vladimir Ashkenazy (also conducting the Cleveland Orchestra). Plus Schnabel "Beethoven bonuses": Sonata No. 27 in E minor, Op. 90; Bagatelle, Für Elise.
Sunday Classics preview: Down in the basement with Beethoven
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In a state of grace, Claudio Arrau plays the first part of the first movement of Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto, with Riccardo Muti conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra. (The rest of the movement is here.)
by Ken
Last night I related how Beethoven's Third Piano Concerto intruded on my musical consciousness, thanks to the inclusion of the concluding Rondo on RCA's Arthur Rubinstein compilation LP Heart of the Piano Concerto. It was by far my favorite of the six movements from favorite concertos featured. (One of these weeks we'll come back to the six concertos that were included.)
Today it's Beethoven's Fourth Concerto. How it happened that I hadn't been exposed to the Fourth Concerto despite my already-formed attachment to at least the Rondo of the Third Concerto, is a silly story for another time. It had to do with endlessly agonizingly weighing the economics of RCA's Rubinstein-Krips Beethoven concerto cycle on five LPs vs. Epic's Fleisher-Szell and London's Backhaus-Schmidt-Isserstedt ones on four, and American Decca's Kempff-van Kempen one in mono but on only three! I was paralyzed.
In the years of my early teens we made periodic outings to Canarsie to visit my mother's Aunt Mae, my grandmother's baby sister. I spent most of the car ride praying that Aunt Mae had baked a cake. I loved her cakes, even with the caveat that her chocolate icing was bitter as all get-out. (But I ate it!) After cake-eating, though, there wasn't much for a kid to do for the duration of the visit, until I got permission -- let's assume I actually asked permission -- to explore the lifetime's accumulation of treasures that had passed their pull dates and been warehoused in the basement.
The treasure that drew me like a magnet was a small stash of classical 78 albums, which probably hadn't been touched in at least a decade. It was the usual standard stuff you found in such collections, but one album grabbed my attention. I knew the reputation of the great pianist, who had made history in the '30s by recording first all five of Beethoven's piano concertos and then, astonishingly, all 32 piano sonatas. And there among Aunt Mae and Uncle Ben's disused 78s was Schnabel's later American recording of the Fourth Concerto, with Frederick Stock and the Chicago Symphony!
Luckily, there was actually a working record player that played 78s in Aunt Mae and Uncle Ben's basement. And so at some point I brazenly slapped on the first 78 side of the Beethoven concerto and was greeted by this, or at any rate the first four minutes or so of it:
BEETHOVEN: Piano Concerto No. 4 in G, Op. 58:
i. Allegro moderato
Artur Schnabel, piano; Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Frederick Stock, cond. RCA/BMG, recorded 1942
As you can see and hear, the concerto begins, against all expectation of classical form, with a piano solo. What's more, it isn't so much a melody as a melodic-rhythmic figuration, as if the soloist was sort of noodling at the keyboard to announce, "This is the key of G major, oh yes it is." And then, just as astonishingly, the orchestra slides in (pianissimo, as you can see -- very soft) in what sounds like a wildly remote key. ("Sounds like"? In fact, B major is harmonically pretty darned remote from G major. And darned if the orchestra isn't sounding that same rhythmic-melodic figuration.
Could this really be the "principal theme" of the movement? Not only could it, it is -- and out of this tiny cell of musical material Beethoven generates an entire glorious movement spanning upwards of 20 minutes! It's the orchestra's turn now to noodle with the "theme," in the span of eight bars admits that the pianist had it right after all: The key is G major! And now -- near the end of our page of score, at about the 39-second mark of our performance -- the oboe joins in with the "theme," doubled an octave lower by the first violins, with the rest of the strings going into either melody-doubling or accompanying, and the horns entering gently to provide a discreet harmonic bed. All of this, and we're barely approaching the one-minute mark!
I doubt that I got very far into the piece. After all, we didn't visit Aunt Mae that often, and I would have been leery of damaging the 78s. But that opening is so unexpected, and striking, and dare I say haunting, that I was quite happy to listen to the first side over and over.
Schnabel was known, not so much as a note-perfect technician, but as an interpreter of depth. He could also be, when called upon, a poet. On our page of score, note the direction from the composer at the very start: dolce, sweet. That's a pretty subjective term, especially as applied to a piano solo. Every pianist eventually finds him/herself tested by this little solo, but I've never heard anybody play it quite like Schnabel.
Here's the movement again, played first by Arthur Rubinstein (from the same Beethoven concerto cycle, conducted by Josef Krips, as the Third Concerto recording we sampled last night), and then played and conducted by the Russian-born pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy (born 1937), who had by then actually moved into conducting on a nearly full-time basis, though he has still never quite abandoned the piano.
BEETHOVEN: Piano Concerto No. 4 in G, Op. 58:
i. Allegro moderato
Arthur Rubinstein, piano; Symphony of the Air, Josef Krips, cond. RCA/BMG, recorded December 1956
Cleveland Orchestra, Vladimir Ashkenazy, piano and cond. Decca, recorded April 1987
AND A SCHNABEL BEETHOVEN BONUS (OR TWO)
Because of the gulf between the 78 transfers (by the Seth B. Winner Sound Studios) for Pearl's unfortunately no-longer-available issue of Schnabel's Beethoven Society traversal of the 32 sonatas and other solo piano works and all other LP and CD transfers I've heard, I'm limited to the two (out of five) volumes I have. Here, then, is that oasis of songfulness from the transition from Beethoven's middle to late periods, the little E minor Sonata, Op. 90.
Schnabel is often thought of as a pianist of ideas, an interpreter of depth, and that seems to me very much the case. But he was also, by adoption if not birth, Viennese, and listen to the way he makes the second movement sing.
BEETHOVEN: Piano Sonata No. 27 in E minor, Op. 90:
i. Mit Leghaftigkeit und durchaus mit Empfindung und Ausdruck (With vivacity, and with feeling and expression throughout)
ii. Nicht zu geschwind und sehr singbar vorgetragen (Not too quick, and performed very songfully)
Artur Schnabel, piano. Beethoven Society/EMI, recorded Jan. 21 and Feb. 3, 1932
And one tiny final bonus, since it happens to be on the same CD: a trifle that every early student pianist tramps through, the bagatelle known as Für Elise ("For Elise"), with no attempt on Schnabel's part to make it more than the charming little bagatelle it is -- though when it heats up, and later when it intensifies, he briefly brings to it interpretive resources that are beyond the imagination of any student pianist and beyond the reach of most professionals.
BEETHOVEN: Bagatelle in A minor, WoO 59 (Für Elise)
Artur Schnabel, piano. Beethoven Society/EMI, recorded Nov. 10, 1938
as noted above, we heard the Rubinstein-Krips recording of the final Rondo of Beethoven's Third Piano Concerto. We also saw the first half of the movement played by another, though much younger, Polish pianist, Krystian Zimerman (with Leonard Bernstein conducting the Vienna Philharmonic), and we heard the still-younger former child prodigy Evgeny Kissin play the Rondo quite differently. When I got around to popping the audio file in, we also had a "Beethoven bonus" from Rubinstein: his gorgeous recording of the Moonlight Sonata.
In tomorrow's main post, again, we hear the Third and Fourth Concertos complete, from Rubinstein, Schnabel, and teams of all-stars. We'll also zero in on the ugly duckling of the Beethoven piano concerto, the weirdly wonderful Choral Fantasy. We'll hear no fewer than three recordings featuring the same great pianist, to whom we'll be paying tribute of a sort. (Count yourself lucky. I only just discovered that there's a fourth recording available now, but I'm too cheap to pay the general asking price for the label it's on. I'll wait till I can find a copy that better fits a certified cheapskate's budget.)
[5/20/2012] A vision for the future in Beethoven's last piano sonata (continued)
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After the triumph of Glenn Gould's Columbia Masterwords debut record, the still-dazzling 1955 Bach Goldberg Variations, the Columbia folks thought a perfect sequel would be the final trilogy of Beethoven sonatas -- unaware that GG hated late Beethoven. The first movement of Op. 111 starts with a fine, full-blooded Maestoso, then segues into a hilariously raced Allegro. (You'll recall from Friday that in Beethoven's First Sonata, where quick tempos might be stylistically appropriate, GG in fact took slower-than-usual tempos.) The second movement is also kind of silly.
WHY DON'T WE GO AHEAD WITH THREE ACTUAL PERFORMANCES OF THE FIRST MOVEMENT OF OP. 111?
i. Maestoso; Allegro con brio ed appassionato
First we hear the best kind of traditional performance, beautifully resonant, even noble, from Wilhelm Kempff; then something just as noble but tauter and harder-driving, from Richard Goode, and finally, going in the opposite direction, something really special, darker and more tempestuous, from the great Russian pianist Tatiana Nikolayeva.
Wilhelm Kempff, piano. DG, recorded in Hannover (Germany), January 1964
Richard Goode, piano. Nonesuch, recorded in New York, c1987
Tatiana Nikolayeva, piano. Melodiya, recorded live in Moscow, Mar. 11, 1984
NOW WE MOVE ON TO ONE OF BEETHOVEN'S MOST LUMINOUS CREATIONS, THE ARIETTA
You'll notice straight off that we're staring here in about as different a place from the first movement as one could imagine, an "Arietta" that might equally well be thought of as a hymn, which then . . . evolves, and changes shape, and twists and turns. It's a musical travelogue that has more of the character of a fantasia than what we think of as a sonata. (Which reminds me that we really have to get around to Schubert's Wanderer Fantasy one of these weeks. We did Beethoven's weirdly wonderful Choral Fantasy back in March 2010.)
Is it too far-fetched to suggest that another, perhaps nonlinear descendant of the Arietta is, or rather are, the Chopin ballades?
ii. Arietta: Adagio molto semplice e cantabile
The Beethoven Op. 109-11 Sonatas were specially favored repertory for Rudolf Serkin, which may partly explain why his son Peter, when he approached the late Beethoven sonatas, approached them very differently, starting with the use of a period instrument. Finally we hear Claude Frank, a wonderful pianist in his own right who happens to be a longtime student of Artur Schnabel.
Rudolf Serkin, piano. CBS/Sony, recorded in New York, Mar. 15-16, 1967
Peter Serkin, piano (Graf fortepiano). Pro Arte/Vanguard, recorded in St. Paul, c1984
Claude Frank, piano. RCA/Music & Art, recorded in New York, c1970
FINALLY I THOUGHT WE'D HEAR BOTH OF ARTUR SCHNABEL'S RECORDINGS OF OP. 111
In June 1942 Schnabel, then living in the U.S. during the conflagration in Europe, recorded the last two Beethoven piano concertos with Frederick Stock and the Chicago Symphony. The same year, in four days in June in New York, he rerecorded two of the first Beethoven sonatas he had recorded in the Beethoven Society cycle: Opp. 109 and 111. Under wartime conditions they went unreleased, and after the war were apparently forgotten, and weren't released until 1976.
BEETHOVEN: Piano Sonata No. 32 in C minor, Op. 111 i. Maestoso; Allegro con brio ed appassionato ii. Arietta: Adagio molto semplice e cantabile
[2nd movement at 8:18] Artur Schnabel, piano. EMI, recorded in London, Jan. 21 and Mar. 21, 1932 (digital transfer by Bob Varney)
Artur Schnabel, piano. RCA, recorded in New York, June 15-16, 1942
Tonight, finally, I'm going to try to make good on those claims about the passion and insight that imbue GG's performances of early Beethoven. For contrast, we're going to hear his rendering of the F minor Sonata, Op. 2, No. 1, alongside that of the greatest Beethoven pianist of them all, Artur Schnabel.
