Lunchtime Concerts one stop shop

[Serial_Apologist]

Mr Lu is a wonderful pianist and free from the Lang Lang tendency to over-interpret the music and the urge to play everything as fast and flashily as possible. His playing and interpretations take me back to pianists of earlier generations like Kempff and Curzon. The recent recital of French music played by Steven Osborne and Paul Lewis is another example of a playing style that appeals to me.

Indeed so. Another pianist I particularly used to admire was the American Lamar Crowson, who shared those qualities.

[edashtav]

Mr Lu is a wonderful pianist and free from the Lang Lang tendency to over-interpret the music and the urge to play everything as fast and flashily as possible. His playing and interpretations take me back to pianists of earlier generations like Kempff and Curzon. The recent recital of French music played by Steven Osborne and Paul Lewis is another example of a playing style that appeals to me.

Spot on!

[rauschwerk]

I thoroughly enjoyed this Recital by Eric Lu who displayed sensitivity and mastery. I found his interpretation ofvthe Schubert Sonata to be poetic and moving.

Oh dear, I must beg to differ. I realise that it won't do to play a Schubert Allegro at the same tempo throughout, but this guy got so slow at the end of the first movement that I feared the music would grind to a halt. Surely one can keep this movement going without becoming an any way 'flashy'? From my shelves I shall seek out Ashkenazy in the Schubert and Pletnev in the Chopin and compare.

[oddoneout]

Oh dear, I must beg to differ. I realise that it won't do to play a Schubert Allegro at the same tempo throughout, but this guy got so slow at the end of the first movement that I feared the music would grind to a halt. Surely one can keep this movement going without becoming an any way 'flashy'? From my shelves I shall seek out Ashkenazy in the Schubert and Pletnev in the Chopin and compare.

I thought it was just me! I find him a bit curate's egg, and this was not one of the recitals that I enjoyed as much as I had expected. However he is still young, there is much to like, so I will continue to listen and see how he develops.

[edashtav]

Oh dear, I must beg to differ. I realise that it won't do to play a Schubert Allegro at the same tempo throughout, but this guy got so slow at the end of the first movement that I feared the music would grind to a halt. Surely one can keep this movement going without becoming an any way 'flashy'? From my shelves I shall seek out Ashkenazy in the Schubert and Pletnev in the Chopin and compare.

Returning to Eric Lu’s performance in a more dispassionate mood, I have to admit that there is truth in yourvassertion that the first movement does slow alarmingly. Schubert sets the tempo as ALLEGRO GIUSTO, which most Scubert experts do not interpret as STRICT TEMPO but rather as a slightly moderated Allegro. Given the increasing dominance of the calmer second subject group as the movement progresses and the thought, expressed recently by Tom Service, that this Sonata is Schubert’s Syphilitic Sonata, Schubert’s initial anger at receiving an appalling death sentence may be represented in the stark, bitter music at the beginning of the work, which is moderated and calmed down by the hymn-like second subject. As Franz’s anger is ‘managed’, the movement slows into a coda displaying an accommodation if not an acceptance.

[silvestrione]

Returning to Eric Lu’s performance in a more dispassionate mood, I have to admit that there is truth in yourvassertion that the first movement does slow alarmingly. Schubert sets the tempo as ALLEGRO GIUSTO, which most Scubert experts do not interpret as STRICT TEMPO but rather as a slightly moderated Allegro. Given the increasing dominance of the calmer second subject group as the movement progresses and the thought, expressed recently by Tom Service, that this Sonata is Schubert’s Syphilitic Sonata, Schubert’s initial anger at receiving an appalling death sentence may be represented in the stark, bitter music at the beginning of the work, which is moderated and calmed down by the hymn-like second subject. As Franz’s anger is ‘managed’, the movement slows into a coda displaying an accommodation if not an acceptance.

Really? I thought there was more than a little indication that Schubert did not know what was wrong with him (though of course deeply troubled). I don't have a biography to hand, indeed I may be relying on Imogen Cooper's remarks to that effect, in one of those brief radio interviews before a performance recently.

[edashtav]

Really? I thought there was more than a little indication that Schubert did not know what was wrong with him (though of course deeply troubled). I don't have a biography to hand, indeed I may be relying on Imogen Cooper's remarks to that effect, in one of those brief radio interviews before a performance recently.

Tom Service was quoting from a recent book:

“I found one explanation in a revelatory new book by the doyenne of Schubert scholars, Elizabeth Norman McKay, Schubert: The Piano and Dark Keys.

"Towards the end of 1822 ... Schubert was very sick, having contracted the syphilis that inevitably was to effect the remainder of his life: his physical and mental health, and the music he was to compose. After the initial weeks of debilitating illness – including, it seems, the entire month of January – he took up his pen again in February, and wrote the three-movement piano sonata in A minor, D784. He was sick, living in his father's home, much in need of money, and shattered by what had happened to him. During the composition of this sonata, Schubert's physical and emotional state could hardly have been worse. This tragic A-minor sonata is a deeply personal work, and thus a landmark among his compositions. In composing it, he may have fulfilled his personal needs at the time; but such a sonata was unlikely to excite the enthusiasm of Viennese publishers. Indeed, it was not published until 1839."”

[rauschwerk]

Returning to Eric Lu’s performance in a more dispassionate mood, I have to admit that there is truth in yourvassertion that the first movement does slow alarmingly. Schubert sets the tempo as ALLEGRO GIUSTO, which most Scubert experts do not interpret as STRICT TEMPO but rather as a slightly moderated Allegro. Given the increasing dominance of the calmer second subject group as the movement progresses and the thought, expressed recently by Tom Service, that this Sonata is Schubert’s Syphilitic Sonata, Schubert’s initial anger at receiving an appalling death sentence may be represented in the stark, bitter music at the beginning of the work, which is moderated and calmed down by the hymn-like second subject. As Franz’s anger is ‘managed’, the movement slows into a coda displaying an accommodation if not an acceptance.

Knowledge of Schubert's personal circumstances at the time he wrote this piece is, in my view, no excuse whatever for messing up the proportions of a classical sonata allegro.

[edashtav]

Knowledge of Schubert's personal circumstances at the time he wrote this piece is, in my view, no excuse whatever for messing up the proportions of a classical sonata allegro.

Many ckassical sonata form movements have introductions and / or codas in a different tempo.

[cloughie]

Many ckassical sonata form movements have introductions and / or codas in a different tempo.

…and many a hippite would probably play them too fast on a fp!

[silvestrione]

Tom Service was quoting from a recent book:

“I found one explanation in a revelatory new book by the doyenne of Schubert scholars, Elizabeth Norman McKay, Schubert: The Piano and Dark Keys.

"Towards the end of 1822 ... Schubert was very sick, having contracted the syphilis that inevitably was to effect the remainder of his life: his physical and mental health, and the music he was to compose. After the initial weeks of debilitating illness – including, it seems, the entire month of January – he took up his pen again in February, and wrote the three-movement piano sonata in A minor, D784. He was sick, living in his father's home, much in need of money, and shattered by what had happened to him. During the composition of this sonata, Schubert's physical and emotional state could hardly have been worse. This tragic A-minor sonata is a deeply personal work, and thus a landmark among his compositions. In composing it, he may have fulfilled his personal needs at the time; but such a sonata was unlikely to excite the enthusiasm of Viennese publishers. Indeed, it was not published until 1839."”

Thank you very much for that! (Stops short of saying Schubert knew exactly what was wrong with him)

[edashtav]

…and many a hippite would probably play them too fast on a fp!

[edashtav]

Thank you very much for that! (Stops short of saying Schubert knew exactly what was wrong with him)

Well spottted… TS helped him, posthumously.

[Bryn]

[Nick Armstrong]

Wonderful performances of the Dvořák piano trios in each of the lunchtime concerts this week, starting with the glorious No 3 on Tuesday. My least favourite, No. 4, is tomorrow (perhaps most played because it has a nickname?).

The players:
Veronika Jarusková, violin
Peter Jarusek, cello
Boris Giltburg, piano