BaL 28.10.23 - Schubert Four Impromptus Op.142 (D935)

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

10.30 am
Building a Library
Pianist Iain Burnside chooses the ultimate recording of Schubert’s Impromptus, D935, to buy, download or stream.
Some of Schubert’s last masterpieces, this set of four exquisite pieces was only published after the composer’s death with a dedication to the then very young Franz Liszt.

Available recordings:-

Marco Albrizio *
Claudio Arrau *
Claudio Arrau *
Paul Badura-Skoda
Daniel Barenboim *
Inon Barnatan
Charlotte Baumgartner
Nelly Ben-Or
Paul Berkowitz
Ronald Brautigam (SACD)
Alfred Brendel *
Alfred Brendel
Alfred Brendel (DVD)
Giuseppe Bruno *
Sebastiano Brusco *
Silvia Capova *
Philippe Cassard *
Chiao Ying Chang (SACD)
François Chaplin *
Aldo Ciccolini *
Imogen Cooper
Gábor Csalog *
Clifford Curzon *
Jörg Ewald Dähler *
Michel Dalberto
Sylviane Deferne
Nikolai Demidenko *
Jorg Demus *
Marta Deyanova
Barry Douglas
Michael Endres
Gábor Farkas *
Albert Ferber *
Janina Fialkowska
Rudolf Firkusny
Annie Fischer *
Edwin Fischer
Andrei Gavrilov
Paolo Giacometti*
Walter Gieseking
Emil Gilels
Anthony Goldstone
Ingrid Haebler
Marc-André Hamelin
Matti Hirvonen *
Martijn van den Hoek
Jeno Jando
Jeno Jando *
Lucas Jussen *
Peter Katin
Amir Katz
Wilhelm Kempff
Dasol Kim
Trudelies Leonhardt *
Elisabeth Leonskaja
Paul Lewis (HM)*
James Lisney
Alexei Lubimov
Andrea Lucchesini
Nicolai Lugansky *
Radu Lupu
Katalin Nemes
John O'Conor *
Gerhard Oppitz
Steven Osborne
Murray Perahia *
Maria João Pires
Alain Planés *
Victor Rosenbaum *
Nadia Rubanenko *
Amandine Savary
András Schiff (DVD/Blu-ray)
András Schiff (ECM)
András Schiff (Decca)
Artur Schnabel *
Gilbert Schuchter
Atsuko Seki
Rudolf Serkin *
Julia Siciliano *
Viviana Sofronitsky
Grigory Sokolov
Matthias Soucek
Andreas Staier*
Stefan Stroissnig
Etsko Tazaki *
Gerardo Teissonnière *
Mitsuko Uchida
Jan Vermeulen
Cordelia Williams
Llŷr Williams
Elisso Wirssaladze *
Katharina Wolpe*
Shai Wosner
Klára Würtz *
Kemal Cem Yilmaz
William Youn *
Yukio Yokoyama *
Krystian Zimerman

(* = download only)

[gradus]

Still have Brendel on Vanguard and Philips and both suit me fine.

[smittims]

Edwin Fischer, Walter Gieseking, Wilhelm Kempff, Ingrid Haebler, Mitsuko Uchida and Imogen Cooper are the interpreters I return to with most satisfaction. I think Schubert is one of the few male composers whose music benefits from the different angle a female interpreter can bring.

[Mandryka]

Honestly, Lupu is just fabulous with these impromptus! Top of the pile for me.

[Lawrence]

Honestly, Lupu is just fabulous with these impromptus! Top of the pile for me.

I entirely agree with you - fabulous! I also have Paul Lewis and Maria Joao Pires.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Edwin Fischer, Walter Gieseking, Wilhelm Kempff, Ingrid Haebler, Mitsuko Uchida and Imogen Cooper are the interpreters I return to with most satisfaction. I think Schubert is one of the few male composers whose music benefits from the different angle a female interpreter can bring.

I would love to know what “different angle “ female interpreters bring. It strikes me that any successful interpretation of a piece of music involves the synthesis of the masculine and feminine - in so far as those very loose terms can be defined. Are octave and FF block chord passages masculine ? Are floating cantabile melodies feminine ? It’s all a bit of a nonsense isn’t it ?
Much more important is having the technique to play these superficially easier pieces (easier than standard 19th cent virtuoso repertoire that is ) and the musicianship to be able to float a phrase and create a structure. For example the famous Gflat impromptu in the earlier set , beloved of amateurs, needs extraordinary finger control to stop the right hand triplets sounding clattery under the floating melody. Even Perahia doesn’t quite get it right.

[RichardB]

I would love to know what “different angle “ female interpreters bring. It strikes me that any successful interpretation of a piece of music involves the synthesis of the masculine and feminine

There is really no way anyone can listen to a performance of Schubert and infer the gender of the performer! I think Schubert's piano music, more than Beethoven's, benefits from the use of the instruments of his time, being generally more focused on texture. On a "modern" piano there's a choice between unidiomatic banging on the one hand, and a tentative pulling of punches on the other (I exaggerate of course but you get the point). András Schiff seems to agree, having switched to an 1820 instrument for his ECM recording, which is my first choice at the moment, having displaced Badura-Skoda and Staier.

[smittims]

Thanks for your reactions, Heldenleben and RichardB, which open up thoughts. I'd like to turn it over in my mind before adding to what I said . I don't quite agree with what either of you say in your opening sentences. I think there's more to it than that.

[Ein Heldenleben]

There is really no way anyone can listen to a performance of Schubert and infer the gender of the performer! I think Schubert's piano music, more than Beethoven's, benefits from the use of the instruments of his time, being generally more focused on texture. On a "modern" piano there's a choice between unidiomatic banging on the one hand, and a tentative pulling of punches on the other (I exaggerate of course but you get the point). András Schiff seems to agree, having switched to an 1820 instrument for his ECM recording, which is my first choice at the moment, having displaced Badura-Skoda and Staier.

The other thing is the concert hall. These are chamber pieces to be played to audiences of twenty to forty . Perhaps they are even just for the pianist themselves. They get performed by virtuosi in venues like the RFH - often as encores - quite possibly the worst place on earth to listen to a piano. They can work on a modern piano.

[RichardB]

Thanks for your reactions, Heldenleben and RichardB, which open up thoughts. I'd like to turn it over in my mind before adding to what I said . I don't quite agree with what either of you say in your opening sentences. I think there's more to it than that.

My opening sentence was "There is really no way anyone can listen to a performance of Schubert and infer the gender of the performer!" Do you really think this isn't true? Why don't you go to Youtube and listen to some random Schubert performances without looking to see who the performer is, and see if you can guess? I would be extremely surprised if anyone guessed correctly more often than due to blind chance. (What if a pianist changed their gender, would they play Schubert differently?)

[Ein Heldenleben]

My opening sentence was "There is really no way anyone can listen to a performance of Schubert and infer the gender of the performer!" Do you really think this isn't true? Why don't you go to Youtube and listen to some random Schubert performances without looking to see who the performer is, and see if you can guess? I would be extremely surprised if anyone guessed correctly more often than due to blind chance. (What if a pianist changed their gender, would they play Schubert differently?)

Well you’ve got a fifty percent chance of being right. I can quite often recognise a pianist’s playing especially with archive performances as in the thirties and forties pianists were so much more idiosyncratic. As for telling gender it’s well nigh impossible. There are occasionally clues - very few female pianists play the block chord 1st movt, cadenza of Rach 3 - not even Argerich who generally eclipses a lot of a male pianists in terms of power and brilliance of octaves.

[Mandryka]

The other thing is the concert hall. These are chamber pieces to be played to audiences of twenty to forty . Perhaps they are even just for the pianist themselves. They get performed by virtuosi in venues like the RFH - often as encores - quite possibly the worst place on earth to listen to a piano. They can work on a modern piano.

Years ago I heard Sokolov play -- it was in Lyon I think, or maybe Toulouse. He came in, we clapped, he sat at his big Steinway and started to play op 90/1. And that first loud long note on a modern piano in a big concert hall was just perfect for getting the audience's attention. It was quite extraordinary -- you just had to listen.

[RichardB]

Well you’ve got a fifty percent chance of being right.

Exactly. And Schubert didn't write for large and powerful hands like Rachmaninov did.

[Mandryka]

10.30 am
Building a Library
Pianist Iain Burnside chooses the ultimate recording of Schubert’s Impromptus, D935, to buy, download or stream.
[

It's a shame to see that one of the more interesting recorded performances is not available -- Maria Yudina

[Ein Heldenleben]

Exactly. And Schubert didn't write for large and powerful hands like Rachmaninov did.

Schubert didn’t even write in the same powerful way Beethoven does. There are stretches of a tenth in the Hammerklavier. In Op 101 -which was dedicated to an outstanding female pianist Dorothea Von Ertmann - there’s a difficult stretch discord needing virtually all the fingers in the first movement and a very hard percussive snap opening to the F major second movement. Mind you I think piano keys weren’t as wide then !