BaL 16.12.17 - Schubert: Piano Sonata no. 21 in B flat D960

[silvestrione]

You’re right in that it wasn’t recorded by EMI but released by them in the UK. I have it on LP in the EMI box of Melodiya recordings entitled ‘The Art of Richter’. Is it the 1961? It could be the same recording as that reissued by Olympia, though I’m not sure.

https://i.imgur.com/GPTu65V.jpg

ah, yes, I had that box of LPs, and treasured it at the time. The Trovar discography seems to suggest it's the same as the Olympia, from Salzburg, 1972.

Norris is a bit unpredictable, often goes for a relative 'unknown', but did pick Richter, I remember, for the Grieg Concerto not so long ago. Don't think he'll pick him this time though!

[vinteuil]

Re Richter, when compiling the list, I wasn't sure how many versions he recorded, but there do appear to be at least two.

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Yes, on Olympia, live from Salzburg in 1972, my favourite (but he does take 24, twenty-four, minutes over the first movement!), and one from 1964, on Living Stage, where the booklet wisely refrains from giving track timings...

... CD 4 on the five-CD set on brilliant, "Historic Russian Archives: Sviatoslav Richter in Concert" -

http://amzn.eu/7IW7ijq

includes his 31 November 1961 performance. The opening movement is timed as 24'16...


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[waldo]

As far as I'm concerned one of the most compelling features of Schubert's music is its emotional complexity, which I think ought to be taken on board rather than swept under the carpet. The prosecution rests m'lud.

Richter plays the first movement far too slowly if you ask me.

Agree on both points. For me, those connecting bars are essential to understanding the real nature of the music. They are almost a commentary on the exposition and, rather than being incongruous, they are the fulfillment of those mysterious, disruptive trills that keep interrupting the flow of the music. Whether that is a valuable interpretation is neither here nor there, of course. What is important is that pianists try and respect them - even if they personally find it hard to understand them. What Brendel seems to be saying is, Not my cup of tea - so I leave them out. I know he has "reasons", but it is not clear to me that one is permitted to have reasons when it comes to questions of this nature. Play the damned bars - or leave the music alone altogether. (Not surprisingly, Brendel's interpretation is almost entirely devoid of depth. Schubert as easy listening is what we get from him, Schubert minus the abyss........)

As for Richter, I don't think he is at his very worst here. D894 surely takes some beating as far as absurd tempos go. But I can't see how he can be in the running in this one, either.

[silvestrione]

Play the damned bars - or leave the music alone altogether. (Not surprisingly, Brendel's interpretation is almost entirely devoid of depth. Schubert as easy listening is what we get from him, Schubert minus the abyss........)

As for Richter, I don't think he is at his very worst here. D894 surely takes some beating as far as absurd tempos go. But I can't see how he can be in the running in this one, either.

'Not my cup of tea'? Brendel is far more thoughtful and careful in presenting his case in words, and in shaping the music and colouring it, and giving it sonata-form 'argument', than you allow for, in my view.

My way of looking at Richter, is that it ends up being a reductio ad absurdum of the whole idea of identical repeats. 'Why on earth do we need this?' I find myself, eventually, after being beguiled for a good deal of it, thinking. I like repeats that are obviously a second play-through, with some subtle differences.

As for the disputed bars, I find them ugly, and they seem a half-hearted attempt, perhaps a quickly-dashed off one, to provide a join.

[waldo]

'Not my cup of tea'? Brendel is far more thoughtful and careful in presenting his case in words, and in shaping the music and colouring it, and giving it sonata-form 'argument', than you allow for, in my view......

I quite appreciate his position here. I have his collected essays (which I read with real pleasure from time to time), so I do know his argument. I simply meant that much of what is presented as "reasons" in these matters usually boils down to an attempt to justify something far more primitive..........Reasons only get you so far. One can quite easily construct a tower of highly reasonable arguments pointing in the other direction.

My point, anyway, is that one is not permitted to bring reasons into play here........It is what Schubert wrote. Tough luck if Brendel isn't keen on them.

[waldo]

My way of looking at Richter, is that it ends up being a reductio ad absurdum of the whole idea of identical repeats. 'Why on earth do we need this?' I find myself, eventually, after being beguiled for a good deal of it, thinking. I like repeats that are obviously a second play-through, with some subtle differences.

Yes, I'd go along with that. I'm not into repeats, especially with late Schubert - marvellous music, but interminable in the wrong hands and with too many repeats.

..........(possibly contradicting my last post.)

[MickyD]

That would probably have been with Robert Levin as fortepianist, I guess. Another musician prepared to make 'adjustments' where he feels it helps the communication of the music.

If my memory serves me correctly, I think it was probably Steven Lubin, who recorded the Beethoven concertos with Hogwood. Lubin seems to have disappeared these days - a pity, as he made some good discs.

[Barbirollians]

The Court of Appeal LJ Stanfordian ,LJ Alison and LJ Sir Velo have quashed the conviction of Mr Brendel and ordered a retrial before a fresh judge and jury . HHJ Owen Norris was heavily criticised for not seeing the wood for the trees and for choosing a bizarre library choice that appeared to have nothing to do with his otherwise commendable analysis . The court also issued a warrant for the arrest of the clerk of the court Mr McGregor on the application of Chief Constable Caliban for perverting the course of the BAL by taking part in the decision and interrupting proceedings incessantly for no good reason.

[Richard Barrett]

As for the disputed bars, I find them ugly, and they seem a half-hearted attempt, perhaps a quickly-dashed off one, to provide a join.

I really don't think there's any justification whatsoever for saying that! It's fine if you don't like it, but as Waldo says it is what Schubert wrote, whatever speed he wrote it at and for whatever reasons he wrote it for. Sometimes composers have their best ideas when working at speed (just as jazz improvisers have to do!), and of course it's a matter of opinion whether this passage is "ugly" or on the other hand (as I would contend) one of Schubert's most striking and profound inspirations... there are plenty of passages in the work of many composers that I find problematic in one way or another but it would seem rather an extreme reaction to suggest that they just be left out in performance!

[Keraulophone]

While listening to the new recording by Krystian Zimerman, his first major release since his award-winning Debussy Préludes in 1994, and finding it initially slightly perplexing but increasingly fascinating and rewarding, I felt the need to listen again to Pires in D960. She takes 20’37 in (i) including the repeat (of course!), at what seems to me an ideal tempo, neither too fast nor too slow; molto moderato in fact. Looking back to Jeremy Nicholas’s Gramophone review, I think he describes very accurately her gracious approach unlike any other I have heard on record in the way it combines directness, honesty and a generous measure of Mediterranean spirit, of which I felt in need after the teasing sophistication, remarkably fine though it is, of Zimerman. It may be worth posting in full:

‘Never sing louder than lovely’ was Dame Isobel Baillie’s advice to singers. Someone must have said much the same thing to the young Maria João Pires. The Portuguese pianist produces such a consistently beautiful, mellow sound that one is liable to be seduced by that single element of her playing. For long periods of the A minor Sonata (the last, least familiar and longest of the three Schubert wrote in that key) one might be listening to a series of songs without words.

In the B flat major Sonata, Pires does not, in her own words, ‘take hold of it at all’ as much as ‘quite simply meet it as it is’. There’s nothing of the German school here which can leave you admiring but uninvolved (Brendel, Lewis, Kempff) but an intimate, gently reassuring account as if someone were confiding a personal secret to a close friend. The long first movement gives way to an Andante sostenuto that is more berceuse than bereft. The Scherzo is an unhurried vivace and, like the last movement, never hectoring or impatient, is structurally and temperamentally merely the logical result of what has gone before.

Pires, you feel, lives in the sunshine and must surely play D960 to her grandchildren. Uchida’s acclaimed account seems mannered by comparison, though the two have serenity in common – and superb recorded sound. Even for one with a lifelong affection for Schnabel, this is a B flat major to live with and savour.

[waldo]

I must go back to Pires............I dismissed her a little to easily some years ago. I was piling up recordings of the late sonatas at the time and hurriedly wrote it off as another decent, if not especially rewarding, performance. I was probably looking for something I had found in Kempff and was disappointed not to find it.

I sometimes wonder if it is better just to get one or two reasonably good performances and live with them for life.........

[Richard Tarleton]

There’s nothing of the German school here which can leave you admiring but uninvolved (Brendel, Lewis, Kempff)

Just out of curiosity what does Jeremy Nicholas mean by "German school" here, exactly? Brought up and taught locally in Croatia, moved to Vienna, attended (the Swiss) Fischer's masterclasses but otherwise self-taught, and never anything other than his own man? Having attended many Brendel concerts from 1969 until he retired, I've never been other than involved, often deeply moved, by his performances.... The same applies to the one occasion I heard a young Paul Lewis live, knowing nothing about him....

One of those throwaway remarks critics make that leave me scratching my head in puzzlement.

[Keraulophone]

Thanks RT, I’ve rehabilitated Mr Nicholas.

I’m not sure what ‘German School’ means in this context either. What I am sure about is that much as I can admire Brendel’s playing in Schubert, Beethoven, Liszt and much else in his repertoire, I have rarely been deeply moved; ‘involved’, yes, but not totally engaged. It’s hard to put into words, but I hear Brendel’s Schubert rather than Schubert, and Brendel’s Beethoven rather than Beethoven, trite as that may sound. It also begs the question, of course, ‘Whose Schubert just sounds like Schubert?’

[Richard Tarleton]

Thanks RT, I’ve rehabilitated Mr Nicholas.

I’m not sure what ‘German School’ means in this context either. What I am sure about is that much as I can admire Brendel’s playing in Schubert, Beethoven, Liszt and much else in his repertoire, I have rarely been deeply moved; ‘involved’, yes, but not totally engaged. It’s hard to put into words, but I hear Brendel’s Schubert rather than Schubert, and Brendel’s Beethoven rather than Beethoven, trite as that may sound. It also begs the question, of course, ‘Whose Schubert just sounds like Schubert?’

Thanks! Good question

[waldo]

It’s hard to put into words, but I hear Brendel’s Schubert rather than Schubert, and Brendel’s Beethoven rather than Beethoven, trite as that may sound. It also begs the question, of course, ‘Whose Schubert just sounds like Schubert?’

I'm not sure anyone's Schubert sounds like Schubert. All good pianists sound like themselves. Anyone who wasn't instantly recognisable from just a single bar would not be worth listening to. Critics like to praise musicians who put their "ego" to one side when approaching a given composer, but I've never been convinced that this is possible or even desirable.

But I know what you mean about Brendel. He Brendelises everything he touches - a process my dictionary defines as one which "smooths over sharp edges and helps reduce unwanted stylistic contrasts."