Comparison recordings of Liszt arrangements
of Beethoven Symphonies:
#5 (compl.) and #6 (1st. mvt. only),
Glen Gould, piano [ADD] Sony SMK 52636
#4 and #6, Konstantin Scherbakov, piano
Naxos 8.557170
If anybody reads my
reviews regularly (Mother? Are we the
only ones?) he or she knows that I swear
I will never listen to another Beethoven
symphony as long as I live, and also
that I swear that the Liszt arrangements
are better than the originals. So here
I am confronted with my own words: Yes,
here is a set of Beethoven symphonies
and I listened to all of them all the
way through and enjoyed myself thoroughly.
How can I possibly
say that a piano reduction of an orchestral
work is better than the original when
demonstrably many notes have been left
out and the variety in the tone colours
has been all but eliminated? And do
I really mean to say that Liszt is a
greater composer than Beethoven and
that Beethoven needed Liszt to repair
his defective music? Well, first, what’s
wrong with the Beethoven Symphonies
is that they’re self consciously "great;"
they need a little deflation. Of course
many (but by no means all) recent conductors
have accomplished this with the orchestral
versions over the decades. And, Beethoven
for all his repeatedly praised virtues
as a composer and innovator had a terrible
sense of rhythm. If you try to dance
to Beethoven, you’ll probably trip yourself
and twist an ankle or two. Beethoven’s
music sits foursquare on the floor and
defies anybody to make it move. It must
be conceded that some of his early chamber
music written under the direct influence
of Mozart and Haydn comes pretty close
to being an exception to this comment.
But even the first symphony has its
foundation poured in concrete against
undisturbed earth and is monumental
before it is anything else.
Liszt, acknowledged
even by his bitterest detractors to
be the greatest pianist who had ever
lived, was also a great conductor and
in many ways created the modern cult
of the conductor. (Am I the only one
who has noticed how Leopold Stokowski
modelled his career and public persona
directly after Liszt? My God, even the
haircut is the same!) Lisat was
in great demand throughout his life
for his performances of the Beethoven
Symphonies. Unfortunately for us, Wagner
was also in demand as a conductor of
Beethoven, and in the race for Twentieth
Century musical style, Wagner won. That’s
why for 100 years typical performances
of most Beethoven Symphonies have sounded
too much like Parsifal and not
enough like Haydn or Mozart.
In the First Symphony
the quotations from Mozart’s Magic
Flute are played with all the humour
and lightness worthy of the original.
I have never enjoyed the first
movement allegro from the Second
Symphony as much as in this recording;
it’s an absolute romp, just like hearing
it for the first time. You might be
able to convince me that the last three
movements of the Second Symphony actually
do sound better weighted down with orchestral
sound. The incredible complexity of
the first two movements of the Eroica
Symphony call from Liszt astonishing
feats of ingenuity to fit this music
so perfectly into the span of just ten
fingers. These movements become an incomparable
experience, unlike any other work for
piano. Astonishment is a valid part
of the experience of ultimate virtuosic
skill both in conception and execution,
even though astonishment is hardly the
point of these movements which dredge
the depths of the farthest extremes
of emotions. The last two transcribed
Eroica movements conjure visions of
imaginary Beethoven works transitional
between the middle and late piano sonatas.
With the Fourth Symphony
we can make a direct comparison between
Katsaris and Scherbakov, and both are
excellent. Katsaris has a slightly crisper
rhythmic sense and dynamic control and
a tiny bit more stamina. Scherbakov
relies on the pedal more to establish
textures. In this symphony only, I think
Sherbakov’s piano is just a tiny bit
better regulated. On both recordings
the first movement from the Fourth Symphony,
as with the Second Symphony, is a much
richer musical experience than any orchestral
recording I’ve heard. The second movement
is from another of those imaginary "transition-to-late"
piano sonatas. Katsaris especially brings
out the strange spoofiness in the third
movement; was it intended as a satire
on E. T. A. Hoffmann? Then it’s off
to the races with the last movement
which, again, sounds more interesting
on the piano than any orchestral version
I’ve heard.
The Glen Gould recording
of the Fifth Symphony is one of his
finest recordings. In his hands the
slow movement becomes the greatest piano
sonata movement Beethoven ever wrote.
Compared to Katsaris, Gould’s piano
sounds smaller with less interesting,
less flexible sound in the bass strings.
Katsaris keeps more rhythmic integrity
of all the movements, and his ingenuity
in making the piano actually sound like
strings, flutes, and drums is probably
more equal to Liszt’s. Gould uses his
special Bachian magic on the fugue in
the third movement but Katsaris certainly
plays it beautifully, and frankly does
better with the large sound of the first
and last movements.
In the Pastoral Symphony
Katsaris apparently found he had a finger
or two underutilised, so he added notes
from the score that Liszt had left out.
If you’ve read my arguments in some
other reviews you know that I consider
this leaving-out to be a virtue, not
a shortcoming. At any rate, the changes
are minor. In the first movement exposition,
everybody plays the flute figure at
bar 42 and the first one in bar 46.
Katsaris ads the second one in bar 46,
and the ones in the next couple of bars,
but he doesn’t actually have enough
resources to actually play them, so
they’re just slapped at. They actually
come off much better in the equivalent
bars in the recapitulation, but Liszt
was probably right to leave them out
of the published version even though
he himself might have added them in
his own performances. Overall, Katsaris’
version is the most dramatic and effective,
while Gould’s first movement is the
most affecting, if a little smaller
in tone. Here Scherbakov comes in third.
The Pastoral Symphony
is the most remarkable piece Beethoven
ever wrote; he was obviously reaching
for an opera, but sometimes operas are
better off not finished, e.g., Berlioz’
Romeo & Juliet and Tchaikovsky’s
Undine which became Swan Lake.
Katsaris’ Pastorale is to my mind the
finest performance the work has ever
received on any instrument. In the storm
movement he builds the drum parts to
earthquake intensity, and you will swear
that those are real horns and trombones.
Scherbakov’s light is blown away by
Katsaris’ storm.
As the jivey and sentimental
Leonard Bernstein could in old age become
the greatest interpreter of Haydn, the
operatic Stokowski only became a Beethoven
conductor of stature in his oldest age;
in his wild youth, the Pastorale was
obviously his favourite and he lavished
his attention on it, most significantly
in Disney’s Fantasia. No surprise
it took him 40 years to really discover
the rest of the symphonies, the very
different ones.
The Seventh Symphony
is to my mind the most successful, being
the best blend of craftsmanship, drama,
poetry and heart. Liszt and Katsaris
add the one thing it lacks—grace. Liszt
also adds marching soldiers in the allegretto,
not so strange since the first performance
of the work was a benefit for war wounded.
But, perhaps surprisingly, here is where
I miss the colour of the orchestra the
most.
The Eighth Symphony
has always been my least favourite of
the set, and the transcription does
not help this. I guess I would say that,
as with at least parts of the First,
Second, and Fourth and Sixth Symphonies,
I enjoy the transcription more than
an orchestral performance, but I could
easily do without either.
The suggestion of playing
the whole Ninth Symphony, including
the chorale finale, on a single piano
is likely to generate incredulous laughter.
Liszt himself realised the problem and
made a two piano version of this symphony
which many feel is superior to this
solo piano version, which took Liszt
longer to write than any of the others.
From the very first the Ninth has been
considered a failed attempt, a reputation
it still had when I bought my first
recording of it. The work has inspired
an enormous literature describing its
alleged shortcomings, and many composers—including
Mendelssohn and Mahler—have written
imitations attempting to effect the
necessary repairs. The current idea
that the work is a supreme and perfect
masterpiece has only occurred during
the last 40 years or so. I still know
people who scornfully laugh out loud
at several points in the work, such
as bar 124 in the adagio. It
was the Decca 1967 Stokowski recording
that finally resolved my doubts and
convinced me of the unified validity
of the entire work, although I have
to say the 1958 Fricsay recording on
DGG in spite of dated sound contains
particular virtues which have still
not been equalled and probably can never
be surpassed.
But we were talking
about the transcription at hand. Most
people would probably guess offhand
that the first movement of the Ninth
Symphony is the longest movement written
by Beethoven, but they’d be wrong by
quite a ways; it’s actually the fourth
longest coming in behind the first movements
of both the Third and Seventh Symphonies.
But the first movement of the Ninth
is the "most monumental" movement
Beethoven ever wrote, and that makes
it seem larger. Liszt and Katsaris thin
it out greatly with considerable success.
At first the scherzo wants to
run on like a polka, an image that can’t
stick to the orchestral version. Liszt
interpolates some successful melodic
transition passages and gradually builds
drama which help to get around this.
The adagio follows and after
the anguish of the first movement and
violence of the second, we spend some
quiet moments down by the brook, nearly
the same one that appears in the Sixth
Symphony. The overall strategy becomes
apparent by the time we enter the finale—here
the pianist is starting to run out fingers
right and left. But by drastically reducing
the textural weight of the early movements
the finale takes on an authentic
hugeness by comparison. Nevertheless,
Liszt is forced to engage in more recomposition
here than in any of the earlier transcriptions
since the task of mapping all the notes
on ten fingers is, of course, an impossible
one.
If you fast for two
days and purify yourself with scourging
for an hour before lighting candles
and settling down to listen to Beethoven,
these recordings will outrage you. This
is Beethoven with the delight, the grace,
the pulse, the fun put
back in, Beethoven for Saturday night
listening, moving around the room listening,
earphone listening while jogging, poolside
listening!
Beethoven and Liszt
were both alive at the same time, and
both were child prodigy pianists. Liszt
understood things about Beethoven and
his music that nobody else ever would,
and became one of the greatest Beethoven
interpreters of all time. It was these
transcriptions that created public demand
to hear the orchestral versions, and
any Beethoven lover no matter how familiar
with the orchestral versions, will learn
volumes from hearing these transcriptions.
By a thin margin the Katsaris set is
the best available but if you’ve already
bought the Scherbakov set, you may be
content with it knowing that only a
fanatic like me would really have to
have both sets.
Paul Shoemaker
Cyprien Katsaris, piano 