William Wolfram is
an excellent choice as one of the contributors
to this multi-pianist series of the
complete Liszt piano music. Juilliard-trained,
his technique seems ideally suited to
Liszt’s not inconsiderable demands.
Given his impressive history of competition
successes - including Third in the Tchaikovsky
Competition, Moscow - this should not
come as a surprise. His concert activities
seem to be concentrated around the United
States, although he has recently taken
on a recording project of the concertos
of Edward Collins with Marin Alsop and
the RSNO.
That said, the disc
does not get off to the best start.
Gnomenreigen (‘Dance of the Gnomes’)
is a notorious test-piece of light-touch
Liszt. Arrau springs to mind as a benchmark,
presently on Philips 50, 464 713-2.
Wolfram is on the heavy side, and only
with the advent of the sparkling right-hand
at 0’25 do things get better. But the
overall impression is a bit lumpy -
not helped by Naxos’s close piano recording.
More successful is Waldesrauschen
(‘Forest Murmurs’), a pre-Debussy/Ravel
piece that here exhibits just the right
amount of opening-out.
The three Concert
Studies, S144 are individually-titled
as ‘Il lamento’, La leggierezza’ and
‘Un sospiro’. The opening of the first
comes as a bit of a punch in the stomach
here, after the feather-filigree that
ends ‘Waldesrauschen’, rather than acting
as a dramatic gesture. As the performance
progresses, however, lines are well-projected
and chords carefully weighted. The contrasting
Chopinesque F minor ‘La leggierezza’
is a pool of Lisztian liquid serenity;
it suits Wolfram’s temperament perfectly.
The effect is similar for ‘Un sospiro’,
the third study, where Wolfram sets
up a bed of sound, comprising rippling
arpeggios. Marvellous.
The publication date
of 1826 for the Etude en Douze Exercices
is correct - Liszt started these while
thirteen years old!. Revisions were
the Grandes Études of
1837 and the Études d’éxécution
transcendante (1851), yet how interesting
to hear these sparkling, youthful pieces;
youthful, yes, but entirely worthy of
consideration in their own right. Please,
please, do not be put off by the title,
which smacks of school-time Czerny.
Over the running-time of nearly three
quarters of an hour, there is a huge
variety, taking in a positively bejewelled
No. 9 (Allegro grazioso) and a delicate
No. 11 (again, Allegro grazioso) alongside
the challenging repeated-note No. 2
and the more fiery No. 1 (Wolfram finds
much beauty here, also, though). No.
5 became the basis for ‘Feux-follets’;
No. 7 becoming, later, ‘Harmonies du
soir’.
Interesting to have
the two Études de perfectionnement,
S142 set alongside each other (the ‘Morceau
de salon’, track 18, is an earlier version
of ‘Ab irato’, track 19). The first
version was composed for the Belgian
theorist Fétis’ ‘Méthode
de méthodes de piano’ and is
not so far removed from the world of
the First Mephisto Waltz (1859/60).
Ab irato is highly Romantic with
a very black ending, though.
Finally, Mazeppa,
S136, a close blood-relation of the
fourth of the S136 studies heard earlier
on the disc - the kinship is very audibly
obvious. The programmatic basis of Mazeppa
(Mazeppa was page to the King of Poland)
is a wild horse-ride that he is forced
to embark upon because of misdemeanours.
Byron’s 1819 poem encouraged interest
in this subject that seemed so suitable
for the Romantic temperament. Wolfram
is perhaps not as uninhibited as he
could be. The impression is somehow
that were he to play this live, things
would be different. So, while chords
are carefully placed, in the concert
hall more risks might have been taken.
Wolfram shows signs of breaking through
the barriers of studio recording without
actually getting there, a shame as this
would have been the perfect way to end
a much-varied disc that contains much
to delight. It does not preclude a recommendation,
however, as there is so much to enjoy
over the course of this hour’s worth
of music. I can’t help wondering how
many notes Wolfram plays in that time!
After writing this
review I read my colleague Michael Cookson’s
take on the same disc (Review
) and found we are in accord. Wolfram
is a pianist of no average musicality.
It is perhaps telling that that element
of his playing is highlighted here,
given the technical demands required
in this particular repertoire. The impression
is that Wolfram conquered these demands
a long time ago and that these performances
go a long way from just mere note-spinning
at great velocity. He finds the lyrical
Romantic that lies at the very heart
of Liszt - no matter how black the page
may be.
Strongly recommended.
Colin Clarke
Michael
Cookson also thought highly of this
disc
William Wolfram (piano). 