This is the third volume of Lars Sellergren recordings to be issued
by the Swedish label Sterling. Like Volume 1, which offers Piano
Concertos by Brahms, Beethoven, Schumann and Franck, Volume 3
contains a wide-ranging programme, culled from radio and TV recordings.
These range from 1966 (Chopin) to 1981 (Schumann) and all are
at least adequate.
I didn’t come to these CDs with very high expectations,
wondering what the point of them was. Collectors seeking a
version of the Beethoven Variations, for example, may
well already have good accounts of the Schumann, Liszt and
Chopin and may not be interested in the very different sound-world
of Debussy. The chief raison d’être for the programme
here seems to have been the availability of the recordings,
whereas Volume 2 - a 1999 broadcast recording of Bach’s Well-tempered
Klavier, Book I - and the forthcoming Volume 4 (Mozart
Sonatas and Concertos) offer more unified programmes.
The works here offer a good range of music, almost
a miniature encyclopedia of a century of pianistic style,
presented in more or less chronological order, beginning with
Beethoven’s 32 Variations (1804) and concluding with
Debussy’s Préludes (1909-11) and Reflets dans l’eau
from Images Book I (1905). The Schumann Symphonic
Studies and the Liszt Sonata are the major pieces
at the heart of the programme.
The Beethoven Variations make a good introduction
to the first CD. Sellergren brings out the light and shade
of the music, with an emphasis on its serious and virtuosic
aspects. His playing is evocative of the late Piano Sonatas,
which is hardly surprising, since in the notes he hypothesises
that perhaps “this is how [Beethoven] played when he took
Vienna by storm.” His own playing is virtuosic but never showy,
which makes me surmise that his account of Beethoven’s Piano
Concerto No.4 on Volume 1 would be worth hearing. His forthcoming
CD of Mozart should also be worthwhile and I’d certainly like
to hear him play some of Beethoven’s mature sonatas.
The Schumann Studies receive very decent
but unexceptional performances, sounding like the best performances
one is likely to hear on the Radio 3 lunchtime recital – which
is, of course, what they are, broadcast performances: nothing
is out of place but there are no revelations. Schumann’s music
expresses the two sides of his personality, the extrovert
Florestan and the more introvert Eusebius, a contrast well
brought out in Sellergren’s performances. He quotes Schumann’s
own comment, “Der Verstand irrt, das Gefühl nicht” – intellect
may err but not the feelings – and his own feeling for the
music generally serves him well. A rollicking account of the
Finale (track 19) rounds off the set very well.
The Liszt Sonata is the major piece on these
CDs and here Sellergren really is up against stiff competition
in all price ranges. There is no point in detailed comparisons,
except to say that I was surprised to discover that Sellergren
actually takes 3½ minutes less than Brendel’s 1981 version
(27:49 against 31:11) when my overall feeling was that he
often failed to move the music along.
Sellergren sees the sonata as the work of a man
who had tired of virtuoso display and was now seeking to sublimate
virtuosity to a sense of unified composition. Within the first
minute he has stated three of the four main themes on which
the work is based, and the fourth soon follows. Sellergren
offers these themes with a virtuosity that emphasises their
unity. As the sonata develops the themes are transformed –
the forceful to the wistful, for example – and the trick is
to achieve these transformations seamlessly, which Sellergren
largely succeeds in doing. Significantly, the tempo indications
for the various sections are nowhere listed in the notes.
More seriously, the S number is nowhere given. The performance
ends on a particularly happy note, with the peace after the
storm and the completion of the cycle from the opening sotto
voce to the quiet conclusion well brought out.
If you want to follow the various tempo changes
– and to see what difficulties Liszt places in the way of
the player – a score of the Sonata is available online.
Yet, good as Sellergren is, I had to play the Brendel
performance immediately afterwards to remind myself what a
great piece of music this is. Brendel’s version is available
on Phillips 476 794 2 (with the Legends) or 475 718
8 (2 CDs with the Piano Concerto No.2, etc.) or 475 824 7
(with shorter Liszt pieces), all at mid price. One reviewer
aptly described Brendel in the Liszt Sonata as “positive
of his ground” and this is the icing on the cake which Sellergren’s
version lacks. Brendel’s DDD recording on my copy of 432 048-2
(an earlier incarnation, no longer available) is also a touch
clearer than Sellergren’s. If you want to live dangerously,
try Demidenko’s version of the Sonata on budget-price Hyperion
CDH55184.
The performances of the ‘Revolutionary’ Etude
which opens the second CD and the other Chopin pieces which
follow – one each of four of his major forms, Étude,
Ballade, Nocturne and Polonaise – are
the oldest items here, still sounding well after more than
four decades. Once again, the playing is good, especially
in the Ballade (track 2), but hardly revelatory by
comparison with the very stiff competition here. I refrain
from comparison because no-one is likely to buy these CDs
for these four pieces alone in preference to all-Chopin recitals.
Nor is anyone likely to buy these CDs for the first
book of Debussy’s Préludes, when there are so many
excellent accounts of both books together. (Gieseking on EMI
5 67233-2 of the older school and Zimerman on DGG 435 773-2
of the younger school, to name but two. See TH’s review
of Rogé’s Onyx recording for a good summing up of the situation
– the budget-price Tirimo version which he recommends there
is now on super-budget Regis RRC1111, marvellous value for
a fiver in the UK.
The question also arises whether Sellergren can
cope as well with Debussy’s very different palette as he has
with the romantic works so far offered. At first, I thought
not – the opening Danseuses de Delphes (track 5) just
a little too pedestrian and unmagical. Debussy does seem to
be asking the impossible in marking the opening lent et
grave and doux et soutenu, then doux mais en
dehors – and what about the shades of distinction between
pp, più pp, and ppp, but the best performers
do manage to achieve the impossible here. Sellergren encompasses
all these directions, but never seems to manage all four simultaneously.
Voiles (track 6) is more magical, capturing both Debussy’s
elusive direction dans un rythme sans rigueur et caressant
and the spirit of the Monet painting on which it is based
– a reproduction of which is available online.
Sellergren’s notes perhaps make too much of the
connection between the Impressionist painters and Debussy
– no parallel between two different art forms is ever exact,
though I think the opening of Vaughan Williams’ London
Symphony comes very close to capturing the mood of Monet’s
paintings of a foggy Westminster – but the piano does need
to suggest in the same way that the brush-strokes do and,
in most of the Préludes Sellergren succeeds in doing
just that. The lightest of touches in Des pas sur la neige
(track 10) is particularly successful in capturing the repeated
markings with which the music is peppered: triste et lent,
expressif et douloureux, comme un tendre et triste
regret, etc. La fille aux cheveux de
lin
(track 12) is also very successful.
As with the Liszt Sonata, the tempo indications
are omitted from the documentation; they may be found along
with the complete score of Book 1 online.
The second CD concludes with Reflects dans l’eau,
from Images Book 1. Again, it is hard to see why the
prospective purchaser should not wish to acquire the complete
set of Images but Sellergren’s performance is more
than adequate. A look at the score, available online
as part of the complete Images Book 1, serves as a
reminder of the complexity of this piece and to show that
Sellergren’s art conceals art in his performance of the piece.
Lars Sellergren’s own notes are effective, not
only in setting these pieces in context, but also in clarifying
his own approach to each piece. The English translation, despite
the odd awkward phrase or inappropriate tense, is clear enough
to avoid the reader’s having to turn to the Swedish original
for clarification, though the music example showing the theme
on which the Beethoven Variations are based can be
found only on p.3 of the Swedish text.
Since no other recording matches what is on offer
on this 2-CD set, I have regarded comparisons as a waste of
time and taken the music here on its own terms, apart from
the Liszt. If you are in the market for the programme on offer,
in performances which are never less than competent, you could
do much worse: nothing on these CDs falsifies the music and
not many pianists could perform as effectively the range of
styles offered here. Despite their radio and TV provenance,
the recordings are generally good – better than you are likely
to hear on Radio 3 on FM or DAB, especially when sports fixtures
reduce the latter’s barely acceptable 192 Kbps to 160.
Not having encountered Lars Sellergren’s work before,
I naïvely took the photograph on p.2 of the booklet at face
value and imagined that I was listening to the work of a young
artist on the threshold of his career. If the photograph really
is a recent one, Sellergren must have discovered the elusive
fountain of youth – or else his date of birth, 1927, is a
misprint in both the Swedish and English notes.
Had it not been for the fact that the programme
as a whole is hardly likely to meet any one person’s requirements,
some of the performances would have merited a Thumbs Up. As it
is, I end as I began by wondering who would want this particular
collection.
Brian
Wilson
