Sheppard’s Liszt can be heard at its best in the second
Swiss piece, “Au lac de Wallenstadt”. The “dolcissimo
egualmente” left hand murmurs impressionistically and
the melody is warmly sung above it. Go to Alfred Brendel and
you will hear something more. The triplet figure at the beginning
of each bar is just slightly brought out and somehow takes on
a life of its own. Without heavy-handing pointing, Brendel makes
us aware of the music’s harmonic, as well as melodic,
shape. So that makes two dimensions you don’t get from
Sheppard.
So it goes on, really. Sheppard handles “Chapelle de Guillaume
Tell” ably, but Brendel makes us more aware of the grandeur
of the opening page, his recitative and subsequent “Allegro
vivace” are elemental, the notes are not just clearly
in place, they combine to create imagery. “Pastorale”
goes nicely enough from both, though Brendel allows himself
fractionally more time, which seems an advantage. Indeed, allowing
the music its space seems fundamental to much of this Swiss
book, and Brendel is generally better at doing this.
Sheppard is gentle, almost lazy with “Au bord d’un
source”, a summer brook that may find its admirers. Brendel
moves it on slightly more. Go to Eileen Joyce for a performance
that has Liszt’s bejewelled dissonances sparkle with the
something of the iridescence of the best performances of Ravel’s
“Jeux d’eau”. “Orage” contrasts
Sheppard’s well-handled octave-study with Brendel’s
raging elements.
Brendel’s “Vallée d’Obermann”
has never seemed to me one of his best performances, but the
beginning at least evokes philosophical musings, existential
unease compared with Sheppard’s salon confidences. Sheppard
has some good moments, such as the start of the final E major
section, but both pianists rush their fences at times and lose
the patient Brucknerian build-up over the vast long span.
Sheppard notes with approval in his accompanying essay that
most modern pianists play “Eclogue” two-in-a-bar
not four - “I’ve often wondered why Liszt did not
correct this apparent oversight when editing the first edition
of Les Années”. Perhaps because he didn’t
want it to jog along like a pretty polka, as it does at times
here. The question is surely not one of two or four but of atmosphere.
Arguably, Debussy revisited this landscape in “Bruyères”
and the “right” tempo for “Eclogue”
would be that which brings out a similar sense of secret ecstasy.
“Le mal du pays” suggests nervousness rather than
unease - more space to the pauses might have helped - and the
excitable later stages of “Les cloches de Genêve”
fail to explain what - if anything - raises this Liszt piece
above the many once-popular bell pieces of its time, such as
Léfebure-Wely’s “Le cloches du Monastère”.
The first three Italian pieces are decorously played, though
I personally prefer a stridingly purposeful “Canzonetta
del Salvator Rosa” to the skittish thing we have here.
With the Petrarch Sonnets I begin to take issue more strongly.
It’s true that many pianists today seem unable to separate
melody and accompaniment in the texture, but when the tune proper
begins in Sonnet 47 the total subjugation of the accompaniment
goes to far. Surely a degree of dialogue between the two is
needed. We also lose the psychological value of the syncopations,
the melody seemingly on the beat. In the sixth bar of Sonnet
104 we have a phrase marked crescendo, with an accent at its
apex. Sheppard pitches in forte, reversing the crescendo and
replacing the accent with a sudden piano. Frankly, this is a
type of expressive device I associate more with a night club
pianist than a classical artist. As is the sudden lunge at the
beginning of the C sharp minor phrase (bar 23, with upbeat).
More of the same in Sonnet 123. The regular beginning of a phrase
with a strong accent, even when the phrase is marked with a
crescendo and should logically begin softly, as in the phrase
beginning with an E natural in bar 27, is, in vocal terms, more
Nat King Cole than Fischer-Dieskau. Sheppard stresses his use
of modern editions, particularly the Henle, so here I have to
tread carefully since I have the old Sauer (Peters) in front
of me. I can only say that, if the repeated calls on the last
page-and-a-half for “dolcissimo armonioso … dolcemente
… sempre dolce … perdendo …” are all
inventions by Sauer - but I doubt this - and if modern editions
have instead, on Liszt’s authority, “forte e sempre
ben declamato”, which is how Sheppard plays it until the
last bar or two, then Sauer seems at least spiritually right.
The technical demands of the Dante Sonata - well met - keep
Sheppard on the straight and narrow and this is one of the higher
spots of these discs. I suppose it’s inevitable, in a
live recording, that by the time the last bars are reached the
lower notes for the left hand tremolo are thoroughly out of
tune, but that’s not Sheppard’s fault.
It was a pleasure after this to take out of cold storage the
old Westminster recording of the Italian book by Edith Farnadi,
a Hungarian pianist who died rather young and who was particularly
noted for her Liszt, of which she recorded a good deal. Generally
speaking her natural, unsensational but far from passionless
musicianship shows the composer at his best. The differences
are most striking in the three Sonnets, where the melodies have
a flow and a shape, as opposed to grinding from bloated note
to bloated note. You hardly seem to be listening to the same
music.
I have enjoyed some past issues in this by now extensive series
from Sheppard - I remember some Rachmaninov and some Schumann
in particular. Either he is not attuned to Liszt or I am not
attuned to his way of seeing Liszt. Sheppard’s own notes
show an awareness of the philosophical Liszt that I, personally,
did not always detect in the actual performances.
Christopher Howell
Craig Sheppard (piano) 