Comparison Recordings:
Guiomar Novaes, Vox CDX3 3501
Swingle Singers, Op 10 #6, Op 25 #2;
Philips LP
Tamás Vásáry, Scherzos
(4); [OP] DG 2535285*
If some readers are
upset over the awful things I say about
Beethoven (and if you think the published
reviews are bad you should read the
ones that don’t get published) wait
until they hear what I have to say about
Chopin.
One might keep several
things in mind: Chopin learned to play
the piano by practising Bach’s Wohltemperierte
Klavier. Consequently, as well as
subsequently, he was the first composer
to write preludes without fugues, in
acknowledged homage to Bach. And keep
in mind that "Études
de piano" is a passable French
translation of "Klavierübung,"
... and the Opus 10 was published in
Leipzig! Keep also in mind that the
only music Chopin had heard which sounded
at all like his own was Schubert’s.
Liszt probably learned more from Chopin
than the other way around, and like
so much of what Liszt learned he ran
with it like a dog with a rope of sausages
into his own private and public ecstasies.
Chopin realised (as
did Bach and Charles Rosen) that the
keyboard was not merely a medium through
which music passed but that, in the
athletic physical struggle to make the
keys sound, music was forged. Keyboard
music is a finger ballet, a crucible,
a military manoeuvre. Therefore in the
effort of difficult keyboard exercises
lies a doorway to profound expression
that cannot be found and entered any
other way. Even Debussy acknowledged
this and utilised it, as did Brahms.
Of Course Chopin could relax and have
fun like the best of them, perhaps better
than most of them. And, of course, the
violin and especially the cello have
their own corresponding physical musical
ritual.
So I divide Chopin’s
work into three groups: The Scherzos,
(and perhaps the Ballades and
maybe even the Third Sonata)
which are in homage of Schubert’s Impromptus
and should be played primarily as though
they were by Schubert - an extension
of his aesthetic. The Études
(perhaps to a lesser extent also the
Preludes) are Chopin’s serious
musical statement, standing, as he was,
in the shadow of Bach and looking to
the future. And, all the rest, the interminable
waltzes, nocturnes, polonaises, the
first two sonatas, concertos, etc.,
which were just fodder for the music
mill, to try to make some money. While
they make fine teaching pieces and amateur
recital pieces, they deserve to be ignored.
If I never have to sit through a one
of them again I’ll be delighted. Concert
recitalists love them because they are
so easy to play and sound so difficult
to play, amateur pianists love them
because they are so easy to play badly
they can sound like they’re "really
trying," and the audience love
them because they sound like classical
music and like pop tunes at the same
time.
So, standing here before
the Études, I take off
my hat and kneel down to two geniuses,
Chopin and Perahia and reflect on the
remaining mystery in these works. Why
is it that Brazilians play them best?
Upon reflection Brazil and Poland have
some things in common: A highly developed
national music which embodies an irrepressible
rhythmic energy — A sense of never being
respected as nations as much as they
deserve to be (Poland having been several
times devoured and Brazil having been
ignored) and consequently a bursting
pride in their national cultures — And
a profoundly mystical and somewhat fatalistic
religious culture. When Villa-Lobos
tried to write true Brazilian music
he found he had to invent entirely new
forms, and his music still generally
bewilders European performers and listeners.
Chopin in writing Polish music had to
invent new forms as well, but his have
been well assimilated.
For years my favourite
Chopin recording has been Novaes’ recording
of the complete Études —
in fact it has been the only Chopin
I ever listen to by choice. Now Murray
Perahia brings me almost the same performance
in piano sound so richly sensual that
one does not listen to it so much as
bathe in it.
A final mystery: why
does Perahia do such a magnificent overall
job of performing these works and then
fall down so miserably on just one,
the Op 25 #6? Well, I still have Novaes’
recording which is supreme and I can
listen to that one instead.
Before you send me
hate mail, please be advised that I
am aware that I have overstated my case,
and that works like the Ballades,
the Fantasie Impromptu, have
much in them worthy of defence. And
I enjoy the Prelude and Fugue
in a minor, especially when I play
it on the harpsichord in baroque style
to get even for all those hours of bad
piano Bach.
*If I may be permitted
one more mystery, why is Vasary’s finest
Chopin recording the only one that has
never been reissued on CD? Are you listening
DG?
Paul Shoemaker
Murray Perahia, piano 
SONY
SS 61885 [55.54] 