Interesting to be able
to assess the latest offering from Andreas
Haefliger in the light of interviewing
him .
So here we have a CD
called ‘Perspectives I’ - by implication
there will be a sequel. And that is
to be welcomed. Haefliger has experimented
with various juxtapositions of composers
in live performance, and this disc represents
a fruit of his endeavours. Pianists
who embrace the music of our time while
basing their core repertoire firmly
in the masterworks of Western music
are to be welcomed. In a repertoire
sense, this approach tends to be so
effective because the older musics (Baroque,
Classical etc) act in a symbiotic relationship
with the harder-edged and/or more elusive
music of the 20th and 21st
centuries. The knowledge of the one
feeds and illuminates the other. And
it is this very reciprocity that enables
the present programme to work so well.
Programming in this
way is in itself an art. Haefliger’s
disc is brave. Schubert’s piano sonatas
present huge problems and, indeed, reveal
their secrets to a select few; the last
of Beethoven’s almighty canon requires
the conjuration of the highest profundities;
Adès poses all of the problems
a present-day superpianist/composer
has as his right to hoist on an unsuspecting
interpreter; And Mozart is … well, Mozart.
The disc starts with
Schubert, D537 of 1817 (a sonata that
had to wait until 1852 for first publication).
Haefliger’s Schubert is a muscular beast
(at least in the first movement of the
three), yet let this not imply any insensitivity.
Haefliger is as responsive to Schubert’s
characteristic harmonic shifts as the
best of them (or almost, less so than
Mitsuko Uchida in this repertoire, perhaps),
and he understands Schubert’s faux-naïf
world in the Allegretto quasi andantino
to a tee. The only fly in the ointment
seems to be a slight tendency towards
heavy-handedness in the finale.
Adès immediately
post-Schubert may seem on paper a huge
leap, but actually there is an undercurrent
of lyricism (analogous to that which
underlies Schubert) to Darknesse
Visible. Premièred in Budapest
in October 1992, Adès sees his
piece as an explosion of John Dowland’s
lute song, In Darknesse let me Dwell
of 1610: ‘ … no notes have been added;
indeed, some have been removed’, and
the latent patterns of the original
‘have been isolated and regrouped, with
the aim of illuminating the song from
within’. This complex work ends with
a final appearance of the Dowland, which
Haefliger presents in the most touching
of ways. This nine-minute work alone
justifies the price of the disc. Of
course Adès himself is the work’s
most sympathetic interpreter, but Haefliger
is entirely his own man. Interestingly,
another Schubertian, Imogen Cooper,
holds this piece in her repertoire (a
very lyrical live performance heard
on Radio 3 - from I believe the Cheltenham
Festival - remains lodged in this reviewer’s
mind).
Certainly the Mozart
emerges as aural balm after the Adès,
the penultimate Sonata supplementing
Haefliger’s extant Mozart disc on AVIE.
Haefliger’s playing is clean and neat
yet, when called for, exciting. His
Adagio is delicate; perhaps his finale
is delicate to a fault, though?.
Brave is the pianist
who tackles the final chapter of any
pianist’s Bible, Beethoven’s Op. 111.
Perhaps surprisingly for a disc as daring
as this, the opening’s descending interval
is on the careful side; the left-hand
octaves later appear a little light.
A sense of the transcendent greatness
of this work is largely missing, and
the Arietta, whilst leaving the human
plane, does not quite make it all the
way to Heaven.
Within the context
of this disc this Op. 111 nevertheless
works as a thought-provoking climax
to a fascinating 71 minutes’ worth of
listening. Markus Heilan’s recording
is true, vivid and spacious. Recommended.
Colin Clarke
Andreas Haefliger (piano).