The second Curzon volume
is as welcome as the first, recently
reviewed on this site. It contains
much that is Olympian and elevated,
all that is compelling, and invariably
belies the monumental struggles Curzon
endured to convey the full and furthest
extremes of his artistic vision. The
four CDs are well filled and the repertoire
reflects the range of his enthusiasms
and greatest strengths.
Admirers will note
that, as before, we have more Schubert
Impromptus, this time D899 from his
December 1941 session. I assume the
masters were destroyed many years ago,
along with most of Decca’s other masters;
the commercial shellac hiss is not obtrusive.
The C minor has sweep and grandeur,
the E flat major wittily pointed rhythm
and the A flat major a lyric generosity
at its heart. Coupled with them come
two Mozart Concertos with the LSO and
Krips, here advertised as "First
international CD releases". Well,
no complaints from me about that or
about the soloist’s sensitivity, perception
and natural sounding lyricism. The concerns
centre on the recording, which is, for
Decca 1953, unusually unattractive.
The piano is too loud in relation to
the supportive instrumentation and there’s
a mushy lack of orchestral detail –
not altogether helped one suspects by
Krips, who on this form is not a match
for Szell’s much more incisive and etched
support in Vienna in 1964. This is also
true of the slow movement of K488 where
Curzon is on sublimely more expansive
form with his frequent Concerto collaborator,
Szell.
We have three commercial
recordings of his Brahms D minor Concerto.
The most consistently stimulating is,
once more, the Szell (LSO 1962) and
this Concertgebouw/van Beinum comes
ahead of the National Symphony/Jordá
78 set from 1946. With van Beinum Curzon’s
first entry is almost timorous, certainly
diffident, withdrawn and complex and
the concerto grows from that seed with
inexorable, moving and wonderful breadth
of feeling. He becomes increasingly
defiant and commanding, van Beinum offering
quite expansive and elegant support.
The slow movement is marked by introspection,
questing and interior reflection; it’s
also moving for those very reasons.
He is measured and lyrical in the finale
as well as dramatic, abjuring melodrama
and effusive attacks. The fugato is
finely done, the strings proving sonorously
supple and Curzon generates plenty of
chordal depth and also much lightness.
Nothing is hammered out and it’s his
sheer discrimination of touch, as well
as an acute psychological schema for
this work, that sets someone like Curzon
apart from his peers. This was a work
he seemed always to inhabit, to draw
out from within. Coupled with his famous
Brahms is his less famous Grieg. Good
to have this fine performance back in
the catalogue because for all his aristocracy
of phrasing this is no withdrawn performance.
Again, he overstates nothing, but seems
to seek out the work’s essence through
little moments of transfiguring intimacy.
Good to hear Fistoulari as well, a Decca
stalwart accompanist, who encourages
some yielding and pliant string playing
in the Adagio. If it’s true, as the
old gag goes, that Fistoulari used to
practise in a mirror whilst conducting
to others’ recordings … then he learned
well enough.
He plays the Brahms
F minor Sonata with arching and sweeping
drama – monumental, were it not for
the fact that the word gives the wrong
impression; ‘panoramic’ better conveys
his command of the syntax of the work.
The spiritualised complexity he finds
in it runs through the virtuosity and
is indeed an indissoluble component
of it. The depth of his Adagio has seldom
been equalled, the humanity of the music-making
undimmed after forty years – and as
potent and revealing as ever. The E
flat major Intermezzo Op.117 No.1 is
beautifully done. With Brahms there
is, inevitably with Curzon, Schubert.
His B flat minor D960, the composer’s
last, has at its heart a magnificently
realised slow movement, as unequivocal
a salute to the abiding influence on
Curzon of his teacher Schnabel as one
could find. But this is all Curzon –
profound, almost disquietingly so –
and with lightness and elegance in the
Scherzo. He doesn’t take the first movement
repeat; otherwise, another great performance.
The final disc shows us Curzon
the chamber collaborator, here in Vienna
with long-standing LP favourites, and
which couples the Piano Quintets of
Franck and Dvořák. Of the two it’s
the latter that strikes the more immediately
lyrical face with an infectious ardour
in the playing that contrasts
strongly with the sometimes more sanguine
and gaunt direction of the Franck (which
has been taken more pliantly on disc).
Once again this set
earns the strongest possible recommendation.
Is it too much to hope for a third volume?
Jonathan Woolf
Clifford
Curzon. Decca Recordings 1949-1964
Volume 1
Clifford Curzon (piano) with accompaniments
as above 