Comparison recordings:
Paul Badura-Skoda and
Jörg Demus [monophonic] Wesminster
LP XWN 18344/5
Allow me to point out,
at the risk of being obvious, that works
for piano four hands differ in several
important senses from works for two
pianos or piano duo: First, in the former,
one pianist plays all the high notes
and the other all the low notes, and
they negotiate over the notes in between.
Second, in the former, the pianists
are sitting so close together that they
are intimately aware of each other’s
body movements, so precise matching
of phrases is possible, much more so
than is usual with pianists sitting
at separate pianos and who may or may
not even be able to see each other as
they play. So it was important for me
to determine if this is truly a four-hand
one piano performance, and I can assure
you on the evidence of both my ears
and careful listening to the stereo
perspective that it is. This is easy
to determine because a piano duo recording
would have the high notes from one side
and the low notes from the other.
My mother refused to
listen to any music by Schubert (except,
of course, the Unfinished Symphony)
because when she was in high school
two teachers whom everyone despised
would play the four hands arrangement
of the Marche Militaire at every
single school assembly. She was not
being so unreasonable as you might imagine.
Poorly played four hand piano music
and two-piano music can sound galvanisingly
monotonous in rhythm, a dunning dum-da-da-dum
that can give me a headache and can
cause nausea in others. Suffice it to
say that these performances left me
not merely generously free of medical
symptoms but were highly enjoyable and
achieved a commendable grace and lightness
of phrase.
Brahms must have known
the Rondo in a well, as there
is a curious brief quotation from it
in Brahms’ two piano version of the
Variations on a Theme of Haydn.
This performance of
the Fantasie in f, certainly
one of Schubert’s supreme masterpieces,
is not quite the best I’ve ever heard;
it is possible to draw more drama and
mystery from this music, which is in
one sense an impassioned operatic scene
between innocence and hope on the one
side and everything else on the other.
It is one of the works that gives us
a vision of the mature Schubert who
never lived writing the greatest nineteenth
century German operas. One thing this
work is not is a jolly folk dance and
that is a little too much in evidence
here. Perhaps one might describe this
performance as "youthful"
with all the good and bad that that
connotes. Demus and Badura-Skoda were
young when they made their recordings,
but living in Vienna they effectively
assimilated the mature traditions without
losing their energy and vivacity.
Between the Variations
and the Fantasie are three works
that Schubert might have intended to
work together into a multi-movement
suite for two pianos, performed here
curiously not in the order that they
might have taken in such a suite — but
no matter, it comes off fine anyway.
However, the rest of
the works are performed nearly as well
as I’ve ever heard them.
Is it unfair of me
to use to out-of-print vinyl disks as
comparison recordings? No, I don’t think
so. These old recordings should be and
may at any time be restored to the CD
catalogue, and any modern CD recordings
I might choose for comparison may have
been deleted or be otherwise unavailable,
by the time you read this review due
to circumstances over which I have no
control and cannot predict. Furthermore
these early recordings were so sensationally
popular that they circulated widely
and are probably available to many persons
through libraries and record collector
friends. They set a standard of performance
and recording quality with which these
artists are probably familiar with and
which they probably strive to emulate.
Paul Shoemaker
Recorded at Alte Reitschule at Grafenegg Castle,
Austria, 31 May 2002 