A somewhat mixed programme,
but alas, the tragically short career
of William Kapell (1922-1953) – he was
killed in an air crash at the age of
31 – just didn’t give him time to record
enough material for it to be grouped
neatly and thematically in a series
of CDs.
And yet there is homogeneity
of a sort, for while the previous volume
dedicated to Kapell by Naxos, with works
by Prokofiev, Shostakovich and Khachaturian,
concentrated on the technical whiz-kid,
here the emphasis is on the musician.
After Vladimir Golschmann’s adequately
lively and neatly turned but not particularly
characterful introduction, we are struck
by the light and shade that enters the
Beethoven performance as Kapell takes
over, by the fluid Mozartian grace and
the clarity without brittleness of the
fingerwork. Just occasionally Kapell
veers towards something more obviously
virtuosic, and the cadenza is terrific,
but this is in general a very idiomatic,
far from exhibitionist performance.
Golschmann provides, at least, a punctual
framework for it all. The slow movement
is strongly felt, grave yet mobile,
but in the finale the young man does
sow his wild oats a little, with a tempo
that is a shade too fast to feel comfortable,
at any rate to my ears. Still, for an
upfront but not over-the-top performance,
this is well worth knowing, and it sounds
surprisingly good.
In the tiny Schubert
pieces Kapell catches exactly the poetic
mood of each without attempting to interpolate
his own personality – just sheer good
musicianship. I would not go so far
as to say that he reveals the spiritual
dimensions of a Lipatti – were it not
for their untimely deaths no one would
think of comparing the two – but there
was clearly far more to Kapell than
a mere whiz-kid.
In the Rachmaninov
Edmund Kurtz offers warm tone and generous
musicianship rather than a dominating
personality. Mindful of this, perhaps,
as well as of the number of notes in
the piano part, the engineers placed
him well forward, reckoning without
Kapell who proves a true chamber musician,
well able to lighten his sonority to
match that of the soloist. The trouble
is that as a result of the balance he
is made to sound too retiring (I think
in reality he had it about right) and
the music assumes a gentle, flowing
quality suggestive of Fauré or
even Delius. A pity, since I believe
there was really more bite to it than
we hear. Even so, it is a valuable demonstration
of a further side of Kapell’s musicianship.
It looks as though
Kapell’s recordings have to be taken
as evidence of what might have been
rather than as already complete statements.
But what might have been was so full
of promise that those interested in
the history of piano-playing in the
20th Century should definitely
not regret paying the modest Naxos price
to hear it.
Christopher Howell
William Kapell (piano) 
