In a deadpan biographical
paragraph we’re told that pianist Michael
Schäfer "has a propensity
for featuring unusual repertoire …and
has been instrumental in surprising
the descendents of forgotten composers
with unexpected royalty earnings."
Gone Cyril Scott may be but forgotten,
well, probably not – not even during
the arid days of his near total absence
from the catalogues. Things have now
changed with regard to Scott and this
is especially true of Leslie De’ath
and Dutton’s presentation of the solo
piano works.
That said Schäfer
offers an entirely divergent response
to the sonatas. He is startlingly quicker.
In the Op.66 sonata for example he is
an astonishing six minutes quicker,
clocking in at around the twenty-two
minute mark. It gives the sonata a sense
of propulsive urgency, a breathless
dynamism that is contrastingly at odds
with De’ath’s plausible view of the
work. De’ath is far more horizontal
in conception, chordally expansive,
impressionistic in places. Schäfer
sees the sonata in more declamatory
and unsettled terms – the second movement
especially so – and with harder edged
tone and more percussive playing his
playing abjures De’ath’s pliancy and
relaxation. Incidentally I should add,
lest one thinks this a criticism of
the German player, that we know that
Percy Grainger timed the sonata at 25
˝ minutes – and nineteen with Grainger’s
cuts – so Schäfer is as under the
timing as De’ath is over it, by Grainger’s
computation at least.
These are consistent
viewpoints throughout the cycle of sonatas.
In the Scriabinesque Second Sonata we
find that Schäfer’s big chordal
flourishes contrast with the Canadian
De’ath’s more considered pianism. The
latter offers far fewer in the way of
epic dynamic contrasts, preferring a
more consonant sense of mood. Schäfer
is hard-edged, insistent, less sensitive
to nuance and turn of phrase. And for
all the excitement he generates there
is a sense that the sonata has been
too vividly telescoped, too tensely
argued.
The Third Sonata reprises
the stark angularity of Schäfer’s
take on Scott. There is none of De’ath’s
warmly sympathetic unfolding of texture;
if the Canadian sees Scott in oils,
for Schäfer it’s a question of
Cubism. Both men adopt the same tempo
for the second movement but with Schäfer’s
more pressing accents the view becomes
more rhythmically rigid, lacking rather
in the kind of leavening wit that De’ath
manages to excavate in the music. Ultimately
this can lead to moments that in the
finale begin to sound rather disjointed.
Marked Grave this is what De’ath
gives us, adding increasing lyric impulse,
and a wide wash of tonal colour. Schäfer
uses far more pedal in the opening flourish,
which is less grave and more ominous;
tension is the German’s watchword in
fact for much of the time in his Scott
immersion. The consequence is that the
finale becomes fractured emotively.
To round up the disc
to an impressively generous seventy-eight
minutes there is a handful of smaller
pieces. Sphinx is actually slightly
slower than De’ath’s performance on
Dutton but far less evocative. Rainbow
Trout is a darting joy but it glints
more, and more quickly still, with the
composer playing it back in 1928 on
a rather murkily transferred HMV – you
will find it as an enticing appendix
to one of the Dea’th-Dutton volumes.
Still, it’s valuable to have the 1920
Ballad and the late 1963 Victorian
Waltz together – very disparate
but frequently overlooked.
The performances are
rather mirrored by a slightly unyielding
recording that does little to clothe
the driving hardness of the playing.
And for those who side with the idea
of Scott as a one-man Cubist vortex
then Schäfer is a suitably driven
guide.
Jonathan Woolf
for
details
Michael Schäfer (piano) 
