Here are fourteen
volumes from Vista Vera's exhaustive
and important restorations devoted
to the paradoxical Maria Yudina. Each
affords one the opportunity to concentrate
on her recorded legacy with something
approaching comprehensiveness. All
are available individually.
Let’s start with
Disc five, which is all-Brahms. She
is known to have been intellectually
taken by variational form and so the
complexities of the Variations and
Fugue on a theme of Handel would have
appealed strongly. (I should note
in passing that her famous Goldberg
Variations recording is not included
in these fourteen volumes but it’s
available elsewhere). This is a virile
and powerful reading though one somewhat
vitiated by her typically over-heated
rhythmic way – note the fourth variation
in particular. The fugue receives
a truly thunderous reading. This was
one of the earliest performances in
this series but she was a fully mature
artist at the time. Let’s pass over
the Rhapsody in G major – eccentric
and really very poor. Much better
is her 1968 collaboration with three
members of the Beethoven Quartet in
the Piano Quartet in A major. If the
Handel variations was an early recording
this one is a late one, made two years
before her death. This receives a
big boned, tensile, powerful reading,
warmly phrased but always with dignity.
Schumann and Schubert
occupy volume six. She’s not as lugubriously
slow as Richter in D960 but she shares
that Slavic propensity to distension
in the opening movement. It’s a solution
I happen to find grossly indulgent,
though it’s not in Richter’s league
of slowness. Elsewhere she’s rather
more conventional. There’s a definable
gravity to her slow movement but she
doesn’t cultivate much sense of cantabile
and her sense of rhythm and tonal
depth yield to, say, Curzon almost
at every point. The Op.12 Fantasiestücke
of Schumann witnesses typical Yudina
highs and lows. Next to Bauer she
sounds positively brusque in No.4
– it is marked mit humor after
all – where she indulges her penchant
for tub-thumping. Sometimes phraseology
works, at other times brittle tone
defeats the object.
Her Mozart [volume
11] features the Rondo K511, full
of rubati, and two concertos. K466
dates from 1948 and is over robustly
conducted by Gorchakov. Clearly the
orchestra wasn't in good estate -
the horns are ragged, the strings's
portamenti are slack and Yudina is
prominently over-recorded into the
bargain. She sounds over-eager and
fretful. The slow movement is characteristically
very slow and it sounds like a lot
of upper frequency noise suppression
has gone on as well - too much treble
has been taken off. The finale certainly
runs risks - Yudina was never afraid
of those. The companion concerto was
K488. I've no idea where the story
about Stalin and this concerto arose
- maybe from Yudina herself, though
it's always trotted out. Let's just
discuss the musical merits here. Gauk
is in charge, a thankful relief, though
he is in somewhat trenchant mood.
There's a buzzy sound in this recording
which sounds odd and the recording
sounds echo-y as well. Her slow movement
is phrased with rapt tenderness but
once again it is very slow - Yudina
never seeks beauty of tone for its
own sake but she does conflate slow
tempos with piety of expression and
that may be troublesome to those unsympathetic
to her. The notes speak of her "pretty,
rounded tone" - well not here, not
in the finale - and they elide the
matter of her dynamic rushing at bars.
The Beethoven Concertos
[volume 7] were recorded in 1948 and
1950. Sanderling accompanies in the
Fourth and she clearly formed a sympathetic
relationship with him. Her playing
is full of nervous energy, now italicised,
now pushing forward with kick-start
power, now falling back into deliberation.
She plays the overlong Brahms cadenza
in the first movement. Sanderling's
Leningrad strings sound desiccated
- and especially in their statements
in the slow movement, though it was
clearly a matter of principle not
to pursue the marmoreal in the exchanges
between orchestra and soloist. The
deliberate and maybe studio-influenced
lack of weight presents a very different
perspective. There's something of
a chamber music approach to the finale
- powerful dynamic gradients and a
surge-and-release aspect as well.
The Fifth Concerto with Nathan Rakhlin
is apparently heard here in its first
release. Rubati are characteristically
excessive, the horns' vibrato is as
wide as a valley and the sound is
congested. There are one or two ill-timed
orchestral entries as well. But there's
much that is commanding and leonine
here, though it will come as no surprise
that the central movement is very,
very slow once more. There seems to
have been an edit before the finale
and with her chords cut brittle and
short Yudina leads a strongly personalised
assault.
The sonatas are contained
in volumes eight and nine. Op.90 witnesses
constant Yuda-isms of rubati, tempo,
timbre and dynamic gradients though
the cumulative power and spirit are
also magnetically present whatever
one's objections. There's something
obdurately hit and miss about her
take on Op.101. She evokes a rustic
vigour in the alla marcia and digs
deep for a sinewy fugal passage in
the finale though it's prefaced by
vertiginous rubati once more. In Op.111
she lacks Solomon’s inwardness and
iron control – for all her acknowledged
spiritual depth it rather fails to
communicate through the microphone.
The harsh recording quality certainly
is against her but even so her tone
colours remain constrained and sometimes
rather granitic and self-limited.
She's joined for the violin sonata
Op.30 No.1 by Maria Kozoloupova whose
suspect intonation and very slow vibrato
limit enthusiasm. Yudina is at her
nimblest here in the finale and it's
certainly welcome to hear her in violin
sonata repertoire - which is rare
on disc for her - though it would
have been more rewarding to have heard
her with someone of comparable stature.
Volume four couples
the Hammerklavier with a sheaf of
Brahms Intermezzi. At almost exactly
the same time Yudina set down her
thoughts on the Hammerklavier Solomon
was recording it in London. She can’t
help but sound objectified after him;
her tone lacks grandeur and solidity
and the sonorous power he commanded
is not in evidence in her more brittle
and less inward-seeking performance.
The Intermezzos are variable. Her
tone is cold in Brahms for much of
the time. And her phrasing in Op.117
No.1 is oddly lumpy. There’s not much
sense of the qualifying ma molto
appassionato in Op.118 No.1 and
where one might have expected her
to play more expressively, say in
Op.118 No.2 we find, alas, that she
doesn’t. Back in 1936 Backhaus was
hardly sentimental in his approach
but his coloured and tonally shaded
response gave it much greater tension
and feeling. Yudina’s recording is
yet again unhelpful but her tone as
such is unvarnished anyway.
The Eroica variations
are in the first volume coupled with
the Diabelli. The latter is one of
her best-known recordings. Yudina’s
interest in variation form was stimulated
by what is often referred to as her
"mathematical" beliefs.
I’ve never been quite sure how best
to decode these and perhaps it’s best
not even to try. I prefer the Eroica
performance; the Diabelli is certainly
robust and she’s certainly not incapable
of pliant phrasing and sagacious control
of the smaller and larger details
of the architecture. But you will
have to follow her into expected areas
of eruptive rhythmic gestures and
also some departures from the text.
The recording itself is very much
School of 1961, Soviet style.
Bach occupies volumes
3 and 12. She plays six Preludes and
Fugues from the Well Tempered Clavier
in 12. These are erratic sounding
traversals and the recording doesn't
help by helping to iron out dynamic
contrasts. Still for all the eccentricity
there is brilliance - the Prelude
in B major especially. Set against
that her playing does too often sound
stolid and next to Feinberg's Bach
she tends to emphasise heaviness.
There are fourteen Preludes and Fugues
from Book II in volume 3. She’s up
and down here as well – measured and
pedantic in the Fugue of No.5, gabbled
in the Fugue of the First and static
alongside Feinberg elsewhere. Better
is the Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue
with some clipped harpsichord-like
sonorities and the hyphenated Bach-Liszt
with its sonorously projected bass
line. Maria Kozoloupova joins her
again for the Sonata in E major BWV
1016 where many of the faults are
reprised. Yudina's tempo in the slow
movement is too unsympathetic for
her colleague to sustain.
There’s an enjoyable
all-Taneyev disc. His chamber music
is grossly underestimated and it’s
a pleasure to hear the Op.20 Piano
Quartet and the Op.30 Piano Quintet
in the hands of Yudina and the Beethoven
Quartet. The recordings may be raw
– and they were made four years apart
in 1957 and 1953 respectively – but
playing such as this transcends such
limitations. The Quartet has a full
measure of expression and control;
maybe the fugal passage in the finale
is over-academic but the players almost
convince you it isn’t. The central
movement is the shortest but the most
concentrated – it’s a pity Yudina
is inclined to over-pound here in
her enthusiasm. The Piano Quintet
sees the Beethovens fully in place.
The recording is subject to over congestion
but there’s abrupt power here with
a fizzing scherzo and a most warmly
voiced and beautiful Largo. The stately
tread of the finale is excellently
characterised – and one can forgive
Taneyev for the slightly prolix nature
of the writing here. The players bring
real dash and eloquence to these works.
Her Pictures at an
Exhibition is undated but contained
in volume 14. She venerated Mussorgsky
but subjects his work to a panoply
of highly debatable intercessions.
She plays fast - literally - and loose
here with a naggingly and brittly
quick Old Castle and a capricious
Tuileries. Baba Yaga comes garnished
with glissandi and a battery of impeded
rhythm. She avoids over use of the
pedal but in her cavalier treatment
- the polar opposite of, say, Richter's
- she tends to leave too much of an
impression of her own undoubted commitment
to it. Richter by the way couldn't
stand Yudina or her performances.
She studied alongside Shostakovich
and many years later in 1965 recorded
his Second Sonata. According to that
well known hyphenate, Volkov-Shostakovich,
the composer didn't like it. "The
tempi are wrong and there's a rather
free approach to the text. But perhaps
I'm mistaken, I haven't heard the
record for a while." The first part
of that reported statement is the
kind of standard criticism of Yudina
that anyone can make. There's nothing
especially ingratiating about her
playing here but then in my experience
that was seldom what she was after.
Whatever the comments of the composer
may have been it's a valuable document
of her playing.
There’s some more
Mussorgsky in volume 13. There are
some rare morceaux here, warmly and
attractively played. Then there’s
the tougher meat of Medtner’s Sonata-Triad;
very well played. She’s disinclined
to linger in the slow movement, taking
a good minute less than a current
player such as Hamelin but she brings
a compensatory fluency and a certain
hauteur to it. Apparently each movement
was recorded on a different day –
or maybe acceptable takes were – which
is decidedly odd for 1958. Prokofiev’s
Visions Fugitives fills up the rest
of the disc. Her rubato is very much
more distracting - and curiously distancing
- than the composer’s own in his 1935
Paris recording, not that he recorded
them all. But comparison between them
does bear out the point. He’s consistently
rather faster and less inclined to
any metrical displacements. She doesn’t
project No.5 as theatrically and doesn’t
replicate his sound palette here or
in No.9 or indeed his strong dynamics.
She prefers a more mordant heaviness
in No.10 – much more emphatic and
slower. Her rhythms in No.11 are less
sharply etched and in general her
reading is more relaxed and less incisive.
As with the Medtner this wasn’t recorded
in one sitting; they were set down
over a three-year period.
A whole disc is given
over to her proselytising for new
music. In some ways this shows her
at her most impressive. She seems
unfettered by extraneous demands or
expectations; and her rather hard,
not always pretty tonal resources
meet their equivalence in some of
the works. The early Krenek sonata
is recorded in a chilly studio acoustic
that actually also suits the work.
The central march is flecked by more
garrulous and indulgent asides and
is dispatched with assurance by Yudina.
The Stravinsky Sonata and Serenade
are also revealing documents; she
plays the Romance of the latter with
unexpected warmth. Oddly she came
late to Bartók, only essaying
him in 1961. There are only eight
movements from Microcosmos in her
selection but her admirers will rightly
want to hear them – she really finds
the right type of sonority for the
Bulgarian Rhythm [No.149]. Whereas
she came late to Bartók she
knew and admired Hindemith. The sonata
for two pianos features her pupil
Marina Drozdova and together they
make a fine case for the work. It’s
rhythmically alive and despite the
recording there’s power and grandeur,
not least in the brilliantly evocative
slow central slow movement. A BMG/Melodiya
Yudina release also includes her Berg.
A valuable but difficult
series then. Yudina's appeal is often
said to be "spiritual" so elements
of her live communion with an audience
- less happily she read poetry in
her recitals as well - are missing.
If you seek singing, rounded tone,
an effortlessly spun legato, rectitudinous
tempi, a measured approach to rubati,
and adherence to the text then she
is not your pianist. Her courageous
approach to the repertoire is best
sought in her Stravinsky, Berg, Hindemith,
Bartók and Krenek, where her
iconoclasm has less cause to damage
the music's fabric. But for all the
perplexing elements of her playing
her granitic single-minded approach
is compelling. I'd sample a little
at a time.
Jonathan Woolf
