German pianist Burkard Schliessmann has been much admired for
his recordings and performances of Chopin, and he has also made
SACD recordings of Liszt, Godowsky and the like. He has been schooled
at the master-classes of greats such as Herbert
Seidel, Shura Cherkassky, Bruno Leonardo Gelber and Poldi Mildner.
Many commentaries make comparisons with great names from the past
such as Alfred Cortot and Artur Schnabel. He is regarded by some
as one of the influential pianists of the modern era, and he has
received numerous prizes and awards of merit for his interpretations.
With a new recording of the “Goldberg Variations”, he puts himself
in a direct firing line with comparisons of pianists from Glenn
Gould, through Andras Schiff to Murray Perahia and beyond.
The
last new set of Goldbergs I looked at were by played by Andrea
Bacchetti, and while I
do not see his sometimes ornament-heavy recordings as in any
way definitive I would gladly take his playing as being of a
standard against which many can be judged. Bacchetti most certainly
has a sense of the continuity of the variations as a single
work, rather than as a set of grand miniatures – his virtually
non-stop live performances stand as a witness to this. Re-visiting
this Arthaus DVD/CD set as a valued part of my collection rekindles
the respect I have for this kind of musicianship. Murray Perahia’s
recording on Sony is one which will grab you every time for
its playfulness and sheer virtuosity. I don’t have Andras Schiff’s
more recent ECM recording of this work, but have long had his
1983 Decca recording high up on my desert-island shortlist.
Schiff’s is not the most exciting of interpretations, but certainly
fits the bill on dark, soulful nights.
So
to Burkard Schliessmann. It is a shame that his recording didn’t
fit on one disc, but in the end this was to be the least of
my concerns with this release. To be sure, the SACD piano sound
is very good, with the pianist playing his own Steinway – the
tuner of which, Georges Ammann, is also named. Schliessmann
often makes his accents with ugly stabs however, and so the
sound frequently hardens through no fault of the recording.
Listen to Variation 16 at the beginning of disc 2, and,
once you have, ask yourself if you want to hear it again. This
variation also highlights another worry, which is Schliessmann’s
hobbling approach to rhythm in this music. There is a great
deal of ducking and diving – with the worst cases being snatchy
anticipations which ruin whatever flow might have survived the
dubious touché. Lumpy heaviness is also a trait in Variation
17, and Schliessmann seems to think it’s OK to accelerate
in some of the downward moving passages. This is not a true
rubato, as there is no ‘give’ to compensate for the ‘take’,
and even if it is a hangover from the pianist’s affinity with
romantic repertoire I wouldn’t buy it. The opposite is true
of Variation 18, which seems to be losing steam all the
way through.
I
happen to have started with disc 2 more or less at random, but
in fact this was the point at which I lost patience and had
to start writing. I always want to fall in love with a new “Goldberg”,
and was in the mood to try and give the benefit of the doubt
through disc 1. My doubt antennae had however already been alerted
by a rhythmic anticipation 13 seconds into the opening Aria,
a mannerism which rears again at 1:23 after a rather twixt-and-between
ornament, so either it’s a twitch our pianist can’t avoid, or
a choice in interpretation – neither of which bodes well. I
don’t mind a masculine Variation 1, but the usual evenness
of that running figuration almost seems to turn into triplets
to my ears, a characteristic which recurs time and again. Variation
2, and there is some amateurish rushing between phrases
which is rather unnerving – not really extreme, but if the intention
is to build excitement then the effect is lost on me. I don’t
feel rhythm is a strong point in any of these variations, and
while I don’t subscribe to any kind of ramrod stiffness when
it comes to Bach on the piano, I do dislike intensely the kind
of wandering tempi to be found in many of these movements. There
is a lack of legato playing which makes many of the variations
sound rather similar, and where there are pointillist touches
such as those in Variation 5, Schliessmann pokes at them
as if he were stabbing at something unpleasant with a long stick.
This variation also starts out with brisker intentions than
it ends, and shows up some further vagueness in the pianist’s
approach to ornamentation. Variation 6 is just a big
pile of notes which do nothing for anyone. I could go on, but
depression is beginning to set in. Oh yes, the horrible mannerism
of those little skyrockets in Variation 7, they reminded
me of the call of those white cockatoos in Mittagong...
Though not clearly
marked as such, this SACD release is of course a hybrid, and
will play on normal CD players – the ubiquitous ‘compact disc’
logo in fact giving this away to the observant shopper. The
double disc timing is not the result of profound slowness in
the playing of the ‘slow’ variations, although the adagio
variation no. 25 does come in at just under 10 lugubrious
minutes, compared for instance to Bacchetti’s 8:19. The longer
timing is more the result of a steadfast and stodgy choice of
unexciting tempi in the more usually ‘fast’ pieces.
I know I’ve been
mean and horrible about this recording, but as the late great
Sebastian Bell once said, “if you smell like a polecat, then
I’m going to say you smell like a polecat...”, by which
he meant he would be honest about what he heard in our playing
as students. Having had my traditional cooling off period and
giving the thing another good listen, my views remain unchanged.
Taking everything into consideration I really can’t see the
point of this release, and reading Burkard Schliessmann’s well
written booklet notes and the publisher’s own paean of praise
which follows, I find it hard to square the awkward and ungainly
peg which is supposed to slide gracefully into Bach’s infinitely
fascinating hole. Listening to a recent Claves box set which
includes some marvellous Bach played by Michael Studer shows
how it can be done, and one can only regret that there
is no Studer ‘Goldberg Variations.’ Schliessmann’s own text
states that “the Goldberg Variations have always enjoyed a special
status, with pianists regarding them as a touchstone of their
technical and interpretative powers.” The same might be said
by climbers of a mountain like Everest, but that is not to say
that either great phenomenon is enhanced by the litter-strewn
attempts to scale their heights. With regard to Burkard Schliessmann,
my own experience suggests to me that this is a romantic music
specialist who, in truth, finds the purity of Bach far more
challenging than the bravura technical demands of the music
of later centuries.
Dominy Clements
Burkard Schliessmann
(piano)
[38:06 + 45:00] 
