This the kind of thing which doesn’t come around very often. The
last time I felt this way about a recording of J.S. Bach on the
piano was when I first encountered Sviatoslav Richter’s Well-Tempered
Klavier, initially on a big chunky box of Melodiya LPs bought
at bargain price at Farringdon Records on Cheapside. Later it
was on as a rather less attractively designed CD box from RCA/BMG,
GD 60949 – since re-released.
The acoustic in which the young Austrian pianist Till Fellner
goes to work on the fascinating programme on this disc is not
dissimilar to the Schloss Klessheim space in which Richter worked
in the early 1970s. This is very well handled by the ECM tonmeister,
giving enough of the acoustic to provide an attractive sense of
space and transparency, while preserving the essentially warm
and lyrical clarity of Fellner’s playing.
Almost all of us
mere mortals of the piano have ‘had a go’ at several of the
pieces on this disc. I must admit to having to rise above all
those dire student memories of endlessly repeating certain Inventionen
und Sinfonien, just to see if I could get from the beginning
to the end without making any mistakes. The educational aspect
of this music is covered in the booklet notes, but as is also
pointed out, music which transcends its pedagogical intent is
not uncommon, with examples such as Chopin’s Etudes through
to Bartók’s Mikrokosmos and beyond. Fellner, a pianist
who has studied with Alfred Brendel, and who won the Clara Haskil
International Competition in 1993, made his ECM debut with Book
I of the Well-Tempered Clavier. He felt his performance
of Book II had yet to ripen enough for a recording though, and
so we are blessed with what must be one of the most remarkable
‘stop-gap’ discs of this or any year.
Fellner can not
only get through each of these pieces without making mistakes,
but immediately transports you out of the world of academic
keyboard study and into that of sheer genuine music which with
J.S. Bach, even in works with only two or three parts, is the
best of all possible worlds. One of my ways of becoming acquainted
with a new recording is to load it onto a portable MP3 player
alongside a week’s worth of podcasts from BBC Radio 4. The music
always seems to pop up somewhat unexpectedly, there being no
rhyme or reason to the position of the files on these machines.
So it has been that, riding my bike to or from work, these cloistered
discussions on the Magna Carta of the Hubble space telescope
can without warning open out into this most remarkable of musical
conversations. Colours become brighter, the mental fumes blow
away on an amiable sea breeze, and Dutch drivers who don’t use
their indicators when turning cease to be an irritant.
Till Fellner is
less wilful but no less poetic than Richter. He can be romantic
at times, and this is brought out most in the slow movements
of the French Suite. His tempi are on the whole fairly
conservative however, by which I mean that there is rarely anything
exotic or unexpected. He keeps a very accurate pulse, but has
a beautifully lyrical approach which allows the shapes to flow
in all the right directions. By simply following the rule of
playing more legato with notes which are close together and
separating the wider leaps he is already well on the way to
satisfying the local piano teacher, but there is far more going
on. The scores of the Inventionen and Sinfonien are
conspicuously barren of markings, whether for dynamics, phrasing
or legato. The pianist has to decide all of these for themselves.
If you listen carefully you will hear Fellner not only shaping
individual phrases into elegant peaks and troughs, but also
creating marvellous forms from each musical gem – sometimes
crystalline and sparkling, more often an undulating landscape
which takes you on a unique journey, and always brings you safely
home.
The hallmark of
Fellner’s playing in Bach is his lyrical touch, which brings
a vocal character to music which can more easily be made to
sound aristocratic and impersonal. His melodic lines have an
easy elasticity, giving and taking in tempo within the exacting
and controlled proportions required to make the music sound
entirely natural and organic. The lighter, more dance-like pieces
such as the Invention X in G major also have a wit and
a sense of joy both present and in reserve which prevents any
possibility of cloy, not that there is any chance of that, but
it’s not all beautiful lines – there’s a great sense of rhythm
and fun here as well.
All of the above
remarks were typed while the two-part Inventionen were
being re-run, but all comments apply to the three-part Sinfonien
as well. The warmth and clarity which characterises the
two-part pieces is here in the Sinfonien, though with
that extra layer of a third voice there is a sense of growth,
of greater expressive potential. Fellner balances the voices
superbly, and though the ‘third’ or least pronounced line at
any one moment can be quite considerably more recessed than
the others the smaller voice can always be heard, and is always
an influence on the others. Tempi can be stretched a little
more here, and Fellner indulges in a nobly spacious E flat
major which gives the sustaining qualities of the piano
some exercise. This is a sustain quality in the following magical
E major but in a different way: in that sense that you
feel the notes swelling within themselves – a sheer illusion
of course, but one Richter has been known to pull off, and which
I hadn’t expected to hear elsewhere. The beautiful F minor
masterpiece is taken at a measured but unmannered pace,
keeping the flow to a natural level at which you could imagine
sung lines being taken so that breaths could be taken without
strain. Each one of these pieces is a sheer joy in Till Fellner’s
hands, and collectively their status seems to have been raised
notches higher after hearing this recording. If you thought
you could leave Bach be after the Well-Tempered Klavier
then I’m afraid you need to hear this – I won’t say three voices
are better than four, but they are certainly every bit as good.
The sense of growth
and shape within each piece and through the harmonic development
through the cycles of the Inventionen and Sinfonien
is brought to a logical conclusion by the final work in
this programme, the French Suite V. Bach’s counterpoint
flowers into a fruitful collaboration with the dance forms in
each movement of this work, and, our senses already sensitised
by the previous works, this piece has every bit the sense of
culmination brought in a well considered performance of the
Goldberg Variations. Fellner’s expressive sense of melodic
line is given a freer rein in this work, and the more romantic
senses are allowed a touch more space in movements such as the
Sarabande. None of this means Fellner is turning his
Bach into Brahms, but it does mean that his playing is less
brittle than Ivo Pogorelich as a more or less random instance,
and has a good deal more warmth and welcoming character than
someone like Glenn Gould. Some fine, playful touches of extra
ornamentation grace a witty Gavotte, but as ever, Fellner
remains restrained and tasteful. I did feel there was a little
tightness in some of his trills earlier on in the disc, but
in the French Suite they have a very relaxed and spontaneous
feel.
ECM’s presentation
for this disc is good, with some nice facsimile reproductions
and an interesting essay by Jürg Stenzl. Apart from a few photos
there is however no information on Till Fellner whatsoever. Aside
from Richter, one of my favourite J.S. Bach performers on piano
recordings has been Andràs Schiff on early 1980s Decca, and I
do feel a connection between both players’ warmth of tone and
sense of legato touch. There are other notable performers like
Angela Hewitt on Hyperion, who have also received critical acclaim
for lucid and distinctive playing which remains true to the spirit
of Bach in this repertoire on a modern concert grand. All praise
to those magnificent performers. This disc now rides on top of
my choices for disc of the decade however, and my order for Fellner’s
WTC I has already been placed.
Dominy Clements
Till Fellner
(piano) 
