Dejan Lazić has popped up before on Channel Classics with
a recording of
the Rachmaninov Piano Concerto 2 which was not marked up as a first choice (see
review).
His first
volume
in this series of
Liaisons was a combination of Scarlatti and Bartók
which I haven’t heard, but in any case the combination of Schumann and
Brahms in these terms is a logical one. The ‘liaisons’ concept isn’t
further explained here but the artistic and personal relationship which Brahms
and Schumann had is a matter of historical record. Commercial recording releases
trying to avoid the ‘recital’ category with multiple composer programmes
can do well with this kind of idea, though your record shop is still left putting
them in ‘Piano, miscellaneous’ or ‘collections’, or having
to put out two copies under each composer. Those who enjoyed either volume will
however be on the look out to add to the set, and so the intention is that a
following will be created.
Dejan Lazić joins a marketplace fairly rich in healthy competition for this
repertoire, and while the warm embrace of SACD surround sound in the big, piano-friendly
acoustic of the Frits Philips concert hall in Eindhoven will always be an attractive
draw, it is always the performances which will bring you back to such a disc,
or not. Lazić has a beautiful touch and an impeccable technique, but the
main hump listeners will have to overcome is his sense of rubato.
Papillons is
a series of waltzes and polonaises which the composer described as “flying
letters” and wrote on the copy of the first published edition which he
sent to his family: “…flutter and rejoice around them, as lightly
and joyfully as you please…” This aspect of the music Lazić has
taken almost entirely literally, playing with a sense of poetic and rhapsodic
intervention which infuses from the most introspective to the more rousing and
dramatic pieces. I don’t have problems with this, but at times would have
wished that the inner pulse of the music might have been kept a little more stable
and consistent. I know the difference between playing dances and playing for
dancers, and I don’t mean that one should always have the feeling you should
be able to dance to the music. I do however mean that the illusion that a ballroom
full of movement and colour can be better maintained if the player isn’t
pulling at the tempo the whole time. There are some moments where the dance takes
off with real style, but Lazić sabotages the pulse at almost every available
opportunity.
There is another aspect of this which recurs later on in the programme:
that of the rhythm with opening phrases. Take
No.4 of
Papillons,
which starts out with a repeated single note before the first upward interval
leap of a 4
th. This Lazić stretches at the first note every time,
which is fine if that’s what you like, but will drive you up the wall if
you prefer a more literal reading. The
Finale has a related opening theme,
and this time the emphasis on the ‘leapt to’ note is felt as a bit
of an elongation - the greater distortions being kept for the waltz after the
recapitulation of the opening, 35 seconds in, the delay on the highest note of
the phrase being something which will tease and delight, or have you turning
back to the first waltz, where he doesn’t do this, taking gulps of temporal
space instead at the beginning of the phrases, and as the lines descend. Mannered
and over-fussy, or inspired and deeply sensitive to the composer’s idiom?
I know which way I’m inclined, but can only advise having a listen if possible
before taking the plunge.
This is indeed possible on the
Channel Classics website, where the opening of
Freundliche
Landschaft from
Waldszenen can be heard. This gives some impression
of Lazić’s approach to rubato, dipping and darting with the peaks
and troughs in the music. I would agree that Schumann is a composer whose music
can cope with, and indeed thrive on sensitive manipulation of phrases in terms
of speed - I’m just not so sure that this is an aspect of the performance
which should draw attention away from the essence and ideas in the music. Schumann’s
depictions in
Waldszenen have a greater flexibility in this regard, being
less closely associated with dance, and as a result I feel we’re on safer
ground. I like Lazić’s restrained beauty in
Einsame Blumen,
and the following movement,
Verrufene Stelle or ‘Haunted Spot’ has
a suitably enigmatic opening. All hale well met at the
Herberge, and the
Vogel
als Prophet prophesies Janacek in its austere pronouncements. Not too much
messing around with the
Jagdlied, and the final
Abschied, which
was written in memory of Mendelssohn is portrayed with striking expression and
moving affectation.
Following my pocket score of Brahm’s great
Klavierstücke Op.118,
and I find myself largely in sympathy with Lazić’s playing, without
at the same time being stirred or inspired to praise it to the skies. Once again
I find myself taking issue with his upbeat to the
Ballade, whose opening
two eighth notes are pulled apart like split willow. Throughout the piece, they
always want to and often succeed in springing together to unify with the rest
of the theme, but you can feel Lazić wanting to pull them apart to make
them part of the interpretation. The subsequent second
Intermezzo starts
delightfully, but the second section from bar 52 defies analysis with regard
to the pulse. The opening section of the
Romanze is nicely rounded, and
only a slight tendency to linger fractionally on the first sixteenth of the runs
in the central section to prevent them from joining and sounding like a single
line. Lazić’s
sotto voce in the final
Intermezzo really
is just that, which makes the grand climax all the more impressive.
This is very good Brahms indeed in the main. For me it doesn’t knock Radu
Lupu or Julius Katchen off their perches near or on the top of the heap. It was
the latter who turned me on to Brahms’ piano works very many years ago,
and it is inevitable that memories of those recordings will be colouring my response
to anyone else’s, but to my ear Lazić falls short of ‘great’ status,
though in the Brahms it is harder to put one’s finger on exactly why.
I always find it hard to pronounce on recordings like this. The sound quality
is superb, the playing excellent. Dejan Lazić has his own way with these
pieces, and who am I to say what is right or wrong, or decide for someone else
whether they will like it or not. Suffice to say that my criticisms are of course
subjective, and based not so much on the quality of the performance - which is
very high - but more on whether I would have this as a first choice for reference,
and repeated listening. Repeated listening has made me more used to the foibles
in these performances, but hasn’t entirely dispelled my unease with most
of them. As a result the answer to that question is, probably not.
Dominy Clements
Dejan Lazić (piano)
[67:32] 
