Robert SCHUMANN (1810-1856)
Kinderszenen Op.15 (1838) [22:47]
Fantasie in C major Op.17 (1836-38) [33:51]
Mindru Katz (piano)
rec. 1974, live, Jerusalem
CEMBAL D’AMOUR CD 157 [56:42] 
Mindru Katz (1925-78) is a musician I much admired and no company has done
more to perpetuate his name than Cembal d’Amour. They have had access to a
number of concert tapes, via Zoara Katz, as well as to the more conventional
studio recordings, and each release has been beneficial, revealing and valuable.
This is no less the case with this all-Schumann recital, revealing of Katz’s
priorities and precepts in such central repertoire, and reflective of his
august standards of music-making. If only he had lived to a ripe age.
It’s important for a critic to attempt to appreciate quite why a musician
takes the path he does. Katz’s Kinderszenen is quite measured, indeed
often slow, and to some it will seem too static and undernourished. Yet what
I sense in his approach is one of gradation, deft harmonic pointing, left
hand accenting, and a concern not with speed but with texture and with a sense
of narrative – both the individual narrative of each movement and the greater
arching narrative of the work as a whole. Thus, whilst the opening may seem
laboured, his little dripping left hand accenting and the application of significant
rubato shows another side of the story. His Kuriose Geschichten is
rather unsettled emotively, whilst Glückes genug is elegant and deftly
pointed. Wichtige Begenheit is a bold march but doesn’t over-balance
other adjacent movements. Träumerei is very slow indeed, sensitively
spun, but sometimes in danger of spilling over. Am Kamin seems reluctant
to break the spell but the music springs back into life for Ritter vom
Steckenpferd. Katz really does pile on the earnestness in Fast zu Ernst,
taking the direction quite literally, and by Kind im Einschlummern
he shows the kind of tempo flexibility that had earlier been rather lacking.
The final tableau is gentle and delightful, albeit protracted.
Don’t be disturbed by the timings for the Fantasie as there’s a rare
typo, here claiming Katz drives through the opening in four minutes. It’s
fourteen. Once again he makes a perfect Schumann sound and has a virtuosic
technique, and sure expressive instincts. From time to time one might be aware
of a loss of the kind of flowing excitement that others have generated, and
again I do find that Katz’s delayed sense of impetus can impede the natural
direction of the music, certainly in the opening. Maybe too there are one
or two discursive accents. But against that there is that variegated and noble
tone, and plenty to mull over.
The in-concert performances were taped perfectly acceptably without obviously
being in the freshest of contemporary sound. There is more Katz to come from
this source, and one awaits it impatiently.
Jonathan Woolf
Masterwork Index: Kinderszenen
There is more Katz to come from this source, and one awaits it impatiently.