Franz SCHUBERT (1797-1828)
Rondo for piano duet in D, D608 [10:17]
Sonata in B-flat, D617 (1824) [20:58]
Fantasie in f minor for piano duet, D940 (1828) [20:02]
Rondo for piano duet in A, D951 (1828) [12:43]
Duo in a minor, Allegro ‘Lebensstürme’, D947 (1828) [12:50]
Duo Pleyel [Richard Egarr, Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya (fortepiano, Pleyel
1848)]
Pitch a’=441 Hz.
rec. Kapel op ‘t Rijsselt, Eefde, The Netherlands, 1–3 February 2019. DDD.
Reviewed as lossless (wav) press preview.
LINN CKD593
[77:11]
Schubert’s piano duos, especially those from his final years, are among his
finest works. Here they are presented in company with two earlier pieces
for the same combination. There’s no lack of recordings at all prices, but
no two recordings contain exactly the same coupling. In this case, I
thought it a shame that Linn didn’t run to a second CD and include the
Grand Duo in C, D812, as Erato did with the recordings by Anne Queffélec
and Imogen Cooper. The Grand Duo is on such a large scale that it was once
thought to have been a preliminary sketch for the ‘lost’ Gastein Symphony,
which is now believed to have been the ‘great’ C major, No.7 or No.9
depending on which system you follow.
Having said that, I see that Warner replaced that 2-CD set with a single
Apex release, formerly a budget price CD and now a more expensive download,
offering D940, D947 and other works (0927498122). The two ex-EMI Gemini
twofers, from Christoph Eschenbach and Justus Frantz, which together give
the fullest selection of these duos, are also download only, but still
priced effectively as a budget twofer, around £11 each in lossless sound. Even
more complete, Caroline Clemmow and Anthony Goldstone offer almost nine
hours of Schubert Duos on Divine Art (DDA21701 – CDs around £35, lossless
download varies from £15.99 to around £67!).
As the blurb for this Linn release aptly states, ‘Schubert’s great F minor
Fantasie, although justly famous, represents only a small proportion of his
music for piano four-hands’. There are more than 30 such works, and I do
hope, therefore, that Linn will give us more from this source.
Queffélec and Cooper (Apex) and Eschenbach and Frantz (Gemini x2) offer the
music on a modern piano. The Duo Pleyel, appropriately, have recorded it on
a Pleyel fortepiano of 1848, a little later than the music but closer to
what Schubert would have heard than any modern instrument. Fortepiano
haters should read no further, but those with a more open mind are unlikely
to be put off by what they hear. The top end is a little clattery and the
bass end a little too prominent at times, but the innocent ear soon
adjusts.
It’s the three late works that will attract attention to this recording.
The Duo Pleyel give plenty of room for these works to expand. That’s true
of the Fantasie, where they take a little longer than Paul Lewis
and Stephen Osborne (Hyperion CDA67665: Recording of the Month –
review) or Queffélec and Cooper, though there’s never any sense that the
performance lacks energy as well as imagination. It’s not just the choice
of instrument which lends itself to the slightly slower timing: Andreas
Staier and Alexander Melnikov, on a Graf fortepiano, take the Fantasie slightly faster overall (Harmonia Mundi HMM902227 –
review).
Simon Thompson, who reviewed the Harmonia Mundi, is no great fan of the
fortepiano, an instrument that has won me over in recent years, but his
chief concern about that recording of the Fantasie is the failure
to respond to all the very varied aspects of the work. It is, indeed, a
very varied piece, but the Duo Pleyel do adapt themselves to its varied
moods – even better than Queffélec and Cooper, hitherto my version of
choice. I think that even fortepiano haters might find themselves hearing
through the sound of the instrument into the heart of the music in this
recording. At times, you feel that the music is stretching the instrument
to its limits – think of those pianos with broken strings in the
Beethovenhaus in Bonn – but never quite to destruction.
The Rondo, D951, interjects a note of happier times between the
two stormy works. Even here, however, there’s none of the cheer of a Mozart
Rondo and, once again, the performance brings out the varied aspects of the
music. Here too, as in the Fantasie, the Duo Pleyel give the music a
little more time to expand than Queffélec and Cooper.
The very title of the Lebensstürme duo (the storms of life) which
rounds off the recording reminds us that Schubert’s last years were lived
under the shadow of an illness which he must have been aware was terminal.
The booklet reminds us of his extraordinary ability to compose one work
after another, but the notes also refer to the sense of deep sadness and pathos
in the music, as reflected in the quotation:
‘Every night when I go to bed, I hope that I may never wake again, and
every morning renews my grief.’
Loth as I am to take the historicist attitude to literature and music too
far, it’s very tempting to read such comments into Schubert’s late works –
those here, the C major String Quintet, D956, and the posthumous Piano
Sonata No.21, D960. On the other hand, the Octet, D803, one of Schubert’s
sunniest works, was also composed at a time of mental and physical pain in
1824 and many of the letters which he wrote as late as the Spring and
Summer of his final year, 1828, suggest that he was in high spirits.
Lebensstürme
may not have been Schubert’s nomenclature, but the work lives up to its
name from the beginning, and this performance leaves the listener in little
doubt of that. This time Egarr and Nepomnyashchaya are a little faster in
this work than most, yet here, as in the Fantasie, they capture
the different moods which it encompasses, with no sense of hurry in the
reflective passages. On Hyperion Lewis and Osborne come in
considerably - almost three minutes - slower, at 15:35, with Evgeny Kissin and James Levine
(RCA 82876692832) not far behind at 15:16.
Timings don’t lie, but the fact is that Egarr and Nepomnyashchaya never
seem to hurry the music; Kissin and Levin actually sound faster for much of their
journey through this work. Much as I share the general appreciation of the
RCA recording, not least for its inclusion of the Grand Duo, I
enjoyed the new Linn equally. Clemmow and Goldstone, on Divine Art, capture the energy of
the music but rather underplay the reflective elements, while Lewis and
Osborne, though far from neglecting the energetic passages, bring out the
reflective elements. In the case of such a multi-faceted personality as
Schubert, it’s inevitable that recordings will tend to reveal some aspects
more than others.
The main considerations in choosing a recording of these duos are the
inclusion by Kissin and Levin of the Grand Duo, along with the Fantasie and Lebensstürme, together with some shorter
pieces, and your attitude to the fortepiano. If you must have the Grand Duo, the RCA recording is download only, 85 minutes
originally running to two CDs, at around £11 in lossless sound, but without
booklet. Some dealers are offering the CDs second-hand. If you have another
recording of the Grand Duo and are prepared to tolerate the
fortepiano, there is every reason to choose the Linn recording. For those
who really must have the modern piano, but don’t need the Grand Duo, Lewis and Osborne provide a very fine alternative.
I
listened to them via the lossless download, available, with pdf booklet, from
hyperion-records.co.uk
for £8; the CD is available there for the same price, so the choice of
medium is yours. That recording also comes with a most appropriate cover from a
painting by Caspar David Friedrich and, even more to the point,Lebensstürme is accompanied by very fine accounts of the Fantasie and Rondo, as per the Linn recording, the
Variations in A-flat, D813, and two shorter works.
The Linn recording quality is good, as are Richard Egarr’s notes,
if slightly short in detail of the individual works and a little too inclined to link Schubert’s
music and his health, but only a little – if there is one composer where it
seems almost inevitable to make the connection, it must be Schubert. This is
a very
worthwhile addition to the many fine recordings of this four-handed music.
Brian Wilson
