Search - Ludwig van Beethoven, Maurice Ravel, Ferruccio Busoni :: Paul Jacobs in Recital

Jacobs Gets to the Heart of the Music

Hank Drake | Cleveland, OH United States | 02/01/2002

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Arbiter Records is establishing itself as the label which specializes in pianists who were not given their just due by the major record labels during their lifetime. Among their most significant releases have been items featuring pianists Miecyslaw Horszowski, Benno Moiseiwitsch, and of course, Paul Jacobs.For those used to the sober-minded Beethoven advocated by the likes of Alfred Brendel, these live performances by Paul Jacobs will come as a shock. Jacobs intention seems to be to portray Beethoven not as the last composer of the Classical era, nor as the first composer of the Romantic era (ALA Rubinstein and Horowitz) but as a progenitor of the then dawning industrial age. The Waldstein is played with motoric intensity, the first movement going at a relentlessly fast tempo. And yes, Jacobs proves that Beethoven's octave glissandi in the third movement CAN be played on a modern instrument. In Beethoven's Op. 10, No. 3 the pianist justifiably touches up Beethoven's writing, continuing the first movement's ascending figure which Beethoven had to work around, because the piano of his era didn't extend high enough. The Largo e Mesto second movement, which many of today's pianists play too slowly (once and for all, Largo doesn't mean slow, it means BROAD) is taken at a coherent tempo, with phrasing which emphasizes the work's heroic underpinnings. It is no stretch to say that, under Jacobs' hands, Beethoven ROCKS.Ravel's Valses Nobles et Sentimentales is given a more extroverted, if less polished, performance than Rubinstein's famous version, with fabulous pedaling. The same composers Menuet sur HAYDN (which the pianist announces as "a change of air"), exquisitely shaded is the perfect answer to those who consider Jacobs' pianism to be merely percussive. Falla's Fantasia Baetica is given a passionately erotic, swaggering performance. The occasional finger slips, the slightly out of tune piano, and imperfect sonics aside, this CD is a must for those interested in great piano playing, and original interpretative ideas."