Search - Beethoven, Serkin :: Piano Sonata No. 29 in B Flat Major

VIVAT RUDOLFUS

DAVID BRYSON | Glossop Derbyshire England | 10/15/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"These are BBC recordings made at two concerts that I attended in London in 1968 and 1971. I must say straightaway that this disc may not be your idea of 5-star quality. The recording is not to the best modern standard or anywhere near that, for one thing. It is over-resonant in both works, doing no favours to either distinctness or to Serkin's tone-quality, which has more variety than you might think listening to this. As sometimes happens, this can occasionally be a good thing for the wrong reason - the long upward scale at the end of the trio of the scherzo in op 106 sounds a big dirty rush, but it seems to me that this may be exactly what the composer intended. One thing that is picked up with disconcerting fidelity in the same piece is Serkin's notorious stamping on the pedal, but to me even that is all part and parcel of a great occasion and a toweringly great piece of Beethoven interpretation.



The other thing I should say is that my own reaction to Beethoven is not typical of his admirers generally. There are certain of his compositions that I adore to distraction and that eclipse (for me) all his other works in the same category. I like the 9th symphony better than the other 8 combined. I like the 5th piano concerto better than all his other concertos; and I love the Hammerklavier sonata better than all the other 31 piano sonatas put together. However an important difference is that while the 5th piano concerto comes as near to playing itself as any great classic ever did, the Hammerklavier is enormously dependent on the interpreter, and I would sooner hear it played by Rudolf Serkin than by anyone else I know.



I seem to be in the presence of Beethoven himself, the glowering, hyperbolic, heroic Beethoven who resembles no other composer. Regarding the famous rough counterpoint in the last movement, Tovey says that we might as well expect smoothness from the prophet Isaiah. It is this prophetic quality that must be conveyed throughout the piece. Serkin used to deliver the famous opening chords with an imperious ring, and amazing volume; and something of what it sounded like gets across. To add variety, he fluffs both the left-hand skips at the start of the repeat, but he is a risk-taker not a play-safer or smoothie. I heard three or four more occasions when his thick navvy-like fingers, the muscles over-developed from his constant and obsessive practising, slightly grazed the adjacent key to the one he was playing, but I also heard an unequalled power and forcefulness in the part-playing during the fugue that overcame the hostility of the recorded sound.



The Hammerklavier sonata is not all `also sprach'. Listen if you will for the unique subtlety with which the 2-part counterpoint is expressed in the first movement's transition theme. Nor have I ever heard the cadence-themes so expressively phrased. The scherzo is much livelier than in his recorded version, to its entire benefit, but this performance is worth owning for the slow movement alone. I have often had cause to appreciate how the same music can benefit from being differently interpreted by great exponents, but there are significant instances when I feel that there is a right way and a wrong way, and the adagio here is one of those. It is not a truth acknowledged by me that adagios automatically gain greater `expressiveness' by being taken very slowly and quietly, and I am not with the orthodoxy that admires the first page of this movement played in such a way by, say, Solomon or Richter, because it does not seem to be what Beethoven is trying to express. When he wants pianissimo he knows how to say so, as at the start of the development or the start of the coda. `Una corda' at the outset refers to a tone-quality that has to be reproduced as far as possible by touch on a modern instrument. There is no dynamic marking to begin with, and that denotes an intermediate volume-level, say `mezzo-piano'. Also, a very slow speed here is more or less unsustainable at the transition-theme, and both of these great players resort to an abrupt upping of the tempo that makes me wince. Above all, when the main theme returns in the middle of the movement wrapped in that celestial florid figuration, too slow a speed is nothing short of abominable. Serkin has another lesson for us too with the transition-theme - don't bowdlerise Beethoven. When Beethoven goes to great trouble to write short oompah-style LH chords, play them oompah-style without pedal and see what it sounds like.



You will need a fairly high volume-setting for the Hammerklavier, and you will need to reduce it again for op 110. The focus here is a bit too close, and the resonance of the sound is more troublesome, although the quieter idiom of this piece does not tempt the maestro to any pedal-stamping. The gavotte-like scherzo is livelier than in Serkin's recorded version, and again this is a good thing. I also like the dramatic reduction of tone for the second round of the fugue. However in general I would not have bought the disc for this performance because I know another that seems to me much better, the only problem with that being that Serkin himself seemed to disagree. In 1960 Serkin recorded and then suppressed a performance of this sonata that strikes me as the best I ever heard and which is now available courtesy of Peter Serkin. Any rational music lover is going to prefer Serkin's judgment to mine, but I have yet to understand in what way he felt that the account he released was better than, or even anywhere near equal to, the embargoed 1960 version.



There is a liner note that contains so much facile question-begging that it might be better ignored. Either way, this issue is significant for something else. As a minor but interesting sidelight, the opening chords of the Hammerklavier apparently come from a projected cantata in honour of Beethoven's patron the Archduke Rudolph, and were to be to the words 'Vivat, vivat Rudolphus.' Changing the spelling, I shall echo that."

A very humane Hammerklavier, even if on mono.

A. F. S. Mui | HK | 07/16/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I think the Op. 106 alone justified the price of this disc.

I am not an expert in this Sonata, but suffice it to say that I have compared the following versions: Solomon, Arrau, Kempff(2 versions), Gulda(1967), Schnaebel, Nat, Brendel, Pollini. Serkin's can rightfully be called my favourite.

I find his version having a touch of humanity that most other versions lack. Some other versions vary from intellectual (Pollini) to philosophic (Kempff), but my personal preference is for the humanistic, so Serkin triumphs. Despite the slight noise (natural result of a live performance), the sound is very acceptably in mono.

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