In commemoration of the 70th anniversary of Dinu Lipatti’s death on December 2, 1950, a collection of commercial and unofficial recordings arranged in a recital format.
My own introduction to Lipatti’s playing came in 1985, when I was in my teens and had just discovered historical piano recordings. That was 35 years after Lipatti died – and now another 35 years have passed. I had no idea when I first saw his name in an Angel Records sampler with the somewhat morbid title, ‘Dinu Lipatti’s Last Recital,’ that I would be as involved with his legacy as I have been. Over the course of the last three decades particularly, I have had several trips to Europe to meet Lipatti’s friends and students, and visited archives and private collections in an attempt to locate and have released rare recordings that showed the fuller capabilities of this great pianist’s artistry than is revealed by the handful of recordings he made for EMI over the course of the last few years of his life.
I had no clue that some of my findings would upturn much of the official narrative. Many of the best-known anecdotes about the pianist – that he wanted three or four years to prepare the Tchaikovsky or Emperor Concertos, that he only played Beethoven Sonatas in the last two years of his life, that he was reluctant to record due to his perfectionism – turned out to be completely false. I still recall how my jaw dropped when, at the EMI archives, I held with my own hands copies of memos signed by his producer Walter Legge that stated Lipatti had agreed in 1948 to record Tchaikovsky’s Concerto in 1949, and that Lipatti himself requested to record a Beethoven Concerto, when he was the one who had spread the aforementioned stories of Lipatti’s reticence to record or play these works! Memo after memo revealed that a lack of foresight and bad luck had unfortunately conspired to limit Lipatti’s recorded output to a handful of small-scale works that only hint at the fullness of his interpretative powers. How tragic that he did not record Beethoven’s Waldstein Sonata (which he played regularly in the last decade of his life, not just the last two years), or Schumann’s Etudes symphoniques, as he’d requested EMI to do, or Ravel’s Le tombeau de Couperin – or other shorter works, such as Debussy’s La soirée dans Grenade and Falla’s Ritual Fire Dance, both of which were scheduled to be recorded but for some reason weren’t.
Lipatti often played recitals featuring an array of works from Baroque to 20th century, in chronological sequence, sometimes centred around one main work. The collection here features some of the works he most regularly programmed, in similar groupings: he often paired these two Bach chorales in this order, as well as the first of the two Scarlatti Sonatas presented here (unfortunately a recording of the third usually grouped with these has not been salvaged). One of the central works he often played in these recitals was Chopin’s Third Sonata, which is featured here, grouped with other solo Chopin works as he often did. (Among the other large-scale works that often figured in his recitals was Beethoven’s Waldstein Sonata, Schumann’s Etudes symphoniques, and Ravel’s Le tombeau de Couperin.)
He also regularly put together two or three Brahms solo works – I’ve included four as none of these are part of Lipatti’s studio discography and because these particular performances reveal so much of his interpretative genius. It is also unfortunate that we do not have the two works that he most often paired with Ravel’s Alborada del Gracioso – Debussy’s La soirée dans Grenade and Falla’s Ritual Fire Dance – but ending with this most vivacious recording of the pianist seemed a fitting end to this tribute recital.
Fortunately even in the last couple of years – well over half a century after the pianist died – new recordings, photographs, and other material have come to light which enable a fuller apprehension of Lipatti and his artistry. Let us hope that more will continue to be found and made available. I am in collaboration with several dedicated Lipatti researchers – his biographer Grigore Bargauanu, Romanian scholars Monica Isacescu and Stefan Costache, and British researcher Orlando Murrin (whose findings the last few years have been groundbreaking) – to continue to locate and publish as much as possible what we can find.
At the bottom of this page, you will find the ‘recital’ that I have composed based on recordings made by Lipatti between 1941 and 1950, in a variety of circumstances. I hope you enjoy the performances, and would ask that you consider purchasing the releases that have featured these performances when possible. Details about the published recordings can be found at the bottom of the page.
Dinu Lipatti: A 70th Anniversary Anthology ‘Recital’
For World AIDS Day today, Stephen Hough posted on his Twitter feed today (click here) my upload of Villa’s jaw-dropping account of Rachmaninoff’s Second Sonata (click here for the recording), a private recording of a 1991 Bargemusic performance that was my own introduction to the pianist’s playing. It arrived on a cassette sent to me by International Piano Archives co-founder Gregor Benko about a month after the performance and within a year I was able to meet Villa in New York through Benko’s introduction. We would remain in regular contact until he died a few years later – I still have all the Christmas cards and signed programmes he sent me, and his cassettes – and in commemoration of the 25th anniversary of his passing this past April I prepared this detailed tribute on my website (click here).
Here is a tribute to some of the great pianists lost to the scourge of AIDS, in chronological order of their deaths.
It was not widely known that Jorge Bolet died from complications due to AIDS but that is in fact the case (I was shown a copy of his death certificate by his friend Gregor Benko not long after his passing). A stupendous artist whose recognition came later in life, Bolet was both a poet and titanic virtuoso. Until Gregor Benko played me a cassette of the Cuban pianist playing a Chopin-Godowsky Etude that had been privately recorded after a master class, I had only been aware of his more poetic readings that were lacking in some fire. I still remember the sunlight shining through the window of his office as the most volcanic playing erupted from a portable cassette player, completely shattering my preconceptions of this artist. Here is another performance of Bolet in that same work, from a concert in Hamburg:
Natan Brand was a brilliant Israeli-American pianist who died 30 years ago this month, though the cause was not originally made public for the sake of his children and family. My colleague Bryan Crimp of the APR label produced the first CD tribute to the artist, which features stunning pianism; the second set a decade later was produced by my university-years friend in Montreal, Jean-Pascal Hamelin. I have since come to know Brand’s widow, who made a number of additional recordings available, including the video footage that I have uploaded on YouTube and featured on my website (click here). A previously unissued performance by the artist will soon be shared for the 30th anniversary of his death – for now, his truly impassioned concert performance of Schumann’s Kreisleriana – a desert-island performance:
Joseph Villa was unknown to most piano fans at the time that he became known to me, and the fact that it was presumed he would not survive was truly challenging for me to process in my early 20s when Benko introduced me to his playing. Here he is in an utterly glorious 1989 concert performance of Liszt’s transcription of Beethoven’s Symphony No.5. Villa plays with truly orchestral colours, voicing and layering lines with incredible dimension, without any harshness of tone and with phenomenal rhythmic vitality and subtlety of nuance. A staggering reading by one of the great unsung champions of the piano!
Spanish pianist Rafael Orozco perished in 1996 at the age of 50. His playing was featured in Ken Russell’s 1970 film about Tchaikovsky, The Music Lovers, and he had an acclaimed international career. A marvellous exponent of Romantic music, he was also a master at the music of his native Spain, as this terrific film footage of the artist playing Albaicín by Albéniz demonstrates.
Youri Egorov was a stupendous pianist whose gifts were apparent at a very young age, his musical maturity and superb technique resulting in remarkable interpretations in a wide range of repertoire. His death in 1988 at the age of 33 in the midst of the AIDS crisis was a tragic loss to the musical world; it is a little-known fact that as his health worsened dramatically, he chose to have himself euthanized after a farewell gathering with friends.
A number of concert recordings have filled out a discography that was regrettably limited due to his early death, among them readings of works he did not record commercially such as the Shostakovich Sonata No.2. In contemporary music, Egorov was a master of playing with a sumptuous tonal palette, evocative pedal effects, and clarity of structure, without any harshness of sound. His reading of the third movement of this sonata is particularly remarkable for its evocative mood and how time seems to stand still: impeccable phrasing, discreet accenting and transparent voicing that highlight harmony and structure, and ravishing tone are among the hallmarks of his playing here.
On the 125th anniversary of Wilhelm Kempff’s birth, I offer a very brief selection of some recordings made throughout his long career.
Kempff in 1931
Kempff’s name was one of the most visible in record stores for a very long time: he was a long-time fixture on the Deutsche Grammophon roster, and there is probably hardly a classical music fan in the world who didn’t have some of his records in their collection. Once I got immersed in historical recordings, however, I became interested in performers who were both active in the earlier years of recordings and also less known than the headlining pianists from the LP era. Today I appreciate a lot of different styles of playing and I will admit that much of what I heard of Kempff’s discography over the years does not appeal to me as much as the playing of other artists. That said, I am very well aware that artists might have played very differently at various times of their lives and also in live concerts vs. recording studios; Kempff is one of those, and there are indeed many performances of this pianist that I enjoy tremendously.
Kempff gave his first major recital in 1917 and his final recital in 1981 (he died in 1991 at the age of 95), meaning that his career spanned nearly 65 years. Given the evolution of recording technology in this period went from acoustical (horn-amplified) 78rpm discs through to stereo LPs, it is little wonder that many of the artists first performances would be overlooked in favour of his later recordings. Nevertheless, it is always interesting to hear artists in their youth (and in later years, for different reasons) – and that is certainly the case with Kempff.
It is only recently that I came across this acoustical recording of Kempff playing the Schumann Toccata, a disc for the Polydor label that I’ve never seen reissued. We find him playing here with wonderful clarity and dexterity, great rhythmic vitality, and clearly voiced melodic lines, as well as with more abandon than was often heard in later years.
Given that Kempff recorded the complete Beethoven Sonatas twice, in mono between 1951 and 1956 and again in stereo in 1964-65. It’s worth noting that he was in his 50s and 60s at the time, so his playing would naturally be very different than when he was in his 20s, which makes his earlier performances fascinating to hear. While the APR label has done a wonderful job in reissuing a number of his earlier accounts of Beethoven Sonatas and Concertos (highly recommended releases, as always with that label), the acoustic recording of the Appasionata Sonata below – another Polydor recording, ca.1924-25 – has never been reissued.
Another marvellous early recording, this time benefitting from amplified microphone technology (aka ‘electrical recording’), is this stunning 1935 reading of the Schubert-Liszt “Horch, horch, die Lerch” (“Hark, Hark, the Lark”), which captures his tonal colours and deft articulation to perfection:
One of the issues with the music industry is how typecast artists can become: Kempff was primarily known for his readings of Beethoven and Brahms, but his repertoire was vaster, even if his studio discography does not reveal much of the repertoire that one might encounter in his concert appearances. This 1945 German radio broadcast of the artist in Gabriel Fauré’s gorgeous Nocturne No.6 is a major departure from the repertoire with which he is associated and is an absolutely marvellous reading, captured on tape at a time when major labels were still recording directly onto disc: what sumptuous phrasing, long lines, fluid legato, flawlessly-timed pedalling, magical dynamic shadings (the pianissimo that comes in at the 4-minute mark is absolutely breathtaking), and attentive voicing.
Kempff’s gorgeous 1955 recording of Rameau’s Le Rappel des Oiseaux is another departure from his repertoire, played with utterly beguiling tone, magnificent pedal effects, and exquisite sensitivity:
I don’t mean to suggest that all of Kempff’s earlier recordings are inherently better, as there are indeed some marvellous late performances, such as this 1975 account of Bach transcriptions (with a couple by Gluck at the end), played with reverence and astounding beauty:
A final offering of Kempff in concert in 1978, near the end of his career – aged 82, just a few years before he retired – finds him in repertoire for which he is also not as known: Chopin. This live performance of the Nocturne in B Major Op.9 No.3 finds him playing with wonderful tone, soaring phrasing, and tremendous ease and freedom.
Kempff’s place in the pantheon of pianists is secure as a result of his massive discography and a stable reputation amongst music lovers. I can only hope that more of his discography – and his concert performances – will only help to expand our perception of this marvellous artist.
November 28 this year was the 83rd anniversary of Josef Hofmann’s Golden Jubilee concert at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York. It was a key performance in a series of concerts celebrating the Polish pianist’s 50 years on stage, and fortunately for posterity this incredible event was recorded, without his knowledge (his wife arranged it and he found out about it soon after). Columbia issued some of the solo works on LP in 1955, and the International Piano Library and then International Piano Archives would later make the entire concert available.
Hofmann’s handwritten message reproduced in the concert program to the event
The recording of this event of 83 years ago showcasing a pianist born almost 145 years ago features some of the most miraculous playing ever captured on disc and is one of the landmarks of recorded pianism. I will never forget the look on a fellow student’s face back in university when I played him Hofmann’s reading of Chopin’s First Ballade from this concert: after a stunned silence, he simply said ‘I never knew playing like this was possible.’ Indeed, most piano students – and many professionals – still don’t.
Hofmann’s very individual approach fell out of favour with as the Urtext movement grew, as more objective, less personal performance (as opposed to *interpretation*) became the norm – the irony being that at his time Hofmann was seen as more restrained than some of his colleagues. Jorge Bolet was horrified to hear of teachers telling students not to listen to Hofmann’s recordings. Indeed, when the Columbia LP presented here was issued in 1955, Hofmann had not issued a recording for some 30 years and the tides had changed, Hofmann’s style seeming to be something very much of the past.
I would not advocate playing like Hofmann (I don’t suggest anyone play like anyone, but develop their unique voice) but I think that if you aren’t aware of what is possible – of what tonal colours can be produced, how phrasing can be shaped, how primary and secondary voices can communicate, and how the pedal can be used beyond ‘on’ and ‘off’ – then how limited a present-day pianist’s and listener’s concepts of what piano playing is and can be.
The Columbia LP linked below, while lacking a few of the solo works from the concert as well as the two concerted works that Hofmann played, features a good deal of the truly legendary performances from that phenomenal event. In addition to the Chopin Ballade mentioned above, one of my favourite readings from this concert is Hofmann’s reading of Rachmaninoff’s ever-popular Prelude in G Minor Op.23 No.5. The composer was a great fan of Hofmann’s and a dear friend, and it boggles the mind that he dedicated his Third Concerto to Hofmann and that Hofmann never played it, as it has now become what is probably the most popular piano concerto of all time. In particular listening to the middle section of this Prelude, we can get a pretty clear idea of how his approach to the concerto might have sounded and indeed the kind of playing that Rachmaninoff might have had in mind when he wrote it: the silky pedal effects, the mind-blowing transparency of textures, that three-note secondary voice soaring above the more muted silky-pedalled undulation as if coming from a completely different instrument. And the incisive rhythm of the outer sections, as well as taut voicing of chords, is stunning as well. There are miracles in this performance that simply must be heard to be believed – and even then, they can be hard to believe.
I could write extensively about each of these performances, and in some previous posts I have. The Chopin Nocturne Op.9 No.2 with its soaring line, lean textures, and remarkably subtle pedal effects; the Berceuse with wonderful pearl-like runs, polished tone, the most magnificent pedalling, and a marvellous ‘gong’ effect towards the end; the Moszkowski Caprice Espagnole with truly jaw-dropping virtuosity, its towering fortissimos contrasted with feathery pianissimos, rapid-fire repeated notes… each piece on this program is a miracle of pianism – yes, from bygone age, but the music played is from a bygone age too, and so this style of performance at the very least needs to be heard if one professes to have an interest in the music of other eras. We are so beyond fortunate that today we have such easy access to so many recorded treasures of the distant past. The entire concert is still available on CD, on the VAI label, produced by Hofmann scholar Gregor Benko and remastered by master engineer Ward Marston (click here).
Stupendous pianism by one of the all-time legends of the keyboard!
Chopin:
0:06 Waltz (“Minute”) Op. 64 No. 1
2:17 Ballade No. 1 in G Minor Op.23
10:27 Berceuse Op.57
13:55 Andante Spianato & Grande Polonaise Op.22
25:13 Etude Op 25 No 9
26:35 Nocturne Op 9 No 2
30:42 Rachmaninoff Prelude in G Minor Op.23 No.5
34:32 Mendelssohn Spinning Song
36:24 Beethoven-Rubinstein Turkish March (from “The Ruins of Athens”)
On September 27, 2020 I had a wonderful conversation about piano performance and interpretation with Jennifer West, artistic director of the local Muzewest Concerts and a big piano aficionado. Our conversation covered a lot of ground in its 53 minutes. Here is a YouTube link to the discussion and below that are some of the recordings that I mention in our conversation.
I mention the profound experience of first listening Josef Hofmann playing Beethoven’s Waldstein Sonata in recital in 1938 and how it was a completely life-changing event, how nothing I had read about Hofmann’s playing could prepare me for what this performance was actually like. That experience shifted my perspective of what is possible interpretatively (and to be clear, I’m not saying one should or shouldn’t emulate this) and how descriptions of playing cannot fully communicate what an artist does.
Here is the recording of Rachmaninoff playing Chopin’s famous Nocturne Op.9 No.2, which I mention some university students having been surprised by because it didn’t match their perception of how the work should be played. And yet Rachmaninoff was born less than 25 years after Chopin died, so he was much closer to the culture of Chopin’s music than we are.
In our conversation I mentioned how I think the sound of newer recordings is not like what we hear in concert, and that some earlier recordings capture piano tone better than new ones. Here’s an example of a recording from the 1920s – 1928 to be precise – with what I think is wonderful sound … and the playing is absolutely divine too:
Here is an example of Bach played on the piano with beautiful pedal effects, dynamic gradations, and tonal colours, by a sorely forgotten artist:
Jennifer asked me about the restoration of historical recordings. Here’s the video I mentioned that shows how I splice together different parts of an early recording made on 78-rpm discs, each of which would hold only 4 to 5 minutes of music, which meant that longer works were spread apart several records (just like YouTube used to cut videos into shorter segments). I explain this a little bit and show how I do this kind of editing on computer.
This is the wonderful recording by Egon Petri of Liszt’s Un Sospiro that sounded so incredible when an original 78rpm disc was played on my old player in my basement in Montreal. I wish this transfer sounded as good, but it’s still pretty amazing (despite the crackle), and the performance is wonderful.
I mention how the producer Bryan Crimp played me a transfer he had made of the great Ignaz Friedman’s recording of Chopin’s 2nd Impromptu on giant speakers. While this won’t sound the same as that experience, this performance is certainly one that needs to be heard by all piano lovers.
I also mentioned how easy it is to hear and see so many amazing recordings now and how difficult it used to be – I gave, as an example, the film footage of Francis Poulenc playing his 2-piano concerto with Jacques Fevrier. If you even knew it existed, you had to fly to Paris and pay to see it at the national library… but now you just have to click a button… right here!
I referred to a specific listening experience from some 30 years ago of Swiss pianist Edwin Fischer playing a specific Bach Prelude & Fugue – the space I was in at that particular moment, I heard the music in a particularly dimensional way that I still recall decades later. These kinds of experiences can happen when we listen attentively as opposed to passively.
A story I referred to in the conversation: the great Arthur Rubinstein recounting how some pianists used to talk to each other on stage while in performance. He was a great story-teller and this particular tale tells us how different the concert experience used to be.
An example of Dinu Lipatti’s sumptuous pianism, from that legendary ‘last recital’ that caught my eye when I first saw his name:
Near the end of the talk, I referred to Alfred Cortot, the legendary pianist, teacher, and writer, who many young pianists nowadays have fortunately heard of. He is one of my all-time favourite performers: here is one of my favourite recordings of this great artist.
Pianophile and recording historian/researcher Allan Evans passed away on June 6 at far too young an age. Evans played a particularly active role in bringing attention to the playing of the great Polish pianist Ignaz Friedman, producing the first ever comprehensive reissue of the pianist’s recordings and penning a biography of the artist. On his label Arbiter, Evans also highlighted artists who were frequently overlooked and presented performances that showed a different side to an artist’s capabilities than was generally known, in addition to exploring world music on his Arbiter World label.
The author with Allan Evans in New York in April 2018
Despite having had communications online since the late 90s, I only met Evans for the first time in 2018 when I visited New York. The get-together was coordinated by Artur Schnabel’s granddaughter Ann Mottier, a close friend of Evans who believed that we would get along wonderfully – and that we did. Together with our mutual friend James Irsay (whom I first met in New York in 1992 when I was invited to appear on his program on WNYC courtesy another mutual friend, Gregor Benko), we spent hours dining together and discussing many musical matters. Any differences of opinion that we had had in online conversations evaporated as our enthusiasm for our shared passion of inspired music-making drove our conversation – as can be clearly seen in photographs that Mottier snapped on the occasion.
Evans and I met one more time on that trip, for a Thai dinner at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant that he adored – as with his music, Evans preferred a down-to-earth unfussy authenticity versus dressed-up, dolled-up presentations that lacked the grittiness of robust aliveness. Over the course of our dinner, I remember us discussing in particular the pianism of Ilona Eibenschütz and how the playing of those who knew Brahms ruffled the feathers of academics, about whom he uttered a line that I will always remember and use myself: ‘they want their playing embalmed, not alive.’ That incisive directness and down-to-earth clarity epitomizes Evans’ approach to and fascination with music, and all art forms, and life: real, robust, unconventional, in-the-moment.
After his passing, for one week I posted a performance daily on my Facebook page that related to his research, whether an artist he appreciated or a recording that he released on his Arbiter label or on the Pearl label prior to Arbiter’s founding. His contributions in this field were so profound that it made sense to gather them here, along with a few others, for permanent reference.
Ignaz Friedman
My tribute to Evans must begin with Friedman, the artist about whom he was the most passion and who had provided the impetus for his exploration of historical recordings. A Romantic of the highest order, Friedman had a beautiful singing sound, a rich tonal palette, and complete mastery of the pedal, while voicing creatively and phrasing with wonderful rubato fused with sensitive dynamic shadings.
Allan’s requested playlist to friend and radio host James Irsay in 1972
Friedman’s rhythmic emphases in the mazurkas is the stuff of legend and startles the conservatory crowd, though Friedman’s having danced the mazur as a child lends his approach a certain level of authenticity that the current musical climate claims to aspire to but which they can find off-putting because it doesn’t match their picture of what Chopin playing should be like (they would do well to read of the composer’s argument with Meyerbeer over the rhythm he wanted in these works). This brings to mind that line of Evans quoted above about performances being alive as opposed to embalmed.
Well, this is certainly very alive playing – there is a vibrancy and vitality that are mesmerizing! And it is this recording that led to the long friendship between Evans and James Irsay: back in 1972 when Irsay had another program on WBAI, he played a 78rpm disc of Friedman playing Chopin’s A-Flat Polonaise – the first occasion that Evans heard this artist’s playing – and over their shared love of this robust pianism a deep friendship between the two was born. On the right you can see a note that Allan wrote to James soon after with requests for broadcast (though interestingly he mistakenly put Friedheim’s name instead of Friedman’s in the first number)!
I am also not suggesting everyone run out and imitate Friedman – but whenever one is ‘offended’ by a musical choice made by an artist trained in the 19th century, it is worth looking at what belief is being challenged, what stylistic preference is so strongly held, and why. It is not necessary to change one’s preferences or style of playing, but not questioning where these come from and why they are so important to you does not create space for accurate scholarship and musical study.
This truly is essential listening for any lover of great piano playing and we do indeed owe Evans tremendous gratitude for his work in bringing this artist more to the foreground.
Ignace Tiegerman
A pianist rescued from obscurity by Evans was Ignace Tiegerman, a pupil of Ignaz Friedman. Having lived in Cairo for his health and never made commercial recordings, Tiegerman evaded international recognition and was basically unknown to pianophiles until Evans released all the recordings he could find.
While Tiegerman’s character and approach are clearly quite different from Friedman’s, the amateur home and radio recordings we have demonstrate some fine pianism – unfortunately most suffer from very poor sound but this 1965 account of the Brahms Capriccio in B Minor Op.76 No.2 is clearer in fidelity than most. Tiegerman’s tone is absolutely gorgeous, with seamless legato phrasing and transparent textures helping one hear the beauty of Brahms’s writing – and what buoyancy in the accompaniment while sustaining lyricism in the melodic line. Marvellous playing!
Pietro Scarpini
An unsung pianists who fascinated Evans was Pietro Scarpini, a largely overlooked figure whose playing was both robust and intelligently crafted. While Evans did not release a great deal of the artist’s performances, the disc he did put out included this truly marvellous 1952 concert performance of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No.4 with Scarpini and legendary conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler. The atmosphere features that unique combination of divine inspiration and down-to-earth directness that was so much a part of Evans’ character and musical aptitude.
Egon Petri
An incredible discovery Evans made was a truly remarkable broadcast recording of Busoni’s pupil Egon Petri playing the fourth movement of the Busoni Piano Concerto from a 1932 (!) concert, with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by the great Hans Rosbaud.
Allan recounted that he went to Melodiya’s offices in 1987: “Waited for a meeting room to be prepared (someone hurried inside with a reel of tape – not so subtle.) Met their archivist who claimed the entire 1936 broadcast existed minus the 1st movement, in a private collection. The Red Army took everything in 1945. Two years later during Perestroika the 1932 Busoni movement and most of Totentanz emerged. The 1936 performance seems to be missing unless an army officer will ‘fess up. Took a while to get them. Worth the effort.”
Worth the effort indeed. It is staggering that a 1932 broadcast should exist at all and in such amazing sound, and one shudders to think of the whole performance played this way by this great student of the composer; the 1936 Totentanz (with the opening missing) referred to above was also released by Allan on one of his Arbiter CDs and features equally stunning pianism.
Petri could at times be uninvolved and detached (more so in the recording studio than in the concert hall) but that’s far from the case here: this is absolutely thrilling playing, with the easily surmounting the technical challenges of this work despite playing at breakneck speed – what octaves, with incredible voicing and rhythmic vitality. A truly phenomenal document of tremendous historical importance!
Madeleine de Valmalète
Another artist whom Evans adored was the French pianist Madeleine de Valmalète, who had been admired as a child prodigy by Saint-Saens and Widor and by Ravel and Cortot when a developed pianist. While she performed with important conductors across Europe, she never toured the US and didn’t care for recognition, so while she lived to 100 years old she was largely overlooked. This 1928 recording of Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No.11 that Evans issued on his tribute disc to the artist captures her fiery yet refined pianism marvellously well, with some truly idiomatic rhythmic adjustments in the final section.
Marius-François Gaillard
Another artist more recently championed by Evans was a French pianist who became a conductor and lived as late as 1973 – largely forgotten despite having been a major proponent of Debussy’s piano music during and soon after the composer’s lifetime: Marius-François Gaillard.
Evans was the first to reissue Gaillard’s obscure Debussy piano recordings – I don’t think they ever made it onto LP – and they are significant documents unjustly overlooked: Gaillard was the first to play Debussy’s then-complete piano works in three concerts in 1922. A review at the time stated that “Among the illustrious interpreters of this incomparable musician [Debussy], Marius-Francois Gaillard has proved to be the most truthful, the most inspired, the one whose action is most striking to an audience.”
His playing in his 1930 recording of Debussy’s ‘Pour le piano’ presented here is absolutely magnificent, with a wonderful balance of pedal and clarity, sumptuous tonal colours, a refined dynamic palette, and marvellous phrasing.
Severin Eisenberger
Evans was often in the right place at the right time, connecting with just the right person to ensure that something was preserved. The recordings of Severin Eisenberger are a prime example: the Leschetizky pupil seems to have made no recordings but Evans ensured the preservation of some, among them this superb May 14, 1938 concert of the pianist playing Chopin’s F Minor Concerto with the Cincinnati Conservatory Orchestra under Alexander von Kreisler.
He told the story of how this and other broadcasts were rescued from oblivion: “After his passing in 1945, his widow received a mysterious box by the custodian of their Manhattan apartment house: the pianist once intended to throw it away. He told the custodian that it contained records made of his radio recitals and that he was displeased with the mistakes. The custodian realized his mistake and kept the box, returning it to his widow after the pianist’s death. For a major pianist who never recorded, the box contained more than a mere idea of his art.”
How fortuitous that that box of broadcasts was preserved, as the pianism captured is indeed stupendous. Eisenberger plays with an exquisitely refined sonority, magnificently shaped phrasing (what a natural rise-and-fall, as if spoken by a skilled actor), wonderful clarity of articulation and rhythmic pulse, and pedalling that never obscures the clarity of texture and the line.
Mieczysław Horszowski
Another example of recordings saved from destruction that show another side to the artist are some performances Evans issued of the Polish pianist Mieczysław Horszowski. In addition to a number of live recordings of the artist, Evans managed to rescue some 1940 Vatican radio recordings that were made at a time when the pianist was not making commercial recordings. An archivist at Vatican Radio transferred the Horszowski tapes just as they started to fall apart, and Evans was able to obtain and release these historically invaluable performances. Here is a stunning reading of Liszt’s Legende No.1, St. Francis of Assisi preaching to the birds.
Ilona Eibenschütz
This pupil of Clara Schumann was also a favourite pianist of Brahms, who chose to privately perform his Opp.118 and 119 for her alone. Evans released two sets of historical Brahms recordings and was very taken with the vivacious, unpretentious style of the fiery Eibenschütz, heard here in a performance captured when she was around 80 years old. What a soaring melodic line, rhythmic propulsion, expansive rubato, and clarity of texture – truly spirited yet sensitive artistry by a remarkably important figure in late Romantic pianism.
Leo Sirota
Another tremendous artist whose scarce recordings Evans released was Leo Sirota, an utterly fascinating pianist. Paderewski had hoped to teach the young Russian but the boy’s parents thought him too young, and he would later go on to study with Busoni in Vienna. He then lived in Japan for a period of 16 years starting in 1929, becoming a major figure in Western classical music in the country. However, being Jewish he was interned during WWII. Once the conflict had ended, his daughter moved to Japan as one of the few Americans fluent in Japanese and would help draft the new constitution, having a role to play on equal constitutional rights being granted to both genders.
This 1963 performance of Chopin’s Nocturne in B Major Op.62 No.1 comes from Sirota’s farewell concert tour of Japan and features lovely Romantic pianism, with fluid phrasing, amazing dynamic shadings, incredible pedalling, and truly spacious pacing: what freedom in his shaping and timing of the melodic line and how it interacts with the accompaniment.
You can read more about Sirota in recollections by his daughter on Allan’s website here:
As it was Schnabel’s granddaughter Ann Mottier who arranged for Allan and me to meet in New York two years ago, it seemed appropriate to end this tribute with this superb and rare recording that I was totally unaware of until just after Allan’s passing. This performance was released by Evans some 30 years ago: a November 17th 1947 concert recording of Artur Schnabel playing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No.4 in G Major with Izler Solomon conducting the Columbus Philharmonic Orchestra. This rare broadcast performance was released on disc only once, on a Pearl CD set also featuring Schnabel’s 1930s studio accounts of the complete Beethoven Concertos with Malcolm Sargent conducting. Schnabel would rerecord Concerti 2 through 5 in the late 1940s in London, as well as 4 and 5 in 1942 in Chicago. A 1945 concert performance of the Third Concerto conducted by Szell circulated quite widely but the Pearl set is the only release I know of featuring this traversal of the Fourth.
The performance was recorded privately for the conductor on yellow-labeled lacquers. Because the discs had suffered some water damage on account of poor storage, several portions were unplayable. For those sections, Evans and transfer engineer Seth Winner patched the gaps with the relevant sections of Schnabel’s 1942 RCA recording with the Chicago Symphony. It is worth noting that the slow movement in this concert performance is significantly longer than in Schnabel’s studio accounts: 6:50, whereas the 1942 RCA version is 5:29 and the 1946 EMI version is 4:55. This gives an idea of how the time constraints set by the limited length of 78rpm discs impacted some of the pianist’s interpretative inclinations.
Schnabel’s playing throughout is glorious, with a truly luminescent sonority, marvellous pedal effects, rhythmic vitality, and wonderful interplay with the orchestra – a truly heartfelt and inspired performance.
Our thoughts are with Allan’s widow Beatrice, son Stefan, and their extended family and friends. Allan’s website Arbiter Records at arbiterrecords.org will be maintained and his extensive collection of materials will be preserved – no details are available at the moment but do stay tuned. RIP Allan and grazie mille for all your brilliant work.
I recently had a wonderful conversation with Leila Getz of the Vancouver Recital Society. She has run this organization for over 40 years, featuring both established and the latest up-and-coming artists. Leila has always had a nose for fresh talent, throughout her entire career booking artists for their Canadian debuts when they were not yet famous or on the international radar.
I’ve attended VRS recitals since moving to Vancouver in 1999 and I have always enjoyed catching up with Leila before, during (at intermission), and after concerts. I knew that she had an appreciation for Dinu Lipatti because – a little surprise we didn’t discuss in our filmed conversation – she once had a cat named Dinu.
Given the lack of concerts this year and the move to virtual events and streaming, Leila had started having filmed conversations with various performers and critics. We’d previously discussed doing an event where we feature historical recordings – especially as these have come up in post-concert Q&A sessions with Joseph Moog and Andrew Tyson (two marvellous pianists with a strong knowledge of and appreciation for these old recordings) … and so at least having a preliminary conversation online about these recordings and the issues they reveal around interpretation and musical culture seemed appropriate.
Leila and I had a great time discussing some important topics – there’s always more to discuss about these matters than most people have the attention span for, so we kept things to the essentials here, and hopefully we will be able to film another discussion in the near future.
Having only just realized that today is the 70th anniversary of the death of Rosa Tamarkina, I am quickly preparing this commemorative post with some representative recordings and basic biographical information that will then be expanded into a tribute more worthy of such a supreme artist.
Tamarkina’s death of cancer at the age of 30 on August 5, 1950 – four months before Dinu Lipatti’s untimely passing – was a tragic loss to the musical world. At a young age, her talent was abundantly clear, as evidenced by some very early recordings of the artist: here she is playing Liszt’s Rigoletto Paraphrase and Hungarian Rhapsody No.10 in 1935, at the age of 15.
A pupil of the great Alexander Goldenweiser who would later work with Konstantin Igumnov, Tamarkina was already played publicly in her early teens. In 1937 she participated in the 3rd International Chopin Competition in Warsaw, where at the age of 16 she was awarded second prize (her compatriot Yakov Zak came in first). Neuhaus wrote about that occasion that “Rosa Tamarkina made a real sensation on the competition – not merely because of her age. Despite her young age, she is beyond doubt a perfectly matured, perfectly conscious pianist. Backhaus shouted to me: ‘This is marvelous!'”
Some film footage shortly after that competition was made when she was back home in Russia: here we see her playing Chopin’s ‘Black Key’ Etude with a combination of refinement and inspired virtuosity. You can see you can see Yakov Zak, Nina Yemelyanova, and Heinrich Neuhaus sitting behind her in the opening sequence. What bold yet poetic playing, with sparkling and full-bodied tone, clear fingerwork, and attentive voicing.
Here she is again shortly after that win, aged 17, in Goldenweiser’s classroom, playing a Chopin Mazurka with a soaring line, wonderful dynamic shadings (appreciable despite the poor sound), and marvellous rhythm:
Tamarkina had a performing career that was very successful but later limited by both her teaching at the Moscow Conservatory and illness. She was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 26 and with treatment was able to survive a few more years, the period from which the bulk of her recordings (both commercial and concert) derive. Her playing was notable for its combination of power and sensitivity, with grandly-shaped phrasing that was never angular, strength that never crossed the edge into aggression, her tone deep and powerful yet never harsh or aggressive.
Tamarkina’s success at the Chopin Competition has led to her name being inextricably linked with that composer, and she was indeed a sensitive yet bold interpreter of his music. Chopin’s Polonaise-Fantaisie is an ideal vehicle for her beautiful blend of sensitive lyricism and bold declamatory style, with rhythmic propulsion that isn’t overly driven, and featuring dramatic emphasis without any loss of tonal integrity (despite a substandard piano), her subtle pedalling never compromising clarity of texture:
She was equally at home with other Romantic composers, and several recordings of works by Schumann and Liszt demonstrate her fine pianistic and musical attributes. This 1948 reading of Schumann 3 Phantasiestücke Op.111, despite its rather restrictive sonic framework, showcases her rhythmic momentum, wonderful voicing, lyrical legato phrasing, and natural timing.
Of course Tamarkina was at home in the music of her native Russia, her few recordings of Rachmaninoff being exemplary. This 1948 concert performance of Rachmaninoff’s Second Concerto is a grand reading that demonstrates her robust sonority, beautifully shaped lines, rhythmic certainty, and wonderful balance between hands.
Had Tamarkina not died so tragically young, she surely would have enjoyed an international career that would have seen her recognized as one of the supreme pianists hailing from her country. She and Emil Gilels had been married from 1940 to 44, and when one considers the reach of Gilels’ decades-long career, it is almost painful to imagine how rapturously she might have been received by international audiences in concerts and recordings for major labels – alas, it was not to be. For now, we have just a handful of precious recordings and snippets of film that are all in need of skillful restoration. But what timeless and inspired music-making we can appreciate of what remains – and the gratitude we should feel that we have what we do.
A new CD set featuring Lipatti’s London studio recordings and some rare treasures
A new CD set has come out that is the culmination of an early discovery at the beginning of my research into unknown recordings of the pianist Dinu Lipatti – a production I am thrilled to have helped with and to which I contributed extensive booklet notes.
The first letter I received from EMI’s London office in 1989 mentioned a set of unpublished recordings that the legendary pianist had made with the cellist Antonio Janigro, stating that they had been in the collection of Elisabeth Schwarzkopf – widow of Lipatti’s recording producer Walter Legge – but they had been taken and not returned. Nobody in the well-informed piano recording underground had heard about the existence of these performances and I was naturally intrigued – especially as one of the works they recorded was the first movement of Beethoven’s Third Cello Sonata.
I had not yet discovered the extent to which it was a myth that Lipatti did not play Beethoven until the last two years of his life – this was a complete fabrication by Legge, 100% untrue, easily provable now with the material that I have gathered. Since no other recordings of Lipatti playing Beethoven have surfaced – yet – this one with Janigro is of great importance.
Read on for the excerpt from the booklet notes of this new APR release, in which I explain the backstory of these recordings, which are now issued on CD for the first time. As is usually the case with Lipatti, even more new information came to me in the last month since the production went to print – truly, this always happens with Lipatti! – but these new details will have to wait for the book that I’ll have to write on his recordings.
The excerpt below picks up after my discussion of the fact that Lipatti had agreed to record both a Beethoven Concerto (the pianist had requested to do so) and the Tchaikovsky Concerto (which Legge had requested) – despite the producer having famously stated that Lipatti had refused to record either, a lie that has been perpetuated ever since his oft-published 1951 Gramophone magazine tribute to the pianist (I have copies of signed memos written by Legge while Lipatti was alive that prove that his published statements are false).
So here, on to the recordings with Janigro:
Unreleased treasures
The recording sheet of the first of six sides recorded by Lipatti and Janigro in May 1947
What might be even more surprising than these revelations is the fact that a set of records that Lipatti actually did produce was never issued by Legge either during the pianist’s lifetime or afterwards. Lipatti was touring Switzerland with cellist Antonio Janigro in May 1947, playing recital programs of sonatas by Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms to great critical acclaim. On 24 May they went to the Wolfbach Studio in Zürich to record six 78-rpm discs, among them the first movement of the Beethoven A major Sonata, Op 69. The session sheets for these records – matrix numbers CZX 221 through 226 – have at the top of each page the words ‘Test for Mr. W. Legge’.
It is surprising that the producer did not, at the very least, issue these discs posthumously, given the pianist’s great fame and the dearth of available recordings. One possible reason for his not having done so comes from a testimonial by Steven Isserlis, who studied with Janigro in the mid-1970s. The master cellist was speaking mournfully to his student about the lost opportunity of making records with Lipatti and when asked why they had not, Janigro said with the utmost bitterness in his voice, ‘because Mister Walter Legge didn’t like the cello’.
No correspondence by Legge or Lipatti discussing these recordings has been found so it is not known for certain how the session came to happen. However, a 1970 letter to EMI’s David Bicknell by Madeleine Lipatti states: ‘This was a private recording which was sent to Columbia by Lipatti’s wish, but this ‘test’ recording was not followed up.’ She added that she and the cellist wished to issue the recordings as part of a charity project for the 20th anniversary of Lipatti’s death that year and asked if ‘the matrix is still in Columbia’s archive’, but no reply was on file and her project never came to fruition.
One of the two sides located in the 1990s in Dr. Gertsch’s collection and released on the archiphon label in 1995
I became aware of the existence of these recordings in 1989 when Keith Hardwick of EMI responded to my inquiry about unpublished Lipatti recordings: he informed me that these discs had been borrowed from, but not returned to, the collection of the producer’s widow, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf. Investigations at EMI’s archive revealed that the masters no longer existed, but a few years later, pressings of two of the six sides were found in Dr Marc Gertsch’s collection in Bern, Switzerland, records he had received when Madeleine Lipatti died in 1983. My colleague Werner Unger and I issued these on Unger’s label archiphon as part of a 2-CD set featuring unpublished Lipatti recordings largely culled from Gertsch’s collection.
A private cassette of Lipatti’s discs with Antonio Janigro produced by his pupil
I finally made contact with Janigro’s daughter in Milan in 2008 and she introduced me to the cellist’s pupil Ulrich Bracher in Germany: he had five of the six discs and had in fact put the recordings out on a private cassette devoted to Janigro which had somehow never made its way into the hands of Lipatti fans. He graciously shipped the original acetates to Unger, who transferred and issued them in a digital release in 2014 and who has made them available for this present set.
The current release is the first published CD of these recordings to be made, over 70 years after the studio sessions. Unfortunately, the Chopin Nocturne in C sharp minor (CZX 224) that the artists recorded has not been located: it wasn’t mentioned in Madeleine’s letter, so it is possible that the disc was never pressed. The artistry of both musicians here is stunning, these records revealing, in the words of Isserlis, “such wonderfully sensitive, imaginative playing, and such mastery. A truly magnificent duo!” These performances’ absence from the catalogue both during the pianist’s lifetime and afterwards is most regrettable, but fortunately they are now available – a significant addition to the pianist’s discography.
It is hard to imagine a time when multiple recordings of the most popular classical works were not available at a moment’s notice. However, even as bulky shellac 78rpm discs gave way to long-playing records around 1950, many of the great masterpieces were unavailable or underrepresented in the catalogue. It may come as a surprise to even the most ardent piano fan that the first cycle of Chopin’s twenty Nocturnes was recorded by the Philips label in 1954 featuring Jan Smeterlin, a Polish pianist largely unknown today.
Leopold Godowsky recorded twelve Nocturnes in 1928, and then the legendary Arthur Rubinstein produced the first ever volume of nineteen in 1936–37, followed by a second version in 1949–50. Smeterlin was the first to present twenty Nocturnes on disc. Guiomar Novaes and Nadia Reisenberg also featured twenty in their 1956 cycles, as did Stefan Askenase in 1957, but other mid-1950s accounts by Peter Katin and Alexander Brailowsky only had nineteen. (The Opus posthumous Nocturne No. 21 appears not to have been included until Ingrid Haebler’s 1960 Vox set.) Smeterlin’s small discography has surely contributed to his not receiving the enduring adulation afforded his compatriot Rubinstein, and his less charismatic delivery was also possibly not as appealing to the general public. There is no doubt, however, that this release of Smeterlin’s Chopin reveals top-tier pianism.
He was born Hans Schmetterling in Bielsko, Poland on 7 February 1892, changing his name to Jan Smeterlin in 1924. He had his first lesson at age seven, and the following year played a movement of a Mozart concerto in public, performing Liszt’s Hungarian Fantasia two years after that. Although his father had him study Latin and Greek, he also pursued music training with Theodore Vogel, an organ pupil of Bruckner, who hoped that the young boy would become a conductor. His lessons consisted largely of playing through two-piano reductions of symphonies, operas, and chamber music, which surely helped him develop his lyrical approach at the keyboard. Smeterlin attended lots of concerts and stated that listening to singers deepened his awareness of fluid phrasing and organic timing, while hearing orchestral music brought an appreciation of texture and colour.
Vogel was not the only one with firm ideas about Smeterlin’s path: the boy’s father wanted him to follow in his footsteps as a lawyer, so he sent the seventeen-year-old to Vienna to study at the university there. In doing so he unwittingly helped his son with his own goal of becoming a musician: Jan had already hoped to go to that city to study with the legendary Godowsky, so once there he auditioned and ‘miraculously’ was accepted in his master class. The small group of fifteen included others who would go on to great careers, such as the great Russian pianist and teacher Heinrich Neuhaus and conductor Issay Dobrowen. Marvelling at how Godowsky had not two hands but ten fingers that served him faithfully, the young pianist learned an approach to polyphony that fortified his earlier training with orchestral scores.
Photo IPAM Smeterlin Collection
Though he performed at Bechstein Hall (later Wigmore Hall) in London alongside other Godowsky pupils in 1912, his career would be stalled until after World War I, during which he served in the Polish cavalry. Smeterlin survived that ordeal, as well as some health challenges, before his 1920 debuts in Warsaw, Vienna, Berlin and Paris. His tours would take him around Europe as well as through North America, Latin America, Java, Australia and New Zealand. He settled in London with his British wife Edith (Didi), a cello pupil of Felix Salmond. Their home was furnished with exotic souvenirs from his tours and became a gathering place for visiting musicians such as Arthur Rubinstein, Edwin Fischer, and the Schnabels. After his October 1930 debut at Carnegie Hall, Smeterlin would continue regular tours across America for some 30 years, living in New York for some time before returning to London shortly before his death on 18 January 1967 at the age of 74.
While he came to be seen as a Chopin specialist, Smeterlin stated that Beethoven’s Hammerklavier Sonata and Bach’s Goldberg Variations were his ‘musical bible’, adding that he ‘would feel greatly impoverished if I had to live without Schubert, Mozart, Haydn, Brahms, and many impressionist composers’. Early in his career, he had embraced the oeuvre of his contemporaries Szymanowski, Scriabin, Stravinsky, Debussy, Ravel, Dukas, and Albéniz, premiering many of their works locally and receiving dedications. As he performed more extensively in major venues worldwide, critical acclaim for his Chopin led to his including more of the composer’s works in his programs.
Recording sheets showing the pressing information for the 2nd vinyl of Smeterlin’s account of the Nocturnes
By the time he recorded his cycle of Nocturnes in 1954, Smeterlin was internationally known as a Chopin pianist. An Australian critic’s comment that he had ‘the Chopin touch’ aroused a spirited ongoing discussion in the local media as to what the term meant. The artist himself responded that although many believe that there is a fixed sound to each instrument, it is in fact the interpreter who creates his unique timbre. Even more important than the physical skill required to crafting one’s tone was ‘to come away from the keyboard; leave pianistic problems alone for a while and think how you wish a work to sound … touch begins in the mind, the heart, the musical consciousness. It cannot be mastered through piano practice alone’. However, his writings make it clear that he had a remarkable understanding of the actual mechanics involved in producing a beautiful sound. The combination of his masterful technique and musical imagination yields a magnificent array of sonorities put to intelligent musical use.
The Epic label’s edition of Smeterlin’s Nocturnes featured cover art by Andy Warhol
Smeterlin’s Nocturnes are like watercolour paintings, colourful without being garish, atmospheric without being overly impressionistic. His tonal palette is varied and skilfully polished, his textures transparent. His interpretations have an incredible sense of spontaneity: one never knows if he will play softly or loudly, whether he will slow down or accelerate, but his choices always sound natural, each phrase fluidly forged like a master actor shapes words into sentences filled with meaning in order to express the depth of the text being communicated.
He was not one to shy away from burnishing a melodic line, yet at no time does Smeterlin’s playing sound forced even when at its most impassioned. Never is his inflexion exaggerated, his tone harsh, his nuancing extreme. Some of the naturalness in his playing comes from his striking balance of time and rhythm. He stated that ‘too automatic an adherence to time is apt to kill the more important quality of rhythm’, which he defined as ‘freedom within time: one note is shortened, another prolonged’. He so seamlessly adjusts pacing and the balance between melodic line and accompaniment that the rigid bar lines of the text dissolve in the fluidity of his rubato and suppleness of his phrasing (some particularly fine examples can be found in his delivery of the Nocturnes Op. 9 No. 3, Op. 32 No. 1 and Op. 62 No. 1). This expressive device commonly employed in the nineteenth century, and which can sound idiosyncratic in the hands of lesser pianists, seems completely natural here. One can also easily overlook the fact that Smeterlin often plays with dynamic markings opposite to those in the score, never sensing he is disrespecting the spirit of the work under his fingers. As Dinu Lipatti said, ‘If you carry yourself well, you can put your feet on the table and no one will think anything of it.’
Our appreciation for Jan Smeterlin is bolstered here by the first ever release of a BBC recital and an unpublished Decca recording. His BBC appearance on 17 April 1949 includes six Mazurkas, the kind of works that his intimate pianism serves best. In his native Poland, Smeterlin had seen the mazur folk dance performed excitedly in rural settings and elegantly in ballrooms, which surely contributed to his idiomatic sense of rhythmic impulse and accenting in these charming but deceptively difficult works. We also have a rare opportunity to hear him in two of Chopin’s most heroic compositions, the First and Fourth Ballades. Smeterlin eschews any excess without sacrificing grandeur, playing boldly but without brashness, sensitively without lapsing into sentimentality.
An unpublished 1946 Decca test pressing, now available for the first time. Photo IPAM Smeterlin Collection
At two June 1946 sessions at Decca’s West Hampstead Studios, Smeterlin cut a few Chopin records that were never issued. The music recorded at these sessions included three Mazurkas, two Waltzes, two Études and the B-flat-minor Scherzo. All were presumed lost until a single test pressing of one side was uncovered in his collection at the International Piano Archives at Maryland. This reading of the F-major Étude and the Mazurka, Op. 63 No. 3 (Smeterlin segues the pair) are characterised by the same grace, nobility and refinement as the other performances on this collection, making these discoveries a welcome addition to his discography.
We live at a time that the esteemed Chopin and Liszt biographer Alan Walker has dubbed ‘The Age of Anonymity,’ adherence to the text being so ingrained in our musical culture that many performers limit the range of expression in their readings, while a handful impose their persona such that it risks overriding musical content. With a style that was paradoxically individual and unobtrusive, Jan Smeterlin brought sumptuous and highly personal nuancing to his playing while avoiding even a hint of ostentatious showmanship. The recordings issued here are a model of sensible, sensitive pianism that shows that personality need not eclipse a composer’s creation – a balm to soothe the soul of the 21st-century Chopin lover.
And a bonus upload: a 1966 Mace label LP, released in the last year of Smeterlin’s life, featuring more Chopin recordings – a very rare release, never reissued. While his dexterity was slightly more compromised at this time, the playing is extraordinarily poetic and his tone is absolutely marvellous. Many thanks to Mike Gartz for digitizing this vinyl and to Neal Kurz for the noise reduction.
I had no clue that some of my findings would upturn much of the official narrative. Many of the best-known anecdotes about the pianist – that he wanted three or four years to prepare the Tchaikovsky or Emperor Concertos, that he only played Beethoven Sonatas in the last two years of his life, that he was reluctant to record due to his perfectionism – turned out to be completely false. I still recall how my jaw dropped when, at the EMI archives, I held with my own hands copies of memos signed by his producer Walter Legge that stated Lipatti had agreed in 1948 to record Tchaikovsky’s Concerto in 1949, and that Lipatti himself requested to record a Beethoven Concerto, when he was the one who had spread the aforementioned stories of Lipatti’s reticence to record or play these works! Memo after memo revealed that a lack of foresight and bad luck had unfortunately conspired to limit Lipatti’s recorded output to a handful of small-scale works that only hint at the fullness of his interpretative powers. How tragic that he did not record Beethoven’s Waldstein Sonata (which he played regularly in the last decade of his life, not just the last two years), or Schumann’s Etudes symphoniques, as he’d requested EMI to do, or Ravel’s Le tombeau de Couperin – or other shorter works, such as Debussy’s La soirée dans Grenade and Falla’s Ritual Fire Dance, both of which were scheduled to be recorded but for some reason weren’t.
Lipatti often played recitals featuring an array of works from Baroque to 20th century, in chronological sequence, sometimes centred around one main work. The collection here features some of the works he most regularly programmed, in similar groupings: he often paired these two Bach chorales in this order, as well as the first of the two Scarlatti Sonatas presented here (unfortunately a recording of the third usually grouped with these has not been salvaged). One of the central works he often played in these recitals was Chopin’s Third Sonata, which is featured here, grouped with other solo Chopin works as he often did. (Among the other large-scale works that often figured in his recitals was Beethoven’s Waldstein Sonata, Schumann’s Etudes symphoniques, and Ravel’s Le tombeau de Couperin.)
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