Perahia’s New Schubert
Posted by: Todd A on 25 May 2003
Murray Perahia has been on something of a tear the last few years, releasing all of those wonderful Bach discs and then last year’s dazzling recording of Chopin’s Etudes. So when I read that he recorded Schubert’s last three piano sonatas, I could hardly wait for their release. Now they’re here. They are not what I had hoped.
I listened to them chronologically, and that’s sort of where the trouble started. The C minor sonata just never really gelled. This is a hard piece to bring off, to be sure, and while Perahia does play the piece well technically and at times beautifully, he never really seems to present the piece as a unified whole. He misses the line, or the arc, or whatever you wish to call it. He does deliver the goods in an outstanding rendition of the concluding Allegro, but one movement does not a sonata make.
The A major sonata fares much better. Indeed, this is the highlight of the set. He gets everything almost right. By almost I mean that, again, he seems more interested in presenting the music beautifully rather than exploring some of the darker aspects of the music. While I agree that many pianists try to make the music sound darker than it really is – though some succeed at that approach – Perahia just doesn’t seem to give it his all. Another problem that showed up in this sonata is Perahia’s relative lack of dynamic range. He can be powerful when called for, but throughout this entire set, he does not really vary the dynamic markings as I feel he should. For all that, this is a fine performance that demands a hearing.
That of course leaves the B flat major sonata, Schubert’s greatest and one of the greatest of all sonatas. As with all great works, there are a number of different ways to approach this piece. Some – like Kempff, Klien, Kovacevich, and Richter – make the other-worldly opening movement the focus of the work. Others, most notably Artur Schnabel and Annie Fischer, seem to shift the focus to the second movement. Perahia appears to opt for the second alternative. His opening movement is reasonably long at 19 minutes, but at no time does he really develop a sense of urgency or darkness or resignation. After he plays the bass trills he pauses very briefly and then moves on. There is no sense that one is facing an abyss, or facing death, or anything dramatic; he just moves on. There are some nice moments, but nothing great. And the relative lack of dynamic contrast spoils the movement. Perahia just cannot match Kovacevich or Richter in this regard. The rest of the sonata works much better. His Andante Sostenuto is the heart of the piece, delivered with the appropriate sense of darkness, lightly delivered, if you will, that marks the best performances of this work. And the concluding movements are very good, and, at times, exceptional.
So, something of a mixed bag, then. These are very good performances, but they are not great; at least they are not of the stature of the other pianists I mentioned. Such comparisons may be a bit unfair – how can any living pianist be expected to match Kempff’s ethereal perfection or Klien’s altogether grimmer approach? – but in this repertoire only the finest will do. I have a sneaking suspicion that these recordings will grow on me as time goes by, but here Perahia’s subtlety is just too subtle for the time being. Sound quality is outstanding.
I listened to them chronologically, and that’s sort of where the trouble started. The C minor sonata just never really gelled. This is a hard piece to bring off, to be sure, and while Perahia does play the piece well technically and at times beautifully, he never really seems to present the piece as a unified whole. He misses the line, or the arc, or whatever you wish to call it. He does deliver the goods in an outstanding rendition of the concluding Allegro, but one movement does not a sonata make.
The A major sonata fares much better. Indeed, this is the highlight of the set. He gets everything almost right. By almost I mean that, again, he seems more interested in presenting the music beautifully rather than exploring some of the darker aspects of the music. While I agree that many pianists try to make the music sound darker than it really is – though some succeed at that approach – Perahia just doesn’t seem to give it his all. Another problem that showed up in this sonata is Perahia’s relative lack of dynamic range. He can be powerful when called for, but throughout this entire set, he does not really vary the dynamic markings as I feel he should. For all that, this is a fine performance that demands a hearing.
That of course leaves the B flat major sonata, Schubert’s greatest and one of the greatest of all sonatas. As with all great works, there are a number of different ways to approach this piece. Some – like Kempff, Klien, Kovacevich, and Richter – make the other-worldly opening movement the focus of the work. Others, most notably Artur Schnabel and Annie Fischer, seem to shift the focus to the second movement. Perahia appears to opt for the second alternative. His opening movement is reasonably long at 19 minutes, but at no time does he really develop a sense of urgency or darkness or resignation. After he plays the bass trills he pauses very briefly and then moves on. There is no sense that one is facing an abyss, or facing death, or anything dramatic; he just moves on. There are some nice moments, but nothing great. And the relative lack of dynamic contrast spoils the movement. Perahia just cannot match Kovacevich or Richter in this regard. The rest of the sonata works much better. His Andante Sostenuto is the heart of the piece, delivered with the appropriate sense of darkness, lightly delivered, if you will, that marks the best performances of this work. And the concluding movements are very good, and, at times, exceptional.
So, something of a mixed bag, then. These are very good performances, but they are not great; at least they are not of the stature of the other pianists I mentioned. Such comparisons may be a bit unfair – how can any living pianist be expected to match Kempff’s ethereal perfection or Klien’s altogether grimmer approach? – but in this repertoire only the finest will do. I have a sneaking suspicion that these recordings will grow on me as time goes by, but here Perahia’s subtlety is just too subtle for the time being. Sound quality is outstanding.