Edwin Fischer Plays Mozart
Posted by: u5227470736789439 on 05 August 2006
Dear Friends,
Today, I picked up three discs of Mozart piano concertos played by the real pioneer in the Twentieth Century in these workss, Edwin Fischer.
How can I say he was the pioneer? Really because the works were largely misunderstood, and most of these lovely concertos were hardly played at all.
Fischer established the Fischer Chamber Players with a view to perfoming Mozart, Bach, and Haydn on a scale that most of the music designed for, and then set about creating a style of performance that is still even in the oldest recording here, recognisably modern.
His musicological approach indeed was ahead of its time! With his own players (and sometimes with other other orchestras, he would direct from the keyboard though in these three discs containing (among a nice selection of sonatas and other solo piano music) five Mozart concertos, and one by Haydn, as well as the Concert Rondo in D KV 382, his own orchestra only appears twice in the Concerto No 17 in G, KV 453 and the Rondo mentioned aleady. He leads from the keyboard the LPO in the D Minor KV 466, and the VPO in the Haydn Concerto in D. Otherwise the orchestras are London based and the conducting is taken on by John Barbirolli in 22 in E flat, KV 482, Laurence Collingwood in 24 in C Minor, KV 491, and Joseph Kripps in 25 in C, KV 503.
There is a reason for this in that in each case the orchestra was unfamiliar with the music, which may sound amazing today! Naturally coming to from abroad to reccord in London would not allow the orchestra enough time to adequately rehearse in the unfamiliar position of being led from the keyboard, so Fischer would have the band rehearsed by a favourite conductor using a carefully marked score, so it was not guess-work what his intentions were, and a decision would be taken about whether it was best to have conductor at the session or not. This could go either way as Collingwood rehearsed the LPO in the D Minor Concereto as well as the C Minor, but only lead in the C Minor for the recording. This was due to the fact that the players knew the D Minor but not the C Minor, and this is in the mid thirties!
This may be of intetrest to those who wander about the practice of leading from the keyboard as Perahia and Barenboim have done in more recent times.
_______________
So why the long pre-amble? I have to say that these are simply the most wonderful performances of these concerti I have ever encountered. The readings are conceived on a symphonic level, and these are true interppretations where every detail is characterised and placed in its context entirely according to the character of the piece, so that for example the D Minor is extemely classically straight, and yet has the flexibility to be very striking in its direct and tragic emotion. For once the little coda at the end of the Finale does not sound like a happy bit tacked on the end, but rather an almost defiant jesture in the face of tragedy, but all this is managed within a style that is pure, clear (in both style and conception), and has a total unity between soloist and band. I would say that this is not just my favourite performance of the music, but by a margin now! This is the oldest recording, from 1933, but it comes up rather well. No embarrassment to the original gramophone men working with AD Blumlein's new recording machines in Abbey Road!
No surface noise, and the mastering gets a very fine quality like the best of EMI's transfers from the original master material. All the other recordings are even more finely presented except the Wartime Vienna recording of the Haydn, which seems to have foxed the transfer engineers a bit! As recording it has caught the glowing VPO strings wonderfully, for all that, so I would guess that a little noise was better than ruining the basic sonority!
The C Minor is just as impressive as a reading as the D Minor, and has similar traits, but it is a bigger more complex piece. One place this concerto often falls apart is in the Finale, where Variation structure can become episodic. Not here, for sure! It is as if collingwood and Fischer were literally one mind! The LPO show that the winds in London had nothing to fear in comparison with any in the world! The strings are characteristically English, with rather spare use of vibrato which is varied, and actually seems closer to modern HIP style playing than modern chaber orchetral string playing since about 1950, but without the dogma of seemingly refusing to make a beautiful basic sound, or really phrasing flexibly and characterfully. Certainly the band don't seem to play this music as the strangers they mostly were to it! Wonderful. Absolutely ..... wonderful! [Deleted Expletive Smiley]!
I could go on, but I will post a link to the APR site, and hopefully some of you will have picked up on my enthusiasm and find these for yourselves!
Each piece is so wonderfully lithe (small or smallish orchestras are used in every case), on times strongly and really muscular and manly, but never beaten or hit. Never forced, and on times mysteriously deep as in the 22nd. Concerto, which surely the most complex of any of these. Barbirolli excels in this and again really there is one big conception at work here. For once it hangs together and remains truly compelling, but such are the musical challenges that it is always going to be a rarer piece than say No 21 in C (Elvira Madigan for those who know the film!) or the D Minor. Needless to say I could hardly conceieve of it going this well and last time I listened to the set (on 78s) in 1975, I was hardly mature enough to appreciate the magnitude of it success in bring out the music! It wasnot my favourite piece as a 13 years old!!
Perhaps the biggest surprise is Number 25 in C, which I have found can seem a bit grandiose. Not here. There is manly strength in abundance, and a determined flow that has nothing to do with rushing! Fantastic!!!!
Throughout the winds are forward and excelently played, as you would hope and expect, and their clear balance both with the piano (essntial in this music) and strings is a product of using small bamds. A naturally clear balance occurs when the forces themselves are properly balanced.
Again I have not been able to explain the emotional side. I can't actually. Like Walcha in Bach, this is indeed very special music making, but pin-pointing what it is that makes it so is impossible I would say. I cant advocate these performances too highly...
APR Apian Records
Good hunting from Fredrik
Today, I picked up three discs of Mozart piano concertos played by the real pioneer in the Twentieth Century in these workss, Edwin Fischer.
How can I say he was the pioneer? Really because the works were largely misunderstood, and most of these lovely concertos were hardly played at all.
Fischer established the Fischer Chamber Players with a view to perfoming Mozart, Bach, and Haydn on a scale that most of the music designed for, and then set about creating a style of performance that is still even in the oldest recording here, recognisably modern.
His musicological approach indeed was ahead of its time! With his own players (and sometimes with other other orchestras, he would direct from the keyboard though in these three discs containing (among a nice selection of sonatas and other solo piano music) five Mozart concertos, and one by Haydn, as well as the Concert Rondo in D KV 382, his own orchestra only appears twice in the Concerto No 17 in G, KV 453 and the Rondo mentioned aleady. He leads from the keyboard the LPO in the D Minor KV 466, and the VPO in the Haydn Concerto in D. Otherwise the orchestras are London based and the conducting is taken on by John Barbirolli in 22 in E flat, KV 482, Laurence Collingwood in 24 in C Minor, KV 491, and Joseph Kripps in 25 in C, KV 503.
There is a reason for this in that in each case the orchestra was unfamiliar with the music, which may sound amazing today! Naturally coming to from abroad to reccord in London would not allow the orchestra enough time to adequately rehearse in the unfamiliar position of being led from the keyboard, so Fischer would have the band rehearsed by a favourite conductor using a carefully marked score, so it was not guess-work what his intentions were, and a decision would be taken about whether it was best to have conductor at the session or not. This could go either way as Collingwood rehearsed the LPO in the D Minor Concereto as well as the C Minor, but only lead in the C Minor for the recording. This was due to the fact that the players knew the D Minor but not the C Minor, and this is in the mid thirties!
This may be of intetrest to those who wander about the practice of leading from the keyboard as Perahia and Barenboim have done in more recent times.
_______________
So why the long pre-amble? I have to say that these are simply the most wonderful performances of these concerti I have ever encountered. The readings are conceived on a symphonic level, and these are true interppretations where every detail is characterised and placed in its context entirely according to the character of the piece, so that for example the D Minor is extemely classically straight, and yet has the flexibility to be very striking in its direct and tragic emotion. For once the little coda at the end of the Finale does not sound like a happy bit tacked on the end, but rather an almost defiant jesture in the face of tragedy, but all this is managed within a style that is pure, clear (in both style and conception), and has a total unity between soloist and band. I would say that this is not just my favourite performance of the music, but by a margin now! This is the oldest recording, from 1933, but it comes up rather well. No embarrassment to the original gramophone men working with AD Blumlein's new recording machines in Abbey Road!
No surface noise, and the mastering gets a very fine quality like the best of EMI's transfers from the original master material. All the other recordings are even more finely presented except the Wartime Vienna recording of the Haydn, which seems to have foxed the transfer engineers a bit! As recording it has caught the glowing VPO strings wonderfully, for all that, so I would guess that a little noise was better than ruining the basic sonority!
The C Minor is just as impressive as a reading as the D Minor, and has similar traits, but it is a bigger more complex piece. One place this concerto often falls apart is in the Finale, where Variation structure can become episodic. Not here, for sure! It is as if collingwood and Fischer were literally one mind! The LPO show that the winds in London had nothing to fear in comparison with any in the world! The strings are characteristically English, with rather spare use of vibrato which is varied, and actually seems closer to modern HIP style playing than modern chaber orchetral string playing since about 1950, but without the dogma of seemingly refusing to make a beautiful basic sound, or really phrasing flexibly and characterfully. Certainly the band don't seem to play this music as the strangers they mostly were to it! Wonderful. Absolutely ..... wonderful! [Deleted Expletive Smiley]!
I could go on, but I will post a link to the APR site, and hopefully some of you will have picked up on my enthusiasm and find these for yourselves!
Each piece is so wonderfully lithe (small or smallish orchestras are used in every case), on times strongly and really muscular and manly, but never beaten or hit. Never forced, and on times mysteriously deep as in the 22nd. Concerto, which surely the most complex of any of these. Barbirolli excels in this and again really there is one big conception at work here. For once it hangs together and remains truly compelling, but such are the musical challenges that it is always going to be a rarer piece than say No 21 in C (Elvira Madigan for those who know the film!) or the D Minor. Needless to say I could hardly conceieve of it going this well and last time I listened to the set (on 78s) in 1975, I was hardly mature enough to appreciate the magnitude of it success in bring out the music! It wasnot my favourite piece as a 13 years old!!
Perhaps the biggest surprise is Number 25 in C, which I have found can seem a bit grandiose. Not here. There is manly strength in abundance, and a determined flow that has nothing to do with rushing! Fantastic!!!!
Throughout the winds are forward and excelently played, as you would hope and expect, and their clear balance both with the piano (essntial in this music) and strings is a product of using small bamds. A naturally clear balance occurs when the forces themselves are properly balanced.
Again I have not been able to explain the emotional side. I can't actually. Like Walcha in Bach, this is indeed very special music making, but pin-pointing what it is that makes it so is impossible I would say. I cant advocate these performances too highly...
APR Apian Records
Good hunting from Fredrik
Okay, that's it! From now on, the connexion between abundant typos and having a good time will be hardwired in my brain 