Briefly Noted: More Schubert on Fortepiano

Schubert, Impromptus, Op. 90 and Op. 142, Ronald Brautigam (released on September 1, 2023) BIS-2614 | 61'47"

Ronald Brautigam is one of this century's leading proponents of the fortepiano, noted in these pages for his traversals of the music of Beethoven and Mozart, among others. His new release is a set of Schubert's eight impromptus -- not including the three piano pieces of D. 946 once known, incorrectly, as impromptus -- recorded on a fortepiano built by Paul McNulty in 2007, modeled on a Conrad Graf instrument from around 1819.

Schubert never actually owned a piano, and his only opportunity to play the keyboard came in the homes of friends. The composer almost surely never heard the particular instrument imitated by McNulty: Graf's opus 318, located in a Czech castle. Ardent admirers of Graf's pianos in the early 19th century included Beethoven, Chopin, Robert and Clara Schumann, Mendelssohn, Liszt, and Brahms, among others. What you hear on this recording is a likely approximation of the sound in Schubert's ears as he composed and played these arch-Romantic pieces.

Even though a Graf had a smaller sound than the later modern piano, because of its thin soundboard and smaller hammers, its fortes are still resonant, as in the middle section of Op. 90, no. 2, or Brautigam's devilish trills in Op. 142, no. 4. The pianoforte's advantage over earlier keyboard instruments was its range of soft sound: this Graf had four pedals, a sustaining pedal and una corda pedal like the modern piano, but with a moderator and even a double moderator as well. This device pushes a thin layer (or double-layer) of cloth between the strings and the hammers, and it was the pianoforte's "secret weapon," in the words of András Schiff, who once sneered at early keyboard revivalists before making his own Schubert recording on a reconstructed fortepiano. Hearing those soft effects helps one understand what Schubert had in mind when he wrote pianississimo.


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Briefly Noted: Respighi Songs

Crepuscolo (Ottorino Respighi, Songs), Timothy Fallon, Ammiel Bushakevitz (released on June 3, 2022) BIS 2632 | 74'04"

American tenor Timothy Fallon won the Wigmore Hall/Kohn Foundation International Song Competition in 2013, paired with pianist Ammiel Bushakevitz. The duo released an album of Liszt songs together in 2017, which they have followed up with this diverting recital of rarely heard songs by Ottorino Respighi, both on the BIS label. This music, while certainly not unknown, is unfamiliar enough that listening to it was a delight. The performances are excellent as well, captured a year ago in a Munich studio.

Fallon's tenor has all the necessary qualities for this repertory - a floating lyrical quality (heard in "Nel giardino"), some heft on the top notes (as in the storm-tossed "In alto mare"), and a musical way with the text and expression of these often surprising songs. The album title, "Crepuscolo," comes from the last song of the opening set, Deità silvane (Woodland deities - sonnets by Antonio Rubino), where Bushakevitz's lively touch at the keyboard provides the caprine gambols of the titular "Fauni" in the first song and the sweetly clanging cymbals and flute in "Music in the Garden." Hints of Debussy and symbolism.

The selections range wide, beginning with three songs by the teenage Respighi, full of echoes of Verdi and Puccini. Respighi reveled in historical retrospection, featured by Gianandrea Noseda in his programming of the composer with the National Symphony Orchestra during his tenure. This program includes the five Canti all'antica, P. 71, with medieval poetry (by Giovanni Boccaccio, Andrea Falconieri, and Enzo of Sardinia) infused with aching suspensions, and for folk music flavor, the four Arie scozzesi, P. 143, Scots-English verse filtered through Italian romanticism. Fallon opts for a more English-leaning pronunciation of Robert Burns's My Heart's in the Highlands, which works with Respighi's charming melody.