In Memoriam: Listening to Alfred Brendel

Most people listening to classical music today have, to a greater or lesser degree, been musically socialized with the performances of Alfred Brendel. He was a fixed star on the international scene when it came to Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert and a few other of his favorite composers. His dry wit, usually gentle, rarely acerbic, poignancy, his unapologetic classicism made him an unlikely, charming icon. He has passed away on Tuesday, June 17^th, 2025 at his home in London.

I was on the steps outside the Musikverein when I read the news that Alfred Brendel had passed away in London, at the age of 94. This was the place he had given his final recital of his truly final farewell tour and this was the town where he lived when his career got under way in 1950 after first successes in Graz and before he permanently settled in the UK in 1971.

His success was a stellar one; born in the 1930s, Brendel was of a time that came a generation-plus after the keyboard titans à la Arthur Schnabel (1882), Wilhelm Backhaus (1884), Edwin Fischer (1886), Arthur Rubinstein (1887), Wilhelm Kempff (1895), Vladimir Horowitz, Rudolf Serkin and Claudio Arrau (all 1903). He was thus a “modern” artist, to anyone born before 1980, and, crucially, born into the stereo age. This is relevant, because as the exclusive go-to pianist of one of the major labels – Philips (now Decca) – for the heydays of the late analog and digital age, Brendel became a superstar of – and to some extent also because of – the recorded age. In the 100-volume, 200-CD “Great Pianists Of The 20th Century” project of Tom Deacon’s – to which Brendel was an advisor – Brendel is one of only seven pianists (Arrau, Gilels, Horowitz, Kempff, Richter & Rubinstein being the others) with three volumes dedicated to his art. If it had to be the classical repertoire – Mozart, Schubert, Beethoven – Brendel was there for you. Within that realm – and a little beyond – he recorded most of what there was to be recorded and much of that twice, some, like the Beethoven Sonatas, even thrice or more: In the 60s for Vox, in the 70s for Philips, analog, and for Philips again in the 90s, digitally. And of select works Brendel, who exerted quite a bit of control over what would get released and what would not, opted to have live accounts published, which he professedly preferred over his studio accounts. With the different releases of each of these versions (and most of them on Philips or Decca, still), it can get a bit messy trying to figure out which the analog second recording of D.960 or the digital remake of the Moonlight Sonata is or isn't. (But I am here to help.)

Alfred Brendel on Ionarts: In Performance His Soft Touch, Powerfully Moving, 02/09/2006 (jfl) Closing the Lid: Alfred Brendel, 19/03/2008 (Charles) A Conversation with Alfred Brendel, 20/03/2008 (Michael Lodico) Alfred Brendel Speaks, 11/18/2000 (Charles) On Record: Best Recordings of 2004 (#8), 12/16/2004 (jfl) From Goerne to His Distant Beloved, 07/18/2005 (jfl) Brendel and Mozart, 02/06/2006 (Charles) Brendel’s Choice, 02/06/2006 (jfl) Best Recordings of 2009 (#3), 12/14/2009 (jfl)

In Austria, his success shadowed that of fellow pianists Paul Badura-Skoda (1927), who, to some degree, escaped into the historical performance niche, Jörg Demus (1928), who found his main fame in Lied accompaniment, Ingrid Haebler (1929), who recorded much the same repertoire but whose star waned earlier, and Friedrich Gulda (1930), who became the eccentric: Considered by people in the know as a superior pianist but with a far smaller reach, ultimately. Internationally – specifically in America – there were contemporaries Byron Janis (1928), Glenn Gould (1932), Van Cliburn (1934), Leon Fleisher (1928), Richard Goode (1943), most of whom had their careers cut prematurely short; elsewhere, pianists like Ivan Moravec (1930) were stuck behind the iron curtain. As a result, the name “Alfred Brendel” and the maroon bar of the Philips label’s recordings became as indicative of a musically interested household as Wilhelm Kempff on the Yellow Label had been, a few decades earlier. Brendel’s association with the “Complete Mozart Edition” only furthered this omnipresence.

This kind of prominence brought about the invariable backlash in the form of criticism – the thrust of which, generally, was that Brendel was boring. This accusation might have had its understandable roots in Brendel’s style, which relied on subtlety and wit, level-headedness and sincerity, articulation, intelligence, and purpose, but never flash. The grand romantic gesture, even if it had been within his reach, was not temperamentally his. Even Liszt (where he did show the kind of chops that some critics might occasionally have forgotten he had) was not showy with Brendel.

It also showed in the repertoire he chose to play and even more so the repertoire he chose not to play. He left out composers most pianists couldn’t envisage making a career without: Chopin was (largely) missing; hardly, if any, Debussy or Ravel; no Rachmaninoff was ever in his sights, nor Tchaikovsky. Instead, he dropped morsels of

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Critic’s Notebook: Bremen Chamber Philharmonic & Janine Jansen Wow in Vienna

Also reviewed for Die Presse: Bremer Stadtmusikanten erobern Wien

F.Schubert, Symphonies 8 & 9 T.Dausgaard / Swedish CO BIS

L.v.Beethoven (+ Britten), Violin Concerto J.Jansen, Paavo Järvi / DKPBremen Decca

F.Schubert, Symphonies 3, 4, 5 T.Dausgaard / Swedish CO BIS

Town Musicians of Bremen Delight the Musikverein-Crowd

Precise, colorful, committed, to the point, and darned dramatic — that’s how the Kammerphilharmonie Bremen under Paavo Järvi whipped up Schubert’s Eighth — the “Unfinished” — Symphony at the Musikverein. All hallmarks of this orchestra–conductor partnership, which, even in its 21st year, shows little sign of wear. The pinpoint cues, the evenly shaped crescendos, the clean, secure tone of the strings — especially in quiet passages — practically leapt out at the ear and set this apart from your average ‘pretty good’ concert fare. (It is gratifying, really, how easy the excellent concerts, when they occurr, distinguish themselves from the middle-of-the-road fare!)

The same picture in Schubert’s Fourth Symphony, played in the second half. The only thing that's “Tragic” about this work is really only how boring it tends to sound in the hands of so many, even the most famous, conductors. Not here! With the Paavo–Bremen combo, there's a snap and bang, almost even before the first chord has landed — so lightning-fast comes the entry. And from that moment on, everything is wildly exaggerated: dynamics, phrasing, rhythm, absurdly fast tempi. Wherever something can be ratcheted up, it is. Anything that can be sharpened, is. You'd think the result would be an overwraught, artificial mess — like a hyperrealist painting by Denis Peterson. Nothing of the kind. It all stays tasteful, and the symphony comes alive for a change, becomes electrifying — just as the first big symphonic statement of an 18-year-old should, goshdarnit.

If the orchestra had just a wee bit less focus in Beethoven’s Violin Concerto to offer, Janine Jansen more than made up for it. In a thin black pleated dress with wide sleeves, resembling a musical bat mid-flight, she played with a astonishingly intense piano (verging on pianissimo). To produce that much sound with such ease and airiness must surely also have impressed Marin Alsop and Philippe Jordan, who popped in, because they weren’t about to miss this. Less fitting, after the super-vital Schubert, though heartbreakingly beautiful and so very, very gorgeous, was the Sibelian Andante Festivo as encore.


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Kritikers Notizbuch: Das Wiener Kammerorchester unter Jan Willem de Vriend Erfreut

J.C.Bach, The Symphonies A.Hoalstead, The Hanover Band CPO

W.A.Mozart, Piano Cto. No.15 K.450 V.Ashkenazy, Philharmonia Decca

F.Schubert, Symphony No.5 D.Barenboim, StaKap Berlin Teldec/Warner

Klassische Morgengabe

Das Wiener Kammerorchester überzeugt unter Jan Willem de Vriend auch zu früher Stunde im Mozart Saal

Halb-Elf Uhr morgens ist der natürliche Feind des Orchestermusikers; mehr noch, als der des Musikkritikers. Aber das Wiener Kammerorchester spielte im Konzerthaus das Zwillingskonzert zu dem so großartigen Konzert vom 23. September (siehe Rezension in der Presse): Die gleichen Komponisten, die gleichen Gattungen, andere Werke. Johann Christian Bach: Sinfonie g-Moll, op .6/6. Mozart: B-Dur Klavierkonzert K 450. Schubert: Sinfonie No. 5. Konnte dieses hohe Niveau unter dem neuen Chef Jan Willem de Vriend auch ante meridiem wiederholt werden? Kurz: Ja! Spannung von der allerersten Note und im Mozart Saal noch direkter erfahrbar als im Großen. Da knarzt das Blech gleich nochmal so sehr, das Fagott brummt herrlich und zwei engagierte Kontrabässe füllen den Raum locker mit peppigen, antreibenden Noten. Kaum Spannungsabfall im Andante mit aufheulenden Geigen und packend „furioso“ im Allegro molto finale.

Ohne Sperenzchen spielte Jasminka Stancul, mit sympathisch-nervöser Energie, das Mozart Konzert (mit bemerkenswerten Beiträgen von der Flöte und den Oboen) und wurde von freundlich-familiären Publikum wärmstens beklatscht. Ob es die zum Ritual sklerotisierte Zugabe gebraucht hätte, sei dahingestellt.

Dann Schuberts Fünfte. Über Vernachlässigung kann sich die Sinfonie nicht beschweren; alleine im Konzerthaus ist sie seit 1913 öfters aufgeführt worden, als ihr vermeintliches Vorbild, Mozarts „große“ g-Moll Sinfonie die erst am Vorabend vom Bremer Kammerorchester gegeben wurde. Auch diese zeitliche Nähe macht die Beziehung allerdings – außer im letzten Satz – kaum deutlicher, denn wer die Fünfte als „Schubert“ kennen und lieben gelernt hat und nicht als epigonalen Mozart-Light, der hört ein originelles, durchweg entzückendes, zu Recht populäres Werk: Die mit Abstand lebendigste seiner frühen Sinfonien. Aber auch eine schwierige, denn sie soll einerseits sonnig-lyrisch klingen, andererseits heiter-lebendig. Etwas kantig im Holz und mit kurzen Phrasen und wenig warmem Streicherklang ging es hier zuweilen hektisch voran, mit wenig Sonne, aber lieber lebendig und bewölkt als geschmeidig und langweilig. Wenn das Kritik sein soll, zeigt dass nur, wie hoch die Erwartungen nach eineinhalb superben Konzerten unter de Vriend schon sind, nach eineinhalb Jahrzehnten Enttäuschung. Nein, in dieser Verfassung kann man zum Kammerorchester schon nach der Frühmesse gehen und musikalisch Hocherfreuliches erwarten.


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Critic’s Notebook: Andrè Schuen and the Lied, A Triumph of Youthfulness

Also reviewed for Die Presse: Triumph der unbändigen Jugend

F.Schubert, Die Schöne Müllerin A.Schuen & D.Heide DG

F. Schubert, Schwanengesang A.Schuen & D.Heide DG

Boisterous and rough and beloved

Hard to believe that Andrè Schuen was already a Don Giovanni in Niklaus Harnoncourt’s Theater-an-der-Wien production, a decade ago! He seems still so young; on the cusp of an (actually already great) career. And what more could he want? A lusciously-wild shock of hair, athletic build, and an exclusive contract with DG in his pocket – and a large, certainly loud voice, to boot. The Brahms Hall of the Musikverein was full for his Liederabend on December 16th, which may also been owed to the darkness of his voice, the untamed, impetuous quality about it. He had certainly scored big with that, a month earlier, when he was the youthful, guileless Schwanda in Jaromir Weinberger’s terrific Schwanda the Bagpiper (Theater an der Wien). He’s a kind of Siegfried of art song, more brash than subtle, more hero than thinker – and as such he took to Mahler and Schubert.

Is it a problem for Lieder singers, that in the age of GerhaherHuber™ (one word) we’ve come to expect goose-bump-inducing psychological explorations of song texts – to the point where merely singing very well and accurately is no longer enough? Or does it actually add to the attractiveness, to have someone simply jump into the subject matter without giving evidence of having pondered the scope and import of every syllable? The response in the Musikverein suggested as much, even as South Tyrolian Schuen put it on a little thick here and there (“Sei mir gegrüßt” – Schubert, not Tannhäuser) or went for all-out treacle (“Du bist die Ruh”). Daniel Heide was, as always, his accompanist and undoubtedly an invaluable asset to Schuen, but limited in his expression to dynamic differentiation. (Incidentally, he is also a dead-ringer for Southpark's Mr. Mackey.)

Despite the near-triumphal reception, not everything was perfect. The Schubert was theatrical to a breaking point; the breathy pianissimo was daring but surprisingly unstable, not every corner was smoothly taken, and the heights sounded stretched. Mahler took better to the histrionics and yodeling, especially in a hymn of self-pity like “Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen”. (Which Gerhaher gave such a different spin, a few months later; review to follow.) Schuen sounded his best whenever things got boisterous, be it in the Songs of a Wayfarer or Schubert’s “Schiffer” or “Musensohn”. Encores – Mahler, Strauss, and a Ladin folksong – were de rigueur.

Photo © Clemens Fabry

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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: Lars Vogt swan song (CD of the Month)

Schubert, Piano Trios Nos. 1 and 2, Christian Tetzlaff, Tanja Tetzlaff, Lars Vogt (released on February 3, 2023) Ondine ODE1394-2D | 136'45"

I was lucky to have heard the late German pianist Lars Vogt at his one local appearance in recent years, an extraordinary Beethoven first piano concerto with Markus Stenz and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in 2016. We have noted a number of his fine recordings over the life of this site, most recently an odd but satisfying one of rarely heard Romantic melodramas, made with his daughter Isabelle. As recounted in a beautiful article by David Allen for the New York Times, Vogt delayed checking into a hospital in 2021 for further analysis of the cancer that would eventually take his life last September, in order to travel to Bremen to make the first part of this double-album of Schubert's chamber music with Christian Tetzlaff and his sister Tanja Tetzlaff.

The resulting set is a remarkable testament to Vogt's sensitivity as a chamber musician. At their sessions (the second was after Vogt had started chemotherapy) the group recorded all of Schubert's piano trios, except for the Sonatensatz, D. 28, a work of juvenilia, as he composed it when he was just 15 years old. This performance of Piano Trio No. 2 is distinguished by its restoration of a section later cut from the Finale by Schubert, among many musical qualities, especially in the dark-hued slow movement. (There is an odd sound I can't identify at the 10:52 mark in the finale of Piano Trio No. 2.)

In addition to the two numbered trios is the Notturno, a single slow movement possibly composed for and then removed from the first piano trio, with which it has a related home key. It is this piece that stands out on the first disc, especially the graceful, unhurried performance of the hushed main theme. The more heroic contrasting sections sound defiant and determined, but it is that hovering, bliss-filled lead subject that haunts the ears. Schubert composed all three of these works for piano trio in 1827 and 1828, not long before his death, adding an element of wistfulness. What I heard first in the performance was confirmed in the emotional recollections of the Tetzlaffs, included in the booklet:

(Tanja) When Lars listened to this recording, he wrote in our trio chat: “Now I immerse myself in the miracle, too. Feels a little bit like everything, at least in my life, has developed toward this Trio in E flat major.” What again and again was heard from him was this ‘Now we’ve done it, recorded these trios; now I could go too.’ And I find that in the recording one notices that deep inside he already knew that in all likelihood he wasn’t going to be able to live very much longer.

(Christian) The recording was made shortly before the diagnosis. But after every session he lay on the sofa and had horrible stomach pains. And he knew that something catastrophic had happened. When he mentioned this piece, then what went along with it was that it very clearly deals with departure and death, very differently than the B flat major trio.

Vogt also recorded Schubert pieces with each Tetzlaff individually: the Rondo brillant in B minor with violinist Christian and the "Arpeggione" sonata in A minor with cellist Tanja, from 1826 and 1824, respectively. The Tetzlaffs had intended to make a concert tour with Vogt this year, which included one of the Schubert trios. The tour will go ahead, with Kiveli Dörken, a beloved students of Vogt's, taking his place. The tour's local stop will be at Shriver Hall in Baltimore on March 26. shriverconcerts.org

Briefly Noted: Jacobs and Schubert (CD of the Month)

Schubert, "Great" and "Unfinished" Symphonies, B'Rock Orchestra, René Jacobs (released on August 12, 2022) PentaTone PTC5186894 | 87'27" Symphonies 1 and 6 (2018) Symphonies 2 and 3 (2020) Symphonies 4 and 5 (2021)

Leave it to René Jacobs to come up with a daring new way to approach Schubert. In 2018 the venerated early music conductor began a complete traversal of the symphonies of Franz Schubert, whom he described as the favorite composer of his youth. In partnership with the B'Rock Orchestra, a period instrument ensemble based in Ghent, he has reached the end with this disc of the composer's last two symphonies. Only No. 7 (the numbering of the Schubert symphonies remains in flux) remains to be recorded, but as Schubert left only sketches of it, it is even more unfinished than the Unfinished (aside from sketches or fragments of other symphonic works).

The group's use of historical instruments reveals interesting qualities in both symphonies. The horn solo that opens the "Great" Symphony has a more rustic quality, and in the first thematic section that follows, the contrasts between the brash brass and percussion and the more frail woodwinds are more stark than with modern instruments. The steady amassing of sound makes the first movement's climaxes particularly exciting. Similar juxtapositions enliven the second movement, which Jacobs gives a jaunty, propelled tempo, and the prolonged scherzo of the third movement. Jacobs thinks Schubert's quotation of the "Ode to Joy" theme from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in the finale is "probably unconscious," an odd call to say the least.

For the "Unfinished" Symphony, Jacobs bases his interpretation on a theory about the work first put forward by Arnold Schering in an essay published in 1938. If the symphony is indeed not unfinished at all, Schering attempted to understand its two movements in relation to an allegorical narrative, called Mein Traum (My dream), that Schubert drafted in pencil in 1822. Within a few months of writing this unusual document, perhaps based partly on an actual dream and also on some tragic events in his early years, he was working on the "Unfinished" Symphony. As Jacobs puts it in an extensive booklet essay, including a section-by-section analysis of both works, in Mein Traum "Schubert tries to put into words what he seems far more able to say without words in his music."

Jacobs introduces each of the two completed movements of the "Unfinished" with the corresponding portion of Mein Traum, read in German by Tobias Moretti (the booklet includes an English translation). The first section of the narrative provides an arc something like the sonata-allegro form of the symphony's first movement. Schubert argues with his father and is expelled from the family home (exposition); Schubert hears of his mother's death and returns, his father allowing him to see his mother's corpse and attend her burial (development); another quarrel with the father leads to a second banishment (recapitulation). These events occurred around 1812, the year Schubert's mother died, apparently of typhus after a long life of child-bearing (Franz was the 12th of her 14 children). The "feast" and "garden" in Mein Traum, offered by the father and refused by Schubert, could be metaphors for Schubert's father's ultimately failed attempt to force his son to follow in his footsteps as a school master.

In the conclusion of Mein Traum, Schubert sees the tomb of a "pious virgin" and a circle of youths and old men around her. Jacobs suggests this could be Saint Cecilia, the martyr who became the patron saint of music, and the circle around her the devoted composers of her art. By a miracle he finds himself within the circle, experiencing the lovely sounds in it and feeling overwhelmed with bliss. He even finds himself reconciled with his father, perhaps by having succeeded as a composer. Schubert wrote this mysterious document on July 3, 1822, which happens to be 200 years ago this year. Believing, like Schering, that the symphony was intentionally left unfinished by Schubert, Jacobs does not record the fragments of the third movement. There is no way to verify if there is a connection between Mein Traum and the "Unfinished" Symphony, but this recording certainly opens a new window onto that enigmatic work.

Briefly Noted: Alice Coote Schubertiade

Schubert, Songs, Alice Coote, Julius Drake (released on May 6, 2022) Hyperion CDA68169 | 71'36"

At the end of March here in Washington, Alice Coote was the best part of the National Symphony Orchestra's performance of Mahler's Second Symphony, led by Michael Tilson Thomas. The British mezzo-soprano recorded this selection of twenty-one Schubert songs, back in December of 2017, in All Saints’ Church, East Finchley, in London. The program is a mixture of rather simple strophic songs and more complex pieces, some relative rarities alongside some of the most often heard songs in performances with new ideas to recommend them.

Coote's wheelhouse is in the dramatic songs where she can open up her considerable vocal power, as in "Der Zwerg," which sets a truly bizarre poem about a dwarf who murders his mistress, a queen, by lowering her into the sea from a ship. Drake supports her with technical assurance, releasing from the Steinway under his fingers a broad swath of sound. Similar examples include a truly thrilling "Rastlose Liebe" and an equally restless "Der Musensohn."

Drake often works with singers to devise ingenious recital selections. In this case the program is a sort of chiasmus in structure, opening with one setting of Goethe's "An den Mond" and ending with another. This quasi-palindromic pattern is extended with other songs or themes heard at the opening of the recital and then in reverse order at the end: Schubert's "Wandrers Nachtlied I" and "Im Frühling," second and third in order, are balanced by "Frühlingsglaube" and "Wandrers Nachtlied II" in antepenultimate and penultimate positions, and so on. Coote's sometimes active vibrato is perhaps less effective in softer, less dramatic songs like these, but she is so musical that they all work.

This clever construction is not as exact beyond that, but the plan does put two famous songs in opposition to one another, yielding interesting results in comparison. In "Der Tod und das Mädchen," Coote summons up radically different vocal qualities for the terrified maiden and the comforting specter of Death. The latter features her extensive and shadowy low register (similar in some ways to her striking "Urlicht" in the NSO's "Resurrection" symphony). "Erlkönig" also involves the confrontation of a young person with the fear of death. Of the multiple vocal characterizations in this dramatic song, the haunted child is the most striking, for whom Coote lightens her tone straightens her vibrato a bit. Drake's accompaniment is not the most steady in those difficult repeated octaves, a rare shortcoming.

On ClassicsToday: Schubert in Love (or gone Wild?)

Schubert Gone Wild

Review by: Jens F. Laurson

Artistic Quality: ?

Sound Quality: ?

Here’s a recording the success of which depends entirely on how you approach it. If you think of it as a classical Lied recital that experiments, you’ll likely regard it as an experiment gone wrong. Come to it as a folk-blues-country-jazz-crooner album (or whatever genre you might associate it with) that happens to pay homage to Schubert–or better still, with no expectation whatsoever–it might just tickle you in all the right places... [continue reading]

On ClassicsToday: Best Recording of Hans Zender's Superb Winterreise

Best Remembrance Of Hans Zender

Review by: Jens F. Laurson

Artistic Quality: ?

Sound Quality: ?

Composer/conductor Hans Zender, who died last October (2019), is better known for his “composed re-composition” of Schubert’s Winterreise than for any of his other work. That’s not to sell those other “original” compositions short, or his work as a conductor (a fine Mahler Ninth and excellent Schubert First, among them). It’s simply a credit to how spectacularly well-made his orchestral reworking of the Schubert classic is. Sure, there always will be those who find the idea of futzing with an original masterpiece objectionable. And in many cases where a mediocrity latches onto a work of genius, the critics have a point. Not here... [continue reading]

Briefly Noted: Schiff's HIP Schubert

Schubert, Sonatas / Impromptus, A. Schiff (fortepiano) (released on April 26, 2019) ECM New Series 2535/36 | 124'10"

A few years ago, András Schiff performed three concerts in Washington over the space of a couple years. The programs brought together the three final sonatas of four composers: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert. Although he was performing here on a Steinway concert grand, he was capitalizing on his exploration of a rather different instrument, a fortepiano built by the Viennese maker Franz Brodmann in around 1820. It belonged to the Austrian imperial family and was taken by Karl I, the last ruler of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, with him into exile in the early 20th century. In Basel it was magnificently restored by Martin Scholz, and in 2010 Schiff acquired it and donated it to the Beethoven-Haus in Bonn.

It is there that Schiff has made a few recordings on the instrument, starting with Beethoven's Diabelli Variations and continuing with two Schubert sets. The latest one, released this past spring, is a 2-CD set, rounding out the trilogy of final sonatas he played live on a modern instrument. The Brodmann instrument, in Schiff's words, is "ideally suited to Schubert's keyboard works. There is something quintessentially Viennese in its timbre, its tender mellowness, its melancholic cantabilità." Schiff plays it most expressively, using its four pedals to create varied sounds: the due corde pedal and moderator fill out the ghostly piano side of the music, and the buzzing bassoon pedal increases the loudness of some bass sections. One by one, the titans of the old classical school are seeing the value of the historical instruments movement, and it is informative indeed to find out what a master like Schiff has discovered about music he has played almost all his life when he gets to know the sort of instrument that Schubert likely knew.

On ClassicsToday: Wilhelm Kempff's Schubert, neither Titanic nor Teutonic

Kempff’s Schubert in Blu-ray Pure Audio: A Reference Revisited

by Jens F. Laurson

Schubert—almost as much as Beethoven—had been a staple of pianist Wilhelm Kempff’s repertoire from the beginning to the end of his career, including his final public recital where he played (apart from Beethoven, of course) Schubert’s Sonata D. 845. And if his set of Schubert... Continue Reading [Insider content]

Ionarts-at-Large: The Hagen Quartett in Shostakovich, Dvořák and Schubert

DSCH, String Quartets 4, 11, 14 Hagen Quartet DG

A.Dvorak, Cypresses, "American Quartet + Kodaly, String Quartet No.2 Hagen Quartet DG

Schubert, Trout Quintet, Death & the Maiden Quartet Hagen Quartet + James Levine & Alois Posch DG

Hagen Quartett Reviews on ionarts: Notes from the 2013 Schubertiade ( 7 ) • Hagen Quartett II Notes from the 2012 Salzburg Festival ( 4 ) Dip Your Ears, Addendum 48b (X-Ray Beethoven) [2005]

The Hagen Quartet increasingly seems like a holdover from a bygone time where classical superstars were fewer but bigger, about four record companies ruled the classical high seas, recording contracts were naturally exclusive, and new releases a real event. Itzhak Perlman, Misha Maisky, the Emerson Quartet, Martha Argerich – to mention three still-active acts, are representatives of this age of mythic musical dinosaurs… and the Hagen Quartet belongs, too. They once set the standard for hyper-precise perfection; a sort-of Pierre Boulez of String Quartets.

There have been several crops of string quartets who have since equaled these technical standards to the point where they alone are no longer all that noteworthy. The Hagen Quartet’s UPC of über-perfection that not even the similarly pioneering Alban Berg and Emerson Quartet could rival is therefore no more – also because the quartet’s ability has declined not only in relative but also absolute terms. No one is cheating age, and the first violinist of the ensemble, Lukas Hagen, least of them – having been the quartet’s weak point in the last half decade or so.

That should be put to the test in their recital on Saturday, March 2^nd, at the Mozart Hall of Vienna’s Konzerthaus, seeing that Shostakovich’s Fourth String Quartet was first on the bill. The sublime hall – one of the best for chamber music (with a capacity of 700, fine acoustics and bright blue and beautiful interior) – was filled to the brim, with extra chairs put on stage to accommodate the demand: The result of the Hagen Quartet have built themselves a following with regular appearances and their own cycle of concerts over the course of well more than a decade.

The Shostakovich started out with Lukas Hagen’s fittingly dark, matt, husky tone and enormous pressure he put on the notes in the introductory quartet. He did just fine for a movement and more before being notably squeezed to the edge of his increasingly small comfort zone in the Andantino. Clemens Hagen, still an anchor for the foursome (a brief flat moment in the Schubert aside), shone with moments of his singularly light-yet-resonant tone. For three movements the interpretation was a bit like excellent painting by numbers, more beautiful than intense, but the accumulating energy of the finale – if not boisterous at least insistent – amounted to something.

What the subsequent four movements of Dvořák’s Cypresses Quartet and Schubert’s Death and the Maiden showed, was that the once trademark transparency and inner glow has given way to a denser, thicker sound, more sonorous and ‘woodier’. That didn’t necessarily suit the Dvořák (largely low-energy pieces that are admittedly difficult to pull off with any great panache), where “I Know that My Love to Thee”, “Death Reigns in Many a Human Breast”, “The Old Letter in My Book” and “Thou Only, Dear One” (plus “Thou Only, Dear One” as an encore after the Schubert) never came across as more than a musical afterthought – a long lull between Shostakovich and Schumann, achingly sincere at best and insufficiently endowed with life and spark.

Lukas Hagen, with his intonation softening and too often falling back onto a forced and congested sound, gently, subtly squeaked in distress like a Maiden might, faced with death. The middle voices, Rainer Schmidt, violin, and Veronika Hagen, viola, were on the passive side – not breathy nor hollow as one might wish in the Schubert Quaret’s second movement, but with tenderness and gentle detail. The playing was altogether short of a distinct ‘interpretation’ or, to spin it positively, free of excessive fingerprints. The Hagen Quartet aren’t spinning their

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A Survey of Schubert Symphony Cycles

An Index of ionarts Discographies

Here's the latest in the ionarts discographies: the Schubert Symphonies as per popular demand (i.e. Twitter vote).

The Numbering

As far as the numbering is concerned, I am sticking with the traditional “One through Six, Eight (for the Unfinished) and Nine” (for the “Great” C Major) that stems from the Brahms Edition. It has since become common practice, certainly in German-speaking countries and among musicologically woke folk, to adopt the revised numbering. (Which, in any case, has really been around since the 1978 Deutsch catalog revision but only more widely adapted only since the Neue Schubert-Ausgabe [Bärenreiter] has published the scores and critical commentary for these symphonies, which concluded in 2003/07.)

Although that means these adapters are technically correct, it still strikes me as a little eager, even pretentious. Even if it isn’t, I prefer the numbering I grew up with. Partly for exactly that reason: nostalgia and sweet familiarity. But also because I love the lacuna that is the Seventh: It makes us pause. It makes us look for something. It reminds us that there is plenty missing among Schubert’s symphonies – the Fragments that are D.729, for one, that might justifiably constitute an incomplete Symphony No.7 –and just as many opportunities to reconstruct, recompose, patch, and whatnot. These are surprisingly fabulous works to hear (even the Gran Duo D.812, once thought to be a missing symphony, and subsequently orchestrated by Joseph Joachim but also by René Leibowitz (!), Felix Weingartner, and Raymond Leppard. The more pragmatic reason is that that's the only way to attain consistency across all cycles.

Ongoing Updates

I will add new cycles as they get published. There are a couple in the making – among them Philippe Jordan's which is expected to come out on the Vienna Symphony's own label and Jan Willem de Vriend's on Challenge.
I may also include a section for incomplete cycles such as Roger Norrington's (4-9), Alexander Dmitriev's (Melodiya) and Dennis Russell Davies (2-9, 2 & 8 not yet published) and collections that probably were never intended to be cycles but reach a minimum of four symphonies. That would include conductors like Eugen Jochum, Rafael Kubelik, Josef Krips, Karl Ristenpart et al.

These discographies take an awful lot of time to research and then a lot more to put into html-presentable shape. No matter how much time I spend on them, they are never quite complete or mistake free. This one won’t be, either, and as such every one of these posts is also a plea to generously inclined readers with more information and knowledge of the subject than I have to lend a helping hand correcting my mistakes or filling data-lacunae. I am explicitly grateful for any such pointers, hinters, and corrections and apologize for any bloomers. Unlike some of the earliest discographies, this one does intend to be comprehensive. So I am especially grateful if sets that I have missed are pointed out to me. With several hundred links in this document, there are, despite my best efforts, bound to be some that are broken or lead to the wrong place; I am glad about every correction that comes my way about those, too.


Edit 12/10/2022: Harnoncourt's newly issued "1988 Styriarte" cycle (earlier than his other two cycles and thus designated "0") has been mentioned in the comments and duly (belatedly) added. Hit me up with more criticsim, hinters, oversights and the like on Twitter or Instagram. Merci! Also: The Holliger-Cycle is now complete (very complete!) and has been added. Also added: The new (also super-added cycle from the L'Orfeo Barockorchester on cpo.
Edit 01/28/2019: Looks like the wonderful Heinz Holliger – oboist, composer and Haydn-conductor extraordinaire – has set upon performing and recording a new cycle with the Basel Chamber Orchestra. A Ninth / Great C-Major has already been released late last year. Promising, if nothing else, since I’ve not heard it yet.

Enjoy and please comment either below or on Twitter.
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Forbes Classical CD Of The Week: Krystian Zimerman's New Schubert

...Zimerman’s fingerprints and smudges move me here, rather than leaving me exasperated (legitimate response though that certainly is). The opening is hesitant, sophisticated and profound, and yet gentle and artless like a lullaby. There is space between the notes with Zimerman, room for interpretation and imagination. The Andante is luminously devout. The last movement (Allegro ma non troppo) comes in like a hammer hitting down – from which emanates a mechanical dance: Krystian Zimerman makes me aware of negative space here, without underplaying the Schubertian lilt with overly ominous menace…

-> Classical CD Of The Week: Krystian Zimerman's New Schubert

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