Artur Schnabel

[dirkronk]

Mozart; Rondo in a minor K511
            sonata in F K332
Schumann: Kinderszenen
Brahms: Rhapsody in G minor Op 79/2
             Intermezzo in E flat Op 117/1
             Intermezzo in A minor Op 116/3
Weber: Invitation to the Dance

This is pretty close to the LP I have--same three Brahms pieces (are those all he recorded, I wonder?), same Weber and Mozart rondo. However, my vinyl has a different Mozart sonata (K570) and two Schubert impromptus. All of these were recorded between 1946 and 1950--perhaps a bit late for Schnabel.

Cheers,

Dirk

[Coopmv]

The 11 volumes of Schnabel Beethoven Piano Works on Naxos Historical just arrived earlier this week.  I essentially ordered every of his Beethoven recording except the orchestral since I do not enjoy monaural orchestral sound.  So far, I have really enjoyed the virtuoso piano playing.  This is set #6 of my Beethoven Piano Sonatas.  The credit goes to George ...    

[Mandryka]

His Beethoven Op 2/1 is outstanding. It's most valuable for the minuet, which is coherent, spontaneous, mercurial, virile.

Of course the slow movement is characteristically intense with Schnabel. He plays the slow movements of those early sonatas as if they're the work of the mature visionary Beethoven. It's not quite as "spiritual" as his performance of the Largo to Op 10/3, but it's not far off – you certainly know you're hearing a piece by the composer of Op 110. That's maybe a strength or a weakness, depending on your point of view. In this post-Gould world we know there is another way.

Anyway I thought I would post this mainly because I was so impressed with what he does with the minuet.

[mjwal]

Anent Schnabel's own music: I am just listening to his Violin Sonata (1935 - his first work written in emigration), magisterially played by Christian Tetzlaff w/Stefan Litwin (Arte Nova, if you can find it). I find it is fairly easy on the ear and, more importantly, involving, for an atonal work:one listens with deepening appreciation, wanting to know what happens next; it is not at all amorphous and grey (as such works can be). The first movement begins with a majestic passacaglia-style motif reminding me of neo-baroque tendencies before settling into a varied sonata-form development. There are shimmering - almost impressionistic - passages in the second (Allegretto) movement; the Adagio seems to progress downwards through ever more questing elegiac interrogations of a quasi-chorale into a low-pitched uncertain fade-out, while the Vivace often seems to splinter the sound in furious attacks of forced jollity, then resumes the questioning reflective tone, which is interrupted by a rebarbative forced-march-like section that subsides into quizzical and sadly doubtful musing. This is the way I hear it, anyway - I must confess that after buying this CD almost automatically about 15 years ago, I listened through in an inattentive summary manner, as one does at times, and filed it away for future investigation. What I like about it is the way (in this performance) it seems to suggest Schnabel's personality as we know it from his great recordings of other composers' music, though I would have to say that ultimately it lacks the divine spark of melodic-harmonic genius that distinguishes the greatest masters.
(By the way, does anyone else get this strange red underlining of words by some hidden software? - I only get it online writing comments in fora and such, not in Open Office documents. The software knows no forms like "Schnabel's", though "Schnabel" is OK, and "rebarbative" is just not on. I'm surprised it accepts "anent". Is it Firefox doing this? "Firefox" is OK, though hardly a regular English word...)

[Mandryka]

I only know his own music through the cadanza to Mozart's PC21, which is a performance I like a lot.

I've never heard him in 20 and 24 -- but I believe the cadenzas he wrote for them are something else, as they say. Serial music.

Has anyone here heard those cadenzas? Are the recordings of 20 and 24 interesting?

[ccar]

I only know his own music through the cadanza to Mozart's PC21, which is a performance I like a lot.

I've never heard him in 20 and 24 -- but I believe the cadenzas he wrote for them are something else, as they say. Serial music.

Has anyone here heard those cadenzas? Are the recordings of 20 and 24 interesting?

For Beethoven, Schubert and Mozart, Schnabel is justly revered as a one of the "classic" interpreters. But with Schnabel we never get any kind of "classic" or comfortable reading. The tempo may be brisk but usually there are neither wide variations of dynamics nor excessive color effects.  And he is always fluent and transparent. But what strikes the most is how his phrasing is so lively and free, almost improvisational, and yet results as unforced, natural and fresh.

Listening to Schnabel is like taking a bath in a wavy and salty cold sea. You need some courage to plunge, you have to fight with the strength of the waves, but then you feel somehow refreshed and renewed.  Schnabel has really nothing to do with the many interpreters resembling those perfect but warm flat post card beaches.

And when Schnabel had the courage, against many critics, to introduce his own "modern" cadenzas in the Mozart concertos, we probably see another face of his very personal way of giving life to his interpretation and to the music. Schnabel only composed and played his cadenzas for the concertos where we don't have Mozart's own cadenzas. And for the D minor K.466 (No.20) I believe he played the more usual Beethoven's cadenza. So, AFAIK, from the available recordings we may now listen to Schnabel's cadenzas for the K. 467, 482 and 491.         

In the C minor (K.491 No.24) Schnabel cadenzas are probably the most "contemporary". You may listen to them in the 1948 EMI studio recording studio, with Susskind, or in an earlier live performance (1946) with Wallenstein. For me they are both very stimulating readings and also interesting to compare. Globally the studio one is probably more recommendable. In the live the sound is much worse and the orchestra and conductor are less polished. But Schnabel's live performance is daring, with some unexpected (even for Schnabel) tempi and wild rubato.

[George]

Listening to Schnabel is like taking a bath in a wavy and salty cold sea. You need some courage to plunge, you have to fight with the strength of the waves, but then you feel somehow refreshed and renewed.  Schnabel has really nothing to do with the many interpreters resembling those perfect but warm flat post card beaches.

Very well said. I agree.

In the C minor (K.491 No.24) Schnabel cadenzas are probably the most "contemporary". You may listen to them in the 1948 EMI studio recording studio, with Susskind...

This is the one that I have. I am listening to it now to refresh my memory.

[Mandryka]

That's interesting about PC 24 -- my favourite concerto in 3 movements. I really must try to hear that -- apart from the cadenzas I can imagine he's wonderful in the variations.

There are also two recordings of Beethoven Op 111. I've only heard the early one (1932), which has a arching, tight, concentrated arietta. The first movement is a bit tumultuous maybe -- I need to listen to that again.

I'm curious now about the later one, the 1942 one

[George]

There are also two recordings of Beethoven Op 111. I've only heard the early one (1932), which has a arching, tight, concentrated arietta. The first movement is a bit tumultuous maybe -- I need to listen to that again.
I'm curious now about the later one, the 1942 one

That's the one in the GPOTC set, right?

[Mandryka]

In the C minor (K.491 No.24) Schnabel cadenzas are probably the most "contemporary". You may listen to them in the 1948 EMI studio recording studio, with Susskind, or in an earlier live performance (1946) with Wallenstein. For me they are both very stimulating readings and also interesting to compare. Globally the studio one is probably more recommendable. In the live the sound is much worse and the orchestra and conductor are less polished. But Schnabel's live performance is daring, with some unexpected (even for Schnabel) tempi and wild rubato.

I've heard K491 now -- the studio one with Susskind.

What a hard dark performance.  I think the cadenzas are great -- they fit the interpretation perfectly. Listen to the way the ending of the first movement cadenza integrates so well with the orchestra. And there's a bit of the third movement cadenza which reminded me of the sort of jaunty song soldiers may have whistled while marching to Verdun (between bleating like lambs.)

The orchestra seemed particularly alive and awake, and Schnabel and Susskind seemed completely in sympathy with one another.


I would like to hear the Wallenstein -- in fact I would like to hear everything Schnabel ever recorded!

[mjwal]

People used to laugh at that cadenza in K.491 - it's interesting to me as a fact of modern musical reception that you find the cadenzas "fit the interpretation perfectly", Mandryka. I agree, of course, always have, but in the 70s this was regarded as slightly "weird". - As far as the solo Mozart is concerned, I have had for decades (and never needed to replace) a heavy Japanese Emi Angel LP in the line Great Recordings of the Century with K.310, 511, 332, 570, all marvellous performances.
We should not ignore the various live performances that have turned up, as they add an invaluable perspective on his playing. His performance of K.482 (1941 w/NYPO/Walter on The Radio Years), for instance, is rather noisy (radio interference too) but clear - and indispensable, I find, majestically and dramatically introduced by Walter (you could be listening to his Don Giovanni!), Schnabel enters with quasi faux-naiveté dispelled in a few seconds by insolently pointed figuration leading to thundering profound chords as the music and the sound of the piano itself turns darker ...and so on. The shadowy nocturnal aspect of the Andante is richly etched by Schnabel and Walter, an ideal partnership here, I must say, and the cadenza of the third movement is heavenly - and then shocking!  There is a Schnabel/Rodzinski recording of K.488 that I found here (a good resource in general - you can find the Beethoven cello sonatas w/Fournier here as well):
http://public-domain-archive.com/classic/composition.php?lang=eng&album_no=143
It must be said that the recording quality of the Brahms opp.8, 78 and 100 w/Fournier and Szigeti (1947) is partly so bad on the Arbiter transfer that one cannot enjoy, only try to analyse (they do say "due to a defective disc-cutter" in op.78). The Szigeti/Schnabel Beethoven sonatas opp. 24 and 96 (1948) are so-so sound-wise, Szigeti sounds very scrawny, but then the sheer character of the interpretation captures your whole attention. But the piano sounds both woolly and cavernous - a pity...
Perhaps others know of other "lives" to investigate?

[ccar]

We should not ignore the various live performances that have turned up, as they add an invaluable perspective on his playing. His performance of K.482 (1941 w/NYPO/Walter on The Radio Years), for instance, is rather noisy (radio interference too) but clear - and indispensable, I find, majestically and dramatically introduced by Walter (you could be listening to his Don Giovanni

I very much agree. I also feel your analogy between Bruno Walter's introduction of the concert and the dramatic drive of his Don Giovanni (1937 or 1942) is most appropriate. And that's exactly the kind of vital spark and breath I miss in most of our "modern" Mozart interpreters.   


                                             

[mjwal]

Thanks, ccar - I just love that photo; can that be Serkin on the right? To see Schnabel is to love him - he was a great man. There is a wonderful description of him in Piatigorsky's memoirs, (which I found online, Google books I think - no here: http://www.cello.org/heaven/cellist/index.htm ), it's about the times they spent together in old Berlin (you'll have to find the Schnabel bits yourself). And this article is very good  (I must say, even though the writer hated my contributions to La Folia  ): http://www.lafolia.com/archive/covell/covell200806schnabel.html

[ccar]

I just love that photo; can that be Serkin on the right? To see Schnabel is to love him - he was a great man.

Schnabel, Walter and Bodanzky at St. Moritz, 1937. The Salzburg Don Giovanni was certainly in the air.   

[B_cereus]

Did Schnabel ever record the Mozart concerto 25, k503? He wrote a cadenza for it too & concertized it with Szell in the 1930s.

[B_cereus]

His recorded output is extremely limited. Hardly any Mozart solo piano music, no Haydn, no Chopin, no Liszt, no Debussy, no Ravel, no Bussoni, no serial music, no Brahms solo piano music, hardly any Schumann, no Scarlatti, hardly any Bach keyboard music.

What's going on here -- did he play this stuff biut not record it? Or did he choose to ignore the greater part of the core piano repetoire?

Anyways, he must be the most limited great pianist ever -- his repetoire is even smaller than Gould's!

I think that was probably the case......... E.g.;

Schnabel piano recital,
Queens Hall, London, November 24th, 1934:

Schubert
....... Piano Sonata in A minor, op.143
....... Piano Sonata in A, op.120
Mozart
....... Piano Sonata in C, K.330
....... Piano Sonata in C minor, K.457
Schumann
....... Fantasiestucke op.12


Artur Schnabel
Bechstein Pianoforte

Under the management of Messrs Ibbs & Tillet

[B_cereus]

On 29 November 1937, he programmed the following as mentioned in The Manchester Guardian newspaper (today = The Guardian)... (excerpt): 

"This afternoon a large audience attended a recital of Artur Schnabel; the programme was the one which he will give at Manchester University - the Toccatas in C minor and D major of Bach; the E minor Sonata of Weber; and Beethoven's thirty-three Variations on a Waltz by Diabelli.

The power of Schnabel's personality is baffling. In a moment this afternoon he gripped his audience. And the paradox is that he gripped everybody by ignoring everybody's existence.

He lived in the music; we could almost see him pass from the world of the concert platform and become invisible. A quick walk to the instrument, a reticent acknowledgement of applause; then he seated himself, bowed his head a moment, and began.

The simplest statement of a theme, in isolated notes, comes to us with tremendous meaning when Schnabel plays: how is it all done? Other pianists possess a more comprehensive technique, a richer palette. And other pianists are as sincere. The issue is begged if we speak of Schnabel's intellectuality - that is a phrase and, moreover, the problem at issue is the means by which the power comes to us. We may approach the secret by suggesting that in Schnabel's playing tone, touch, phrasing and rhythm are proportionate to the conception; in other words, that technique and mind are equated. [...] "

[mjwal]

Is that Neville Cardus? In my early teens in the 50s it was his autobiography, among other things, that opened my mind to the sheer adventure of classical music. There was real style in the way critics wrote for the best newspapers in those days. In one of his later articles he wrote: "Schnabel was actually taken to task by critics because, so they alleged, he lacked a really virtuoso technique. But Schnabel himself once said to me: 'A masterful technique can easily master your imagination'. He never performed, never seemed conscious of the presence of an audience." (Cardus on Music, pp 322-23).

[Orpheus]

Any opinions about Naxos transfers of Beethoven and Brahms piano concertos by Schnabel?

Thanks! 

[George]

Any opinions about Naxos transfers of Beethoven ... piano concertos by Schnabel?

Thanks! 

I like them more than the same ones on Pearl, as the the latter has some weird high  pitched noises on one of the concvertos (I forget which), plus the Naxos is much cheaper and easier to find.