
About a decade or so ago I went through a brief phase of buying recordings of works by Erwin Schulhoff, which was augmented by a couple recordings later on. I sampled chamber works and orchestral works, and even his opera
Flammen, a modern, jazz-era retelling of the Don Juan story with a bit of Faust thrown in. Much of Schulhoff’s music is jazz infused or jazz inspired, and some is Dadaistic as well. Some of the jazz inspired works are quite good – the
Hot Sonata for saxophone and piano is a real favorite of mine, for instance – but it is for strings where he shines most, whether one considers his works for string quartet or sextet.
I recently got an itch to try more of his music, and since I haven’t tried any of his piano music, I decided to go for some. I settled on a budget twofer on the mighty Phoenix Edition label with Margarete Babinsky the soloist, paired with Maria Lettberg and Andreas Wykydal for some of the works. Alas, this set is a dud.
One might be tempted to say the problem is the music itself, and that may very well be the case, but I’m inclined to think it’s the performances. The set includes both more “formal” works like two of the sonatas, as well as collections of miniatures. The sonatas fare best. Ms Babinsky displays fine technique and clean articulation, and the sonatas come across as nicely serious, if perhaps a bit disjointed and of less than, say, LvB quality. In other words, the sonatas sound emphatically OK.
The other works, or collections of works, have titles like Burlesken, Grotesken, Ironien (for piano four hands), Vortragsstuke (including an almost two minute silent movement predating Cage’s 4’33” by many years), and a set of jazz improvisations for two pianos. All of them share one thing in common: all sound mostly dull and heavy handed. Only in the jazz improvisations, and then only rarely, do the pieces sparkle with life. That’s not to say that the pianists play poorly. It just seems that they aren’t in their element. Where is the bite and sparkle and boogie? And even though the jazz improvisations do sound a bit better at times, they don’t sound jazzy. To be sure, Schulhoff’s other jazz inspired works sound a bit formal to be proper jazz, but performances in other recordings have more life and jazz-like energy. In some ways this brings back memories of the Schoenberg Quartet’s recording of Schulhoff’s string quartets in comparison to the Petersen Quartet’s recordings. The Schoenberg Quartet play well, but their recording is leaden, dull, lifeless and ponderous. (Awful doesn’t begin to describe it.) The Petersen, in contrast, are vital and sharp and buoyant. I get the feeling Babinsky and company are the pianistic equivalent of the Schoenberg Quartet.
In addition, the sound is rather poor for a recording made in 2008. The high frequencies are noticeably rolled off for some reason. As a result, definition and bite are a bit lacking, though dynamics and lower register heft are not.
Blech.