Interesting that the
Godowsky Passacaglia (on the
opening of Schubert’s ‘Unfinished’ Symphony)
comes into direct competition with a
recent account from the same company
(HNH): that of Antti Siirala on Naxos
8.555997.
The overlap continues with Morgengrüss
and Gute Nacht. The two discs
even share the same producer, Andrew
Walton.
Comparison is fascinating.
For all of Siirala’s youthful potential,
Scherbakov gives consistently more musical
performances, while losing nothing in
virtuoso command.
Where Siirala’s recital
led to the towering edifice of the Passacaglia,
Scherbakov opts to begin with this daunting
keyboard extravaganza. Scherbakov’s
ear for textural variety is one of the
more appealing facets of his performance
and helps to meld his account into a
convincing, and varied, whole. The opening
is shrouded in mystery, the progressive
layerings over the bass theme seeming
inevitable and yet magical. It is only
when on the odd occasion Scherbakov
forces his tone and starts ‘banging’
(e.g. around 6’40) that the experience
becomes uncomfortable. The Erlkönig
quote (beginning at 11’10) suffers from
this also.
The fourteen song transcriptions
that follow are a nicely contrasted
set. Any mention of this sort of repertoire
for this reviewer inevitably brings
back memories of the great Jorge Bolet,
whose appetite for the transcriptions
and paraphrases of various origins bore
great musical fruit. All too often I
wanted to hear Bolet’s humour and unending
technical resources in these Godowsky
pieces. Scherbakov’s technique, fine
though it is, is not infallible, as
his reading of ‘Ungeduld’ shows: the
pulse is interrupted on various occasions
for no good reason except for the fact
that he is human.
However, he shows he
is as capable of evoking the tender
valediction of ‘Gute Nacht’ as he is
of highlighting the hesitant yet hopeful
spirit of ‘Morgengrüss’, where
Godowsky takes the Schubert original
and spins a line with it.
His ‘Wohin?’ is watery
enough, but it is his final Schubert
Lied, ‘Litanei’, that shows his innate
tenderness.
Two ‘encores’ round
off Scherbakov’s offering. The Rosamunde
Ballet Music begins rather heavy-handedly,
but progresses towards a witty conclusion;
the 1922 arrangement of a Moment
musical is better.
The recording of Godowsky’s
output over so many volumes is, of course,
a highly praiseworthy activity and rest
assured there is nothing significant
here to make one regret the outlay.
Colin Clarke
See also
review by Paul Shoemaker
Konstantin Scherbakov (piano). 