This is a cannily selected disc. Many
Landowska reissues concentrate, as did
Biddulph’s, on the earlier recordings,
the late acoustic and early electrics.
That disc collated recordings made between
1923 and 1930. Another Landowska disc
from them, also the transfer work of
Mark Obert-Thorn, coupled the Goldberg
Variations traversal with a Menuhin
performance with her from 1944 of a
Bach sonata. Other companies have ventured
into her Bach recordings of the 1930s,
some like RCA forwards from the end
of the War into the 1950s.
But here we have two
"discrete" (hate the word
but let’s use it) album sets, one from
1946, the Treasury of Harpsichord
Music album, and the later 1951
Dances of Ancient Poland set
(originally called Landowska plays
for Paderewski). With playing of
such powerful individuality and with
a two manual Pleyel of such gargantuan
sonority Landowska is always liable
to offend timorous souls. She never
claimed to be an unswerving historically
informed performer, going on record
in fact to state as much. That should
be enough to see her in proper context
though she seems to have emerged more
"scathed" than, say, violinists
and cellists in critical discussion.
Why this should be so I can’t quite
say, since many a fiddler’s a-historical
approach is seen properly through the
prism of history and not judged by prevailing
orthodoxies, though it must in the end
centre on weight and sonority and the
use of pedalling.
If we leave this to
one side the results here are of impressive
stature and considerable emotive weight.
She had the power of dramatic projection
rooted in a splendid technique and she
had the musical probity to present these
works shorn of didacticism but enlightened
by her Beecham-like knowledge of the
smallest corners of the repertoire.
So the Scarlatti in
D major has an immediately arresting
theatrical impact allied to a certain
refined spirit and the Chambonnières
in particular has a wonderfully moving
gravity. I suspect only the flintiest
of hearts could fail to respond to the
feathery registrations of Couperin’s
Les barricades mysterieuses with
its etched bass line, invincible rightness
of rhythm, rubato and linearity. The
ritards and lightness of registration
of the Croft, for so long ascribed to
Purcell, are equally memorable, as are
the defiant fortissimi by which she
sculpts drama and power.
She thrives on contrasts
– dynamic and motivic - and is a consummate
and unselfconscious master. Try for
example the majestic nobility of the
Vivaldi-Bach, with the rolled chords
of its central movement and the eloquent
command of its mood and trajectory.
True, Landowska was often somewhat wilfully
free with decorations but they were
all in the spirit of devotion.
The Polish segment
shows us a wonderfully conceived Chopin
Mazurka – once heard never forgotten
– and an array of rhythmically incisive
and irresistible pieces all of which
reflect her Polish birth and the ostensible
object of homage to Paderewski.
No qualms then in a
recommendation. The transfers have utilised
fine sounding and very quiet, responsive
LPs. One of the pieces from the Treasury
collection, Bach’s Prelude, Fugue and
Allegro in E flat has been omitted because
of timing limitations but is slotted
for reissue in the next Landowska release
from Naxos. Just as they issue this
I see that Testament have issued an
almost identical selection. I don’t
have access to it for purposes of transfer
comparison.
Jonathan Woolf