Karl-Andreas Kolly
was born in 1965 in Switzerland. He
took part in master classes with Karl
Engel and Mieczyslaw Horszowski. He
set down his first disc, of Schumann,
in 1992, also for Pan Classics, and
has now made a total of around 40. These
are divided between solo, concerto and
ensemble playing and present a mix of
well- and less-well-known music. He
is a Professor at the Hochschule für
Musik und Theater of Zurich.
He receives a finely
sonorous recording in this useful grouping
of Liszt’s Bach transcriptions and Bach-inspired
works – more so than the slightly steely
fortes on offer in the Denon recording
of the "Weinen, Klagen"
variations by Michel Dalberto, another
"Hatto pianist" I have been
listening to recently. In this work
Kolly keeps a firm eye on the structure,
allowing the music to build up gradually
and inexorably. Dalberto is more improvisational,
more inclined to go for extremes, though
never exaggeratedly so.
You might say that
Kolly approaches the music from the
Bachian angle, Dalberto from the Lisztian.
Continuing this theme, on Kolly’s disc
covers the transcriptions are listed
by the BWV – i.e. Bach catalogue – numbers,
though "Liebster Jesu" is
not the BWV 633 Orgelbüchlein
pair as claimed but BWV 730-1, two separate
chorale-preludes in the same key which,
as organists well know, can be neatly
played together as a theme and variation.
The Hatto plagiary identifies the pieces
by their Searle numbers – the Liszt
catalogue – and has neatly regrouped
the works in the Liszt-Searle sequence.
This is rather typical of the whole
scam in its neat deployment of genuine
musicological knowledge to confuse anyone
who might have Kolly in one hand and
"Hatto" in the other.
Oddly enough, my one
doubt about Kolly’s splendid Bach-Liszt
playing, which is throughout technically
secure, scrupulously prepared and attentive
to the structure of the music, is that
it is Bach-led rather than Liszt-led.
Take the A minor
fugue. In its early stages Kolly
offers an amiable staccato articulation
– post-Tureck, post-Gould, vaguely HIP
(Historically Informed Practice)-aware.
The sort of Bach-on-the-piano style
we more or less take for granted today.
Then in the later stages the texture
thickens as Liszt piles on the full-organ
effects. Kolly obliges with more pedal
and a more evidently virtuosic style.
In other words, his idea seems to be
to play it as real Bach as far as possible
and concede Bach-Liszt only when the
writing forces his hand.
Given the approach,
he carries it through admirably, but
I wonder if he wouldn’t have been happier
playing real Bach. I see his recordings
include the Goldberg Variations.
I can certainly imagine
some such Russian cult-artist as Grigory
Ginzburg taking one of these pieces
and, by skilful manipulation of colour
and pedalling, creating an organ-like
illusion all the way through. I believe
a few artists of earlier generations
actually did set down performances on
these lines but I don’t have access
to any right now. One rather imagines
that this is how Liszt himself would
have done it.
However, Bach seems
to have a different meaning for every
generation. By likening these works
to Bach-on-the-piano as we know it today,
Kolly may win friends for them among
listeners who enjoy Bach but do not
particularly relish either the harpsichord
or the organ.
My other query concerns
the most Lisztian work here, the Fantasy
and Fugue on B-A-C-H. Kolly gives
it a big-limbed virtuoso reading, possibly
too aggressive. I wondered if a more
controlled passion, rather on the lines
of Cortot playing Franck, would reap
more dividends.
Far more easily available
– though I haven’t heard them – are
Leslie Howard’s Hyperion performances.
Suffice to say, if you like the approach
I have described, Kolly should prove
entirely satisfying provided you can
find his album.
My personal interest
in the Hattification process
concerns only the transcriptions – the
Bach-inspired works in Volume 2 were
not sent to me. Most of these have been
stretched or shrunk, but by a matter
of a few seconds either way. Hatto students
will not need me to tell them of Farhan
Malik’s website, in which a complete
documentation of the entire scam is
being painstakingly built up. The exact
statistics of the time-stretching, with
the corroborating wavefiles, can be
seen there. Here are the links for Volume
1 and Volume
2.
As I have pointed out
in previous Hatto re-reviews, a margin
of a few seconds is probably smaller
than the variation which Kolly himself
would make from day to day, from piano
to piano, from acoustic to acoustic.
Up to 3 or 4 per cent – only the C minor
Prelude goes slightly further on Volume
1 – does not normally affect our perception
of the performance. However, it may
do so if the performance is already
on the brink of the fastest reasonable
tempo. Kolly does not usually court
extremes but in the case of the E minor
fugue Bach provides the performer with
considerable scope for virtuoso display
of which Kolly quite rightly avails
himself. Here the "Hatto"
left me a little breathless and I was
surprised to find it only 8 seconds
shorter.
One piece of time-stretching
does deserve comment, even though it
is on Volume 2. This is the "Weinen,
Klagen" Prelude which has been
elongated by over 17%, one of the biggest
pieces of manipulation in the entire
scam. Without having heard the result
I can only comment that I felt perfectly
comfortable with Kolly’s tempo and I
can’t imagine why the fraudsters felt
the need to change it so radically.
More than the tempo,
it is the changed sound-picture which
completes the disguise. Pan Classics’
bold, centralized sound picture is distanced,
the piano skewed slightly, usually to
the left but sometimes to the right.
This more ethereal, almost disembodied
sound gives the performances a more
calm, collected air. It is remarkable
just how far they give the illusion
of a serene old lady playing while the
real recordings suggest a vigorous-spirited
young man. I can well imagine a listener,
unconcerned with detailed comparisons
let alone suspecting a scam, hearing
them side by side and characterizing
the two performers in just such a way.
Perhaps on account
of this, my registered reactions on
hearing the original Kolly – before
refreshing my memory as to what I previously
wrote – were slightly different. Those
who wish to take this as proof that
critics have no ears are free to do
so. Some critics might have doctored
their second response to match the first.
I prefer to be honest. My "Hatto"
review began with a long dissertation
on organ-piano transcriptions in general
which I won’t repeat. Interested readers
will find it here.
My discussion of the performances themselves
is given as an appendix below.
The "Hatto"
was accompanied by an often erudite,
anonymous note, presumably by the Royston
swindlers themselves. Characteristically,
musicology, fantasy and difficulties
over placing apostrophes are pretty
well intertwined. At one point Liszt
apparently has to be defended against
practices not dissimilar to their own:
It was after
Liszt’s immensely successful recitals
in Berlin in 1841/42 that the Berlin
publisher Schlesinger brought out
separate editions of Bach works
with the inscription "played
in concerts by Franz Liszt".
Some [of] Liszt’s detractors still
try to peddle doubt as to whether
Liszt did play, actually featuring
these pieces, and initiated these
publications or merely acquiesced
to the publisher[’]s advertising
campaign to sell more printed copies.
The discussion of the
"Weinen, Klagen" Prelude introduces
two other Hatto leitmotifs, an inexhaustible
fund of stories about the great and
good – if you haven’t got a story to
hand, make it up – and the idiocy of
critics.
It was frequently
played by Rachmaninov and when he
introduced it for the first time
in a London recital in the thirties
the London critics rushed into print
to report that the great pianist
had had a memory lapse! The critics,
of course, were only aware of the
more extended piece, a brilliant
set of variations, which Liszt produced
a few years later.
Better seek independent
corroboration before quoting this one
about the great man.
Another Hatto trait
is an engaging use of Malapropism:
… the transcription
has attracted … the virtuoso pianist
seeking to exhort[sic!] the music
to his way of thinking …
And finally, a hint
of the generalized superficiality of
the musical world in general against
which the great Hatto had battled so
nobly if vainly (and ungrammatically):
It may be that
this music is quite deep and, as
a consequence, the performer has
to dig deeper to make it work on
the minds and souls of the audience.
There does [sic!] exist, after all,
in the vast repertoire of piano
literature so many easier pickings
that make for more obvious box office
appeal.
Appendix: my original
review
So in the end,
we have here neither Bach-on-the-piano
nor a pianistic illusion of Bach-on-the-organ
but something different, romantically
rich and satisfying as long as you
are not incurably wedded to authentic
instruments and an "authentic" approach.
And yet, Bach is incredibly, wonderfully,
resistant to transcription. Although
this disc is part of Hatto’s ongoing
Liszt cycle, in the end the voice
we hear is Bach’s, and I am sure
this is what Liszt would have wished.
Much of the credit for this must
also go to Hatto since she is able
to create a convincingly full and
pianistic sound while at the same
time creating that sense of inexorable
movement, never pressing the music
but never letting it drag, which
seems to be an essential of Bach
interpretation whatever the instrument
used. Once again, then, Joyce Hatto
has found exactly the right style
for the music she is playing. If
you like your Bach full-blooded,
and if you like "big-band" performances
of his orchestral works which nevertheless
remain in touch with the spirit
of the composer (such as, for example,
Sir Adrian Boult’s wonderful set
of the Brandenburgs), then I think
you will get a lot of pleasure out
of this. All the same, I wish I
could have heard Joyce Hatto’s thoughts
on the "48" instead.
The recording
is good though without quite the
bloom and three-dimensionality of
the best modern recordings. There
is a generalized booklet note intended
to accompany (I think) three discs;
this sort of cost saving is all
very well if, without it, we wouldn’t
have had the record at all, but
I think it might have been more
clearly related to the single discs
– it took me some time to work out
that I hadn’t, in fact, been sent
the wrong insert entirely.
Considering the entirely
favourable tone of this review, it is
remarkable yet revealing that Barrington-Coupe
sent me a most indignant response to
the suggestion that the notes might
be less than perfect, though he was
back to his "buttering up"
tone by the end of the paragraph. This
e-mail, and a slightly apologetic follow-up,
appeared lost when I wrote my article
"Joyce Hatto, Some Thoughts, Some
Questions and a Lot of Letters".
I’m now saving it up for the maturer
reflections I hope to write at some
stage.
Christopher Howell
Karl-Andreas Kolly (piano) 
