Tessa Birnie (1934-2008) became known as something of a Schubert
specialist. The New Zealand pianist had studied in her native
country with Paul Schramm, and then in Europe with Yvonne Lefébure
and Karl-Ulrich Schnabel. Much admired she gave some awe-inspiring
recital projects; all 450 solo piano works of Schubert as well
as all the four-hand works; all the Haydn keyboard sonatas. She
also busily sought out obscure repertoire and wrote freely on
musical matters – and she wrote an autobiography, I’m Going
To Be A Pianist. Happily she knew of the impending publication
of this three CD conspectus though less happily she died before
its release.
Schubert’s B flat
major sonata was for Birnie ‘the most personal’ of all the music,
by any composer that she played. It was recorded in the time
left over from other commercial sessions and to it she - who
had last played it over two years before – felt she brought
a ‘fresh viewpoint and spontaneity.’ I quote her own words,
not simply because ABC does so in its booklet notes, but because
it reflects something of her engagement and unselfconscious
honesty in these matters. It’s a performance notable in particular
for her approach to the slow movement in which the clipped staccati
stay longest in the memory; though she modifies phrasing extremes
as the movement develops. It’s an approach dramatically divergent
from such as Artur Schnabel, Kempff and Curzon. The scherzo
is full of character and brio. In all it’s a thought provoking
and very individual performance. D459 is less extreme. It’s
clear and elegantly phrased. Its first scherzo is perhaps less
pert than Kempff’s but is full of fine contrast, urgent where
Kempff is more grand seigniorial. She is more overtly expressive
and warm in the slow movement, and slower too, where Kempff
finds a more tensile expressivity.
The Moments Musicaux
are thoughtful and imaginatively phrased, a little Schnabelian
perhaps in orientation. And the smaller Schubert pieces are
but a brief though probing index of her immersion in that vast
corpus of piano music. The C major sonata is the most important
and a fine example of Birnie at her unmannered best.
The last disc starts
with what to some will be a well-known performance, the Moonlight
Sonata here performed in B minor. Birnie believed that ‘were
he alive today’ Beethoven would lower the pitch because ‘the
C sharp minor of his day is not the C sharp minor of today’.
I leave that to musicologists to fight over. She plays it with
the sustaining pedal fully depressed – which imparts a rather
echo-y patina to her slow songful first movement. Her Schumann
Kinderszenen follows; sympathetically done though occasionally
protracted – for example Wichtige Begebenheit. She delves
deeper as the cycle progresses though not as deeply as Carl
Friedberg; mind you, few have. There is a good Brahms Variations
on an Original Theme though it’s a pity they weren’t separately
tracked and other smaller pieces round out this fine conspectus.
Because she lived
for many years in that country this release sails under the
‘Australian Masters’ rubric. It constitutes a well-documented
and merited salute to Tessa Birnie.
Jonathan Woolf
Tessa Birnie
(piano) 
