I have no doubt that this will be the most revelatory release thus
far in APR’s ‘The Matthay Pupils’ series. Irene Scharrer
(1888-1971) is probably little more than a name for some, and for most she
won’t even be that. For those who collect recordings on 78, her
musicianship and brilliance will need no puffing from me. If she’s
remembered from her recordings it’s really only the one, and that was
ironically the last she made, Litolff’s Scherzo from the
Concerto symphonique with Henry Wood accompanying. It was a massive
seller, set down in 1933. In the booklet notes Stephen Siek speculates that
she abandoned her career soon after this, but she did still play on, as he
mentions, though her career did, it’s true, trail off. She gave her
last concert with her old friend Myra Hess in 1958. Hess was another Tobias
Matthay student whose recordings are upcoming in this series, and it’s
often been suggested that Scharrer and Hess were cousins, but this
isn’t so; just friends. I wonder, regarding the apparent abandonment
of Scharrer’s career, whether she was one of many distinguished
British artists culled or curtailed by EMI around the time of her last
recording, especially those - like Scharrer - who were recording for
Columbia, subsumed along with HMV into EMI but which had less clout
internationally. If so, this would have significant bearing on her apparent
semi-invisibility in British musical life after the mid 1930s.
She was simply a marvellous musician. Thinking of some other
celebrated British pianists of that time, she was more at ease in the studio
than Hess, more vivacious and much more musicianly than Harriet Cohen (also
in this series), less sober-suited than (the excellent) Evlyn Howard-Jones,
more mercurial than Harold Samuel, and more dramatic than William Murdoch.
We have in this 2 CD set her complete electric recordings and a
selection of her HMV acoustics. Yes, completists will be disappointed, even
though the acoustics not included were all re-made electrically some years
later. Thus all her recorded sides are here, one way or another. We progress
from the HMV electrics to the Columbias and finish with those selective
1912-24 HMV acoustics. It’s difficult to know where to start, so as
not to over-burden the reader with a litany of praise.
The first thing to say is that she sounds unusually self-possessed
in the studio and even when the take numbers of her published sides are
quite high, one doesn’t feel at all that this was down to nerves or
digital sloppiness; maybe a desire for pinpoint accuracy, which is perfectly
reasonable. Another thing is her sheer vivacity and verve, as the opening
Purcell/Henderson Toccata, Prelude,Sarabande and
Minuet amply show. The last is much better than Cortot’s
recording of 1937. Her Scarlatti (three sonatas) is lively. She plays
Jesu, Joy of man’s desiring in a way very different to Myra
Hess’s slightly earlier 1928 recording, bringing out inner and
unexpected voicings that I don’t recall hearing from anyone else. Her
sole sonata recording is here, Mozart’s G major, K283. It had a
protracted history, begun in December 1926, returned to in January 1927 and
only completed in January 1929. It was worth the wait - thoughtful and
sensitive playing. One of her acoustic ‘hits’ was
Sinding’s evergreen Rustle of Spring and her 1927 remake is, if
anything, even more vivacious. Liszt’s Hungarian rhapsody No.12
shows plenty of fire and temperament from a pianist in the studio whilst her
Mendelssohn Andante and Rondo Capriccioso is first sonorous and then
fleet, aerial and ebullient.
She recorded more of Chopin than of any other composer and these
sequences alone alert one to the distinction of her playing. Maybe the
ubiquity of some of her later electrics has led to a critical blind spot
about her, or maybe she was for too long seen as a footnote in Myra
Hess’s life. Whatever the reason, her stature will certainly need to
be re-evaluated here and in the recordings of other composers’ work.
The Fantaisie-Impromptu reveals another quality: the quality of a
seeming spontaneity. Galvanised by freshness of tempi, richness of chording,
canny rubati and a control of dynamics, all these things elevate her playing
to a remarkable degree. Many of her Chopin recordings were made in 1933 and
are deliciously characterised, the Etudes in particular being revealing
documents. She recorded nine of the twenty-four and not one is less than
impressive.
Five more Chopin pieces occur in the acoustically recorded part of
the second disc. There is the slow movement from the Sonata No.2, an
abridgement - but what remains is fine - of the Nocturne in C minor,
Op.48 No.1. The earliest recording was made in September 1912 and is
Liszt’s Fantasia on Hungarian Folk Themes with Landon Ronald,
though it is, as was customary, significantly abridged. There’s some
blasting, one of the rare examples in the set. Three years later she
recorded the Allegro scherzando from Saint-Saëns Concerto No.2
with Henry Wood, which was in better shape, and sounds to have been better
recorded too. Her Debussy is here, Reflets dans l’eau and
Poissons d’or from Images, idiomatically sound and full
of colour; both are from 1924. Her Cyril Scott piece, Danse
nègre is wittily vivacious.
With that fine essay booklet and Mark Obert-Thorn’s transfers,
no expense has been spared to ensure the listener has been provided with
excellent documentary material and first-class transfers. Let us hope that
this set occasions a critical re-evaluation of Irene Scharrer, one of
Britain’s great pianists.
Jonathan Woolf
Track listing
CD 1
The HMV Electrics 1925-1929
1 PURCELL/HENDERSON Toccata-Prelude, Sarabande & Minuet [4.27]
2 PARADIES Toccata in A major [1.58]
3-5 SCARLATTI Sonatas Kk1, Kk11 & Kk159 [5.17]
6 BACH/HESS Jesu, joy of man’s desiring [3.26]
7 BOYCE/CRAXTON Gavotte [2.47]
8-10 MOZART Sonata in G major K283 [11.22]
11 MENDELSSOHN Spinning song Op 67/4 [1:33]
12 CHOPIN: Etude Op 10/5 [1.36]
13 Waltz in E minor Op posth [2.26]
14 Impromptu No 1 Op 29 [3.54]
15 Fantaisie-Impromptu Op 66 [4.27]
16 SINDING Rustle of spring Op 32/3 [2.24]
17 DEBUSSY Arabesque No 2 [3.03]
The Columbia Electrics 1929-1933
18 MENDELSSOHN Andante and Rondo Capriccioso Op 14 [6.04]
19 LISZT Hungarian Rhapsody No 12 [8.00]
20 VERDI/LISZT Rigoletto Paraphrase [6.38]
21 CHOPIN: Fantaisie-Impromptu Op 66 [4.18]
22 Etude Op 10/11 [3.25]
23 Etude Op 10/12 [2.46]
CD 2
The Columbia Electrics 1929-1933 continued
CHOPIN:
1 Etude Op 25/1 [2.28]
2 Etude Op 25/9 [1.03]
3 Etude Op 25/6 [2.14]
4 Etude Op 25/11 ‘Winter Wind’ [3.44]
5 Etude Op 25/12 [2.46]
6 Trois Nouvelles Etudes - No 1 [2.27]
7 Trois Nouvelles Etudes - No 2 [1.54]
8 Scherzo No 2 Op 31 [6.57]
9 LITOLFF Scherzo from Concerto Symphonique, Op 102 London Symphony
Orchestra/Henry Wood [5.46]
A selection of HMV acoustics 1912-1924
10 SCARLATTI Sonata in G major Kk14 [1.27]
11 BACH Prelude and Fugue No 3 in C sharp major BWV848 [3.34]
12 CHOPIN: Nocturne Op 48/1 [4.35]
13 Prelude Op 28/8 [2.07]
14 Etude Op 25/2 [1.29]
15 Funeral March from Sonata No 2, Op 35 [3.39]
16 Waltz Op 64/1 [1.46]
17 SCHUMANN Intermezzo from Faschingsschwank aus Wien, Op 26
18 LISZT Gnomenreigen [2.50]
19 LISZT Fantasia on Hungarian Folk Themes S123 [abridged] New
Symphony Orchestra/Landon Ronald [7.41]
20 SAINT-SAËNS Allegro scherzando from Concerto No 2, Op 22
[abridged] New Symphony Orchestra/Landon Ronald [4.06]
21 DEBUSSY Reflets dans l’eau [Images, Book 1 No 1] [4.07]
22 DEBUSSY Poissons d’or [Images, Book 2 No 3] [3.45]
23 SCOTT Danse nègre [1.39]
24 GOODHART ‘Tipperary’ - Five Variations [3.28]
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APR 6010 [79:53 + 78:06]