Modest MUSSORGSKY (1839-1881)
Pictures at an Exhibition (1874) [33:34]
Robert SCHUMANN (1810-1856)
Fantasie in C major Op. 17 (1838) [30:52]
Paul Lewis (piano)
rec. 2010/14, Teldex Studio Berlin
HARMONIA MUNDI HMC 902096 [64:43]
Paul Lewis has impressed me in his Schubert, and I welcome any opportunity to hear him
in pretty much any repertoire he might choose to record. Mussorgsky's
Pictures at an Exhibition has been done to death, but it is the
most marvellous music so allowances have to be made, though I'm sure there
must be less well-beaten musical paths to be followed.
This particular release has already been given a double review here, and I
find myself once again in the luxury position of being able to follow on
from the comments already given and just throw in my extra Eurocent's worth.
There are some remarkable highlights in Paul Lewis's Mussorgsky, and the
chiming bells from about the third minute of Gnomus alongside the
sheer intensity of the rest prove promising. Lewis's gentler side delivers
melting pianism in The Old Castle and a delicious lightness of
touch around the peripheries of The Tuileries. His 'pesante' in
Bydlo has a terrific sense of gravity, but above almost all else
you will want to have this version of The catacombs for its
Gormenghastly accents and scary gloom. Lewis allows the notes to echo around
the inside of the piano with some subtly sustained pedalling, blurring the
imagery in its decaying dampness, an effect carried through to Com
mortis in lingua morta. Brisk but with plenty of impact, the
Promenade sections arrive at a final Great Gate of Kiev
which is a mighty but not overblown edifice.
You would have wanted to hear Sviatoslav Richter live in this work, but
while his studio recording is available on a budget Regis disc RRC1373 the late 1950s sound is very distant, and the
other versions I have encountered all sound pretty antique. I quite like
Alice Sara Ott's Deutsche Grammophon recording (review), but she tends towards more languid tempi and is
less involving in general when put up against Lewis - the
Catacombae more a respectful if awe-struck prayer than a terrifying
vision and the slower Promenades tending to sap energy rather than
restore it. Vladimir Feltsman on Nimbus NI6211 is strikingly effective in really titanic
Russian style, using his piano as a launching pad for some remarkably
fearless pedalled effects. Feltsman's Pictures is at times like a
radiant icon and at times almost a dramatic caricature - in a positive
sense: at least you cannot deny his performance has vast quantities of
character, and it is certainly one of his best recordings. Lewis may have
the upper hand in some of the subtler corners, but not by a huge margin. In
the end it is Lewis's inner contrast and sense of narrative linked to
spectacular pianism which tips the balance. It goes to show that there are
plenty of highly desirable Pictures at an Exhibition out there.
Robert Schumann's Fantasie Op. 17 is a good, robust coupling for
the Mussorgsky, the literary associations in the work continuing a theme of
narrative imagery in music. This is another work with plenty of choices
available and, looking back at the ones I've reviewed there are those which
last because of their sheer musicality, such as Michael Studer, those which are both spectacular and poetic,
such as Leif Ove Andsnes, and those which have fallen by the
wayside, such as the busy but ultimately rather thinly spread Sergei Edelmann.
Paul Lewis is his own man in this work, taking advantage of the
improvisatory nature of the first movement to add a few little moments of
surprise, and creating an atmosphere of expressiveness both heated and
tender, while managing to avoid sentimental wallowing. The central movement
has nobility and a kind of nervy impetuousness at the same time, pushing
forward Schumann's persistence with that dotted rhythm in a traversal of
moods both defiant and confiding. The final movement is an inspiration which
floats in part across from Beethoven, the outer journeys of the previous
movements transformed into inner searching, to which Lewis responds with a
gorgeous touch - sonorous and filled with colour while retaining that quiet
and Langsam getragen atmosphere. Schumann can't help himself coming
up for a climax however, and Lewis's changes of colour are something to
behold here. I can imagine why my colleagues have pointed to this
performance as perhaps the more special of the two works on this release.
For all of Mussorgsky's quirky genius, what this really shows is that Robert
Schumann at his best was the deeper composer of the two.
Dominy Clements
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