Taiwanese pianist Pi-hsien Chen has appeared in recordings ranging from
Bach to
Höller, and her classical/contemporary credentials have already
been put to the test in an earlier release for Hat Hut, mixing Cage and
Scarlatti (hat[now]ART 188).
In his notes for this release, Christopher Fox takes the 1970 ‘meeting’ of
Stockhausen and Beethoven at the former’s lecture in Dusseldorf as a
starting point. He is informative on these pieces but, caught between a rock
and a hard place, is ultimately inconclusive: “although I have suggested
there are similarities to be found in these composers’ approaches to
innovation and technology, fundamentally they could not be more different.”
Big claims are also made for the effect of their juxtaposition: “To listen
to this music in the sequence recorded here, alternating Stockhausen and
Beethoven, then Stockhausen again, is … to have one’s ideas about music
turned on their head time after time, to be confronted with the shock of the
new in all its revolutionary diversity.” I rather hope, without too much
disrespect for the undeniably knowledgable Mr Fox, who is as I say on a
hiding to nothing, there is an element of the b*llsh*t generator in this
kind of writing for which I have little patience these days. Take the
following: “In Beethoven, even in those moments in the slow music which
propose a sort of repose, there is an irresistible forward momentum, a
propulsive drive towards the new, the unknown, perhaps even the impossible.
By contrast, in Stockhausen’s music, animation and stasis are always
balanced; a multitude of possibilities is being played out, but it is a
multitude which the composer already holds in his head.” Now swap the
composers names, read again, and see if you are any the wiser.
Yes, the differences in content are clear, as are the similarities in
terms of both composers’ uncompromising approach, the romantic nature of
their characters
ad nauseam. These arguments can be posited and
refuted to equal degree, but I hate to get onto a pundit merrygoround and
into argments which are ultimately founded in a subjective response to the
music, and therefore so personal as to be irrelevant as general comment.
Context is however a vital aspect of musical presentation, and the strange
thing is that, rather than uniting two Teutonic titans in this programme,
the comparisons have more the effect of cancelling each other out.
Stockhausen’s fiendishly tricky scores are, from the examples I have managed
to run through with the sheet music in front of me, played with remarkable
accuracy by Pi-hsien Chen, and are therefore highly recommendable. These
striking atonal statements have the tendency to gang together however,
making Beethoven sound rather more like a sweet musical box than he
deserves. Pi-hsien Chen does have a more twinkly sound than, say,
Igor Levit in
Op. 101, and in comparing
them both in the final
Allegro you can hear how Chen puts more air
between the notes, making for lighter-sounding Beethoven than some. I by no
means dislike her playing, and am grateful that she doesn’t move towards
‘modernising’ Beethoven to shoehorn him more into context with the 1950s
avant-garde. There is however more theatrical drama to be extracted from
these sonatas, and if there was ever a composer to court theatrical drama
then this was Karlheinz Stockhausen. Beethoven’s final piano sonata
Op.
111 is more innately dramatic of course, and Chen puts good weight into
the operatic moods of the first movement, though not with quite the
laser-like clarity which makes Levit’s performance one of the best I’ve
heard. Again, there is a great deal to admire in Chen’s version, and timings
are pretty similar between the two. The
Arietta is deep and
involving, and there is no questioning the intense commitment in this
performance. Returning to the cold intellectual bath of Stockhausen’s
Klavierstücke in turn revives unkind and, in this case undeserving
thoughts of artistic fakery and the avant-garde cul-de-sac. As Fox points
out, Stockhausen was a young ‘rising star’ when these first six
Klavierstücke were written, but they occupy regions of
communication which, to my ears, barely coincide with those of the elderly
Beethoven’s inner journeys, and so we are left with a rather icky cold bath
fulled with both oil and water.
Recordings of Stockhausen’s
Klavierstücke tend to be such an
undertaking that you wouldn’t really expect to find much in the way of duds.
I’ve had a listen to Herbert Henck who is tremendous on the Wergo label,
though the piano sound is quite distant. Elisabeth Klein has one or two of
the
Klavierstücke on her Classico label selection, and while also
very good, tends to be more elegiac – Stockhausen
a la francaise
perhaps. David Tudor on the Hat Hut label has to be the default choice for
the complete set, if you can find a copy. Pi-hsien Chen is stunningly
dynamic and physical with these pieces, and with a close piano sound you can
hear every nuance, including a mild ‘chuffing’ from the felt in the
dampers.
I’m all for experimental programming and unusual proximity of genres, but
I’m not sure it works in this case. As Christopher Fox writes, “we have to
hear each composer whole” – another contradiction to the present melting
pot. If you think your ideas about music need turning on their head then
this is certainly an interesting place to visit, but not necessarily because
of the ‘Stockhoven-Beethausen’ sandwich it offers.
Dominy Clements
