Norma Fisher (piano)
At the BBC - Volume 3
Robert SCHUMANN (1810-1856)
Papillons, Op. 2 [16:41]
Johannes BRAHMS (1833-1897)
7 Fantasies, Op 116 [25:23]
Frédéric CHOPIN (1810-1849)
Mazurka in C major, Op. 68 No. 1[1:49]
Mazurka in C sharp minor, Op. 41 No. 1 [4:29]
Nocturne in C sharp minor, Op. 27 No 1 [6:06]
3 Ecossaises, Op. 72 No. 3 [2:19]
Berceuse, Op. 57 [5:34]
rec. 18 July 1984 (Schumann & Brahms); 26 October 1992 (Chopin)
SONETTO CLASSICS SONCLA006 [62:21]
This welcome release is Volume 3 in Sonetto Classics’ Norma Fisher at the BBC project. My reviews of the previous volumes can be found here: review ~ review.
Fisher was born in London in 1940 and studied piano with Sidney Harrison, Ilona Kobos and Jacques Février. Progress was swift, and in 1961 she took 2nd Prize in the Busoni Competition, following it in 1963 with success at the Harriet Cohen International Awards, where she shared the Piano Prize with Vladimir Ashkenazy. An international career was launched, but was halted in the 1990s when she developed focal dystonia in her right arm. This led her to channel her superlative musical gifts into teaching, and her students include such names as Murray McLachlan, Anna Fedorova and Pavel Kolesnikov.
Sadly, Fisher was sidelined by the record companies, and there’s no commercial discography. Fortunately, the BBC championed her, and she broadcast regularly for them from the late 1950s to the early 1990s. The BBC aired more than ninety radio programmes featuring the pianist, but most of these haven’t survived. What has survived from their archive has thankfully been supplemented by private air checks and tapes from Fisher’s own archive. Some discoveries were made by the pianist’s husband trawling through boxes of tapes at their north-London home during the covid lockdown. The British library has also been a valuable resource.
It was as a child that Fisher first learned Schumann’s Papillons, and she remarks in the Jessica Duchen interview in the accompanying booklet that returning to this 1984 performance “literally feels like going back to childhood again”. All the ingredients that make this such an engaging work are here, naïveté, simplicity, intimacy and magic. The capriciousness of No. 6, the lilting grace of No. 7 and the playful wit of No. 9 all secure the reading’s success.
From the same recital of 18 July 1984 the pianist turns her attention to Brahms Seven Fantasies, Op. 116. For Clara Schumann they were “a true source of enjoyment, everything, poetry, passion, rapture, intimacy, full of the most marvellous effects”. Fisher maintains a strong sense of cohesion and unity between each of the pieces. Their range is extraordinary, from introspection, desolation and reflection to fire and passion as in the first Capriccio in D minor, marked Presto energico. The Intermezzo in A minor which follows brims over with sentimentality, whilst the Intermezzo in E major, No. 4 is imbued with a deep sense of loneliness and loss; in Fisher hands it’s almost dreamlike. Intensity and passion close the cycle in the final D minor Capriccio.
The Chopin selection derives from a BBC recital dated 26 October 1992. By this time, the focal dystonia which was to end Fisher’s career had already taken hold, yet there are no shortcomings in the playing here. The two mazurkas have both elegance and tastefully judged rubato. In the Nocturne Op. 27 No. 1, the bleak outer sections are captured with vivid starkness, and the dramatic central section truly packs a punch. The Berceuse in D flat major, Op. 57 has a charming simplicity, and the sensitivity of touch and delicate filigree adds tonal colour to each variation. There’s no monotony in the left hand metric regularity, instead everything flows in improvisatory fashion.
Andrew J. Holdsworth and producer Tomoyuki Sawado have done a sterling job in remastering these archive documents, and the sound is bright and fresh with a pleasant airy ambience. Booklet notes, decked with several fascinating black and white photographs, are in English and Japanese. For technically wonderful pianism and musically informed interpretations, look no further.
Stephen Greenbank
