Strange things, record collections. When I listened
to this performance of Gretchen am Spinnrad I seemed to
miss the breathless, feverish quality of Gretchen’s amorous dreams,
at least as reflected in the way her fingers moved about her spinning
wheel. So I decided to listen to the song itself, and was surprised
to find – more than surprised, actually – that I don’t have a
recorded performance of it. I began to look further, and found
that the setting of Der Wanderer on which Schubert based
his Fantasy doesn’t feature among the 294 lieder I have on disc
either. I suppose one has heard these pieces enough times in recital
or on the radio – especially Gretchen – to be able to say
that one "knows" them, but they do represent fairly
basic gaps in a collection, especially when you bear in mind (for
example) the nineteen versions of Vaughan Williams’ fifth symphony,
or those thirteen performances of Das Lied von der Erde.
But nothing pleases a collector more than finding a reason to
extend, and the order has already been placed to correct this
imbalance.
There was no such problem with Erlkönig
– I might have been too ashamed to admit it had there been – though
I didn’t feel the need to make any comparisons in any case, as
Filatova’s performance comes close in terms of tempo to virtually
every performance of the song I’ve ever heard. Both songs work
well as solo piano pieces, thanks to near-miraculous transcriptions
by Liszt, but important elements are missing all the same. Surely
one of the most remarkable decisions ever taken by a composer
was Schubert’s when he made the evil Erl King speak in the major
key. A lesser composer would have chosen the prevailing (and more
obvious) minor, but given by a singer with a fine command of vocal
colour – Sarah Walker’s extraordinary performance in the Hyperion
Complete Edition is unmissable – the moment never fails to make
the flesh creep. The effect is completely different in the piano
transcription where seductive horror gives way to something resembling
light heartedness.
The Wanderer Fantasy is one of the most
technically difficult of Schubert’s keyboard works, and Olga Filatova
rises well to its demands. Each of its four short movements, which
are played without a break, is based on the same musical material.
Though superficially it might resemble one of the sonatas, it
actually inhabits quite a different world, less reflective, less
interested in byways, more purposeful. It requires a different
approach from the listener, too, and is not always easy to understand.
Filatova’s is a fine performance of the work. There are one or
two moments where her way with pulse seems not only a little too
free but lacking in spontaneity and therefore at odds with the
spirit of the composer. At other times repeated figuration low
in the instrument could have been clearer, but though the sound
in general is good I wondered if this wasn’t a problem of the
recording or the acoustic. What does seem lacking compared to
the finest of other performances available is variety of tone
colour, especially in louder passages.
The Sonata in B flat D960 was completed sometime
during September 1828, six weeks or so before the composer’s death.
It was his final work for piano. Like most of his late works its
nature is equivocal. It opens with a theme only Schubert could
have composed: serene, almost sunny, but whose final bar is a
long trill low in the left hand which is then followed by silence,
"raising", as Brian Newbould has written, "a profound
question." Three times during this long first movement the
music almost comes to a standstill, three times it takes off again,
the last time bringing the movement to its close with the same
theme as the opening. There is little of the drama we would expect
from a Beethoven sonata first movement; though the music is for
the most part tranquil in nature this is only the surface of an
intensely probing and questioning composition. The slow movement
is a dark, supremely concentrated essay in left hand ostinato,
but the scherzo is as bright and cheerful as any movement in Schubert’s
output, covering only two pages of score. The finale is rather
dance-like, with a multitude of themes, once again punctuated
by moments of silence, and finishing with a short, headlong dash.
Listening to other pianists who have recorded
this sonata one is struck by the sheer variety of interpretative
possibilities. Some treat it very simply whilst others seem to
be searching for mystery or drama; still others are perhaps hoping
to express a feeling of summation in this work which was amongst
the last music Schubert composed in his tragically short life.
Brendel, who has recorded it several times, doesn’t seem to want
to impose his own personality on the work, yet his very cerebral
and intellectual approach tends to identify him. Stephen Kovacevich
would seem to favour a similar view, but the result is very different,
as is the remarkable performance by Mitsuko Uchida. Olga Filatova’s
performance is very fine too, though the doubts expressed above
in respect of the Wanderer Fantasy remain, especially perhaps
her way with certain aspects of phrasing, a tendency to insert
little halts and stops at the ends of phrases but within the context
of a fairly uniform basic pulse. She is extremely good at bringing
out the melodic line, as she is at letting us hear from time to
time interior voices that we hadn’t known were there. In common
with many, perhaps most pianists, she does not play the first
movement repeat, and though one can understand this in a movement
which already lasts over fourteen minutes, this does mean that
we don’t hear nine bars which Schubert composed presumably intending
them to be heard. The most successful movement is the scherzo,
where Filatova brings the smile of the music to the surface with
quite delightful lightness of touch. She is less convincing in
the finale, however, her reading less imposing than most of the
more illustrious names listed above.
The Schubert Competition for Piano is held every
two years in the German town of Dortmund to find "young pianists
who possess a special flair for the sensitive world of sound of
Schubert’s piano music." Olga Filatova was the winner in
2001, but I think there are more searching performances of the
B flat sonata in the catalogue. It is well and thoughtfully played
though, even if not a first choice, and the disc will not disappoint
collectors exploring this interesting programme.
William Hedley
Olga Filatova, piano