Such is the stark concentration
and power of Serkin’s Schubert that
one listens to this composer’s works
with the very intensity he habitually
brought to bear. The A major recording
dates from 1966 and was not the product
of Serkin’s old age. Yet the embryonic
signs are there – of the slow tempi
in the Allegro, the objectifying look,
the sense of scholarly detachment, the
incipiently hard touch and a complete
lack of beautifying pleasantry. This
was the essence, Serkin seems to be
saying, and the core stripped of accretions.
The sense of involvement is total and
unremitting, the Sonata becoming in
his hands a text capable of revealing
the minutest detail, the most graphic
philosophical truth. And yet how do
those critics who dismiss Schnabel’s
Schubert as professorial respond to
Serkin? Nothing could be further apart
than their responses to this Sonata;
these two pianists seem to embody the
Apollonian and Dionysian in their responses
to it. Serkin’s stoic italicisation,
his gaunt enunciation is fuelled by
clarity and a cool fluency. Schnabel’s
way is the way of the splintered flesh,
the all too bodily.
And the Four Impromptus
show the same direction. Serkin’s just
measure is not, say, Curzon’s; indeed
Serkin’s rhythm is not Curzon’s. The
Olympian detachment of the former, as
if he sees these Impromptus from a vast
distance (excepting the F minor which
he treats differently), is juxtaposed
with Curzon’s fallible absorption. If
these sound like mutually exclusive
perceptions of Schubert then maybe they
are. I’m glad to have been reacquainted
with Serkin’s unique vision of them
in these fine sounding transfers complete
with wordy notes. For me, though, his
vision is remote from my experience;
so much the worse for me of course but
my heart lies with Curzon, and more
particularly with the all too fallible,
all too human, Schnabel.
Jonathan Woolf
Rudolf Serkin (piano) 