This is a fine ranging
volume from Joyce Hatto, which shows
her, once more, as a Brahmsian of real
distinction. Ranging from the early
Op 4 Scherzo to the eight Klavierstücke
Op 76 we also have three of the Ballades
and a titanic Paganini Variations. The
Scherzo was written when Brahms was
eighteen and it’s instructive to compare
and contrast Hatto’s performance with
that another powerful Brahms player,
Krystian Zimerman – not least because
I generally tend to measure her for
these purposes against those titans
from her own past, men like Backhaus
and Rubinstein and Cortot. We find that
she is punchy and youthfully insistent,
more so than he, whereas Zimerman favours
greater agogic indulgence and more stentorian
chording. I tend to favour her youthful,
fresh-cheeked high spirits over the
rather bearded Brahms cultivated by
Zimerman.
The Klavierstücke
again reveal important differences,
if one takes Hatto’s performance and
analyses it against Tomás Vásáry’s.
Hatto takes the F sharp minor Capriccio
in a very linear fashion – direct, left
hand melody subsumed directionally,
whereas Vásáry is significantly
slower, his bass chording more vertical,
his approach more "pregnant"
with meaning. His rubati carve a sense
of eruptive ascent though I think one
could convincingly argue that Hatto
captures rather better the sense of
unease and withholding – the complex
business of implying without stating.
In the B minor Capriccio Hatto shines
with her sense of incision and also
puckish wit. She never indulges rubati.
There are always differences of emphases
in these pieces; whereas she stresses
the rhythmic games of the Intermezzo
in A flat and takes a relaxed tempo,
stressing the charming gravity of it
as she expands tonally with great romantic
generosity, Vásáry prefers
to explore the sense of animated vigour.
The Intermezzo in A major is one that
I would characterise as embodying Hatto’s
pianistic curriculum vitae. It is affectionate
yet tensile, with rubati under perfect
control, without indulgence or gallery
playing. She is slower than Vásáry,
and demonstrates a lighter and more
mobile left hand – her Brahms is not
stolid or bloated – and she prefers
transparency of texture and clarity
of finger work to fudging. She is certainly
not one to go down the portentous Brahmsian
route in the A minor Intermezzo. Vásáry
– and many others – tends to italicise
this one; Hatto lets her fingers do
the work, and the musical talking.
I enjoyed the Ballades.
In the D minor Hatto once more takes
a more direct line than Zimerman, who
is more obviously introspective than
she but in the D major her structural
acuteness pays off. If you play the
opening section too slowly you need
to be very careful not to splinter this
piece in two, a failing Zimerman doesn’t
entirely escape. Hatto meanwhile takes
a brisker tempo and the second, eruptive
section is far more integrated in her
hands. It doesn’t sound as inflammatory
but it makes far more narrative sense.
There are big divergences in the remarkable
B minor Ballade. Zimerman is quite skittish
with big internal contrasts of mood,
tone and tempo and a slower tempo to
accommodate them all. Hatto elicits
some spectral intimacies here and can
be square-jawed (in the best sense)
and commandingly cogent.
And we have yet to
reach the Paganini Variations, a cripplingly
difficult work. Hatto’s technique is
amazingly powerful here in a work that
is more practised in private than performed
in public (and no wonder). What is so
notable about her performance is the
fusion of the poetic and the technical.
So for example in the trill study (Book
I No. 4) she manages to convey the melodic
ebb and flow even when dealing with
the right hand little finger trills.
This is amplified by the sense of espressivo
she cultivates in No. 5 – even in the
midst of the nasty cross rhythms and
polyphony. If a pianist can’t convey
a musical line here he is lost. Hatto
is triumphant. She copes with the syncopated
octaves of No 6 with impassive control
and in the musical box variation (Book
1 No. 11) she is appositely tender and
tonally elfin. And her right hand glissandi
in No. 13 are marvellously effective.
One needs an exceptional technique to
cope with the hellish double notes of
Book II No. 1 – Brahms’ little joke
if one has survived the assault course
of Book I. There are no tricks here
or short cuts in Hatto’s performance,
nor can one doubt her poetry in the
espressivo Book II No. 2 or the gentle
waltz rhythm of No. 4. As Hatto has
shown from her Chopin Mazurka discs
she knows how to dance. The driving
ascending arpeggios of No. 10 are daringly
despatched and yet, once again, the
equilibrium between finger sinew and
emotive expression is encapsulated in
the Variations Nos. 11 and 12 where
we move immediately from octave/single
note complexity of No. 11 to the limpid
delicacy of No. 12. All in all this
is a distinct achievement, conveyed
with the minimum of ostentation, as
indeed is the whole disc.
Jonathan Woolf
Joyce Hatto (piano)