AVAILABILITY
www.branarecords.com
A number of Felicja
Blumental’s Brana discs have featured
on this site. For further biographical
material on the Warsaw-born pianist
who died in 1991 one can look there
or at Brana’s website. She was primarily
known as a specialist in Latin American
music - she came to Brazil in 1942 -
and twentieth century music (Villa-Lobos
featuring highly, with works dedicated
to her by such as Penderecki and Lutosławski
amongst others). But as Brana’s series
of reissues from the 1950s and 1960s
has demonstrated she had a foothold
in the Classical and Romantic camps
as well – a versatile, unruffled and
imaginative musician who was clearly
prepared to take chances.
Given the eclectic
nature of some of her recording sessions
across Europe – Austria, Germany and
Czechoslovakia were popular destinations
for her enrichment of the discography
– this latest release is a strange collection
of bedfellows. Possibly the most welcome
of the retrievals is the Fauré,
which features the superior accompaniment
of Rudolf Schwarz and the Philharmonia.
This suits Blumental well – its mix
of elliptical utterance and forthright
drama is well calibrated in this performance
and the recording stands up reasonably
into the bargain; she evinces a particularly
apposite sense of playfulness, which
I admired, especially when late Fauré
tends to be written off as gnomic and
tough.
The Liszt-Busoni Rhapsodie
espagnole comes out attractively and
though the recording is showing its
age the combination of La Folia, malign
left hand and perfumed Spanishry is
a potent brew. Busoni’s 1894 arrangement
is a conspicuously tangy one for orchestral
forces and given her predilections in
the repertoire it’s not surprising Blumental
was attracted to it. The Grieg has the
drawback of a swimmy acoustic and a
very up-front piano, so that it both
smoothes out the orchestral perspective
and tends to harden the piano tone.
I think only Blumental admirers will
really seek this one out; strings are
thin and the playing is a bit unrelieved
and stop-start.
Still, Blumental discs
do tend to throw up nuggets; I think
the Fauré is one, even though
it’s only a quarter of an hour long
and Brana continues to fly the flag
with enthusiasm.
Jonathan Woolf
Felicja Blumental (piano) 