I
reviewed Joyce Hatto’s Douze
Études d’exécution transcendante
S.139, part of her Liszt series
for Concert Artist, and she made a powerful
impression. The second volume of the
studies confirms those qualities of
digital control, architectural sculpting
and sensitive musicianship.
In Waldesrauschen
for instance she seems to me to
cleave to a rich Lisztian tradition
that reaches back to Lamond. There is
no want of fantasy or drama but the
accents are crisp, the tempo bracing,
direction is impelled through musical
argument, pedal use is relatively sparing
and there’s a fine sense of arching
intensity. It’s certainly the case that
she reminds one much more of the Lamond-Bauer
school of Liszt playing than do the
later recordings of an almost exact
contemporary of hers such as Sergio
Fiorentino. Those perceptions are sharpened
by her equally fluent and fleet Gnomenreigen
where her passagework is translucently
clear – no fudging of runs for Hatto.
Un Sospiro is unusually intimate
and withdrawn, quite slow this time
with tonal extremes avoided in the interests
of concentration and control. As a result
the right hand becomes more subservient
to the homogeneity of her approach,
though there’s no lack of agility and
volatile playing in the left hand when
occasion demands. This is individual
and sensitive playing, with the peaks
and troughs of the musical argument
perceptively judged.
The Paganini Études
contain the usual cornucopia of pianistic
difficulty rising to the point of knuckle
whitening complexity. Hatto has mastered
the octave minefield of the E flat as
she has La Chasse’s arpeggios.
There is a sang froid about her playing
that seems not to defy the demands but
to absorb them. How many times has a
leonine virtuoso tossed off La Campanella
with rubato-straining, panache–wielding,
jaw-strutting, eyeball-rolling drama
– but how often has he controlled the
trills with as much graded acuteness
and musicality as Hatto? Or indeed implied
the quasi-pizzicati of the Theme and
Variations with as much natural refinement?
These recordings were
set down in 1998 and 1999 and are in
good, natural sound. They reflect well
on Hatto’s sensitive approach to the
repertoire.
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb
can now offer Concert Artist/Fidelio
recordings
Joyce Hatto (piano) 