Comparison Recordings
of piano music by Haydn:
Capriccio in C, Hob XVII:4, Ronald Brautigam,
fortepiano BIS CD-1323
Sonatas Hob XVI: 49/50/51/52: Glenn
Gould, piano. CBS M2K 36947
Sonata in D, Hob XVI: 51: Joanna Leach,
square piano. Athene ATH CD2
Sonatas, Emanuel Ax, Hob XVI:48, 50
CBS (Sony) MK 44918
Sonatas 32, 33, 53,
54, 58. András Schiff, Warner
Elatus 2564 60677-2
András Schiff
is one of our greatest living pianists
noted, along with Murray Perahia, for
his enormous musical intelligence, expressive
power, and variety of repertoire. Haydn
as a composer of symphonies and oratorios
has long been admired, but as a composer
of piano sonatas he has been all but
ignored. The sonatas were until recently
considered to be playthings, irrelevant
salon works or student teaching pieces,
subjected to great infrequency of performance,
often treated as charming curiosities,
even performed with the piano lid closed
to give them a far-away, nostalgic ambience.
Full blooded piano performances are
a new development in our appreciation
of Classical Period repertoire, the
fertile ground from which sprouted the
ubiquitous Beethovenian sturm und
drang. It never seemed to occur
to anyone that, while the old pianos
sounded smaller in large auditoriums,
which were rare in those days anyway,
the experience of sitting at the keyboard
and playing the works, which is more
what they were intended for, was the
same as it is for any instrument. The
music was full volume, close, and immediate,
and this is how the composer heard it
and expected it to be heard.
A conscientious performer
is then put on a bit of a tightrope:
play the works with all the dynamics
and expression that the narrower keyboard,
lighter strings, and smaller sounding
board of the older pianos could provide,
but don’t emasculate the music, don’t
make it "charming." And don’t
pretend that Haydn actually did have
a Steinway D to play on; he didn’t,
and pumping up the music to fit the
new wider boundaries since become available
to us is no more a service to it than
to play it on a synthesiser or, say,
saxophone quartet.
Schiff of course walks
the tightrope perfectly and the music
comes totally alive under his fingers.
He discovers an enriching variety of
textures and vividly depicts the structure
of the works—their wit, their intellectual
complexity (Haydn was an enthusiastic
composer of canons), their artistically
balanced design, their balletic quality
(Haydn was second only to Tchaikovsky
in his ability to create a musical phrase
that depicts a human gesture)—displaying
a wide range and variety of keyboard
colours.
Julius Wender, in his
notes to the Ronald Brautigam recording
of the Fantasia in C, asserts
that the theme is original with Haydn,
and not a folksong, whereas in the notes
here Mischa Donat gives us the title
of a folksong ("The peasant woman
has lost her cat..."). A reasonable
resolution of this diversity would be
to assume that the folksong may be unfamiliar
to many scholars, or the tune may diverge
sufficiently from the theme of the Fantasia
that there may be some reasonable dispute
as to whether they are in fact the same
tune. For example, is a randy English
ballad* actually the theme of the variations
movement of Mozart’s A major piano sonata?
I say yes, but nobody agrees with me.
Schiff’s performance
of the Fantasia is the height
of virtuosity, drama, and comedy as
the playful cat is chased through every
register, key, and musical style, including
a little foretaste of Beethovenian moonlight.
These same sonatas
played by Glenn Gould feature Gould’s
customary adventuresome high-tension
adamantine staccato style with just
a little of his singing along in the
background. Schiff and Ax are more relaxed
(i.e., less neurotic), more generous
of spirit, the piano closer and richer
in sound.
Emanuel Ax has from
the very first been concerned with beauty
and elegance of sound, his first and
most durable recording triumphs being
in the music of Chopin. He has in his
career played and recorded just about
everything, even some Schoenberg, and
I suspect he alone among modern great
pianists regularly converses with the
ghosts of both Clara Schumann and
Franz Liszt. I think Ax is strongest
in his performances of the slow movements
of these sonatas, achieving an operatic
sense of lyricism; his piano seems to
breathe. Other pianists may achieve
just a little more drama in the outer
movements through their willingness
occasionally to risk playing gracelessly
and bluntly, to good effect.
Joanna
Leach mingles proudly with this
exalted company. At times she is just
a bit cautious and regular by comparison,
but the authentic sound of her instruments
is intriguing and her disks are enjoyable
well worth the attention of a serious
collector.
Don’t make the mistake
of assuming that just because Haydn
wrote 60+ piano sonatas they’re all
alike and no good. The bad news is that
they’re remarkably distinct and all
genuinely worth hearing, even if Beethoven
did steal so many of Haydn’s ideas that
a number of the Haydn piano sonatas
will sound startlingly familiar on first
hearing. Haydn’s musical personality
is very powerful and very likeable and
as you make his acquaintance you will
find yourself wanting to hear everything
he had to say. I’m going to look up
the other disk in this Schiff set right
away.
*"My thing is
my own/and I’ll keep it so still/but
other young maidens/may do as they will...."
Paul Shoemaker
András Schiff, piano 
