I had some harsh
words to say about Schnabel’s “Hammerklavier”, so it is nice
to be able to say that the cycle concludes with an absolute
peak. Though no one would describe these last three sonatas
as technically easy, they are not quite so superhuman in their
demands as the “Hammerklavier” and Schnabel can just about
manage them. Of course, there are the odd snatched passages
if you are on the lookout for them, and he doesn’t make things
easy for himself in the first movement of op. 111, Beethoven’s
final fling at a “typical” driving allegro (which nevertheless
goes off the rails fairly often); Schnabel hurls himself at
this recklessly, then plunges into the abyss all the more
effective for his courageous tilting at the cliff-edge elsewhere.
What is truly
incredible, though, is the impression Schnabel gives of complete
freedom, but not his freedom, Beethoven’s. No
one else in my experience has been so completely able to give
the idea of a man communing with the unknown, with intangible
things in the farthest reach of the universe. Witness how
the sublime simplicity of the theme with which the second
movement of op. 111 opens develops into some sort of existential
crisis until gradually the threads are resumed and serenity
returns. Nothing is as simple as it seems in this late Beethoven,
and nothing is to be taken for granted. The opening of op.
110 has been made, in some hands, to speak of Mendelssohnian
comforts, but Schnabel lifts the music from the start into
an Elysian plain, in which the music’s far from predictable
trajectory seems to be the order of the day.
I realise I am
writing in a very fanciful manner, and regular visitors to
the site will know that I don’t usually do so. But this is
not an occasion when there is any point in going into what
he does with beat three of bar fifty-nine of the Adagio
non troppo – just be grateful that this has been conserved
for posterity in sound which may seem primitive at first (these
were some of the first in Schnabel’s Beethoven series) but
which you can quickly acclimatize to.
I don’t know what
our Editor is going to say about the lack of timings in the
headings (Restored by the Editor in the interests of the
plodding few who still prize casserole timing. RB), but
I just feel they would be meaningless. At the end of it all
I could hardly believe I had been listening for little more
than an hour – it felt like an immensely long experience,
yet also like no time at all. Time seems to move differently
when you hear late Beethoven played like this. But if you
must have these details you will find them on the Naxos site,
together with other mundane information like how much the
disc will cost you – it would still be worth it if they asked
a hundred times as much. And of course, full track details
come with the disc itself, so if you like using late Beethoven
to time the casserole you have nothing to worry about.
Christopher
Howell
see also
Review
by Colin Clarke
Artur Schnabel (piano)
