A
valuable, well-played survey of some of Brahms’ most interesting
early works for the piano, some of which are less often played
and recorded than they might be.
Of
the first five of Brahms’ works to be given opus numbers, three
are piano sonatas, a fact which perhaps reflects Brahms’ own
considerable accomplishments as a pianist. The first to be composed
was the sonata in F sharp minor, though it was later designated
Opus 2. The C major sonata with which Oleg Marshev begins his
programme was the second to be composed. It is markedly classical
in many respects, and it has often been pointed out that the
opening allegro has affinities with Beethoven. Marshev plays
it well, from the opening flourish to the tonally complex recapitulation.
There is an impressive coherence to Marshev’s conception of
the movement. The andante takes the form of a set of variations
on a German folk song theme, played here with a winning quietness
and reflectiveness. The passionate scherzo has plenty of fire
and the trio has the necessary sparkle. The technical demands
of the allegro finale (‘con fuoco’) are played with impressive
clarity of articulation. Overall, Marshev puts the case for
this early sonata very persuasively, and makes one wonder why
we don’t hear it more often.
The
Variations on a Theme by Robert Schumann are heard even
less frequently. A theme from the first of the Albumblätter
from Schumann’s Bunte Blätter provides the starting point
for sixteen variations, handled with great inventiveness and
compositional sophistication. There are many musical echoes
of work by Schumann: the ninth variation effectively paraphrases
material from the second of the Albumblätter, the tenth
quotes from the sixth of Schumann’s opus 5 Impromptus, and the
same ‘theme of Clara Wieck’ is remembered in the final variation.
The opus 20 of Clara Schumann herself is a set of ‘Variations
on a Theme of Robert Schumann’, the theme being the very one
used for these variations by Brahms, one which Clara described
in her diary as “that wonderfully heartfelt theme that means
so much to me”. Through his choice of this particular theme,
and through the allusions contained in his variations, Brahms
was, effectively, making a musical statement of his emotional
closeness to the Schumanns. There are some virtuosic fast variations,
played in exhilarating fashion here, but Marshev also does justice
to the melancholy quality of some of the slower passages - Schumann’s
mental illness had already led to his hospitalisation when Brahms
was writing these variations – and a tragic note is not far
away in the closing adagio.
The
Ballades are perhaps the most familiar music here. It was primarily
of the ‘ballad’ in the sense of a setting of a narrative poem
(or such a poem itself), rather than in the sense in which it
was employed by Chopin, that Brahms was thinking in these pieces.
To the first of them Brahms added the inscription “after the
old Scottish ballad ‘Edward’ in Herder’s Stimmen der
Völker”. The original ballad is a menacing dialogue,
between mother and son, from which emerges a revelation of bloody
patricide and “the curse of hell”. The dramatic emotional power
of Brahms’s response to this anonymous ballad is fully communicated
through Marshev’s excellent judgement as regards dynamics and
rhetoric. No specific texts seem to lie behind the other ballades,
so far as is known. Even so the second seems to have a kind
of narrative drive to it, especially as performed here. The
fourth seems more lyric than narrative and draws some quite
beautiful, slow intimate playing from Marshev. In the third
the contrast between the hard-driven scherzo and the pianissimo
legato is wonderfully expressive.
There
are other fine recorded performances of the Sonata – by Katchen
and Richter, both on Decca, for example - and of the Ballades,
e.g. by Michelangeli on DG. These performances by Marshev don’t,
of course, supersede such performances; but they are very fine
and very well recorded and will, at the very least, bear comparison
with the work of such greats.
As
a sampler of the piano compositions of the young Brahms, and
as a thoroughly musical recital, this CD can be very warmly
recommended.
Glyn Pursglove
