Generally EMI
Classics has packaged up in its Triples series recordings
that can be safely recommended to newcomers. This EMI Triple,
however, is a box of controversy. Any novice who is tempted
by this release as a means of sweeping up Chopin's works
for piano and orchestra with a couple of piano sonatas
into the bargain is likely to be very puzzled. “I thought
Chopin was a Romantic poet. What is this blood and fire
stuff? There must be some mistake!”
There is no
mistake, at least not as far as the identity of the composer
is concerned. This is Chopin, yes, but not the noble, poetic
Chopin of the Rubinstein school. Alexis Weissenberg is
an uncompromising and almost cruel Chopin pianist, deploying
his powerful technique to devastating effect. Weissenberg's
tone has been described as flinty. To me it sounds like
ringing steel.
I'll start
with the final, piano solo disc in this Triple. Listening
to it straight through is an almost overwhelming experience.
The second piano sonata – famous for its funeral march
third movement – is terrifying, violent and headlong. Chopin's
poetry is glimpsed in scattered passages, but for the most
part is ousted by an angry Lizstian bravura. The opening
movement is heavy-handed and the scherzo veers from suggestions
of beauty to relentless build up. The presto finale flies
by in a disorientating whirl. There is feeling in the funeral
march though: Weissenberg's powerful fingers reach deep
into the keys for a unique sonority that seems to have
been dragged out of the earth itself.
The third sonata
is cut from the same interpretative cloth. Knuckleduster
chords and coruscating cascades of notes sparked by brute
force jostle with flashes of lyricism and charm, which
appear more to highlight their general absence than for
contrast or to relieve the frightened listener.
The Polonaise-fantaisie
that closes the disc and the set is thankfully a little
gentler. It was recorded in 1967 at the same time as discs
1 and 2 and almost a decade before its stable mates on
disc 3. Though the younger Weissenberg was just as strong-fingered,
chord-focused and unsentimental as the punishing Weissenberg
of the 1970s, he is not quite so angry.
This is true
in the concertos too, which also benefit from the contribution
of the orchestra. The Orchestre de la Société des Concerts
du Conservatoire under Stanislaw Skrowaczewski offer a
heavy-footed but full-bodied accompaniment which sounds
well, if a bit old fashioned, and importantly provides
contrast to the cold brilliance and forceful drive of Weissenberg's
playing. He does find more to wax lyrical over in the concertos.
On the other hand, his heavy hands, occasionally pointillistic
playing - for example, around the five minute mark in the
first movement of the second concerto - and lack of interest
in Chopin's faux operatic cantabile lines - for example
the slow movement of the second concerto – the slow movement
of the first fares better. Add to this his odd tempo choices
- the allegro vivace finale of the second concerto, for
example, is more of an allegretto – and I am afraid the
best that can be managed is a qualified recommendation.
The shorter
concertante items fare better again, as if Weissenberg
has decided that less important works are less in need
of a working over. He is more volatile in Variations on
Mozart's “
Lá ci darem la mano” than in the Andante
spianato and Grande Polonaise, the
Fantasy on Polish
National Airs and
Krakowiak, but as it was the
Mozart Variations that inspired Schumann to proclaim Chopin
a genius – as the liner-notes remind us – then perhaps
it is important enough for a little fire.
Weissenberg's
Chopin is not for the faint hearted, but it does have its
fans. No less a pianist than Glenn Gould commented parenthetically
in an
article in
the May 1976 issue of High Fidelity that: “I always felt
that I could live without the Chopin concertos and managed
to until Alexis Weissenberg dusted the cobwebs from Mme.
Sand’s salon and made those works a contemporary experience.” Gould
brands Weissenberg's Chopin as a “unique example of the
rite of re-creation”, alongside Barbara Streisand's
Classical
Barbara album. Take from that what you will. In any
case, those jaded listeners who cannot bear talk of the
warmth of Chopin's limpid beauty will probably enjoy Weissenberg's
bracing bucket of ice immensely.
Tim
Perry
Alexis Weissenberg (piano) 
