Schnabel’s
Bach recordings have been doing the rounds of late. EMI
Références (67210-2) transferred them not so long ago and
Doremi [7740] has done likewise. Urania contained most
of the same ground but we can discount that selection and
the Doremi, which are sonically far inferior to EMI and
Naxos’s work. Earlier re-release work was on Pearl.
Schnabel’s
Bach was uneven but at its best penetrating. His Italian
Concerto is conveyed at a festive tempo in the outer movements,
buoyant rhythmically albeit sometimes at the expense of
gabbled passagework. Some of the leaps are blurred; the
sense of strain is palpable though oddly it remains not
unattractively masculine. The expressive intimacy of the
slow movement perhaps suits him better; the finale reverts
to the vibrancy of the opening though somewhat vitiated
once again by sketchy detailing.
The
Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue in D minor BWV 903 does contain
elements of the technical lapses alluded to but the starker
rhetoric and Schnabel’s control of the gravity of the writing
ensures a perceptive, telling and frequently compelling
reading. The ascending arc of acuteness is reached in the
two Toccatas, which are the high points of his Bach discography. The
opening of the C minor is relatively slow but affectingly
intimate and direct, its Fugue I quite emphatic, the Fugue
II powerful and directional. The D major reprises these
virtues with a rather gruff avuncularity to be detected
in the Introduction and correspondingly stark intensity
in the Adagio. The Concerto performances teamed him with
his son Karl-Ulrich and Adrian Boult, somewhat unusually
directing not his BBC forces but the LSO, regular concerto
partners of Schnabel’s at this time. It’s a supple performance,
strong on linearity, and not stooping to smell the roses,
especially not in the first movement.
Despite
marketplace saturation point for these recordings, made
over the years between 1936 (the concerto) and 1950, the
year before Schnabel’s death, the fine, realistic sounding
transfers, and budget price will – and should – attract
admirers.
Jonathan
Woolf
Reviews of other Schnabel recordings on Naxos Historical
Artur Schnabel
(piano) 
