MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


CD REVIEW

Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

Not available in the USA.

alternatively
CD: AmazonUK
Download:
Classicsonline


Ignacy Jan Paderewski: a Selection of his US Victor Recordings 1914-1941
Ludwig van BEETHOVEN (1770-1827)
Sonata in C sharp m op.27/2 – “Moonlight”: First movt (rec. 16 December 1926) [5:03]*
Franz SCHUBERT (1797-1828)
Impromptu in B flat D.935/3 (rec. 12 May 1924) [9:06]
Franz LISZT (1811-1886) after SCHUBERT
Horch, horch! Die Lerch (rec. 12 May 1924) [3:18]
Fryderyk CHOPIN (1810-1849)
Waltz in A flat op.42 (rec. 26 June 1922) [3:51]
Nocturne in F sharp op.15/2 (rec. 14 May 1917) [3:53]*
Mazurka in A flat op.59/2 (rec. 12 May 1924) [2:39]
Mazurka in F sharp m op.59/3 (rec. 12 May 1924) [3:28]
Etude in C sharp m op.25/7 (rec. 4 May 1923) [4:27]
Etude in D flat op.25/8 (rec. 12 May 1923) [1:20]
Etude in G flat op.25/9 (rec.12 May 1924) [1:16]
Felix MENDELSSOHN (1809-1947)
Lied ohne Worte in C op.67/4 – “Spinnerlied” (rec. 4 May 1923) [1:51]
Robert SCHUMANN (1810-1856)
Warum? op.12/3 (rec. 30 April 1914) [2:56]
LISZT
La leggerezza S144/R5 no.2 (rec. 4 May 1923) [5:02]
LISZT after WAGNER
“ Spinnerlied” from “Der fliegenden Holländer” S440/R273 (rec. 12 May 1924) [5:05]
Richard WAGNER (1813-1883) arr. E. Schelling
Tristan und Isolde: Act 1 Prelude (rec. 14 October 1930) [7:38]*
Sergei RACHMANINOV (1873-1943)
Prelude in C sharp m op.3/2 (rec. 13 October 1930) [2:51]*
Prelude in G sharp m op.32/12 (rec. 13 October 1930) [2:15]*
Claude DEBUSSY (1862-1918)
Préludes 1: 12. Minstrels (rec. 13 October 1930) [2:32]*
Ignacy Jan PADEREWSKI (1860-1941)
Melody in B op.8/3 (rec. 4 May 1923) [2:52]
Minuet in G op.14/1 (rec. 20 May 1926) [3:52]*
Recorded address on the observance of the golden anniversary of Ignacy Jan Paderewski’s American debut (rec. 31 January 1941) [3:50]*
Ignacy Jan Paderewski (piano)
Items marked * rec. New York City, others Camden, New Jersey, USA, dates as above
NAXOS 8.112011 [79:08]
Experience Classicsonline

Years ago I bought  a Pearl LP of some Paderewski performances, all recorded in New York in 1930. I was not terribly impressed, finding it pallid beside another Pearl issue of Ignaz Friedman that I bought at the same time, and did not explore further. I now see that, while you have to be a little selective over your Paderewski, he still has things to tell us.
 
Between the Pearl LP and the present issue there is one common item, one that seems common but is actually a different take of basically the same performance, and two pieces that are heard here in earlier acoustic recordings. So I’ll start with the common item, the Wagner-Schelling transcription, to get a measure of the transfer techniques involved. As collectors of historical piano records will know, the Pearl philosophy is to put the recordings onto LP/CD straight, pretty well as you hear them on a standard gramophone of the 1950s and 1960s that allowed you to play both 78s and LPs. The hiss level is high but the piano is very present. We seem to be right up close to the pianist.
 
On the rare occasions that I have been able to hear a 78 played on older equipment with a fibre needle, I have noted that the hiss is less intrusive, the sound mellower. You can argue two ways about this. You can say that modern equipment is picking up signals that were captured but could not be reproduced by the gramophones of the day, or you can say that the producers and engineers of the time had musical ears and tried to work it so that what their listeners heard was as much like the original as was then possible. Ward Marston evidently takes the latter view. I imagine he works with careful filtering, not an original machine with fibre needles, but what we hear is a relatively gentle hiss and a piano that we seem to hear from a seat in the concert hall rather than close up. The heavier passages of this arrangement sounded a little clumpy and overbearing in the Pearl version; here they emerge as pleasantly full.
 
Much has been written, too, about Paderewski’s style being irrevocably old fashioned, with its free rubatos and tempo changes, its splitting of hands and chords. Certainly, if you listen to the heavy rallentando near the beginning of the Beethoven movement or to the sudden spurt of tempo before the return to the original key about two-thirds through, you will get the idea of a highly romanticized Beethoven. On the other hand, you may rarely have heard the persistent triplets played with such an independent life of their own, the melodic lines so beautifully drawn, even the long bass notes acquiring a mysterious beauty. Certainly, Paderewski seems to have no doubt that the piece is about moonlight. The title was not Beethoven’s, but he surely intended a thing of beauty and it certainly is so here.
 
Similarly the Schubert. True to his generation, he finds none of the suffering that post-war interpreters have drawn from this music, yet there is a speaking quality to his very free phrasing and he seems unhappy only with the minor-key variation.  
 
The Chopin pieces all deserve careful study. It may be noted that Paderewski’s Chopin is generally elegant and refined. There is none of the fiery passion which is sometimes passed off as authentically “Polish”. Though in truth the filmed version of him playing the op. 53 Polonaise – available on DVD in “The Golden Age of the Piano” – shows that his patriotic fires burnt strongly when need be. What is remarkable is the independence, not just of his two hands, but of every single voice in the texture. The separation of the hands and chords in the voluptuous duet that is the op.25/7 Etude, for example, is of no account when every line soars freely. My only doubts concern the other two Etudes here, particularly op.25/8, which were not originally published and seem a little heavy.
 
The Mazurka op.59/2 offers a comparison with the 1930 version on Pearl. Differences are minimal – evidently he didn’t change his basic view much – but the later one sounds just a mite more heavy-handed. He was, after all, 70 years old by 1930 and I get the idea that the earlier recordings are in general the best. In spite of Jonathan Summers’s contention in his notes that the electrical recordings – from 1926 – were “the first recordings truly to capture Paderewski’s range of tone” I had no difficulty in appreciating the earlier ones. Indeed, the 1914 Nocturne is an exquisitely drawn performance in sound that comes across remarkably well for the date, as does the even earlier Schumann “Warum”, its upper voices curling their question marks around each other.
 
Outside Chopin, results are variable. Compared with Rachmaninov’s humorous but amiably eccentric version of the Mendelssohn, Paderewski could almost pass for a Mendelssohn stylist with his neat, sparkling semiquavers. Chopin interpreters do not invariably make good Liszt interpreters and the Etude here perhaps lacks grandeur and sweep. The light semiquaver work is nevertheless scintillating. This begs the question that Paderewski trained in a world where pianos had a lighter touch than the Steinways of the 20th century and seems happiest in those pieces – which include most Chopin as he conceives it – where he can evoke the earlier instruments.
 
The “Spinning Chorus” from the “Flying Dutchman” is one case where the 1930 version is preferable. In 1924 he managed to get it all onto one longish side. The remake probably stemmed from a realization that the result was brilliant but breathless. In 1930, allowing himself a minute extra, he conveys more sense of enjoyment. Moreover, the interventions of the Dutchman’s leitmotiv, brushed over in 1924, are allowed considerable poetry in 1930.
 
The Rachmaninov Preludes are an odd case. Paderewski shaves almost a minute off the composer’s own recordings of the C sharp minor, sounding doggedly matter-of-fact in the outer sections. Many are the tales of Rachmaninov, who had come to hate the piece, finally conceding it as an encore at his recitals and approaching the piano with a face as black as doomsday. Yet his three recorded versions, at least, distil the utmost in poetic gloom, without a hint of staleness. The G sharp minor is also read by Paderewski as a minor salon trinket, a sort of autumnal companion to Sinding’s “Rustle of Spring”, which he would probably have played much better. Again, Rachmaninov himself inflects the opening with inimitable, wistful poetry. These recordings were not issued at the time, so presumably Rachmaninov was spared hearing them.
 
The Debussy is pretty cavalier over dynamics and some other oddities suggest he insisted on playing from memory a piece he didn’t know all that well. A strange pause – a memory lapse? – on the last page does not appear in the Pearl version and it was only here that I noted that Naxos offer, in fact, the second of four takes. The Pearl, dated two months later, was presumably the one chosen for issue, though it, too, has its quirks. The performance is lively but lacks impish glee and sarcasm – did Paderewski not have a sense of humour? I seem to recall that the three other Préludes recorded at these sessions were more successful. Debussy was certainly pleased – many years earlier of course – to have them played by such a famous pianist.
 
Paderewski’s own “Melody in B” finds him on obviously congenial terrain, with singing lines and limpid textures. The famous – or infamous – “Minuet in G” fuels the suspicion that he did not really have a sense of humour, since you would have to be fairly self-important not to see the funny side of such a piece. There is an element of the same in the platitudinous address that concludes the CD. This should, however, be judged against the standards of such speeches at the time. It may also conceal more art than it seems since his hope that his “beloved Poland” and the United States would continue to be great free nations implies, without actually saying it, a swingeing criticism of the current American politics. For Poland had been enslaved to the Nazis for over a year and the USA had as yet not lifted a finger to help.   
 
The notes by Jonathan Summers are extremely informative and well-balanced. I began by referring to an LP issue of Paderewski recordings that did not encourage me to investigate further. I think this one will make you want to hear more.
 
Christopher Howell
 

 


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools




Return to Review Index

Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.