Ludwig van BEETHOVEN (1770-1827)
Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No.4 in G Op.58 (1806-8) [34:08]
Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No.5 in E flat Op.73 ‘Emperor’ (1809) [38:32]
Till Fellner (piano)
Orchestre symphonique de Montréal/Kent Nagano
rec. May and November 2008, Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier, Montréal
ECM NEW SERIES 2114 [72:40]
The pairing of Beethoven’s last two great piano concertos on one disc has
been done quite a few times and works well. Even though the shock of hearing
the Piano Concerto No.4 open with the solo piano and not a violin in
sight is now a 200 year old trick it still has a momentarily disorientating
effect if you’ve only recently moved on from Mozart.
I was bowled over by Austrian pianist Till Fellner’s Bach recordings on ECM,
and so leapt at the chance to hear him in these two great pieces. He and Kent
Nagano have worked together frequently over the last ten years, and so they
have an impeccable synergy and understanding of each other’s musical ideas
and approach both in general, and clearly in these works. This is something
which comes through from start to finish in these recordings. Beethoven’s
concertos demand both power and sensitivity from soloist and orchestra, and
this recording just oozes quality at every level.
Quality and musical partnership is one thing, add a unity of artistic vision
and the picture is pretty much complete. Coming back to the Piano Concerto
No.4 after a while busying myself with other things, and the first thing
that crossed my mind when first hearing the opening Allegro moderato was,
‘hey, this is slow …’ Grabbing the complete concertos box with Evgeny
Kissin on EMI, and I was both reassured and somewhat confused. Fellner’s
timing in this movement is 18:46 to Kissin’s 20:55, so not so slow after all.
When you start listening properly you realise it’s not the tempo which is
slow, but the sense of wide open space and sheer relaxed ease of musicianship
which gives an impression of stretched musical duration. In terms of overall
timing Fellner is closer to Mikhail
Pletnev and the Russian National Orchestra on DG in the Piano Concerto
No.4, though the Russian team has a more outwardly dramatic approach.
That’s the thing with this recording. There is drama, but it is revealed
in the remarkable content of the score, the composer’s imagination, rather
than in the bravura of technical fireworks in the performance. While, as the
ECM website tells us, these are “sensitive and meticulous” interpretations
of these concertos, the musicians are almost self-effacing in their pursuit
of the edifices of poetry which Beethoven has presented us. Yes, the impact
in the final Vivace of the fourth concerto is full-blooded enough where
the score demands. However both soloist and orchestra are always creating
worlds of refinement – not in terms of boudoir fluff, but with a facility
and understanding which seems to peel layers from accrued performance practice.
This counteracts the dragging in of too much pianistic personality and/or
defeats any tendency to diffuse the sheer ‘voice’ that Beethoven is most emphatically
expressing.
The Piano Concerto No.5 is more of a show pony in this regard, and
there are some gloriously sonorous statements in this performance. Once again
however, the playing is never overblown, the dramatic moments always holding
something in reserve, the inner detail never lost in a drive towards impressiveness
and a superficial ‘wow’ factor. The winds and brass come through the orchestral
texture, but always in a well weighted balance, and with only one or two fluty
moments where the notes leak a little too far into the ends of the notes.
The recording information by the way gives these as ‘concert’ recordings,
but there are very few flecks of audience noise to indicate a live environment,
and admittedly little of that edge-of-the-seat feel of danger which can sometimes
create an extra degree of excitement. It’s annoying to have to keep contradicting
oneself, but even where these musicians are clearly well within their comfort
zones, live or not, this Piano Concerto No.5 is anything but dull.
The drive here is not in a search for truth or a moment of inspiration, but
in showing a truth which can be and has been found in works which are in and
of themselves inspired. There is no rush of blood to any part of the body
required in the haste to reveal this truth, after all, Beethoven has already
mapped everything out with sensitive meticulousness, and we need only gaze
on with awe. Unlike Kissin, Fellner and Nagano do not linger excessively over
the central Adagio, but create a marvel in which the melodic lines
and harmonic pace and rhythm move and undulate like something living and breathing.
Again, this is a peeling away of the extraneous and the unnecessary, a proof
that less can be more, without short changing us in terms of expressive content
and that all important emotional journey which makes life worth living. The
final Rondo dances rather than gallops. Another aspect of this recording
which is almost tangible is that sense of Viennese cultural depths which root
these recordings into worlds we can barely recapture in any other form of
art these days.
The stunningly detailed but highly natural sound from ECM engineer Markus
Heiland suits these performances like the proverbial painter’s palette, and
interesting booklet notes from Paul Griffiths and a few facsimile pages of
Beethoven’s autograph scores nicely top off an attractive looking package.
I’ve long been a big fan of and still value old favourites like the Murray
Perahia - Bernard Haitink - Concertgebouw recordings from the 1980s, and still
very much enjoy Kissin and other notables in this repertoire. The Montréal
forces under Nagano are a superb band, beautifully shaped when accompanying
and with a tremendous full sound when in full cry, but in a very real sense
the partnership between soloist and orchestra is that of equals. Till Fellner
is a marvellous pianist, but is so closely linked to the performance as a
whole that the impression left is not so much that of solo + accompanist,
but of Beethoven’s remarkable message performed in as convincing a way as
I’ve heard for a very long time.
Dominy Clements