This, as the football pundits say, is “a game of two halves”. I admit to
deriving a great deal more pleasure from the second item on this recording,
which is Mahler’s arrangement for strings of Schubert’s most celebrated
quartet. Its novelty is part of the reason but I am also seduced by the
depth of sonority and sensitivity of the strings of the Accademia di Santa
Cecilia. They are particularly adept in the second variations movement,
their subtle gradations of dynamics and phrasing lending a sophistication to
a version which can easily sound precious and bombastic. The delicacy of the
end of that
Andante con moto is exquisite.
Another reason for my preference for this over cellist Piovano’s own
arrangement of “L’arpeggione” is that he plays a five-stringed, period cello
which is from 1795 and sounds it; the strings have obviously been instructed
to play correspondingly sans vibrato and the whining effect is not always
grateful on the ear. However, fans of period instrument style will perhaps
enjoy its plaintiveness more than I.
The recording itself is not faultless: the acoustic is rather cavernous,
yet the microphones have been placed too close to the soloist-director,
hence each phrase is preceded by an all-too-audible upbeat sniff. This is
much more noticeable in the first item. Nor do I feel that Piovano, either
as a result of the limitations of the instrument he plays or of deliberate
choice, achieves the requisite variety of tone we hear from exponents such
as Maria Kliegel on the excellent super-bargain Naxos label in the
cello-piano version or the transcription for viola played by Yuri Bashmet in
an equally recommendable recording.
Yet the Mahler transcription is mesmerising: intense, thrilling and
liberated in a way too few recordings are these days. The Presto finale is
simply marvellous: a swirling, demonic
tour de force that gives new
life and urgency to one of Schubert’s most compelling conceits. I would buy
this disc for that movement alone.
Ralph Moore
