Ludwig van BEETHOVEN (1770-1827)
Piano Sonata No. 32, op. 111 in C minor (1822) [25:50]
Piano Sonata No. 10, op. 14 no. 2 in G major (1798) [17:44]
Piano Sonata No. 17, op. 31 no. 2 in D minor ‘Tempest’ (1802) [23:58]
Naum Grubert (piano)
rec. 13-15 March 2013, Westvest 90, Schiedam, the Netherlands.
NAVIS CLASSICS NC14002 [67:35]
I often avoid agreeing to write reviews of recordings by people
I know, but not writing up complimentary copies can also seem a bit churlish.
I was given my copy of Latvian-born pianist Naum Grubert’s Beethoven
sonatas as I had a hand in preparing the booklet notes, so have to declare
an interest. You wouldn’t expect me to bad-mouth a release in which
my name is printed but the simple truth is I’m not under contract, and
if I didn’t like the recording I simply wouldn’t write the review.
Navis Classics started up last year and this is only their second release,
but it is an ambitious one. The catalogues are crawling with recordings of
the Beethoven’s piano sonatas by names both venerable and new, and tackling
these works afresh is a brave move by all concerned. Naum Grubert fully intends
to record more, though I don’t believe a complete cycle is in prospect.
On this showing his performances will be eminently collectable and rewarding.
My main reference for Op. 111 these days is Igor Levit on Sony Classical
(see review).
Levit and Grubert are distinctive in their way, but I can revel in the way
both of them create a logical narrative in the unusual first movement. This
is music of dramatic contrasts, and Levit is the more theatrical of the two,
making musical points with micro-rubatos within phrases. Grubert does less
of this kind of thing, but his dynamic contrasts create more light and shade
somehow, creating as much of a curtain raiser and subsequently parrying with
Beethoven’s complex counterpoint in an operatic ensemble which advances
and recedes like a real switchback. Timings are about equal in the first movement,
but Grubert is a little more compact in the second, keeping up a brisker tempo
in the ‘music-box’ section at 9:52. The Arietta is taken
as the movingly quiet musical moment it should be, without draining the music
of energy in too slow a tempo. Grubert winds up the tension over that stretched
span of time very effectively, delivering both repose and heightened expectation.
This expectation is richly rewarded by the turbulent and sotto voce
variations which follow, Grubert handling Beethoven’s fiendish inventions
with panache, but also in no way denying the composer’s heroic struggles.
Grubert writes that “one can hardly believe that works from different
periods belong to the same composer”, and it is a point of interest
that he has chosen Opus 14 No. 2 to follow the mighty Opus 111.
This contrast works extremely well, the stormy clouds of Beethoven’s
late masterpiece being dispersed in music which owes at least some of its
genesis to the spirit of Mozart. Grubert takes the ‘unassuming simplicity’
of this piece and performs it with a smile, contrasting with András Schiff
on ECM 1943, whose elasticity of approach launches this work more into a Romantic
territory which, arguably, it shouldn’t have to sustain.
Opus 31 No. 2, nicknamed ‘The Tempest’ represents middle-period
Beethoven, Grubert seeing this stormy reference as “connected to the
inner life of the soul…” rather than a representation of nature
as might be found in the Pastoral Symphony. One comparison I made
was that with Friedrich Gulda, who whipped up a storm with his 1967 cycle
of the complete Beethoven sonatas. Gulda is swifter and more urgent and intense
in the first movement where Grubert finds a more legato lyricism in Beethoven’s
passagework, contrasting with articulation and a sustained atmosphere of quasi-elegance
in the tender moments, indeed, with a far more ‘Viennese’ feel
if you seek those candle-lit worlds to which this music would have been so
vibrantly new. Gulda impresses with virtuoso display but is heavy-hitting,
at times delivering associations with the piano accompaniment to a perilous
scene in an old silent film, playing fast and loose with dynamic markings,
and at times taking us into strangely futuristic worlds in his interpretation
of Beethoven’s pedal markings. Grubert’s reading is perhaps less
improvisatory in feel, but does for instance show us how this sonata points
towards Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. More comparable in terms
of timings is Louis Lortie in his Chandos cycle (see review),
but while he has as elegant a touch as Grubert I don’t like his crashing
gear changes in the midst of phrases. Both Lortie and Grubert take the central
Adagio in a tempo which pushes it over eight minutes, which is by
no means unusual, but shows where the inner contrast and double-dotted rhythmic
tightness wrought by Grubert generates more interest, making his 8:15 seem
‘right’ where Lortie’s 8:10 just sounds slow.
Grubert points out the enigmatic nature of the final movement, the “perpetuum
mobile” of which “can be read in very different ways.” Grubert
keeps things light and transparent, moving forward where Lortie in comparison
sounds stodgy, the extra 30 seconds or so timing being crucial in this instance.
Grubert’s rising phrases are demonstrably triumphant, rising out of
a whirling dance – the individual rising from the mass perhaps. András
Schiff (ECM 1945/46) does something different again in this movement, seeking
poetry and melodic power in those ostinato notes from the outset. This is
an interesting approach, equalising the hierarchy of the material to create
an ornate musical palace at which one can marvel and leaving aside the Sturm
of the title. Grubert keeps more to the spirit of the Tempest, by no means
overdoing the expressive turmoil but holding onto a more revolutionary spirit
to the end.
The recording for this release is very good indeed. Set in a by no means dry
but fairly intimate acoustic, the atmosphere is created as much if not more
within the instrument as by any external effects. Yes, there are many versions
of these pieces competing for your attention, but these recordings can stand
equal to and at times above leading and ‘classic’ versions, and
for myself I was thrilled to find out how good they are.
Dominy Clements
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