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Backhaus' Beethoven Diabelli Variations Reconsidered · The Piano Maven with Jed Distler

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  Thank you. This is Jed Disler, and welcome to
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  The Piano Maven, your friendly podcast guide
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  to piano recordings. Consider taking out a paid
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  subscription to this podcast, and you can find
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  a link to do so through the link to my Substack
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  page, which I have in the episode description.
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  Paid subscribers get a free download at the beginning
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  of every month, and we will have a Zoom chat
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  available. Pretty soon, sooner rather than later.
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  I know I keep promising that I'm going to do
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  this and then I go off on tour or I procrastinate
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  or I get too busy, but we are going to do this.
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  I do promise. Well, I hope I can promise it.
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  I've tended to give short shrift to the Beethoven
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  recordings of Wilhelm Bachhaus because, to be
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  honest, I... find his pianistic aesthetic not
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  always suitable for Beethoven's linear orientation
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  and Beethoven's inherent classicism. What I mean
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  is that some of the expressive gestures that
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  typify a lot of Bauhaus's Beethoven performances
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  strike me as being slightly mannered or outdated.
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  I don't know if I should really say that, but...
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  It's always struck me as such. For example, the
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  way that he often will start a movement at a
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  slightly slower tempo from which he accelerates
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  into the basic tempo. And most people don't do
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  that. Like, for instance, at the top of the rondo
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  of the third. concerto usually it goes and he'll
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  go maybe i'm exaggerating that but you get what
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  i mean and sometimes he makes arbitrary tempo
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  adjustments and he rounds off phrases a lot and
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  this is a reason for example that I've never
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  quite warmed to Backhaus in, let's say, the Beethoven
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  Hammerklavier Sonata. But just on a whim, I recently
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  revisited his 1954 recording of the Beethoven
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  Diabelli Variations. And in the past, I... kind
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  of dismiss this recording as being rather facile
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  when measured against other recordings from the
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  1950s, such as those of Claudio Arau and Rudolf
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  Serkin and Miroslav Hrushovsky and Leonard Shore.
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  Actually, the first Leonard Shore recording,
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  I think, was from the late 1940s, but, you know,
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  the same era. And even the 1953 recording by
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  Julius Katchen, which was for Decca. as was the
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  Bauhaus recording that came out the following
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  year in 1954. But... Now that I've listened to
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  the Bauhaus Diabelli Variations again, I actually
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  found it quite fascinating in many respects,
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  and it really held my attention, and I liked
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  it much, much more than I had in the past. His
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  tempos are generally brisk. He plays the Diabelli
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  waltz theme in a quick and rather forthright
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  manner. While the first variation, the funeral
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  march tempo, is not so slow and somber as you
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  often hear it, but it has great thrust and inner
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  swing. Variation number two is marked poco allegro,
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  but Bauhaus takes it at quite a clip with those
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  broken chords between the hands, yet... At this
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  fast tempo, it seems that the form of the theme
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  is more present and easier to grasp than usual.
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  Variations three and four have some flexibility
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  to them, but they are a bit impatient as far
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  as their forward trajectory. Bachhaus and how
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  he springs those repeated note phrases in Variation
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  5 really incisively. It's quite impressive. Also,
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  the decisive precision that he brings to the
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  trills in Variation 6. Number 9, I think, is
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  too fast for Beethoven's Pesante directive to
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  really register. but the presto number 10 variation
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  really takes wing without going insane. Number
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  12 is marked un poco più moto, but I think it's
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  way too fast for what the music's content is.
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  Number 13, though, that's the variation that
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  goes da -da -dum, bing -bing, da -da -ding, bing
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  -ging, you know, knock -knock, who's there? It's
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  not quite as humorous as Charles Rosen, who delays
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  some of those bump -bumps, you know, But Bauhaus
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  gauges the rests really, really well in this
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  variation. In variation number 21, you know,
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  the tempos are supposed to slightly change within
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  the variation, but Bauhaus pretty much keeps
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  them in the same tempo. The variation number
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  22 that's based on Mozart's Note e giorno fatica
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  from Don Giovanni is really great in the hands
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  of Bauhaus. And as you would probably expect,
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  the variation 23, you know, the... Forgive my
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  singing. David Hurwitz and I have always called
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  this the bang, scamper, scamper, scamper, scamper
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  variation. And with Bachhaus, it's really spot
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  on. Although he pulls the fast tempos back, surprisingly,
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  in variations 26 and 27, the slow minor key variations
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  toward the end don't. really reach the emotional
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  boiling point that you hear from people like
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  Schnabel and both Rudolph and Peter Sirkin and
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  Claudio Arrau, of course, and even Alfred Brendel.
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  But they're not perfunctory in this performance,
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  and they're not dragged out to death, which I
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  think is good. The fugue is light and crisp and
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  decisive, and the final variation that... concluding
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  minuet, you know, is as graceful and as disarming
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  as it should be. The total timing of this performance,
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  by the way, is nearly 44 minutes. Most recordings
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  of the Diabeles clock in at between 49 to 55
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  minutes, sometimes a little longer. And Bauhaus
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  does not leave out any repeats, unlike Gesa Anda,
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  for example. And what I like about the Bauhaus
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  performance is the overall vitality and freshness
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  and how he keeps the music moving. He's not going
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  to give you a cosmic experience. Don't expect
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  that. He held my attention, and I think he will
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  hold your attention, and he still creates long
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  arcs and paragraphs. There's a real unity to
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  the whole thing. So I've posted a link for you
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  to hear this recording in our episode description.
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  So I do recommend that you check out Wilhelm
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  Bauhaus and Beethoven's Diabelli Variations.
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  And if you haven't yet done so, or if you haven't
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  heard this recording in a while, reconnect with
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  it. You'll be delighted and perhaps as pleasantly
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  surprised as I was going back to listen to this.
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  I'm certainly not going to ever underestimate
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  it again, as I used to do. This is Jed Disler,
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  and thank you for listening to The Piano Maven,
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  your friendly podcast guide to piano recordings,
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  and I look forward to being with you for our
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  next episode.