Latest / The Piano Maven with Jed Distler / John Ogdon plays Chopin and Beethoven - The Pickwick Recordings

Transcript

John Ogdon plays Chopin and Beethoven - The Pickwick Recordings · The Piano Maven with Jed Distler

• 0:07
  This is Jed Distler, and welcome to The Piano
• 0:11
  Maven, your friendly podcast guide to piano recordings.
• 0:15
  At least, I hope it's friendly. And paid subscribers
• 0:38
  get... all kinds of goodies such as free downloads
• 0:42
  at the beginning of each month. So do consider
• 0:45
  taking out a subscription. I want to talk about
• 0:48
  the pianist John Ogden, who had a remarkable
• 0:50
  yet troubled career, and you could say that about
• 0:53
  his life as well. He first earned attention as
• 0:57
  a prodigious teenager for... his absolutely natural
• 1:02
  technique and big sound and for his penchant
• 1:06
  for taking on big programs and to play as much
• 1:10
  music as he could get his hands on. He was an
• 1:14
  extraordinary sight reader who could go through
• 1:18
  a new and complicated piece in one sitting without
• 1:21
  a mistake and making music out of it too. But
• 1:25
  in the early 1970s, John Ogden's behavior became
• 1:29
  increasingly erratic and unpredictable, and he
• 1:33
  was diagnosed with mental illness. And a series
• 1:37
  of hospital stays curtailed his career. But by
• 1:41
  the end of the 1970s, he was back to concertizing
• 1:46
  and recording, although his behavior remained
• 1:49
  erratic and unpredictable to the end. Yet, even
• 1:53
  when his health was at its most tenuous, John
• 1:57
  Ogden still managed to perform and record on
• 2:01
  a high level, if not with the consistency of
• 2:05
  his youth. In the late 1980s, he recorded several
• 2:09
  discs for the Pickwick label. In America, Pickwick
• 2:14
  was Capitol Records' budget line for many years.
• 2:18
  And in the late 1980s, MCA in the United States
• 2:24
  launched a budget classical line called Pickwick
• 2:27
  that issued several John Ogden CDs that... also
• 2:33
  appeared on the IMP Classics label. And these
• 2:37
  were produced by John Boyden, who was the original
• 2:41
  founder of the Classics for Pleasure label in
• 2:44
  1970. And he was the first managing director
• 2:47
  of the London Symphony Orchestra. That was a
• 2:50
  position that did not last very long. But anyway,
• 2:54
  these recordings that he made with John Ogden
• 2:57
  that I'm going to talk about stand out for really
• 3:00
  fine engineering, and you get a nice concert
• 3:03
  hall realism, except maybe in loudest moments
• 3:06
  where the piano tone gets a little harsh. And
• 3:10
  despite everything going on with John Ogden personally
• 3:14
  in his final decade, there is some remarkable
• 3:18
  playing in these two discs that I'm going to
• 3:22
  talk about. One disc is devoted to music of Chopin.
• 3:26
  John Ogden plays the F minor fantasy with great
• 3:30
  intensity and almost outsized dynamics. It's
• 3:34
  a really epic, but I think very gripping interpretation.
• 3:39
  He plays the berceuse at a very leisurely pace,
• 3:44
  and Ogden's slight emphasis of the repeating
• 3:49
  D flat at the start of... each measure, almost
• 3:53
  each measure, has kind of a cumulative and very
• 3:57
  hypnotic effect, although the performance is
• 4:00
  a tad slow for my taste, and you might agree
• 4:04
  with that, but it certainly held my attention.
• 4:08
  I think his bark roll is generally too slow,
• 4:12
  and the phrasing is really too literal. It just
• 4:17
  doesn't have the kind of ebb and flow that you
• 4:21
  hear from the best Bach roles, you know, especially
• 4:24
  from people like Arthur Rubinstein. The tempos
• 4:29
  of the C minor Polonaise Op. 40 No. 2 in Zhang
• 4:34
  Ogden's performance don't quite relate to one
• 4:38
  another, although, again, a lot of what he does
• 4:41
  pianistically holds your attention. But his performance
• 4:45
  of the F major Nocturne Op. 15 No. 1, I found
• 4:50
  actually quite spellbinding, the outer sections
• 4:53
  just seem to float on air with every note flowing
• 4:57
  from the previous one. And in the Chopin B minor
• 5:03
  sonata, John Ogden sings out the first movement,
• 5:07
  second theme really beautifully, and he presses
• 5:11
  quite forward in the scherzo using a lot of pedal.
• 5:15
  Actually, I think these outer sections are a
• 5:18
  little too fast and hyper for my taste. But the
• 5:22
  Largo, again, is a lesson in slow yet hypnotic
• 5:26
  pacing, and I think it really hangs together.
• 5:29
  But the finale doesn't quite settle. It's a bit
• 5:32
  all over the place. But I think this is very
• 5:35
  serious and artistic piano playing throughout
• 5:38
  this disc. However... I think the Beethoven disc
• 5:42
  with the three so -called name sonatas, the Moonlight,
• 5:46
  Pathetique, and Appassionata, is much better.
• 5:50
  I wouldn't say much better, but I prefer it to
• 5:54
  the Chopin disc. In the Moonlight Sonata, John
• 5:57
  Ogden sustains the opening adagio sostenuto quite
• 6:02
  beautifully with a really full -bodied tone and
• 6:05
  the bass notes are very organ -like. It's almost
• 6:08
  similar to what he does in the Largo of the Chopin
• 6:11
  Sonata. And as this Beethoven adagio progresses,
• 6:15
  there's an increase in melodic inflection that...
• 6:20
  you don't quite get at the start. I think it's
• 6:22
  a very well put together interpretation. My only
• 6:26
  quibble is that Ogden really doesn't play softly
• 6:31
  enough in this movement. The allegretto, I think,
• 6:34
  is kind of too fast and mechanical. It really
• 6:38
  didn't turn me on in this performance. But the
• 6:42
  kind of... Energy, which I think is a little
• 6:45
  excessive in the allegretto, really works in
• 6:48
  the presto. And what's really cool about this
• 6:52
  performance, which I think is really quite powerful
• 6:55
  in John Ogden's hands, is that the left hand
• 6:58
  has a really strong presence. Those rapid accompanying
• 7:03
  ostinatos have a solidity that you don't always
• 7:06
  hear in other performances. Now the Pathetique's
• 7:10
  first movement introduction is stretched out
• 7:14
  to the max. Just that first chord alone. And
• 7:18
  you seem to be waiting forever until comes in
• 7:26
  like 500 years later. This performance is kind
• 7:31
  of like late -period Otto Klumperer channeled
• 7:34
  through the piano. It's grim, it's serious, it's
• 7:38
  monumental. Granitic is the euphemism that critics
• 7:43
  love to use for this kind of playing. But when
• 7:46
  the Allegro kicks in, in the Pathétique first
• 7:49
  movement, I think the playing is kind of blunt
• 7:52
  and again... It tends to be too loud, sometimes
• 7:56
  over -pedaled, as you hear in the second subject.
• 8:01
  I mean, John Ogden's power and intensity can't
• 8:08
  be denied, but I think this is a sound world
• 8:11
  that's more appropriate, let's say, for the Brahms
• 8:14
  F minor sonata. The Adagio Cantabile, the second
• 8:18
  movement, is held back and contained by contrast.
• 8:23
  Although sometimes what happens when John Ogden
• 8:26
  makes these little ritardandos for expressive
• 8:29
  emphasis, he doesn't quite get back on track
• 8:33
  with the basic tempo. But he shows in this movement
• 8:37
  how gorgeous his quiet legato playing can be,
• 8:41
  and the real je perlais in the phrasing. And
• 8:45
  in the rondo, some of the right hand... turns
• 8:49
  and runs aren't spelled out so clearly as you
• 8:52
  would expect, but there is a good feeling of
• 8:55
  tension in release. However, the real prize of
• 8:59
  this release is the appassionata sonata. This
• 9:03
  is an amazing performance, I think. The outer
• 9:06
  movements are full of heart -stopping, expressive
• 9:10
  dynamic surges and well -judged transitions.
• 9:14
  and the elongated silences have such drama. You
• 9:18
  are hanging on every note, and you don't always
• 9:21
  know what's going to happen next. John Ogden
• 9:25
  takes... Quite a measured tempo, though, for
• 9:28
  the theme of the central andante con moto variations.
• 9:31
  Every note in the slow -moving chords resonates,
• 9:35
  and he does not speed up for that first or second
• 9:40
  variation. I mean, the concentration is total
• 9:43
  and intense. And the slow tempo really lets the
• 9:48
  dissonances register. I mean, this is... probably
• 9:53
  more Brahmsian than Beethovenian playing, but
• 9:57
  it still really, really works. Now, he does pick
• 10:00
  up the tempo a bit for the third variation, but
• 10:03
  the bigness of the conception is still present,
• 10:07
  and it never lets up. Again, you can say that
• 10:11
  John Ogden does not play as softly as he should,
• 10:14
  but there are some telling diminuendos. And as
• 10:18
  I said earlier, the finale has the sweep and
• 10:22
  the continuity and the spontaneity and excitement
• 10:26
  of a live performance. So altogether, I think
• 10:30
  that John Ogden's Appassionata is one of the
• 10:34
  most original and compelling versions of this
• 10:38
  frequently recorded warhorse out there. And to
• 10:42
  be honest, I didn't know this performance until
• 10:45
  very recently. The physical discs for the Chopin
• 10:49
  and the Beethoven are hard to source, but you
• 10:52
  can definitely download or stream the Beethoven.
• 10:56
  As for the Chopin disc, I did check on Spotify,
• 11:00
  but I didn't find it there. You'll probably have
• 11:03
  to scrounge around to find it. Maybe it's located
• 11:06
  on other streaming platforms that I don't know
• 11:09
  about. And if you can find it, definitely let
• 11:12
  me know. I actually found these discs fairly
• 11:16
  recently at the Academy Record Store in New York
• 11:20
  City on 18th Street. And I paid, I think, $1
• 11:24
  .99 for each one. And I hadn't heard them, but
• 11:29
  I figured, you know, these are out of print.
• 11:31
  When am I ever going to see them again? So, of
• 11:33
  course, I grabbed them. And I'm glad I did. I
• 11:37
  think these two discs represent some of the best
• 11:40
  of John Ogden's later recorded work, and I do
• 11:45
  recommend that you hear them, especially for
• 11:47
  the Beethoven and that appassionata. Wow, wow,
• 11:51
  wow, wow, wow. This is Jed Disler, and you've
• 11:55
  been listening to The Piano Maven, your friendly
• 11:57
  podcast guide to piano recordings. Thank you
• 12:01
  for tuning in, and I look forward to being with
• 12:04
  you for our next episode. Take good care.