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Murray Perahia Summits Beethoven's Everest · The Piano Maven with Jed Distler

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  This is Jed Disler and welcome to The Piano Maven, your friendly podcast guide to piano
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  recordings.
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  In 2019, I was asked by Deutsche Grammophon to contribute a video promoting Murray Pariah's
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  recording of Beethoven's so-called Hammerklavier Sonata as part of a series of Beethoven reissues
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  that they called Colt Classics.
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  This series was scheduled for 2020.
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  I never really followed up with it, but the pandemic, of course, upended many Beethoven
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  projects and tributes.
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  I also wrote in 2019 a gramophone collection piece about various recordings of the Hammerklavier.
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  And in this article, I cited Murray Pariah among my four top recommendations.
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  Murray Pariah recorded this longest and arguably most challenging of Beethoven's 32 piano sonatas,
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  the Sonata No. 29 in B-flat, Opus 106.
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  He recorded this in 2016, and it was coupled with the Beethoven Moonlight Sonata.
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  The Moonlight is a really excellent performance, but it's the Hammerklavier that I want to
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  talk about on this podcast because I think that Murray Pariah's interpretation is quite
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  remarkable on many levels.
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  It has great focus and detail, as one usually expects from this pianist's studio recordings,
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  as well as his live performances.
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  But it also communicates the kind of spontaneity and flexibility and nervous energy that I
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  remembered from hearing this pianist play the Hammerklavier live in concert during the
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  2016 season.
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  For example, let's take the opening Allegro.
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  Pariah's basic tempo comes within spitting distance of Beethoven's, shall we say, rather
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  unreasonable or optimistic, as you might want to call it, metronome marking.
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  And Pariah generates lots of excitement and drama, but he also conveys the music's linear
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  trajectory with the utmost clarity and transparency.
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  And his sonority has a fullness and a definition to it, no matter how loudly or how softly
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  he plays.
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  And that's easier said than done.
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  In that little scherzo movement, Murray Pariah is clearly having great fun with Beethoven's
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  unpredictable accents and all of those rhythmic displacements.
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  It's like watching a master juggler or a great sleight of hand artist.
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  The adagio sostenuto is the longest slow movement of any Beethoven sonata.
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  It's not easy to sustain in performance, but Murray Pariah does so by anchoring his beautifully
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  spun out right hand lines to a strong left hand underpinning.
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  And as such, he does full justice to the music's expressive potential and to its structural
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  integrity.
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  One has to remember that Beethoven was essentially a classicist, and I would say that Murray
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  Pariah always has been as an interpreter.
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  The finale represents Beethoven at his most volatile, and that is especially true about
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  that wild and crazy fugue.
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  Many pianists tend to get heavier and thicker and slower as the fugue unfolds, but not Murray
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  Pariah.
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  Now sometimes he will shade the tempo a little bit to enhance the music's changing moods,
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  but the lines of the fugue never, never, never bog down.
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  They consistently move forward and they are constantly alive with character.
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  Knowing how Murray Pariah works, I would suspect that a great deal of scholarship and analysis
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  went into his interpretation.
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  Not to mention hours and hours of piano practice.
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  But his performance does not have one pedantic bone in its body.
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  So I would say, to sum this up, that Murray Pariah's Hammerclavier achieves a real ideal
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  fusion of the personal and the universal that, for me, it adds up to a stimulating and really
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  gratifying listening experience.
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  It's certainly a recording of the Hammerclavier that holds a special place in my collection,
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  alongside versions by Peter Serkin, the recording he did on a Steinway, not the one that he
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  did on a Grafforte piano.
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  I would also include Claudio Arau's Phillips recording of the Hammerclavier.
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  And there are some pianists who are less well known, yet I think have given us equally fantastic
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  Hammerclaviers.
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  Think of George Frederick Schenck, Dina Ugorskaya, David Allen Ware has a great Hammerclavier.
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  There's also a Hammerclavier that's only been on LP, it's never been on CD.
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  I think it's one of the top ones ever recorded.
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  And it features the American pianist, Beveridge Webster.
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  But these recordings I'll discuss in future podcasts, hopefully.
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  This is Jed Disler, and you've been listening to the Piano Maven, your friendly podcast
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  guide to piano recordings.
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  Definitely check out Murray Pariah's Hammerclavier, and I hope you enjoy it.
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  I look forward to being with you next time.