Latest / The Piano Maven with Jed Distler / Steven de Groote plays Schubert

Transcript

Steven de Groote plays Schubert · The Piano Maven with Jed Distler

• 0:07
  This is Jed Disler, and welcome to The Piano
• 0:10
  Maven, your friendly podcast guide to piano recordings.
• 0:14
  I encourage you and invite you to consider subscribing
• 0:18
  to the Piano Maven through our Substack page.
• 0:23
  And paid subscribers get free downloads at the
• 0:27
  beginning of the month. And we have occasional
• 0:30
  Zoom meetings where we hang out and talk about
• 0:33
  all things piano. So I hope you will consider
• 0:38
  a subscription. recently covered the entire 2025
• 0:43
  Van Cliburn International Piano Competition as
• 0:47
  a blogger for Gramophone magazine. And I was
• 0:51
  blogging online. I was watching and listening
• 0:55
  to the concerts online when I was in Milan for
• 0:58
  a couple of weeks. And then I attended the finals
• 1:02
  in person in Fort Worth at the Bass Performing
• 1:06
  Hall. or Bass Performance Hall, excuse me. And
• 1:10
  this whole experience with the Clyburn this year
• 1:13
  got me thinking about past winners and the trajectory
• 1:17
  of their careers. The 1977 gold medalist, South
• 1:23
  African pianist Stephen de Groot, was a pianist
• 1:28
  whose recordings and live archival performances
• 1:31
  I had not... really paid much attention to until
• 1:35
  fairly recently, I have to admit. After his 1977
• 1:40
  Clyburn Gold Medal victory, Stephen DeGroote
• 1:45
  was thrust into a busy schedule of recital and
• 1:48
  concerto dates. However, he wound up scaling
• 1:52
  back this activity when he took a teaching position
• 1:56
  at the University of Arizona in 1981. He also
• 2:01
  was an avid amateur pilot, and in 1985, while
• 2:06
  practicing landings with an instructor near Phoenix,
• 2:10
  he crashed onto the Gila Indian Reservation.
• 2:14
  His aorta and one lung were punctured, in addition
• 2:19
  to many other injuries. After extensive surgery
• 2:24
  and a long period of recuperation, Stephen DeGroote
• 2:29
  not only to resume performing at full capacity,
• 2:33
  but he also resumed flying. How about that? In
• 2:37
  1986, he took a teaching position at Texas Christian
• 2:42
  University, which is where the Clyburn competition's
• 2:46
  preliminary and quarterfinal rounds take place.
• 2:50
  Sadly, Stephen DeGroote died in 1989 in Johannesburg
• 2:55
  of complications from AIDS. He was only 36 years
• 3:00
  old. In 1993, the South African label Claremont
• 3:07
  issued a disc of live Schubert performances with
• 3:12
  Stephen DeGroote. This is a disc that is almost
• 3:16
  impossible to find, and I was hesitant about
• 3:21
  talking about a disc that is rather impossible
• 3:24
  to find, but if you can find it, it is really
• 3:28
  well worth hearing, and I just want you to know
• 3:31
  about it. It contains the A minor sonata with
• 3:35
  the Deutsch number 845. It's a 1988 live performance
• 3:41
  from Johannesburg, and it's an interpretation
• 3:43
  that combines great sensitivity and driving passion.
• 3:48
  The pianist really pushes ahead in the first
• 3:51
  movement, moderato, but he proves quite poetic
• 3:55
  and flexible in the andante variations movement,
• 3:58
  and those fast right -hand runs have an amazingly
• 4:02
  effortless suppleness and lightness to them.
• 4:06
  The scherzo's syncopated accents and strategic
• 4:10
  rests make a pliably dramatic effect, while the
• 4:14
  rondo has a bubbling gaiety about it and also
• 4:18
  a gracefulness. It's really kind of light on
• 4:21
  its feet. I like how he performs this movement.
• 4:24
  Also on this disc is the second book of Impromptus
• 4:29
  with the These come from a performance at the
• 4:34
  Kimball Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, and
• 4:38
  the booklet note says that this recording was
• 4:41
  published courtesy of the Van Cliburn Foundation,
• 4:44
  so I imagine that the concert was a production
• 4:48
  of the Cliburn Foundation, perhaps. The dynamic
• 4:52
  range seems a little bit limited and maybe a
• 4:55
  bit drab. I don't know if this was recorded on
• 4:59
  a full -sized concert ground or not. The long
• 5:02
  opening F minor impromptu is animated and full
• 5:06
  of good nervous energy. The allegretto, though,
• 5:11
  I think is too brisk and impatient, even perfunctory
• 5:15
  as if Stephen DeGroote wanted to just get the
• 5:18
  music over with. I usually like a little more
• 5:21
  poetic breadth in this piece, although I never
• 5:25
  wanted to drag. But by contrast, Stephen DeGroote
• 5:29
  pulls back in the third impromptu, the theme
• 5:32
  in variations impromptu. For the opening theme,
• 5:37
  he pulls back, and also in the weaving patterns
• 5:40
  of the first variation. I love, however, his
• 5:45
  rapid, almost semi -staccato. articulation of
• 5:51
  the runs in the fifth variation. They have kind
• 5:54
  of a show -off type of quality that the music
• 5:57
  can easily absorb. For some reason, this playing
• 6:01
  reminds me of Joseph Hoffman in the Andante Spinato
• 6:04
  and Grand Polonaise. It has that same... kind
• 6:08
  of semi -staccato, super, super clear and light
• 6:11
  articulation that makes everyone else in the
• 6:15
  world sound thin, sound thick, excuse me, whoever
• 6:19
  plays this passage. Now, the final impromptu,
• 6:23
  the Allegro scherzando in F minor, goes at an
• 6:27
  ideally impetuous tempo. I would have liked harder
• 6:31
  -hitting accents and more fervency, but then
• 6:35
  again, you know that I am totally spoiled. by
• 6:38
  that amazing live recording from Lugano with
• 6:43
  Rudolf Serkin that circulates. It was on the
• 6:46
  Hermitage label. That's still my reference recording
• 6:50
  of this piece, but this still is very, very,
• 6:53
  very fine playing. As I told you before, this
• 6:56
  is not an easy disc to source, and I recently
• 7:00
  tried to find a second -hand copy online from
• 7:03
  the usual suspects, but I didn't have any luck.
• 7:07
  I did put the catalog number in my episode description,
• 7:11
  so if you are an avid collector, try to look
• 7:16
  out for a copy. I was lucky enough to find my
• 7:19
  copy, maybe four years ago, in the $2 disc bin
• 7:25
  at New York's Academy Records. When I bought
• 7:29
  it, of course, I never suspected that I would
• 7:32
  ever be talking about it on a podcast that I
• 7:35
  had yet to create. This is Jed Disler, and you
• 7:39
  are listening to The Piano Maven, your friendly
• 7:42
  podcast guide to piano recordings. And I look
• 7:45
  forward to being with you for the next episode.
• 7:48
  Take good care.