Latest / The Piano Maven with Jed Distler / Chopin's Piano Sonata No. 3 in B Minor Op. 58 on Disc

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Chopin's Piano Sonata No. 3 in B Minor Op. 58 on Disc · The Piano Maven with Jed Distler

0:08
This is Jed Disler, and welcome to the Piano
0:12
Maven, your friendly podcast guide to piano recordings.
0:16
And I hope you will consider subscribing to the
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Piano Maven, and I've provided a link to do so
0:23
through my Substack page. And paid subscribers
0:27
get a free download at the beginning of each
0:30
month, which is a lot of fun if you are interested
0:33
in rare piano performances. But I do appreciate
0:37
your support and paid subscribers do help keep
0:41
this podcast alive and afloat. Up until now,
0:47
I haven't had the time or the energy or, let's
0:51
be honest, I haven't had the nerve to tackle
0:55
Chopin's Sonata No. 3 in B minor on this program
1:00
to give you a survey of its best recordings or
1:05
at least recommendable recordings because there
1:09
are so many. I think this is the most recorded.
1:14
Of all of the romantic piano sonatas, maybe the
1:18
Liszt sonata has more recordings. I'm not sure,
1:21
but I would bet that it's the Chopin B minor.
1:25
But I figured that sooner or later, I would have
1:29
to face the Chopin B minor sonata challenge.
1:33
One inspiration that gave me a push to do this
1:37
episode, and it's going to be an epic episode.
1:40
One inspiration was... that my friend and colleague
1:44
and fellow critic for gramophone peter j rabinowitz
1:49
wrote this brilliant gramophone collection piece
1:53
on the chopin b minor sonata and he discussed
1:58
a century's worth of recorded versions making
2:02
very astute observations and what's so interesting
2:06
about the chopin b minor sonata is that if you
2:10
look at reviews of recordings over the years,
2:14
or if you talk to fellow piano mavens about their
2:17
go -to recorded versions, there seems to be a...
2:21
pretty strong consensus about the so -called
2:24
best recordings of this piece, and I'm sure you
2:28
know what they are. Namely, the Dinu Lepati recording
2:32
from 1947. That is always mentioned as a reference
2:37
version. And the other reference version is the
2:41
one from Martha Argerich on Deutsche Grammophon
2:44
from 1965. although she recorded the same sonata
2:50
for EMI that same year. And some folks think
2:54
it has the edge over the Deutsche Grammophone
2:57
version. In his article, Peter J. Rabinowitz
3:01
listed 49 recordings. I'm a little bit surprised
3:07
about that because usually when we write gramophone
3:10
collection pieces, We are usually limited to
3:14
20 recordings, maybe 25 recordings tops, but
3:18
good for Peter that he was able to squeeze in
3:21
49. But there is actually one recording on my
3:26
list that Peter did not discuss, which I think
3:30
is a particularly overlooked and underrated version,
3:34
and it's by a big -name pianist, by the way.
3:36
We're going to get to that in due course. There
3:40
also was one version that Peter could not abide
3:45
at all. He really, really hates it. And I think
3:49
it's a revelation. I think it's one of the best
3:51
versions of the Chopin B minor. And we're going
3:53
to get to that in a little bit. But it is interesting
3:57
how Peter and I often agree on recordings. I've
4:02
posted a link to Peter's article in our episode
4:05
description because his... in -depth discussion
4:09
is really worth reading, while I'm going to mention
4:13
21 recordings that represent many generations
4:18
of pianists and quite a variety of interpretive
4:22
vantage points. I'm going to begin by talking
4:25
about three historic interpreters that are important,
4:30
and these are important recordings, although
4:33
these three are not on my top tier. The Liszt
4:38
pupil Moritz Rosenthal, who was born in 1862
4:43
and died in 1946, recorded the B minor sonata
4:48
in 1939. It's a problematic recording because
4:53
he was past his prime and not in complete control
4:57
except for an absolutely beautiful slow movement.
5:01
And he did not sanction this recording for release,
5:05
I believe. It did come out in the 1950s for the
5:10
first time on RCA Victor's budget label, Camden.
5:15
And it's been reissued on CD several times since
5:18
then. But whatever the flaws, and there are many
5:22
flaws, Rosenthal's sense of style and his internalized
5:27
rubato clue you into a bygone era. And you can
5:33
say the same about Alfred Courtauld's two versions
5:37
of the B minor sonata, one from 1931 and one
5:41
from 1933. And both of these recordings have
5:45
great personality and force. unquestionable authority.
5:50
I personally find him to be rhythmically lurching
5:56
in ways that to my mind, are less than convincing,
6:01
unlike Courtauld's Rabatos and the great freedom
6:05
he brings to his wonderful 1934 recording of
6:08
the Chopin Preludes. So I guess I have a rare
6:12
dissenting opinion about Courtauld and the B
6:15
minor sonata. Most people just praise this to
6:19
the skies, and I can understand why. I have a
6:22
similarly dissenting attitude about the recording
6:27
from the early 1950s by William Capel. And I
6:32
know that's going to sound like sacrilege because
6:34
all piano mavens revere this recording and all
6:38
piano mavens revere William Capel. And understandably
6:42
so, again. And you cannot deny the sheer concentration
6:47
and the authority of William Capel's pianism
6:51
and music making. However, I find his style slightly
6:57
studied and some of the phrasing in his manipulations
7:04
of tempo. tend to sectionalize the music, like
7:07
he'll strive for certain effects of articulation
7:11
and phrasing and voicing for the sake of variety.
7:15
Maybe I'm wrong about that, but that's what I
7:18
hear. I don't get the kind of continuity that
7:22
I get from the Lepati recording, which is all
7:25
of one piece and has much more of a classical
7:28
orientation with great emotional depth. But I
7:33
think that... Capelle, who started off as more
7:38
of a literalist, was transitioning into a more
7:42
subjective kind of music making, and his style
7:47
was becoming broader, and it was still evolving
7:50
at the time of his tragic death in an airplane
7:54
crash in 1953. Now, I don't want to sound like
7:58
I'm knocking Capelle's B minor sonata. But there
8:02
are interpretive aspects that don't quite convince
8:05
me. But this is still an important recording
8:09
by an important pianist, and everyone should
8:12
hear it. So I've gotten my dissenting minority
8:16
opinions out of the way. So before I get to talking
8:21
about more recordings, I want to talk about the
8:23
piece. The Chopin B Minor Sonata was composed
8:28
in 1844, and this was during a turbulent time
8:33
in Chopin's life. The work appeared between the
8:37
death of his father and his breakup with George
8:42
Sand, but the piece still abounds. with inspiration,
8:48
and each of its four movements are radically
8:51
different from one another. The first movement
8:55
has a volatile first theme and a more lyrical
8:58
second theme, and the development section is
9:01
short, yet it's both contrapuntally and harmonically
9:05
complex, and you get the feeling of many ideas
9:08
being compressed into a small space. But somehow
9:13
the music never sounds cluttered. It's always
9:15
alive and creative and keeps you on your toes.
9:20
The scherzos, outer sections, are in the key
9:24
of E -flat major, and they feature a kind of
9:27
perpetual motion chain of fast runs that require
9:31
the utmost in suppleness and lightness of touch
9:35
on the pianist's part. And you do get some respite
9:39
in the quieter trio section. goes to the key
9:42
of B major. And we return to B major for the
9:46
third movement, Largo, which starts out with
9:50
a stern declamatory gesture. Ba -boom! And that's
9:56
actually kind of a decoy because it leads into
9:58
what is basically a lengthy nocturne in ABA form.
10:03
This is a difficult movement to hold together
10:06
because of its length. And if you get too sidetracked
10:10
with expressive curly cues or lingering here
10:15
and there or sniffing at every... proverbial
10:18
roadside posy. The music can just fall apart.
10:22
But the fourth movement rondo, as Peter Rabinowitz
10:26
said in his article, is as thematically focused
10:31
as the first movement is thematically scattered.
10:35
And this movement is a virtuoso tour de force.
10:38
And it's interesting that Vladimir Horowitz called
10:42
this movement unpianistic. And there is a little
10:46
bit of truth to that because the music is harder
10:49
to play than it sounds. The left hand accompaniment
10:53
can be rather unwieldy and hard to control, but
10:57
the sonata does end on a triumphant note. The
11:02
music is mostly in B minor, but it ends in B
11:05
major. So, let's talk about recordings, and I'm
11:10
going to go more or less in chronological order,
11:14
but, you know, I'm probably going to get sidetracked
11:18
and I'm going to bounce around from decade to
11:20
decade. The very first recording of the Chopin
11:24
B Minor Sonata was made in 1925 with Percy Granger,
11:29
and... It's amazing how well his vital and spontaneous
11:35
and stylishly instinctive interpretation has
11:40
held up more than a century since it was recorded.
11:43
The Largo has wonderful shifts of color, and
11:47
it really moves in an improvisatory way. And
11:52
you'll notice, of course, that Granger doubles
11:54
the final chord. Instead of boom, he goes ba
11:58
-dum. But that's something that Granger did.
12:00
the time. That was kind of his signature, so
12:03
that's fine. We fast forward to 1947 and what
12:10
can you say about Dinu Lepati's studio recording
12:13
that has not been said? All of the proportions
12:16
are perfect. Inner voices come to the fore, yet
12:20
never eccentrically so. And counterpoint is impeccably
12:25
contoured. The cantabile lines sing out eloquently.
12:30
And basically, this pianist keeps both the music's
12:34
architecture and its emotional core in absolute
12:38
balance in all four movements. Romantic content
12:42
and classical form fuse. together perfectly.
12:46
Dino Lepati and this recording really has stood
12:50
the test of time and many still consider it the
12:53
reference version and I can see why. Now also
12:58
from 1947 there is a live performance from Carnegie
13:02
Hall with Nadia Reisenberg and this is more volatile
13:07
and emotionally charged on the surface than what
13:10
Lepati gives you but Nadia Reisenberg is utterly
13:14
compelling, and she's technically fantastic,
13:17
as if she's making up the music on the spot.
13:21
Now I want to mention a recording that Peter
13:25
Rabinowitz and I completely disagree about. He
13:30
dismissed Claudio Arau's 1960 EMI label recording
13:36
as plodding. Yes, I agree. Granted, the tempos
13:41
are broad, and one might argue that Arau treats
13:46
Chopin's B minor sonata as if it was late Beethoven
13:50
or maybe early Brahms. I find this recording
13:54
to be a revelation. Now, it's not about surface
13:58
charm and scintillation. It's about finding the
14:02
truth in between the lines. So I guess one man's
14:07
plotting between the lines is another man's probing
14:12
in between the lines. And I'm a probing kind
14:15
of guy in this case. I feel like Arau is really
14:18
probing. think that Arrau's attention to small
14:22
details is very much in keeping with how Maria
14:26
Callas would give shape and specificity to the
14:30
tiniest decorations and ornaments and articulations
14:34
in the great Belcanto arias of Bellini and Donizetti,
14:39
or in that gripping drama that she brought to,
14:44
like, the sleepwalking scene from Verdi's Macbeth.
14:48
But this does relate to a row because he really
14:52
takes Chopin's first movements maestoso directive
14:56
to heart. And I feel that he gives ample shape
15:00
and meaning to every cantalina and every decorative
15:05
pattern. He skims over nothing. And by the way,
15:09
Arau observes the long first movement exposition
15:13
repeat, which can make this movement seem arguably
15:17
overlong. Now, I'm not sure if anyone else took
15:22
the repeat on disc before Arau. Probably yes,
15:26
but this is a repeat that is not always done.
15:30
Anyway, in the first movement, Arau projects
15:34
the development section's polyphony with a real
15:38
fullness of body that never, however... never
15:42
spills over into heaviness. And to my ears, Arau's
15:47
little rhetorical underpinnings in the scherzo
15:50
help to clarify the inner melodies in those rapid
15:55
runs. And then, without a pause, Arau launches
15:58
straight attacca into the largo. And he sustains
16:03
his basic slow tempo with a firm left -hand presence,
16:08
the subtlest rubato, and with... gorgeous legato
16:12
articulation. And Arau's amazingly honest technique
16:17
allows him not only to give the finales arguably
16:22
unpianistic textures that Horowitz talked about,
16:27
giving these textures their full due, but Arau
16:31
also makes these sequences sound really vibrant
16:36
and majestic at the same time. He doesn't skim
16:40
over the left hand in the way that some of the
16:43
greatest pianists might do. So, I'm sorry, Peter
16:47
Rabinowitz, but we are going to have to agree
16:50
to disagree over Claudio Arrau's Chopin B Minor
16:54
Sonata. I will understand why certain piano mavens
16:58
may not respond to it. But, you know, I always
17:02
say about Claudio Arrau, he is an artist that
17:05
you cannot listen to casually. There is no surface
17:09
charm, like I said before. You have to work with
17:13
him. You have to work with him. And if you do,
17:17
the rewards will really be tenfold. However,
17:22
you do have charm. and surface elegance and charisma
17:27
along with the depth and the musicianship and
17:31
the emotional generosity that arthur rubinstein
17:35
serves up in his 1961 recording of the b minor
17:39
sonata everything is centered the rubato is subtle
17:44
rather than pronounced and so are felicities
17:48
of voicing and phrasing And Rubinstein is wonderful
17:52
at making the most assiduous transitions from
17:56
one section into another. They're very carefully
18:00
meted out, but they sound so natural and sound
18:04
so inevitable. In his biography of Arthur Rubinstein,
18:10
Harvey Sachs... cited a quote by James Levine
18:15
who said that the trouble with many of today's
18:18
performances is that they are either eccentric
18:22
or they are anonymous. But Rubinstein's B minor
18:27
sonata is neither. This performance is not eccentric
18:31
and it's not anonymous and it's very true to
18:35
the score on top of that. And just as a sidebar,
18:39
also from 1961, and this is a recording that
18:43
I hadn't thought about for a while, but it just
18:46
crossed my mind and I listened to it again. This
18:49
is the recording by the Polish pianist Witold
18:52
Malkuszynski. Now, this isn't a recording that
18:56
has a lot in terms of dynamic range. It's slightly
18:59
boxy and compressed, but... It's a forthright
19:04
and honest and very clean performance. He doesn't
19:09
give you the last word in depth or scintillation,
19:12
but I especially like Malkuszynski's finale,
19:15
where the left -hand detailing is unusually clear
19:19
without exaggeration, and the sparkling symmetry
19:23
of his passage work could keep a lot of today's
19:27
young competition hotshots humble, I think. I
19:31
also noticed how Malkuszynski broadened the tempo
19:35
very slightly before the end of the coda, and
19:39
I like that because it helps to give those last
19:42
pages a little bit more gravitas than usual.
19:46
The more I listened to this recording after I
19:49
took it out again, the more I admired it. It
19:52
was last available, I believe, in the Malkorzynski
19:56
Icon box on Warner Classics, and it's worth seeking
20:01
out. In 1965, Martha Argerich took the first
20:07
prize in the Warsaw International Chopin Competition,
20:12
and she also made a recording of the B Minor
20:15
Sonata. for a Deutsche Grammophone, and for decades
20:19
it has stood as a reference version, complete
20:22
with the first movement repeat. And this could
20:26
not be more different than Rubinstein. It's highly
20:29
charged and it's vividly dynamic, with a finale
20:33
that just rushes from the starting gate and never
20:37
lets up in its build and momentum. This pianist
20:40
just leaves you limp with awe and perhaps exhaustion.
20:46
But like I said earlier, in that same year, 1965,
20:51
Argerich also recorded a Chopin recital for the
20:54
EMI label that also contained the B minor sonata.
20:59
But this release never saw the light of day until
21:02
1998. I very, very slightly prefer the EMI recording,
21:10
mainly for the scherzo movement, which is a tad
21:13
slower than Deutsche Grammophon, but the quicksilver
21:18
runs and the filigree seem to have more breathing
21:21
room as a result. Also, it should be said that
21:25
in the EMI recording, Argerich did not take the
21:28
first movement repeat that she did take on Deutsche
21:31
Grammophon. For a very rhetorical yet thoughtfully
21:36
detailed interpretation that does observe the
21:39
first movement repeat, the Russian pianist Isaac
21:43
Mignofsky's recording of the Chopin B minor is
21:47
really worth hearing. I think it was recorded
21:51
for Melodia. either in 1966 or 1968, somewhere
21:56
around then. Maybe one of you can fill me in.
21:59
It was briefly available on a Melodia CD issued
22:04
in 2006 that also include two of the Rondos,
22:09
a Nocturne, and the Barcarolle. And this CD is
22:13
long out of print. But you can find the performance
22:17
on YouTube. Miknovsky lived from 1914 until 1978.
22:24
He was a student of Konstantin Igumnov, and he
22:28
won the all -Soviet piano competition in 1938.
22:33
He also made a lot of transcriptions. Now, the
22:37
only movement that... lets me down in this performance
22:41
is the scherzo. It's a tad blasé, but the largo
22:46
is beautifully shaped, and it has a strong anchoring
22:49
left -hand presence and lovely singing lines.
22:54
Now, I'm going to talk about a recording that
22:56
very few people discuss when it comes to the
23:01
Chopin B minor sonata on record. It was not mentioned
23:04
at all in the Peter Rabinowitz article. and it's
23:08
with a very famous pianist. I listened to it
23:11
again recently for the first time in years. I
23:15
think it's a highly distinctive interpretation.
23:18
from 1967, and it features Van Cliburn, and his
23:26
rhetorical touches in the Allegro Maestoso, I
23:29
think, are excellently proportioned, and the
23:31
chromatic scales don't sound like superficial
23:34
blurring or effects. There's a real melodic presence,
23:39
and you get the sense that Cliburn is truly orchestrating.
23:44
the thicker textures. Every measure seems to
23:47
play a part of a larger design. It's a far cry
23:51
from Argerich and her propulsion and drive, but
23:56
Clyburn's leisurely elaboration in the first
23:59
movement I find equally convincing and totally
24:03
absorbing. On the other hand, his scherzo really
24:07
takes wing, almost breathlessly so. His largo
24:12
is not too slow thank goodness and he really
24:15
maintains the left hand accompaniments rhythm
24:18
by slightly emphasizing certain upbeats and he
24:23
plays the middle section much more freely than
24:27
we often hear. Sometimes he kind of glides through
24:30
those accompanying triplets. You know, the...
24:33
He's very free with them. But the movement really
24:40
moves in a kind of operatic way. And the finale
24:45
is as open -hearted and as generous as you would
24:49
expect from Van Cliburn. So this is a real contender.
24:54
that really deserves more serious attention than
24:58
it's gotten. I think it's one of the very best
25:00
ones in the catalog. We're going to jump ahead
25:04
to 1976 with pianist Bruce Hungerford on the
25:09
Vanguard label. And when you consider that Hungerford
25:13
played Beethoven with unassailable authority
25:16
and style, You might expect his Chopin to be
25:21
classically oriented and perhaps even sober.
25:24
You know, like somebody like Wilhelm Bauhaus,
25:27
who was known as a Beethoven player, and he kind
25:30
of played Chopin as if it was Beethoven. But
25:34
Hungerford's Chopin B minor sonata is surprisingly
25:38
freewheeling, not anarchic, mind you, but you
25:42
do get a lot of tempo manipulation and explosive
25:45
accents and sudden dynamic shifts and a lot of
25:50
subjective touches. One wonders if this may be
25:54
a result from Hungerford's studies with Ignaz
25:58
Friedman and that some of Friedman's subjective
26:02
Chopin style was part of Hungerford's interpretive
26:07
DNA. The best way that you can track down this
26:12
performance is in the Bach Guild Big Chopin Box,
26:17
which is a download -only release that... I have
26:20
talked about previously on this podcast. We are
26:24
still in the 1970s, and I ought to mention Bruno
26:28
Leonardo Gelber's recording from 1979. This is
26:33
very exciting and virtuosic and heroic piano
26:36
playing that's also tuned into Chopin's lyricism
26:40
and contrapuntal sophistication. I heard this
26:44
for the first time not too long ago, although
26:47
I had it in my collection, but I hadn't bothered
26:50
listening to it. I think we all have CDs that
26:53
we buy or we download and then we forget to listen
26:56
to them. But a friend turned me on to this last
26:59
fall, and I was completely captivated. This was
27:02
last available in a two -disc reissue in a series
27:08
called Les Rarissimes. the rare recordings, I
27:13
guess, and this was a two -disc set called Les
27:16
Rarissimes de Bruno Leonardo Gelber. It was released
27:21
in 2005, and of course it's way out of print.
27:25
There really should be a Warner Classics box
27:28
set devoted to Bruno Leonardo Gelber's complete
27:32
recordings for EMI. Peter Rabinowitz did mention,
27:37
and he placed at the top of his recommendation
27:40
list, a live performance with Ruth Slenzinska
27:44
from 1984 that came out on the Ivory Classics
27:49
label. And I had not thought about this recording
27:53
for a while, but after I read Peter's article,
27:57
I thought, I better check this out again. So
27:59
I re -listened to it, and it is quite special.
28:03
in its way with highly charged outer movements
28:07
and i'm going to quote from peter's review because
28:10
he expresses what this performance is like better
28:13
than i ever could peter writes that This is one
28:18
of the fastest you'll hear. Her performance seems
28:21
continuously ready to explode. Even the initial
28:25
A section of the scherzo turns stormy, and throughout,
28:30
normally secondary accompaniments emerge as undercurrents
28:34
surging up through the music. It's not uniformly
28:38
brutal. Once past the imposing opening, she shades
28:43
the Largo beautifully with some haunting dynamic
28:46
play. Still, what most remains in your memory
28:50
is the unrelenting way the finale drives to its
28:54
final eruption. Well said, Peter. And once you
28:59
hear Ruth Slenzinska's Chopin B minor sonata,
29:02
you are not likely to forget it. Although George
29:06
Bolette did not record the B minor sonata commercially,
29:11
actually there may be an unreleased recording
29:14
from his later years that never saw the light
29:17
of day, probably for good reasons, but there
29:20
is a fabulous live performance that was issued
29:24
on the Marston label. It dates from November
29:26
1985, and it captures Bolette on top. peak form.
29:32
He usually tended to be cautious in the recording
29:36
studio, but he let go much more in concert. In
29:40
fact, he actually encouraged his fans to sneak
29:43
in tape recorders to his concerts. Now, like
29:47
Arau and also like Emil Gilels, who I did not
29:51
mention in this talk, sorry about that, Gilels
29:54
fans, Bolet does take his time unraveling the
29:58
first movement's rich polyphony, but he always
30:01
maintains sight of the music's drama. And from
30:06
the feathery yet... Amply projected scherzo,
30:09
Paulette immediately launches Ataka into a steady
30:14
and beautifully sustained Largo. And... Unlike
30:19
countless young pianists who speed through the
30:22
finale's introductory chords, Bolet really reigns
30:26
them in, and he maintains the steady, accumulating
30:30
pace until the end. You know, they're little
30:33
finger slips, but who cares? You know, it's a
30:35
live performance, but it's a noble and seasoned
30:40
interpretation that I like more and more as I
30:44
hear it. I seem to be recommending a lot of live
30:47
performances now, but there's another really
30:50
great one with Rado Lupu, and he did not record
30:55
this piece in the studio, by the way. In fact,
30:57
I don't think he recorded any Chopin commercially.
31:01
Maybe I'm wrong. But this comes from a recital
31:05
that took place in Japan in October of 1987,
31:09
and it was published on the Doremi label. It's
31:13
part of their ongoing series of releases devoted
31:17
to live Rado Lupu recordings. And he plays the
31:21
B minor sonata wonderfully well. He takes really
31:24
liberal rubatos in the first movement's second
31:28
subject, but he justifies them by way of illuminating.
31:32
the contrapuntal substance and really paying
31:35
attention to the bass lines. And you can say
31:38
the same about the scherzos trio, where you hear
31:42
much more detailed voice leading than in many
31:45
performances. And the largo is just perfectly
31:50
paced, and it just sings out fully. And for those
31:55
who think that Chopin was basically a right -hand
31:58
composer, which is what Richard Wagner called
32:02
him, this is thoroughly dispelled by Lupu's intelligent
32:07
voicings and really interesting phrasings throughout
32:11
the finale. So do check out this performance.
32:14
Now we're going to get back to the recording
32:17
studio and a version that... basically defines
32:20
normalcy, kind of in the way that Arthur Rubinstein's
32:24
does, maybe not with the same kind of personality,
32:28
but it's a performance that has great clarity
32:31
and energy in the first and second and fourth
32:34
movements, and the Largo is beautifully paced
32:37
here. This is a studio recording by Cécile Husset,
32:41
and I first heard it when it came out in this
32:46
two for the price of one set on EMI that also
32:50
featured the second sonata, the four scherzos,
32:54
and the four ballades. And I used to recommend
32:58
this as a very dependable release for one who
33:03
wanted to acquire all of these works and really
33:06
excellent solid performances for a budget price.
33:10
And I still really enjoy Cécile Housset's Chopin
33:13
B minor sonata. i also should mention one of
33:17
the top recommendations on peter rabinowitz's
33:20
list which is the recording on hyperion with
33:24
mark andr hamelin and his interpretation exhibits
33:29
finesse and mindfulness in every measure his
33:33
strong sense of form and textural cohesion really
33:38
hits home in the largo and the outer movements
33:41
find hamelin toning down his perfectly executed
33:46
bravura passages in order to emphasize important
33:50
motives or to give shape to the bass lines. But
33:54
he never does this at the expense of power or
33:57
urgency. This is a beautifully detailed, thoughtful,
34:01
mature, and completely musical and stylish performance
34:07
that will give everyone satisfaction. I want
34:11
to mention a live performance from the 2021 Warsaw
34:15
competition that impressed me tremendously. It
34:20
features pianist Jakub Kuzlik, and this comes
34:24
from his second stage round from the 2021 competition.
34:30
And this is a performance, again, that... just
34:33
exudes normalcy in regard to shaping and pacing
34:38
and feel for nuance and tone color and tempo
34:42
choices and rhythmic spring and, you know, well,
34:45
everything. It's a performance that communicates
34:48
passion without hysteria, contrapuntal interest
34:52
without undue underlining, dynamic contrast without
34:57
exaggerated extremes, an inner voice movement
35:01
that is born out of the score rather than personal
35:05
whim. And although the crescendos have great
35:08
intensity, they never splinter or turn ugly or
35:12
brittle. And while there's tremendous excitement
35:15
in the coda's glittering right -hand runs, this
35:20
pianist does not neglect the important left -hand
35:23
counter melody underneath, as many pianists tend
35:26
to do. And I think that this is a performance
35:28
that is so musical that you only notice Jakub
35:32
Kuzlik's incredible virtuosity after the fact.
35:37
Finally, a pianist who really made this work
35:41
his own, the late, great Nelson Freire. He recorded
35:46
it twice. in the studio, once for Columbia Masterworks,
35:51
and then when he signed to Decca in 2002, his
35:55
first release for the label included a remake
35:59
of the Chopin B minor. And I remember reviewing
36:02
it when it first came out, and I had to make
36:06
comparisons between the two recordings. In some
36:10
ways, Frere didn't change. He still retained
36:13
a fondness for highlighting inner voices and
36:17
bass. lines but the later recording showed a
36:21
broader and more sweeping style and the scherzo's
36:26
filigree seemed to have more lightness and ease
36:29
and scintillation than in 1968. and the first
36:33
movement's polyphony had more headlong shaping
36:37
in the later recording. I only preferred the
36:41
1968 recording in the finale because in the remake,
36:47
Freddy got off to a powerful and very assured
36:51
start, yet with all of the little rhetorical
36:55
brushstrokes, the energy was slightly flagging,
36:59
and it seemed that the... basic tempo had slowed
37:03
down a bit as the music progressed. There also
37:07
are several YouTube links to live performances,
37:11
and I think these live performances basically
37:14
split the difference between Nelson Freire's
37:17
two studio versions. I've provided links to all
37:22
of these so that you could sample them and you
37:24
could determine for yourself which Nelson Freire
37:28
Chopin B minor sonata performance floats your
37:31
boat. So I think that about covers it. We've
37:36
talked about many recordings of the Chopin B
37:39
minor sonata, and I'm sure you have a favorite
37:44
version or favorite versions that I did not mention,
37:48
so I would like to know your thoughts, and I'm
37:50
sure you're going to weigh in with some feedback.
37:53
But check out all of the links that I provided
37:56
to recordings, as well as the link to the Peter
37:59
Rabinowitz article, because I think between Peter
38:03
and I, we have covered a lot of ground for guidance.
38:07
But I always want listeners to guide me as well.
38:11
You know, on this podcast, I've always encouraged
38:15
dialogue and feedback. And a work like the Chopin
38:19
Sonata No. 3 offers plenty of opportunity for
38:24
listeners to weigh in with comments and suggestions
38:27
that go beyond my recommendations. So I look
38:31
forward to hearing from you, and I look forward
38:34
to being with you for our next episode of The
38:37
Piano Maven with Jed Distler, your friendly podcast
38:41
guide to piano recordings. Thank you for your
38:46
patience in wading through all of these recordings
38:50
with me. This is quite a long podcast episode.
38:53
I will be with you next time, and thanks so much
38:57
for your support.