Latest / The Piano Maven with Jed Distler / Warner's Maria Tipo Box

Transcript

Warner's Maria Tipo Box · The Piano Maven with Jed Distler

0:06
This is Jed Disler, and welcome to The Piano
0:10
Maven, your friendly podcast guide to piano recordings.
0:13
Consider taking a paid subscription to The Piano
0:18
Maven, and you can find a link to do so in our
0:21
episode description. Paid subscribers get a free
0:25
download at the start of each month, and your
0:28
support helps keep this podcast going throughout
0:31
the year, so please consider taking a paid subscription.
0:35
I've had several requests to comment about a
0:40
new box set from Warner Classics that brings
0:44
together, under one roof, all of the recordings
0:48
that the late, great Italian pianist Maria Tipo
0:53
made for the EMI and the Fonit Cetra labels.
0:58
Both EMI and Fonit Cetra are controlled by Warner
1:02
Classics. You get 24 compact discs all together,
1:07
and many of these have been hard to source for
1:10
many years. I'm going to go through the box from
1:13
soup to nuts, so to speak. The first five discs...
1:19
encompass all of the recordings of music of J
1:23
.S. Bach, including transcriptions that Maria
1:27
Thiebaud made for the EMI label. And these recordings
1:31
date from between 1986 and 1992. All were recorded
1:38
in Paris. These have been relatively accessible
1:42
through previous reissues. For example, they
1:46
were all bundled together in a... budget -priced
1:49
five -disc set at one time, and there probably
1:53
have been a couple of twofers, you know, two
1:56
for the price of one double albums. I know there
1:59
was one that had her Goldberg variations in it,
2:02
and there may have been another one, but I'm
2:04
not really sure. Anyway, I reviewed that budget
2:09
Bach box for Classics Today many years ago, and
2:14
I think it's worth paraphrasing from my original
2:17
review, because I was re -listening to a lot
2:20
of the Bach to prepare for this podcast, and
2:24
I found that my opinions really have not changed
2:28
over more than 20 years. I wrote that As a Bach
2:33
pianist, Maria Tipo's tempo fluctuations, tapered
2:38
phrases, bottomless palette of tone colors, voluminous
2:43
pedal effects, and restless pursuit of inner
2:47
voices, real, implied, and imaginary, will send
2:51
purists begging for mercy. Even in hyphenated
2:55
Bach, such as Busoni's Chaconne and the mighty
2:59
Saint Anne's Prelude and Fugue, or in Myra Hess's
3:03
transcription of Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring,
3:06
Tipo makes dyed -in -the -wool romantic Bach
3:11
players like Edwin Fischer or Samuel Feinberg
3:14
sound like Helmut Walche by comparison. You know,
3:18
Helmut Walche was the German organist who recorded
3:23
all of Bach's organ music, and he was a rather
3:26
austere and literal kind of interpreter. Perhaps
3:31
it's easiest, though, simply to accept Maria
3:34
Tipo on her own terms. Check your stylistic bias
3:39
at the door and let your senses be ravished by
3:43
Tipo's amazingly varied articulation in the little
3:47
preludes and fugues, her honeyed legato in the
3:51
partita sarabands, or the garish gear shifts
3:55
and amusing bits of left -hand business in the
4:00
Italian concerto's first movement. To be accurate,
4:04
Tipo does temper her style by a couple of degrees
4:07
and plays relatively straighter in the Goldberg
4:12
Variations and the Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue.
4:15
The bottom line is that Tipo's Bach pianism is
4:19
the inauthenticity movement's best friend, and
4:24
it's nice to have all of these recordings bundled
4:27
together for cheap. One thing that I did not
4:29
mention in that review about the Goldberg variations
4:32
is that Tipo sometimes goes up and down the octave
4:36
on the repeats, which some pianists have liked
4:39
to do. I'm thinking about Vladimir Feldsman and
4:43
Andras Schiff and in the recent Yuchan Lim recording.
4:47
And also how in some of the cross -handed variations,
4:51
Tipo slows down a little bit from the tempo that
4:56
she sets at the outset. This is a trap that almost
5:01
every Goldberg Variations interpreter falls into,
5:05
and I probably make a bigger deal about it than
5:08
I should, to be honest, so I should shut up and
5:12
not talk about that anymore whenever I talk about
5:14
the Goldberg Variations. The sixth CD in this
5:19
set offers... 18 sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti.
5:24
If you are familiar with Maria Tipo's 1950s Scarlatti
5:29
recordings for the Vox label, if you compare
5:33
those to EMI, you will notice that she became
5:37
much less prone to legato -izing everything.
5:40
And her Scarlatti... managed to acquire a far
5:45
greater range of articulations and a variety
5:48
of touch, the interpretations really evolved.
5:53
And you can really hear this when you compare
5:55
several of the sonatas that are common to both
5:59
the Vox and EMI releases. For instance, the E
6:04
major sonata with the Kirkpatrick number 20.
6:07
Maybe it's a little overly detailed in the EMI
6:10
recording, but the difference is really noticeable.
6:12
And also in the B -flat sonata, Kirkpatrick 551,
6:18
the variety in touch in the staccatos is really
6:23
quite palpable in the EMI recording. Now we get
6:27
to the meat and potatoes of this collection with
6:31
CDs 7 through 17. We have 10 discs devoted to
6:37
the complete piano sonatas of Muzio Clementi,
6:40
along with various short pieces. This apparently
6:44
was the first complete Clementi cycle ever set
6:48
down on disc. I'm not going to go through each
6:51
and every work, but I can tell you that Tipo...
6:55
was definitely born to play this repertoire she
6:59
has the brilliant technique and she has a great
7:02
feeling for classical style that is direct and
7:06
forthright and proportioned without ever being
7:09
rigid and she also gives you some delightful
7:13
sets of waltzes for piano with tambourine and
7:17
triangle they are so much fun to hear and she's
7:21
also joined by fellow pianist alessandro Speccy
7:25
in works for two pianos and one piano, four hands.
7:29
These recordings all date from 1978. through
7:34
1984. In 1992, Maria Tipo made a Clementi disc
7:41
for the EMI label, where she re -recorded three
7:45
of these sonatas, and also re -recorded the variations
7:49
on Bati Bati from Mozart's Don Giovanni. I find
7:54
the EMI remakes are more curvaceous and more
7:58
inflected, less forthright and less direct than
8:03
in the Chetra recordings. They are very beautiful
8:06
in and of themselves, but I do prefer the Chetra
8:09
interpretations. However... In the Chetra recording
8:14
of the Bati Bati variations, she plays the introduction
8:17
so slowly, almost at the point of shapelessness,
8:21
and she does play it faster in the EMI recording,
8:26
and it has much more fluidity and coherence,
8:29
and I prefer that performance. Now, there are
8:33
four Mozart concertos that Tipo recorded in 1990
8:38
and 1992 for EMI, with Armin Jordan conducting
8:43
the Ensemble Orchestrale de Paris. And these
8:48
are the A major, Kerschel 488, B -flat major,
8:53
Kerschel 595, C major, Kerschel 467, and the
8:58
E -flat major, Kerschel 482. I have to be honest,
9:03
I'm not crazy about these performances. My main
9:07
issue has to do with the overly resonant sonics
9:12
that make everything sound oleaginous and really
9:16
diffuse with everything kind of blending into
9:20
mush. Now there are beautiful details in the
9:24
piano playing such as Tipo's beautifully sculpted
9:28
trills and her singing touch in the slow movements.
9:33
But if you compare her recording of the C major,
9:38
crucial 467 here with her earlier, recording
9:43
in 1983 with Ricardo Chayi in the London Philharmonic
9:48
Orchestra that was on the record label. I much
9:51
prefer the early one because it's much better
9:54
engineered, you have better conducting and much
9:57
better orchestra playing, and more expressive
10:00
and articulation variety from the pianist. And
10:04
then if you compare Tipo's relatively gelatinous
10:08
phrasing of the B -flat concertos, finale theme,
10:13
with the much perkier and incisive Clifford Curzon
10:18
recording with East von Kertesz conducting. I
10:22
mean, these are completely different worlds.
10:25
Tipo's recordings of the Beethoven first and
10:27
fourth concertos, however, are better. You do
10:31
have overly reverberant kind of wrong end of
10:35
the telescope sonics here but you still can infer
10:40
the full -bodied support of the London Symphony
10:43
Orchestra under the direction of Hans Graf who's
10:47
an excellent accompanist and the performances
10:50
may not have the strong linear profile and dramatic
10:54
tension that you get in other recordings but
10:57
they are really enjoyable. I wanted to comment
11:01
on one quirky interpretive choice. At the start
11:05
of the fourth concerto's rondo, after the orchestra
11:09
states the theme, you know, Forgive my horrible
11:19
singing. And also I'm a little too fast. But
11:23
after the orchestra plays that theme, the piano
11:25
restates it. And you're not supposed to play
11:28
it slower. You're supposed to imitate the orchestra.
11:31
But what Maria Tipo does is that she answers
11:34
back by making these slight and rather hesitant
11:38
sounding tenutos, as if to say, I don't know,
11:44
do you really want me to follow you guys and
11:47
the orchestra down the yellow brick road? But
11:50
then over time, the pianist gathers momentum
11:53
and assertion as the music unfolds. I just wish
11:58
the sonics weren't so swimmy, because the resonance
12:02
kind of undermines the conversational impact
12:05
of many of those quick exchanges between the
12:10
soloist and orchestra members. There's a solo
12:13
disc with three Beethoven sonatas, and this is
12:17
really uneven, I feel. Maria Thiebaud delivers
12:21
a relatively urbane first movement in the C major
12:27
opus two number three sonata and it doesn't have
12:31
the incisiveness or sharpness of accent that
12:35
you hear from pianists like Claude Frank or Igor
12:38
Levitt or Richard Goode to say nothing about
12:41
Archer Schnabel. But there is wonderful fleetness
12:46
and point in Thiebaud's last two movements, and
12:51
her detailing is almost like a Fabergé egg. It's
12:54
really quite nice to hear, even with the smallness
12:58
of scale. The music really moves and really has
13:01
great character. But I find her Waldstein sonata
13:05
is way too small of scale. There's not enough
13:09
dynamic contrast and drama. And I don't think
13:13
those little espressivo touches in the rondo
13:16
help move things along. It's kind of like floating
13:20
in the water with no direction home, so to speak.
13:24
And what happens in the coda, it's very strange.
13:27
She slows down right before those glissando octaves,
13:31
but it doesn't sound like she's playing the octaves
13:35
glissando. She sounds like she's playing them
13:37
as relatively... careful scales, fingering them
13:41
rather than glissandoing them. I'm not really
13:45
sure if these are glissandos or not, but the
13:49
passage is really taken very carefully. She does
13:52
play up the more lyrically expansive parts of
13:57
the E major sonata, Op. 109, very well. But then,
14:01
generally, this is an often tensionless and small
14:05
-scaled interpretation. And I also noticed her
14:11
tendency to pedal through rests and sometimes
14:14
to even overpedal at times. Maybe it's the resonant
14:17
acoustic talking. But there is a gutsier and
14:21
more impulsive live performance with Maria Thiebaud
14:25
of Op. 109 that... came out on the Hermitage
14:29
label. It's a 1979 recital that also included
14:34
really good live performances of the four Chopin
14:37
ballades. And speaking of Chopin, Maria Thiebaud's
14:42
1993 studio recordings for EMI of the Chopin
14:46
Nocturnes I've always liked, and I'm really glad
14:51
they're here. Some listeners may find her interpretations
14:55
to be a little too ruminative and subjective,
14:59
but I really like them because she displays consistently
15:04
good concentration and her intention is always
15:09
very clear. Listen just to that opening of the
15:13
very first Nocturne, the Opus 9 No. 1 in B -flat
15:17
minor. It's almost as if she is starting from
15:21
nothing. And then the pianist starts building
15:24
very slowly with great intensity up to the point
15:29
where the D -flat major second theme begins.
15:32
And you get a similarly searching kind of trajectory
15:37
in many other nocturnes. Now, there is the danger
15:42
that she is approaching each nocturne on the
15:45
same emotional level. But this playing really
15:49
draws me in. And, you know, I wouldn't want to
15:52
listen to more than two or three of Tipo's Nocturnes
15:56
in succession. But I do feel that she is really
16:00
invested in this repertoire and that there is
16:04
much less of a barrier between intent and execution,
16:09
where I don't feel that's always the case with
16:12
the Beethoven. And lastly, there's a Schumann
16:15
disc, which... I think is really inconsistent.
16:18
She plays Kindersehnen with intimacy and understatement
16:23
in very cameo -like performances. But if you
16:26
want this kind of interpretation, I prefer the
16:29
more warmly singing Wilhelm Kempf or Ivan Moravec.
16:35
But this approach really suits the little Blumenstuck
16:38
opus 19, which Tipo plays really beautifully.
16:44
I'm very disappointed in her symphonic etudes,
16:47
however, because she underplays often, and her
16:51
phrasing seems very gingerly at times. There
16:55
are lovely moments, like her limpid and elegant
16:59
execution of Etude No. 3's right -hand arpeggios
17:04
that support the left -hand melody. And then
17:13
you have those arpeggios in the right hand. which
17:19
you have to play very softly and evenly, and
17:22
she really controls them wonderfully well. Tipo,
17:25
by the way, inserts the five posthumous variations
17:28
as a group between the etude number nine and
17:32
the etude number ten. I also think that her nicely
17:36
sprung dotted rhythms keep that finale alive
17:39
and kicking. A lot of pianists just drag this
17:42
music into the ground, and this is a movement
17:45
that I think goes on way too long for what it
17:48
has to say. I really don't like this music. I
17:52
have this aversion to... that theme that goes...
17:55
It's just so mawkish to my ears. I don't know.
18:04
I just have this obsessive aversion to that theme
18:09
and to that music and to this movement. That's
18:13
my problem, not Schumann's. But the bottom line
18:16
is that the character and personality and intention
18:19
that you get from Maria Thiebaud's Chopin Nocturnes,
18:23
just does not turn up in the symphonic etudes
18:26
for whatever reason. So should you get this box
18:31
set? That's the $64 ,000 question. Certainly
18:36
I would get it for the Clementi, for the Scarlatti,
18:40
for the Chopin Nocturnes, maybe for the Beethoven
18:43
concertos for an occasional look in. And, of
18:47
course, if you love unabashedly old -school Bach
18:50
pianism, you have five discs worth to indulge
18:55
your guilty pleasure. So that's 19 out of 24
18:59
discs that I can recommend without hesitation.
19:03
There's one disc that I recommend maybe 75%,
19:07
and that's the Beethoven First and Fourth Concertos.
19:11
The booklet contains a brief but really excellent
19:14
essay by Melissa Kong. That's K -H -O -N -G.
19:19
And the discs are packaged in original jacket
19:23
facsimiles. So I hope this has been helpful for
19:26
those of you who've asked me about the Maria
19:30
Tipo box. And I'd be curious about how you feel
19:34
about the performances. Let's get a dialogue
19:37
going. This is Jed Disler, and you've been listening
19:40
to The Piano Maven, your friendly podcast guide
19:43
to piano recordings. I look forward to being
19:46
with you for our next episode. Take good care.