Latest / The Piano Maven with Jed Distler / The Chopin Etudes on Record (rebroadcast)

Transcript

The Chopin Etudes on Record (rebroadcast) · The Piano Maven with Jed Distler

0:11
This is Jed Dissler, and welcome to the Piano
0:15
Maven, your friendly podcast guide to piano recordings.
0:19
And this is episode number 20. So I thought I
0:22
would do something really special and quite extensive.
0:27
Some composer styles develop over time, a long
0:32
period of time, or a relative short period of
0:35
time. But there are other composers that reveal
0:38
their genius almost right from the start. And
0:42
one of those I would consider to be Frédéric
0:46
Chopin. When the 21 -year -old Chopin left Warsaw
0:50
for Paris, he quickly established his position
0:55
as an innovative force in music as both pianist
0:59
and composer. He was one who cultivated refinement,
1:05
integrity, and a kind of classical streak that
1:08
set him apart from his romantic era colleagues.
1:12
His pianistic style. both as a pianist and as
1:17
a composer, raised the proverbial bar for ingenuity.
1:22
And he created a world in which unprecedented
1:27
keyboard sonorities, figurations, and modulatory
1:31
patterns intermingle to often startling effect.
1:37
So. As such, in order to play Chopin's compositions
1:42
well, or even play them at all, one had to reach
1:47
beyond the standard studies, exercises, and method
1:52
books of that era. Back in Chopin's day and even
1:57
before Chopin's day, most piano etudes, an etude
2:02
is a piece designed specifically to improve technical
2:05
mastery. Most piano etudes were basically didactic
2:10
in nature and often without a whole lot of musical
2:14
substance. But that really changed with Chopin's
2:19
two sets of etudes, Opus 10 and Opus 25, which
2:24
remain the cornerstones of romantic piano technique.
2:29
Each of these 24 etudes focuses upon a specific
2:34
technical challenge. and they give the pianist
2:38
very little respite and a multitude of musical
2:43
considerations to consider and absorb. The Chopin
2:48
etudes have attracted, as well as humbled, many
2:51
generations of even the most exceptional pianists.
2:56
List is practicing my etudes, Chopin wrote to
3:01
Stephen Heller. He wrote that Liszt is transporting
3:05
me outside of my respectable thoughts. I should
3:09
like to steal from him the way to play my own
3:12
etudes. I think that's such a wonderful quote.
3:16
When Alexander Greiner, who was the manager of
3:19
Steinway and Sons concert and artist department,
3:23
asked the great virtuoso Joseph Hoffman, if he
3:28
could play all of the Chopin etudes that he really
3:31
wanted to hear Hoffman play all the etudes for
3:34
him. Hoffman basically declined and he said that
3:38
there is no pianist and there never will be a
3:42
pianist who can play all of the Chopin etudes
3:46
equally well. However, that has not stopped pianists
3:52
from recording all of the Chopin etudes. So When
3:57
the question comes up as to which complete cycle
4:01
of Chopin etudes by one particular pianist I
4:06
should recommend, well, I actually do have a
4:09
recommendation, but I thought that since the
4:12
Chopin etudes are so central to the repertoire
4:15
and so iconic that we really should look at more
4:20
than one pianist. I've picked 15 recordings of
4:24
the Chopin etudes. And the 15 pianists I'm discussing
4:29
have recorded both books of etudes, Opus 10 and
4:33
Opus 25. And all of these recordings are pretty
4:38
much for the most part consistently satisfying
4:42
in terms of how these pianists realize their
4:46
conceptions. Back in 2023, I wrote an article
4:51
for Gramophone where I discussed 20 or so versions
4:56
of the Chopin etudes on disk. And you can find
4:59
a link to this article in the podcast information.
5:03
I should mention that these pianists who've recorded
5:06
both the Opus 10 and Opus 15 books of etudes
5:09
have not necessarily recorded Chopin's three
5:13
nouvelle etudes in addition, which are beautiful
5:17
pieces, but I'm not going to include the three
5:20
Nouvelle etudes as part of this talk. So for
5:23
my first pianist on this 15 pianist short list,
5:28
we have to go back to 1933 and 1934 and a Chopin
5:35
etude cycle that continues to make strong impressions
5:39
on listeners for its poetry and for its daring
5:44
and imagination. And the pianist is, as some
5:48
of you may already have guessed, is pianist Alfred
5:52
Courtauld. He lived from 1877 to 1962. Courtauld
5:59
never was an infallible technician, and there
6:03
are little stumbles and wrong notes throughout
6:06
his Chopin etudes recordings. And these wrong
6:09
notes still bother certain listeners and pundits,
6:13
maybe understandably so. But to my mind, these
6:17
mistakes really don't matter at all. And besides,
6:20
there are certain etudes where Courtauld is absolutely
6:24
at the top of his technical game. And he always
6:28
seems to hit upon the perfect tempo. He never
6:31
drags the slower lyrical etudes. And he also
6:36
has a fantastic way of projecting melodies so
6:40
that they soar. always conveys a state of ecstasy,
6:47
and you listen to his etude performances again
6:50
and again, and you always hear new details and,
6:54
you know, wrong notes. Who really cares? I certainly
6:57
don't when it comes to quarto. And by the way,
7:01
Corteau re -recorded the etudes in 1942, and
7:05
those performances also have been reissued, but
7:09
they are not generally as strong as the 1933
7:13
-34 versions, which have been reissued a gazillion
7:18
times on CD, by the way, and I'm sure you can
7:21
find them on YouTube for free. Next, we fast
7:25
forward to the 1950s and something completely
7:29
different. We have a cycle of Chopin etudes from
7:33
a pianist that perhaps you would not have expected
7:37
to record all of them, Paul Badura Scoda. But
7:41
he actually made an excellent performing edition
7:44
of the Chopin etudes. He was a pianist whose
7:49
orientation was basically in the Austro -German
7:52
repertoire. He recorded the Mozart and Beethoven
7:56
and Schubert sonata cycles several times over
8:00
on a modern piano as well as on period instruments.
8:04
And he would often record and re -record and
8:07
re -re -re -re -re -record the same pieces over
8:10
and over again. I think he has maybe 10 ,000
8:14
versions of the Schubert B -flat. sonata out
8:18
there. His discography is huge and it's a huge
8:23
mess trying to sort it out. I pity the perspective
8:30
The point is that he played a much wider range
8:34
of repertoire than you would suspect, and among
8:37
the many discs that he made for the Westminster
8:39
label in the 1950s was the Chopin etudes. They
8:44
aren't the flashiest Chopin etudes on the block,
8:47
but there's a lot of color and nuance and sensitivity.
8:52
Someone once suggested to me that There was an
8:55
edit in every other bar that Badura -Skoda could
8:58
not have possibly played all these etudes straight
9:01
through. But whether that's true or not, there
9:05
does happen to be a live opus 25 etudes performance
9:10
with Paul Badura -Skoda from, I guess it's from
9:13
around 1965. And he's technically fantastic.
9:17
He just nails the pieces to the wall. Also from
9:22
the 1950s, the American pianist Ruth Slenzinska,
9:27
who turned 99 this year, she recorded the etudes
9:31
in the 50s for the American Deca label. And a
9:35
few years ago, Australian eloquence brought out
9:38
a wonderful box set, restoring all of Ruth Slenzinska's
9:43
American Deca recordings. Sometimes I find her
9:47
slower, more lyrical pieces a little lacking
9:50
in tension and harmonic awareness. But other
9:54
selections really stand out. For example, the
9:57
C major, Op. 10 No. 1's right hand arpeggios,
10:02
have a real glittering force to them and a strong
10:05
left hand underpinning. And the F minor, opus
10:09
10, number nine, takes on this intriguingly dark
10:13
and brooding. character. It's slower than usual
10:18
and it's quite a fascinating performance. It
10:21
is a really first -rate cycle. She re -recorded
10:25
the etudes, by the way, from Musical Heritage
10:28
Society in the mid -1970s. These are also worth
10:31
checking out, especially the Opus 10 remakes.
10:35
Opus 25 is not quite so consistent in the later
10:39
version. Now I'm going to talk about two artists
10:44
who were among the major pianists of their generation.
10:48
And both of these pianists recorded the Chopin
10:51
etudes twice. The first was Vladimir Ashkenazi.
10:56
He recorded them in Russia, I think in the late
10:59
50s or early 1960s. I can't quite remember. But
11:04
he was in his early 20s. And he recorded them
11:08
again for Decca in the mid 1970s. And the later
11:12
versions are heavier maybe in some ways, but
11:16
they're subtle and refined and maybe less impetuous.
11:20
But I find his first cycle of etudes for melodia
11:25
more spontaneous and fresher and more supple.
11:29
And there are certain etudes that No one has
11:33
played better since like the a minor opus 25
11:37
number four that I think is kind of a precursor
11:42
to stride piano and Ashkenazi's tempo is just
11:47
inhumanly fast yet it is controlled beyond belief
11:52
the second of these two pianists is Maurizio
11:57
Paulini I I know some critics who find his early
12:01
1970s recording for Deutsche Gramophone of the
12:04
etudes cold or overly literal. I really don't
12:10
hear that at all. I find that the playing has
12:13
a lot of character and refinement. and technically
12:17
they are absolutely impeccable. But what's interesting
12:21
is that when Polnini was 18, right after he won
12:25
the Chopin competition in Warsaw, he recorded
12:29
the etudes for the EMI label, but then he would
12:32
not allow their release. But in 2010, the Testament
12:38
label brought out this etude cycle, I guess Polini
12:43
had relented. And they are just as technically
12:46
wonderful as the Deutsche Grammophon versions,
12:49
but they are a little fresher and more spontaneous.
12:52
That's what I said about the earlier Ashkenazi
12:55
etudes. And I think the same goes for Polini.
12:58
I think had EMI issued these performances when
13:02
they were recorded, had Polini approved of them.
13:06
I think they would have been the version of reference
13:09
for a modern stereo edition of the Chopin etudes.
13:14
The American pianist John Browning was a fellow
13:18
classmate of Van Clyburn's at Juilliard in the
13:21
early 1950s. He studied with Rossina Levine,
13:25
just as Clyburn did. And some say that he and
13:28
Clyburn had a friendly rivalry, or maybe it wasn't
13:32
so friendly. But I like John Browning's Chopin
13:36
etudes. and etudes. I like his direct, emotionally
13:40
uncluttered, sometimes hard -toned, but not insensitive
13:45
interpretations. I think they've held up very
13:48
well. And there's also a subtle flexibility that
13:52
deserves to be noted. You have to really listen
13:56
to it to pick that up. I have always liked the
14:00
Chopin etudes by the American pianist Abbie Simon.
14:05
He lived from 1920 until 2019. He died just a
14:10
few weeks short of his 100th birthday. His etudes
14:15
retain some of the old school traits rooted in
14:19
his training. He studied with David Saperton
14:22
at the Curtis Institute and Saperton in turn
14:26
was Leopold Godofsky's son -in -law. And Abbie
14:31
Simon does things like, for instance, he will
14:34
often relax the melodic line in order to underscore
14:38
a cadence or to navigate a transition. And he
14:44
does all kinds of shifts in voicing and dynamics
14:48
that create interesting textural effects, such
14:51
as the inner voices he brings out in the Op.
14:55
10 No. 2 etudes accompaniment. or he will bring
14:59
out counter melodies in the F major, opus 10,
15:03
number eight. This was an etude that Vladimir
15:06
Horowitz recorded. And like Horowitz, Abbie Simon
15:10
plays that etude's last four chords quietly with
15:14
a diminuendo, rather than adhering to Chopin's
15:19
forte marking. This was kind of an unwritten
15:22
tradition, and romantic -era pianists used to
15:26
call this kind of effect a reverse accent. I
15:30
would say that Abbie Simon is half romantic and
15:33
half modern, but he is so very authentically,
15:37
and you never feel that his romanticisms are
15:41
at all contrived or forced or imposed from without,
15:45
which can often be the case with some of today's
15:49
young pianists, and we will address that shortly.
15:53
However, Abbey Simon's liberties sound positively
15:58
puritanical when measured alongside Georges Chiffra,
16:04
whose textual transgressions and his totally
16:08
freewheeling style give new meaning to the word
16:12
demented. These are the most insane Chopin etudes
16:16
ever recorded. I'm gonna read to you what I wrote.
16:20
about Cifra's etudes in gramophone, because I
16:23
don't think I can improve on my description.
16:26
So let me read this. I said that the Hungarian
16:30
pianist gooses up fortes and pushes crescendos
16:33
to the brink. He fills out octaves with chords.
16:37
He sweeps through arpeggios like a roller coaster
16:41
operator on LSD. He transforms opus 25 number
16:46
six's eloquent accompaniment into a cha -cha,
16:52
and he suffuses opus 25's last three selections
16:56
with a flamboyance that might have made Franz
16:59
Liszt gasp. Schieffer's wild, unfettered impact
17:04
can overwhelm you and even exhaust you, yet...
17:07
What saves the day is his joyful comportment.
17:11
In all, Chifra's etudes amount to a circus starring
17:15
a master acrobat executing a high -wire act without
17:19
a safety net. I have to admit that Chifra's Chopin
17:24
etudes are one of my great guilty pleasures.
17:27
I have so much fun listening to them. Let's move
17:31
to the 1980s and specifically to 1981 and the
17:36
late great Uruguayan pianist Dinora Varsy's recording
17:41
of the Chopin etudes. I don't remember which
17:44
label it first appeared on. I know it was once
17:47
available on CD on the interchord label. And
17:51
then it appeared in this humongous 35 CD box
17:55
set called the Dinura Varsi Legacy. It was on
17:59
the genuine label. And of course, it's out of
18:02
print. But you can download or stream Dinura
18:06
Varsi Chopin etudes. This is intelligent virtuosity
18:11
on many, many levels. And again, it's virtuosity
18:16
at the service of music. These are absolutely
18:20
excellent first -rate performances, well worth
18:23
checking out. I want to also talk about a pianist
18:27
who also died tragically young, Tatiana Shebanova.
18:33
And on the Polish ducks label, she recorded brilliant
18:38
and scintillating and totally musical renditions
18:42
of the etudes that I put on par with Dinota Varsi.
18:47
I can also say the same for the Japanese pianist,
18:51
Yuki Matsuzawa. I know you haven't heard of her,
18:56
but she has an absolutely world -class first
19:00
-rate edition of the Chopin etudes. Her recordings
19:04
of the etudes, by the way, were used in part
19:07
for that infamous Joyce Hatto recording of the
19:11
Chopin etudes. Remember when all of these CDs
19:14
were coming out on a label called Concert Artist,
19:17
all credited to pianist Joyce Hatto, and it turned
19:22
out that all of these recordings were stolen
19:25
from other pianists' recordings. I helped to
19:28
uncover that scandal, by the way. My friend Donald
19:32
Manildi singled out Yuki Matsuzawa's Chopin Etudes
19:37
for praise in a very detailed and extensive survey
19:42
he wrote on recordings of the Chopin Etudes for
19:46
International Piano Quarterly magazine in the
19:49
late 1990s. All I can say about Yuki Matsuzawa's
19:54
Chopin Etudes is what's not to love. You have
19:57
perfect finger work, you have fluent phrase,
20:00
You have impeccable timing, imaginative pedaling,
20:04
and very discreetly novel voicings. And there
20:08
are no dead spots in her performances whatsoever.
20:13
No miscalculation of tempos and no expressive
20:16
weirdness or ticks. You can purchase Matsuzawa's
20:21
Chopin etudes as reasonably priced MP3 downloads,
20:25
but if you want to find the physical disc, you'll
20:29
have to pay a pretty penny. And I would be remiss
20:33
if I did not mention Murray Pariah. His Chopin
20:36
etudes are really marvelous. This is bold and
20:41
colorful and totally assured and consistently
20:45
characterful playing. It's very true to the text
20:48
as well, and his etudes are gorgeously recorded.
20:53
I can't recommend them more highly. Now, one
20:56
of the most recent Chopin etudes versions out
21:00
there comes from Yu -chan Lim, who famously won
21:04
the 2022 Van Clyburn competition when he was
21:08
18 years old. He made the best live recording
21:12
ever of Liszt's Transcendental etudes. These
21:15
came from his semi -final round at the Clyburn.
21:19
Some of my critic colleagues bent over backwards
21:23
praising Yu -chan Lim's recent Deka recording
21:27
of the Chopin etudes. And I can understand their
21:31
enthusiasm because technically these pieces hold
21:35
absolutely no difficulties for Yu -chan Lim.
21:39
And his technique is as supple and as effortless
21:43
as you can imagine. Musically speaking, however,
21:48
I tend to find his Chopin more interventionist
21:53
and capricious than his list. For example, he
21:57
loves to futz around with inner voices, and he
21:59
loves attention -getting accents. He likes to
22:03
alter dynamics for momentary effect, and he does
22:08
these cutesy little sudden changes of balance
22:12
between the hands just because he can do it.
22:15
I mean, the pianism is Absolutely amazing. But
22:19
I wonder if these expressive gestures that now
22:24
sound like momentary inspirations and felicities
22:27
are going to hold up over time. Will they eventually
22:31
sound more contrived or predictable over repeated
22:34
hearings? That's why I hedged my bet when I reviewed
22:39
this recording recently. By contrast, Alfred
22:42
Courtauld's spontaneous phrasings and very personal
22:47
roboto always sounds fresh and Chifra's craziness
22:53
is a law unto itself. But while I find Yuchen
22:57
Lim's list etudes musically sincere, I'm not
23:01
100 % sure about his Chopin, brilliant as it
23:05
is on many levels. However, if I had to choose
23:10
only one recording of the Chopin etudes from
23:14
my collection, only one. It would be by the Cuban
23:19
-born American pianist Juana Zayas and her 1983
23:25
recording that's available on the music and arts
23:28
label I think is incredibly special. And again,
23:32
it was Donald Menilde who brought this release
23:35
to my attention many years ago in that Chopin
23:39
etude survey that I mentioned before. He wrote
23:43
that Juana Zayas lavishes on all 24 pieces a
23:48
quite fabulous amalgam of lyricism, wit drama,
23:52
and sheer pianistic craft. I could not agree
23:56
more. And she brings out each etude's specific
24:00
character with a sense of variety that never
24:04
spills over into willfulness or eccentricity,
24:08
and she's another pianist who channels considerable
24:12
technique always toward musical ends. I consider
24:16
her 1983 recording of the Chopin etudes to be
24:21
an ideal marriage of musicianship and virtuosity.
24:27
This is Jed Dissler, and you have been listening
24:30
to the Piano Maven podcast, and I wish you happy
24:35
listening in your pursuit of the Chopin etudes
24:39
on disc, and I hope you'll consider my recommendations.
24:44
I look forward to us being together for our next
24:48
episode, so be well and stay safe, and please
24:52
let your Piano Maven friends know about this
24:55
podcast. you