Beatrice Rana (piano)
Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849)
Piano Sonata No 2 in B-flat minor, Op 35 (1837-1840)
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Piano Sonata No 29 in B-flat major, Op 106 Hammerklavier (1818)
rec. 2023, Sinopoli Hall, Auditorium Parco della Musica, Rome, Italy
Warner Classics 5419 789765 [71]
For people everywhere lockdown presented huge challenges but for many it also offered a time to reflect and re-evaluate and many artists took the opportunity to find something positive in these dark times. For Beatrice Rana it was a chance to engage with Beethoven and the intense study required for his op.106 piano sonata as she tells Jeremy Nicholas in the booklet’s conversational essay. Her original thought was that it would be a purely personal project but thankfully she has brought the fruits of that study into the public arena. She couples this gargantuan with Chopin’s B flat minor sonata, a long-time companion for Rana and a work that many more pianists are happy to present on the recital platform. They certainly work well together and not only, as Rana notes, for the experimental nature of their respective finales; one only has to look at their tonal centres, the depth of feeling in the slow movements and their undeniable grandeur.
Though the booklet essay is relatively short Rana does touch on the matter of pedalling and the extended pedal usage that Chopin and his contemporaries recommended. The pedal is such a different thing now than it was in Chopin’s time and long passages marked with pedal held down are simply impractical on a modern instrument; the less sustained effect of an early 19th century pedal would have provided colour more than the wash of sound that would result from a modern concert grand. To this end Rana makes judicious use of the pedal, letting it sustain for effect but letting enough light through to provide rhythmic and harmonic detail. This is clear in the opening of the first movement after the grave introduction, the four bars of insistent figuration whispering, hushed, a tormented growl that sets up the splintered first theme. The second theme contains more rubato than is perhaps customary but is nonethless beautifully shaped and after its climax has a descent that leads wonderfully into the triplet chordal passages, taut and gripping under Rana’s fingers rising to the stretto with vehemence. Her individual approach continues into the development section that starts with an almost shy hesitance that matches its angularity but it is contrasted with stormy playing that is all the more effective for the thought and care behind how it is unleashed. This is equally true in the scherzo which is approached with a burning ferocity that is glorious to hear though again it is offset with delicacy when needed, a marvellous gradation of dynamics and a real joy felt in the climaxes. The marche funèbre is desolate and mournful, a picture of a solitary figure wrapped in grief rather than a cortège and the utter simplicity of Rana’s way with the central D flat melody emphasises this. It is only when the march reappears that anger surfaces and the desolation of the opening is forgotten but this is still a relatively subdued emotion, nothing like the fortissimo entry that makes Rachmaninov’s so distinctive, love it or loathe it. Rana’s finale may not be for everyone but I love it; performers have to decide what to do with two minutes or less of the hands playing a single line in parallel with only fragmentary thematic motifs? Do you go with the clarity of Pollini or Ashkenazy or the misty lines of Pletnyev? Rana finds her own way and as with the opening of the first movement the lines are not clearly delineated; motifs and even individual notes peep out beyond this veil and some notes rush as if being chased before they too disappear back into the mist. I can’t say that I have ever heard it played like this and thankfully Rana is a wonderfully skilled artist who keeps the phantasms at bay finally dismissing them with the richest fortissimo.
All of which prepares the stage for Beethoven’s Hammerklavier sonata, assuredly one of the high peaks of the piano literature and his longest and most technically demanding sonata – I have Liszt’s Bosworth edition of the sonatas arranged rather bizarrely by difficulty and op.106 sits happily at the end. It’s powerful adagio sostenuto alone lasts nearly as long as Chopin’s op.35. Perhaps it doesn’t appear in concert as often as that sonata but nowadays there are no shortage of pianists who are eager to tackle its challenges and indeed many successful ones. Beatrice Rana’s fine account can certainly be added to that roster with its wonderful attention to detail despite the generally brisk tempi, a beautiful fluidity of phrasing, vital rhythmic impulse and playing in lower dynamics that is miraculous; just listen to Beethoven’s wonderful G major passages in bars 45 to 63 or the descending passages in bars 75 and 77, effortlessly graceful and as natural as breathing. I say brisk and it is though she does not attempt Beethoven’s minim equals 138 as Artur Schnabel does and her passage work has no sense of rushing that Schnabel often displays; I find her more in tune with Solomon in his 1952 recording of the sonata. Rana continues into the scherzo in equally fine fettle, fleet and with gorgeous balance and silky tone in the trio. The adagio sostenuto is characterised by focus and intensity especially, once again in the lower dynamics so that when she reaches a fortissimo in bars 122 and 123 the impact is huge. Rana talks about this movement’s sense of loneliness and solitude and equates that to her own situation, one that so many of us shared; she captures this and more as well as finding the consolation that it offers. If I say that the fugue is a stunning tour de force I mean it in the best possible way; the opening fugue subject is urgent and eager and the whole is oozing with character, Rana matching Beethoven in his ever changing moods.
Rana’s study has paid real dividends and this recital is bursting with energy, an impish sense of fun and a thoughtful approach to the revolutionary ideas contained within each sonata. Both performances easily sit among my top choices for these two wonderful works.
Rob Challinor
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