Nicolas Medtner plays Medtner
The Complete Solo Piano Recordings
with Violin Sonata No.1
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Appassionata Sonata
rec. 1930-47
APR 7315 [3 CDs: 214]

Between 1998 and 2004, APR released three single discs devoted to Nicolas Medtner’s solo piano recordings adding the Violin Sonata No.1, never issued commercially on 78s, with Cecilia Hansen. Other than the Appassionata recording, which Medtner made in 1946, everything was a case of ‘Medtner plays Medtner’ and if you want his Piano Concertos, or songs or the late Piano Quintet, you will necessarily need to acquire them from other sources, principally Testament. I reviewed each release as it emerged from the APR forge and as I don’t believe in reinventing the wheel I have rejigged the reviews here. I should add that there is one addition, the October 1946 recording of the vivacious Russian Round-Dance which Medtner made with one of his great champions and fellow Russian, Benno Moiseiwitsch. There has also been some further restorative work on the discs. All these elements make this 3-CD box with authoritative notes from Medtner’s biographer, Barrie Martyn, and from APR supremo Bryan Crimp, indispensable for admirers of the composer.

Medtner’s status as one of the great performer-composers is significantly lower than that of his colleague and friend Rachmaninov. That this should be so is in part due to the “Medtner Problem” – a curious unwillingness to engage with the nature of his compositions and, as regards performance, Medtner’s own extreme diffidence as a soloist. He frequently gave recitals of his own music but very few of other composers’ – and increasingly Beethoven came to occupy the central place in his repertoire that had once embraced Balakirev’s Islamey, Liszt, Schumann’s Toccata and the Tchaikovsky B minor, Chopin E minor and Rubinstein’s E flat Concertos.

The bulk of Medtner’s published discography dates from 1936 and 1946/7. True he’d made Piano rolls, for Welte-Mignon in 1922 and for Duo-Art in New York in 1925, but Columbia had obviously become interested in him because in 1928 he came to their London studios whilst on tour to make three test records following which, during 1930-31, he came back to record his own compositions – including three of his songs. None was ever issued. The recently merged Columbia and HMV, forming EMI, remade most, but not all, of them in 1936 and issued them under the aegis of HMV. In 1946-47 he again underwent a fairly comprehensive recording schedule committing the Concertos, amongst much else, to records. These latter were sponsored by the Maharajah of Mysore – a series concluded in 1950, the year before Medtner’s death, with recordings of the songs with Elizabeth Schwarzkopf. Along the way Medtner added substantially to his discography – the Piano Quintet and Violin Sonata No 1 (both unissued at the time), two of the piano sonatas, the Sonata-Vocalise, shorter piano pieces and some songs with Oda Slobodskaya and also with Tatiana Makushina, a favoured soprano with whom he’d given his first London recital in 1928.

Medtner maintained that “There may be different ways of playing a piece but always one that is the best.” CD 1 illustrates this graphically. It contains a long sequence of Columbia recordings unissued at the time on 78. The consistency between sessions a few days apart is, perhaps, unexceptionable – but Medtner’s consistency over a span of seventeen years is testament to his belief in the almost spiritual rightness of the act of interpretation. He gave the German name Märchen to his cycle Skazka; in English, Fairy Tales. They possess a profound level of emotional engagement which belies the rather feyly neutral English title – and constitutes one of the most impressive piano cycles in twentieth century composition. Medtner’s pianism in these previously unissued 1930-31 discs is highly personalised. He possesses a rhythmic mastery, a colouristic palette, that gives tremendous life to the miniatures. There’s nothing obviously cerebral or withdrawn about his playing but neither is it presumptuously romanticised. Lyric parameters are invariably maintained, nuance and scale always observed. There are so many felicities in his playing it’s difficult to know where to start. Some delicious left-hand runs inform Op 14 No.2, its contrapuntalism alive and absorbed as if into the bloodstream.

He can be thunderous too, as in Op 20 No.2 but never so much as to overbalance either texture or form. And equally his employment of tempo rubato, exemplified in Op.51 No.3, results in sensitively shaped inexorable logic. Op 20 No.1 is especially attractive with its amplitude and waves of torrential romanticism, never seeming for a moment spurious or over- inflated. His pianism retains at all times a passionate fixity within which his compositions flourish all the more. There is some dizzying passagework in Op.26 No.2, more remarkable runs and perfectly weighted and balanced chords in the Danza jubilosa. The joyous Danza festiva is again combustible and fantastically virtuosic. We can hear throughout these discs that Columbia experimented with different electrical systems, with different recording levels and acoustics as a result. However he was recorded, though, Medtner’s affecting lyricism and triumphant weight of touch are impossible to miss.

His beloved Beethoven is represented by the (commercially published) HMV 1946 recording of the Appassionata. There is a grim certainty to his playing of the Allegro assai – defiant, unselfpitying. The graded dynamics of the slow movement are profoundly inward whereas the finale boasts a steadily accumulating sense of inevitability. Structural sagacity makes this a commanding and compelling experience.

The transfers in this volume of copies, many of which are now owned by Marc-André Hamelin, have been effected with the highest skill. A few, brief intrusive noise-reduced thumps have been significantly reduced in the new restorations. We can hear the differences between the variously dated sessions – distance, microphone placements – but their aural integrity has been kept intact.

The second CD advances from the unearthed riches of Volume One’s unpublished Columbias to the HMV album of 1936 with the addition of the 1946 Improvisation and one dramatic rarity of its own – the First Violin Sonata, previously unreleased on 78. The qualities I noted as being characteristic of Medtner’s playing in 1930-31 are equally present here. He remade many, though not all, of the early discs and we can hear how little his interpretations differed, If there are minor changes he is, not unsurprisingly, marginally slower in 1936, but the differences are really minimal, matters of seconds. Bryan Crimp notes that Medtner’s reappearance in the studios after the War was only possible because of the intervention of Medtner’s friend and colleague, Benno Moiseiwitsch, and slightly later the Maharajah of Mysore whose sponsorship of the Society Albums is well known.

The 1936 HMVs reveal his beautifully balanced, scaled and equalized playing. He brings out the middle voices in the Germanic Novelle – his conveyance of mood and cogent linkage of the slow and faster sections one of great skill. We can understand in his playing of this piece something of Medtner’s belief in the dictum, worth restating, that whilst there are many ways of playing a piece “but always one that is best.” Here his feeling for dramatic intensity is fused with a notable sense of narrative within a short space of time. The Op 20 No.2 Märchen is heavy-footed, with its sinuous bass line and plenty of eruptive drama. Medtner manages to infuse these miniatures with a sense of incident far beyond their seemingly circumscribed form and his pianism is adept at balancing both architectural and tonal needs.

In his hands the Märchen in particular are constantly fluid and in motion, endlessly alive. Op 51 No.2 for instance is animated by his pearl-bejewelled treble which glitters in a three-and-a-half-minute tone poem of lyrical simplicity. In contrast Medtner’s sinew, and his Germanic influences as well as his still robust technique, are all on show in the Danza Festiva – triumphant, celebratory, full of cascading verve. He conjures up the sprite world in the Wood Goblin Märchen, Op 34 No.3 and the tragic depth of the Arabesque with equal aplomb. His balanced chords and articulation in the Danza jubilosa, allied to his controlled and controlling animation, are infectious. That consistency, so famously associated with him, is perhaps best exemplified by the Op 51 No.3 Märchen, which differs not at all from the versions included in Volume 1. Medtner has a formidable variety of qualities, from the lilting to the vigorous, the exultant to the Schumannesquely crepuscular, the introspective to the narratively complex.

The exciting news about the First Violin Sonata is that this is its first commercial appearance. This had previously received limited circulation as it was issued as part of the collector Thomas L. Clear’s self-produced, semi-private series of LPs and is of itself something of a rarity. Copies of the 78s were supplied to APR by Donald Manildi and Barrie Martyn, and Bryan Crimp has utilised some skilful noise reduction to limit the surface noise but managed also to retain frequency fidelity and not to suppress treble. Medtner’s sonata partner is fellow Russian, Cecilia Hansen, a pupil of Leopold Auer born in 1897 and who lived to a venerable old age, dying in London at ninety-two. She made very few recordings – no more than ten 78 sides for Victor in the 1920s and the Medtner is both her most extended – indeed her only extended – recording and also the highlight of her discography. She was fifty when she and Medtner recorded the Sonata, her initial success long since behind her, but her technique is robust and intact and her musical intelligence obvious. With its evocative lyricism and delicious textual profile this is an ingenuous and beautiful work. Hansen is well equalized through the scale, with a very quick and gorgeous, though prominent, slide at 2:25 in the first movement and her lyric intensity in the Danza is delightful. Medtner’s off-beat accents are properly propulsive; her portamentos toward the end are pervasive but precise, though she can sometimes sound rather starved in the E-string. Medtner is admirably nimble and their synchronicity is excellent, Of the known survivals of this set all are take one. Hansen does have a small tone, feminine, but inclined rather more than, say, her fellow Auer pupil Efrem Zimbalist to convey its lyrical implications. And she is well attuned to the Sonata’s concluding Ditirambo. It’s difficult to balance the two instruments here but Medtner is chordally solicitous, though maybe very slightly overbalancing Hansen’s accompanying figuration later on. But they have enviable rhythmic rapport, reaching the conclusion of the sonata with a triumphant understanding of its play of the active and the passive. As with the first volume of this series the transfers are outstanding.

The third CD contains the 1947 HMV recordings. It also reprises one of the set’s great qualities, which is to dig up previously unpublished material. Hymn in Praise of Toil, the Novelle in C Op.17 No.2 and Primavera Op.39 No.3 are all previously unpublished sides and therefore their appearance in the catalogues enriches the Medtner discography even further. They’re all in good estate as well and Bryan Crimp clearly worked hard – and successfully – with the surviving Primavera to present it as persuasively as this despite the fact that it apparently suffered some degradation.

The clarity and subtlety of Medtner’s playing is as captivating here as in the previous volumes. The personalised rubati he employs in the Canzona matinata vie with the galvanizing accelerandi for maximal interest. The passionate eloquence of the opening of the Sonata tragica is one thing but the torrid power is controlled with the most remarkable of rhythmic mechanisms and all the while Medtner piles on the colouristic dimensions to his music with prismic brilliance. Note, too, the crisp, clear chording in the Sonata-Ballada, the most important work in the volume. The trills are electrically fast and the playing is truly an example of heroism in action.

I can’t now hear the little pitch instability I noted in the earlier edition in the unpublished Hymn in Praise of Toil. There’s no other word but gorgeous to describe Medtner’s playing of the Skazka in F. As one has observed before about his playing the lyric parameters are invariably maintained, nuance and scale always observed, and he possesses a rhythmic mastery and a colouristic palette, that gives tremendous life to the miniatures. Obviously as well he gives a composer’s intent as to how his pieces should “go.”

This compact box is essential fare for the Medtner collector, which I think goes without saying. But the discs have a constituency far beyond that – they are profoundly important documents of a great executant-composer. Barrie Martyn’s annotations and the full recording details cap a vital series of discs.

Jonathan Woolf

Buying this recording via the link below generates revenue for MWI, which helps the site remain free

Volume 1
Märchen (Skazka/Fairy Tales): Op 14/2 (1905-07), Op 8/1 (1904-05), Op 20/2 (1909), Op 51/3 (1920-22), Op 51/5 (1920-22), Op 20/1 (1909), Op 26/3, Op 26/3 (1910-12), Op 26/2 (1910-12), Op 51/2 (1920-22)
Hymn in praise of toil Op 49 No.1 (1926-28)
Danza jubilosa Op 40 No.4 (1918-20)
Danza festiva Op 38 No.3 (pub 1922)
Canzona matinata Op 39 No.4 (1919-20)
Novelle Op 17/1 (1908)
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Sonata No 23 Op 57 Appassionata (1806)
rec. London 1930-31 (Medtner) and 1946 (Beethoven)

Volume 2
Novelle Op 17 No.1 (1908)
Märchen Opp 14 No. 2 (1905-07), Op.20 No.1 (1909), Op.20 No.2 (1909), Op.26 No.2 (1910-12), Op.26 No.3 (1910-12), Op.34 No.2 (1916), Op.51 No.2 (1920-22), Op.51 No.3 (1920-22)
Danza Festiva Op 38 No.3 (pub 1922)
Arabesque Op 7 No.3 (1901-04)
Improvisation Op 31 No.1 (1914)
Russian Round-Dance, Op.58 No.1 (1940)
Benno Moiseiwitsh (piano)
Violin Sonata No 1 Op 21 (1910)
Cecilia Hansen (violin)
rec. Abbey Road, London 1936-1947

Volume 3
Canzona matinata Op.39 No.4 (1919-20)
Sonata tragica in E Op.39 No.5 (c.1918-20) 
Arabesque in A Op.7 No.2 (1901-1904)
Sonata-Ballada in F sharp Op.27 (c.1912-14)
Hymn in Praise of Toil (Before Work) Op.49 No.1 (1926-28)
Novelle in C Op.17 No.2 (1908)
Märchen [Skazka] in D Op.51 No.1 (1920-22)
Märchen [Skazka] in F Op.26 No.3 (1910-1912)
Primavera Op.39 No.3 (1919-20)
rec. Studio 3 Abbey Road, London, 1947