Fanny Davies and Adela Verne (piano)
The Complete Recordings
rec. 1917-30, Columbia Studios, London
APR 5648 [78]
Fanny Davies (1861-1934) was probably Clara Schumann’s leading pupil, and her entire musical direction was shaped by her experience of the time she spent studying with her in Frankfurt, from 1883. Those who have only come across her in the context of Leoš Janáček’s visit to Britain during the General Strike in 1926 for performances of his chamber music at Wigmore Hall will certainly recall his disparaging comments about her – the ungentlemanly Moravian called her an ‘old scarecrow’, when refusing to let her play his Concertino, though that may also have been because he preferred the comely Jelly d’Arányi when the two women performed his Violin Sonata. It was only two years later that Davies recorded the Piano Concerto preserved here, accompanied by Ernest Ansermet in his first recording, directing the Orchestra of the Royal Philharmonic Society – a footnote in the booklet addresses this ever-vexed subject (the labels call it ‘The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra’).
Davies was very clear what Schumann was and what he wasn’t; ‘he is a poet, full of sentiment and fantasy but he is never sentimental; you must never make his music sound sentimental’. Her playing bears this out. She plays with warmth and a degree of freedom marked by rubati and by refined phrasing. As for the cadenza in the first movement she is on record as having urged that it ‘should be played very calmly, pensively and peacefully…’, and that’s how she negotiates it, without any showy effects but never blandly. She characterised the central movement, remembering what Clara said about it, as an ‘impassioned conversation’ between orchestra and soloist’ and, once again, that’s precisely how she plays it. She certainly doesn’t force the pace in the finale, taken instead in such a way as to preserve the waltz motive that runs through it. This is a classic recording, beautifully characterised by Davies and faithfully followed by Ansermet. The orchestra will take a bit of getting used to and in particular the wind section. Their tuning is sour and not helped by a lack of vibrato or the dry, cramped studio sound but it’s a small matter in the light of so fine a recording.
The following year Davies recorded Kinderszenen in the Portman Rooms in London. This is another poetic, refined reading. Note, even in ‘Frightening’, how she prefers the music to be well-contoured and to avoid sudden aggressive eruptions. She never makes an ugly sound. Träumerei is wholly unaffected. She makes the arpeggiation at the end of Der Dichter spricht both warm and the fitting, truthful end of the work. In 1930 she added Davidsbündlertänze to her Schumann legacy, though she omits Nos III, VII, XV and XVI possibly to get the work onto six sides. It was, curiously, never issued in Britain, only in the United States. Despite the omissions it contains some of her greatest Schumann playing and that’s saying something, considering the excellence of her other two recordings. With her refined poetic phrasing, her perceptive pacing and her avoidance of extremes of expression, she ensures that the work’s episodic structure makes perfect sense. Where modern performances take ‘Wild und lustig’ as an opportunity to drive the music to the margins of taste, Davies’ way is toward architectural cogency, civility and beauty of tone.
The disc ends with the only three recordings of Adela Verne (1877-1952), a more shadowy figure whose studies are shrouded in confusion – possibly she studied with Clara or her daughter, Marie, or possibly Adela’s own sister Mathilde (who did study with Clara) or even with Paderewski. Her tuition seems lost to time. She made four sides acoustically for English Columbia in 1917 and this is the first time they’ve been transferred. Obviously, they’re more limited sonically than the Fanny Davies sides but they still contain more then enough detail to leave one deeply impressed by Verne’s unselfconscious brio in the studio. Chopin’s Polonaise in A flat major is vivid, energetic and full of caprice – as far from a rabbit-in-the-headlights performance as you’ll find. Then there’s Ignacio Cervantes’ Three Cuban Dances, an early recording of this – zesty, rhythmic, and full of character. The final recording is of Moszkowski’s popular showpiece La Jongleuse played with immediacy and wit – and played, incidentally, and very oddly, twice. Couldn’t Columbia have got her to play another piece on this side? Quite why she never recorded again – she was still performing in the early 1950s – is one of those eternal mysteries.
Jonathan Dobson’s erudite booklet notes take nothing on trust and conspicuously don’t rehash previous assertions about who-studied-with-whom unless they can be proved.
The transfers by Andrew Hallifax are top-class. The Fanny Davies recordings were reissued back in the 1980s by Pearl in a big box called ‘The Pupils of Clara Schumann’ which included much rare material by other pianists, Ilona Eibenschütz and Adelina de Lara. Fine as those transfers were (and extensive as was the booklet that came with it), these transfers are in another league.
Jonathan Woolf
Other review: Rob Challinor (November 2025)
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Contents
Fanny Davies (piano)
Robert Schumann (1810-1856)
Piano Concerto in A minor (1845)
Kinderszenen, Op.15 (1838)
Davidsbündlertänze, Op.6 omitting Nos III, VII, XV & XVI (1837)
Orchestra of the Royal Philharmonic Society/Ernest Ansermet
rec. London 1928-30
Adela Verne (piano)
Fryderyk Chopin (1810-1849)
Polonaise in A flat major, Op.53 (1842)
Ignacio Cervantes (1847-1905)
Three Cuban Dances (1899)
Moritz Moszkowski (1854-1925)
La Jongleuse, Op.52 No.4
rec. London, 1917
