Ann Schein (piano)
The KAPP recordings 1958-60
APR 7320 [3 CDs: 78 + 68 + 65]
This 3-CD box must now serve as a memorial for Ann Schein, whose death, on April 14th, was announced as the CDs were being distributed. If it is indeed to be a memorial, it’s a rather astonishing one, as it captures her as a young woman aged between 18 and 20 in five LPs made for the KAPP label between 1958 and 1960. I’d never heard Schein’s recordings – in fact I hadn’t even come across her name – and it’s been a rare experience to listen to this body of recordings by so lyrical, so musical and so mature an artist as she.
Schein was born in 1939 and from the age of thirteen studied with Mieczysław Munz. She made her debut in 1957 and gave frequent European and Russian tours, travelling south of the border and to the Far East. Her Carnegie Hall debut followed in 1962, and she took lessons from both Arthur Rubinstein and Myra Hess. She toured as an American Cultural Ambassador, was exceptionally popular in Holland and Norway and appeared at six Proms including two Last Nights. She married Earl Carlyss, second violinist of the Juilliard Quartet, who predeceased her by a matter of three months, and managed to balance teaching responsibilities with concert-giving.
KAPP snapped her up early, considering she was 18 and had only just given her professional debut but they were astute judges of talent. The discs begin and end with the two Concerto recordings she made but it makes sense to consider them together as they were both made in 1960 with Sir Eugene Goossens conducting the Vienna State Opera Orchestra. Chopin’s Concerto No.2 in F minor is played with subtle rubati, a richly coloured palette and a flair for dynamic variance. Her phrasing in the slow movement is deft, and the finale is rhythmically attractive. Her partnership with Goossens is watertight. The Rachmaninov is even better, and probably the most outstanding example of her art here. She plays this with an almost paradoxical lightness and lyricism. This is allied to a strong technique and a thoroughly musical, almost chamber-scaled interplay with Goossens and the orchestra. It’s a performance far removed from the pounding clichés of this work. Instead, it’s subtle, refined, fleet and wholly admirable. In fact, it stands as a startling corrective to purely extrovert readings that sound merely self-aggrandizing.
KAPP released albums with to-the-point titles. One was devoted just to Etudes, another to Dances and much of her repertoire on the discs is devoted to Chopin. She plays the Nocturne in D flat major, Op.27/2 at an unusually dreamy tempo, with exquisite results. To the central panel of the Scherzo No.1 in B minor she brings a nuanced lyricism to match the digital clarity and drama of its outer sections, remaining light on the pedal. She is rhythmically resilient in the B flat minor Scherzo, full of youthful drive but with adroitly precise fingerwork. The first nine tracks of the second disc are in mono – everything else is in stereo – and these monos include a scintillating Weber-Tausig Invitation to the Dance as well as examples from Medtner, Halffter and Bartók’s Romanian Folk Dances. Her two Chopin Mazurkas are well chosen, the poetic contrasting with the virtuoso and the Etudes are full of flair and subtlety. Amongst the selections from Opp.10 and 25 perhaps the finest, for me – everyone will have their own favourites – is the A flat major, Op.10 No.10, with her luminous and pearlescent treble. The Revolutionary Etude, Op.10 No.12 is dispatched with flair and control. The only real failure in this second CD is the Polonaise-Fantasy in A flat major, Op.61 which opens lugubriously and never really recovers.
Two LPs were recorded on 24 April 1958, the Chopin Etude album and a miscellaneous one that contained more examples of her maturity and legerdemain. Her Moszkowski Etude is dashingly virtuosic, and her Scriabin is notable for the refinement of her dynamics, notably the ardent melancholy of the C sharp minor, Op.2 No.1. Together these 5 LPs reflect strong training, exceptional musical maturity, independence of mind, an advanced ear for dynamic and colouristic shading and shaping, phrasal warmth, and an acute sensitivity toward the repertoire she undertook. She was to record for various labels in the years to come, for Delos, Desto and Ivory Classics but booklet writer Jonathan Summers says that this group of recordings is the most representative of her work. His seven-page essay is exemplary and very necessary for those of us, like me, who have never encountered her before. Restoration engineer Andrew Hallifax ensures that these KAPP discs are heard at their very best.
Jonathan Woolf
Other review: Rob Chalinor
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Contents
CD 1
Fryderyk Chopin
Piano Concerto No.2 in F minor, Op.21
Vienna State Opera Orchestra/Sir Eugene Goossens
Nocturne in D flat major, Op.27 No.2
rec. January 1960, Musikverein, Vienna (KAPP 6001)
Scherzo No.1 in B minor, Op.20
Scherzo No.2 in B flat minor, Op.31
Scherzo No.3 in C sharp minor, Op.39
Scherzo No.4 in E major, Op.54
rec. March-April 1959, RCA Studios, New York (KAPP 9040)
CD 2
Carl Maria von Weber/Carl Tausig
Invitation to the Dance
Nikolai Medtner
Danza festiva
Ernesto Halffter
Danza de la Pastora from the ballet ‘Sonatina’
Béla Bártok
Romanian Folk Dances, Sz56
Georges Bizet/Sergei Rachmaninov
Minuet from L’arlésienne suite No.1
Fryderyk Chopin
Waltz in D flat major ‘Minute’, Op.64 No.1
Mazurka in A flat major, Op.59 No.2
Mazurka in F sharp minor, Op.59 No.3
Polonaise-Fantasy in A flat major, Op.61
rec. 31 May 1959, New York (KAPP 9042)
Étude in A flat major, Op.25 No.1
Étude in F minor, Op.25 No.2
Étude in F major, Op.25 No.3
Étude in G flat major ‘Butterfly’, Op.25 No.9
Nouvelle étude in A sharp minor, Op.10 No.4
Étude in C sharp minor, Op.10 No.4
Étude in A flat major, Op.10 No.10
Étude in C major, Op.10 No.7
Étude in F major, Op.10 No.8
Étude in C minor ‘Revolutionary’, Op.10 No.12
rec. 24 April 1958, New York (KAPP 9023)
CD 3
Claude Debussy
Étude ‘Pour les arpèges composés’, L143 No.11
Karol Szymanowski
Étude in B flat minor, Op.4 No.3
Moritz Moszkowski
Étude de virtuosité in F major, Op.72 no.6
Alexander Scriabin
Étude in B flat minor, Op.8 No.11
Étude in C sharp minor, Op.2 No.1
Franz Liszt
Gnomenreigen, S145
Sergei Rachmaninov
Étude-tableau in E flat minor, Op.33 No.6
rec. 24 April 1958, New York (KAPP 9023)
Sergei Rachmaninov
Piano Concerto No.3 in D minor, Op.30
Vienna State Opera Orchestra/Sir Eugene Goossens
rec. January 1960, Musikverein, Vienna (KAPP 6000)
