Alfred Brendel (piano)
The 1950s SPA Recordings
Ferruccio Busoni (1866-1924)
Fantasia Contrappuntistica, BV.256 (1910)
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Ich ruf’ zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ, BWV.639 (arr. Ferruccio Busoni, BV B27 No 5, 1898)
Franz Liszt (1811-1886)
Weihnachtsbaum, S.186 (1874-76)
rec.1952-1953, Vienna
APR 5655 [79]
Alfred Brendel’s discography is extensive though Wikipedia notes that he only recorded for three companies, VOX, Decca and Philips; while it is true that the majority of his discography is for those three labels APR have very nicely padded that discography out with this release of recordings he made for a fourth label, SPA records. SPA or the Society of Participating Artists Inc. was founded in New York in 1951 but only ran until 1956. It was founded by conductor F. Charles Adler and Norman Fox with the intention of issuing works that had not previously been recorded. Amongst its releases are works by Anton Bruckner, Gustav Mahler, Darius Milhaud, Edward MacDowell, George Antheil, Henry Cowell, Eugen D’Albert and less familiar names like Elie Siegmeister and Eric Zeisl. Brendel recorded four albums including early chamber works of Beethoven and Richard Strauss piano works as well as the two albums issued here on CD for the first time since their release. It should be noted that APR have respected Mr. Brendel’s request not to issue the Strauss items, as he was unhappy with his performances. Brendel’s first recording was for Vox in January 1951 featured Prokofiev’s fifth piano concerto, but that was closely followed by his SPA recordings and they make for auspicious early steps in both his recording and performing career.
Liszt has always been an important part of Brendel’s repertoire and his VOX recordings feature concertante works as well as the B minor Sonata, several of the Hungarian rhapsodies and a sprinkling of other works including some of the transcriptions. Prior to that, though, he played the seldom heard Christmas Tree suite, recorded in 1952 when Brendel was twenty. The work, written over a period of years from 1873 and 1881, comprises twelve movements and was dedicated to his first grand-child Daniela von Bülow (1860-1940), the daughter of Cosima and Hans von Bülow. It was played to her as a gift on Christmas Day 1881. The twelve pieces are arranged into three books of four pieces; Leslie Howard describes the books as firstly traditional carol melodies, then a child’s view of Christmas and finally a maturer person’s recollections. The first of the carol melodies, Psallite, is by Michael Praetorius (1571-1621) with some additional music by Liszt, while O Holy Night is likewise based on an old carol that is not familiar today. It is interesting to hear Liszt’s wonderful adaptions of two carols that remain popular, In dulce jubilo and Adeste fidelis, O come, all ye faithful, especially the lilting In dulce jubilo. Scherzoso and carillon are as breathless and excited as a child on Christmas morning which explain the lullaby that follows, all too necessary perhaps, though its outward simplicity has some darker harmonic shifts. The brisk adaption of two French carols that follows is as brief as it is lively. The final four pieces have no particular Christmassy feel; perhaps Liszt’s view was that it was a time more for friends, family and revisiting fond memories. Certainly Evening bells and Ehemals – in olden days or in days gone by – have something of the Liszt of the Années de Pélerinage and the Petrarch Sonnets. The two final pieces, Ungarisch and Polnisch are two marvellous evocations and a return, especially in the mazurka of Polnisch, to the virtuosity and grand manner of old.
Brendel performed Busoni’s towering Fantasia Contrappuntistica in Vienna in the 1952-53 concert season and while there is no date given for this recording it is assumed that it was shortly after this. The work had been completed thirty years previously and this was its premiere recording, some three or four years before Egon Petri’s 1956 version for the Westminster label (DG 477 9527, not reviewed). The work was inspired by Bach’s unfinished homage to contrapuntal writing, The Art of Fugue. It includes Busoni’s idea of a completion, going beyond what would have been considered appropriate harmony in Bach’s time, even considering that Bach stretched those limits in his quest for contrapuntal integrity. The work opens in grand style with the chorale Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr. It continues with three extended fugues, a gloriously veiled intermezzo marked misticamente and visionario, three increasingly complex variations and a cadenza that mixes a stern dotted rhythm figure with ethereal and mysterious arpeggios. Finally a fugue that brings Bach’s four subjects together before disappearing into a ghostly chorale that echoes the opening music. To say that the final stretto is taxing takes nothing away from the huge demands that the entire work places on a pianist, both from a purely physical standpoint and an intellectual one. Liszt’s Weihnachtsbaum is light relief after this edifice, which is as much a marathon for the listener with its complex and unremitting strands of contrapuntal writing. Brendel takes a much broader view of the work than the older Petri, who, though he was two months off his 75th birthday, gives us an energetic and robust interpretation that shaves a whole ten minutes off Brendel’s time (35:52 to Petri’s 25:10). For me that makes less of a difference than it would in say a concerto or a sonata and you don’t come away thinking it is a slow performance; in fact I came away rather breathless from the sheer clarity of the voicing and the absolutely beautiful sound that Brendel coaxes from the instrument even in Busoni’s most intractable writing. As a bonus Brendel plays Busoni’s arrangement of Bach’s achingly beautiful chorale prelude Ich ruf’ zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ, poised and intimate and worth the admission price on its own.
Brendel aficionados will want to snap up this release for their collection, but I would heartily recommend it to anyone who appreciates impeccable pianism. The fantasia is not the most approachable piece in the world, but rewards repeated listening, and Liszt’s Christmas Tree does not deserve its relative neglect. Sound and documentation are up to APR’s high standards and the booklet includes an essay on Busoni by Brendel himself.
Rob Challinor
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