Jascha Spivakovsky: Bach to Bloch, Vol. 8 = Works for solo piano by BEETHOVEN; SCHUMANN; CHOPIN; GLUCK; BRAHMS; LISZT [complete list of compositions below]- Jascha Spivakovsky, piano – Pristine Audio PAKM080, 68:51 [www.pristineclassical.com] ****:
This most recent installment of sound documents devoted to Ukrainian pianist Jascha Spivakovsky (1896-1970) traverses performances 1955-1967, including several alternative readings of repertory covered in earlier Pristine issues, yet revealing the true musician’s touch for finding nuance and phrasing pertinent to the moment.
Spivakovsky opens with Beethoven’s youthful 1796 Sonata in E Major, and the performance of the first movement Allegro carries a rococo color that testifies to the composer’s treating the piano sonata medium as a kind of experimental laboratory for structure and texture. The ascending fourths in one hand find a response in various octaves. The scalar passage takes us chromatically to B Major that soon develops by chains of sixteenths, which under Spivakovsky rather glisten. The ensuing Allegretto in E minor – a relatively innovative modulation for the time – conveys a darker, sturm und drang sensibility, a trait first revealed to this auditor by Gina Bachauer. The trio section Beethoven marks “Maggiore” and proceeds to a bright C Major. The Rondo will exploit Beethoven’s love of syncopation, but no less do the fulsome octaves demonstrate Beethoven’s capacity – as well as that of Spivakovsky – to impose a more “symphonic” sound upon the otherwise salon sensibility of this crafty sonata.
I first heard the so-called Sonata quasi una fantasia in E-flat Major as played by Wilhelm Backhaus. The less familiar companion of the Moonlight Sonata, this four-movement work reveals a new intensity of purpose in Beethoven as well as his capacity for classical compression. The structure of slow-fast-slow-fast movements suggests a Baroque consciousness, adding to the feeling of emotional weight and unity of intent. Spivakovsky opens with an air of mystery, an Andante in precisely balanced phrases whose rising tones – moving to C Major – cede first to melody and then to a sense of pending explosiveness. Beethoven juxtaposes high and descending scale patterns. Spivakovsky’s bass figures and jabbing accents provide a burst of drama, only to recede once more into the balanced scale patterns. With barely a pause, the Allegro molto e vivace comes upon us, in song form, a scherzo and trio. The main tune has a martial character, galloping ahead with Spivakovsky’s light touch and flippant roulades. The 24-bar Adagio feels rife with unspoken power, but it will serve mainly to introduce the finale, landing via long trill on a suspended cadence in E-flat. The Allegro vivace gives us a hustling rondo rampant with melody and its counter in pulsating contest, the pianist’s wrist action a marvel. Almost a look far ahead into his style, Beethoven quotes eight pulsating bars of the Adagio movement, here in E-flat Major. Spivakovsky then plays, presto, a variant of the rondo that closes a masterfully controlled reading.
Among the remaining, smaller-scale pieces Spivakovsky plays arises the Brahms arrangement of a gavotte by Gluck (rec. 1955), made famous on record in its day by Elly Ney. Refined and alert, the piece achieves a studied, music-box sonority that rings with rhythmic lilt and life. That this piece influenced the alla musette variant in the Handel Variations leaves little doubt. The two Brahms miniatures derive from 1961 home recordings by Spivakovksy played on his 1910 Bluther instrument. The C Major Intermezzo, Op. 119, No. 3 Spivakovsky plays quickly, sharpening its syncopes. The reading has the tremendous verve and wit. So, too, the sparkling Capriccio, Op. 76, No. 2, often an Artur Rubinstein encore. Its uncanny balance of whimsy and martial aggression suddenly breaks off and sings in a nostalgic moment of our mortal coil. The piece ends with a wickedly impish notion of strict counterpoint and fragments of its original impetus.
The first of the “encores” opens with a 1960 broadcast of Schumann’s wistful Arabeske in C, itself a kind of rondo. Spivakovsky emphasizes the dualism in the composer, his confident Florestan and meditative Eusebius. Color and tone prove resilient and fluid, and the transition and epilogue generate their own, Romantic ethos. Spivakovsky’s legato provides an object lesson in itself. The Chopin selections derive from 1967; and the “Revolutionary” Etude tells us that no potency has diminished in this often titanic pianist. The lyric drama virtually thunders across the Polish emotional landscape. The posthumous Fantasie-Impromptu possesses muscularity and poetic flexibility, at once. The brilliant speed of the outer sections would impress us enough, were not the melodic impulse so sensitively nuanced. Rarely does a bravura performer apply the pregnant pause so effectively. The big work, the Ballade in G minor, projects the passion in the Mickiewicz poem, the dissonant E-flat in the recitative prominent to bode ill fortune. The Neapolitan harmonies from Spivakovsky add a Mediterranean eroticism to a performance willful and disarmingly intimate. The music explodes in resonant, thrilling tone to a predetermined sense of heroic tragedy.
Last, from 1967 Australian television, Spivakovsky dishes up the eternal spectacle of Liszt’s transcription from Paganini’s Second Violin Concerto, his “La Campanella,” which thrives on repeated notes. Colossal wit and pungent clarity of articulation inform this “symphonic” reading that delights in antiphons. What’s that phrase spoken with deep deliberation by director Cecil B. DeMille: “and his natural force was not abated.” The accompanying liner notes from Mark Ainley testify to an abiding admiration for this hitherto ignored artist, whom Pristine consistently casts into a flourishing spotlight.
—Gary Lemco
Compositions:
BEETHOVEN: Piano Sonata No. 9 in E Major, Op. 14, No. 1; Piano Sonata No. 13 in E-flat Major, Op. 27, No 1; SCHUMANN: Arabeske in C Major, Op. 18;
CHOPIN: Ballade No. 1 in G minor, Op. 23; Etude in C minor, Op. 10, No. 12 “Revolutionary”; Fantasie-Impromptu in C-sharp minor, Op. 66;
GLUCK (arr. Brahms): Gavotte No. 2 in A Major;
BRAHMS: Intermezzo in C Major, Op. 119, No. 3; Capriccio in B minor, Op. 76, No. 2;
LISZT: Paganini Etude “La Campanella”
