Andreas Haefliger: Perspectives 4 = JANACEK: Piano Sonata 1.X.1905 “From the Street”; BEETHOVEN: Piano Sonata No. 21 in C Major, Op. 53 “Waldstein”; Piano Sonata No. 24 in F-sharp Major, Op. 78; BRAHMS: Piano Sonata No. 2 in F-sharp Minor, Op. 2 – Andreas Haefliger, piano – Avie AV 2173, 78:32 [Distr. by Allegro]] ****:
Pianist Andreas Haefliger, the esteemed scion of tenor Ernst Haefliger, extends his reputation as a risk-taking colorist in this 10-12 December 2008 recital, in which Haefliger exerts his efforts on a stunning Steinway D instrument. He claims that his recitals place individual works against others to highlight them “in tonal, dramatic and historic relief. “The opening sonata by Janacek “From the Street” announces the expressive range of Haefliger’s “Perspectives.” Janacek composed the work in reaction to political turmoil in Czechoslovakia, when a young worker, Frantisek Pavli, was bayoneted by Austrian troops during a protest to establish a university for Czech students in Brno. Subtitled “Presentiment” and “Death,” the two movements of the sonata make stirring but grim pictures in the mind, modal litanies of struggle and devotion in chromatic, strident colors, often doubled at the octaves. The motivic kernels assume some of the resonance of late Beethoven, little atoms of nuclear emotions that do reach critical mass at key intervals.
Haefliger notes that Beethoven’s Waldstein Sonata, besides its heroic and virtuoso elements, celebrated the arrival in the composer’s life (1803) of a new Erard instrument! That Beethoven could now exploit the Erard’s high range and sturdy construction finds expressive modalities in this piece, whose undulating opening and harmonic shifts immediately engage us. The second theme in E Major–perhaps nods to Schubert, although so often the reverse is true–follows a structural move Beethoven had made prior in the G Major Sonata, Op. 31, No. 1. The passionate reading of the Allegro con brio emit’s a tangibly romantic aura, lit by bravura periods of architecturally symmetrical runs.
Haefliger injects poised tension into the Introduzione: Adagio molto movement, which under Haefliger sounds both like a response to Beethoven’s Op. 133 and a rehearsal for a piece by Webern. Attaca to the “wash of sound” that defines the opening of the last movement, a song and a drone bass at once. Haefliger’s plastic application of runs, cascading arpeggios, trills—Beethoven’s heady arsenal of bravura techniques–never loses sight of the deep poetic impulse underlying the brilliant figurations. The Aeolian Harp suddenly transforms into keyboard jet afterburners at the Prestissimo, a cornucopia of virtuoso effects–especially in glissandi and trills–in the service of a ravishing display of heroic gestures.
Against the massive Waldstein Sonata Haefliger inserts Beethoven’s own F-sharp Major Sonata in two movements, played with lyrical and canny affection. The unity-in-variety of Beethoven’s procedures in this wry but eminently songful piece comes through in startling colors and shifts in registration, Haefliger careful to weight his chords and upper register trills with shifting nuances of touch. Haefliger reminds me how I have cherished this minor masterpiece ever since I heard Grant Johannesen perform it on an old Concert Classics LP. The second fast movement, Allegro vivace, has the quality of a sea shanty tune that Beethoven explodes and puts back together in his own ways. Its unconventional chords and broken rhythmic impulses pose no problem for Haefliger’s driven but exalted rendition.
Haefliger, like Russian Dimitri Bashkirov, finds the Brahms 1854 F-sharp Minor Sonata to his taste. Brahms conceived much of this work in the spirit of his mentor Schumann–even signing the sonata “Kreisler jun” after the novelist E.T.A. Hoffmann. Like the Op. 1 C Major Sonata, the piece hammers at us by way Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. The opening movement seems improvisatory, a jagged theme that rambles into romantic episodes and bravura filigree, some of it after Schumann’s Op. 16 “Kreisleriana.” We might even make comparisons of the opening theme and its periodic structure to aspects of Liszt’s Dante Sonata. The use of a Minnelied “Mir ist leide” for a series of variants in the second movement reveals much of the Brahms fascination with antiquity and formal design. The canonic variation in clarion chords makes a grand impression, the girth rivaling Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. The Scherzo extends the conceit, taking the same theme in further variation, except that the trio section invokes an anomalous mix of pastoral and hunting horn elements, a martial siciliana. The weighty last movement asks Haefliger to unify disparate, sectionalized emotions, some of them either declamatory or nostalgic, in the manner of the “Ruckblick” designation in the F Minor Sonata, Op. 5. The choppy figures point to the Schumann Fantasie, although Brahms could never cut the emotional rope enough to free himself from the dictates of sonata-form. Kudos to balance engineer Markus Heiland for a pungent, aurally compelling disc.
–Gary Lemco
