Emil Gilels, piano = BEETHOVEN: Piano Sonata No. 21 in C Major, “Waldstein”; 12 Variations on the Russian Dance from Wranitzky’s Das Waldmaedchen in A, WoO 21; 32 Variations in C Minor; WEBER: Piano Sonata No. 2 in A-flat Major – Emil Gilels – BBC Legends

by | Oct 17, 2009 | Classical Reissue Reviews | 0 comments

Emil Gilels, piano = BEETHOVEN: Piano Sonata No. 21 in C Major, Op. 53 “Waldstein”; 12 Variations on the Russian Dance from Wranitzky’s Das Waldmaedchen in A, WoO 21; 32 Variations in C Minor, WoO 80; WEBER: Piano Sonata No. 2 in A-flat Major, Op. 39 – Emil Gilels, piano

BBC Legends BBCL 4260-2, 76:09 [Distr. by E1] ****:

The recital at Royal Festival Hall 17 March 1968 featured Russian keyboard titan Emil Gilels (1916-1985) in music by Beethoven and Weber. Often revealing a French influence in his grand style, Gilels possessed a broad palette and a deft command of his many colors. He opens the Waldstein Sonata by holding down the sostenuto pedal for the repeated chords, then he allows the texture to air out, alternately presto e marcato. His long association with this particular Beethoven sonata (from 1936) reveals a thorough sense of the first movement’s architecture, the fioritura streamlined and brisk, but no less passionate in the lyric phrases of the E Major group. Quite touching is Gilels’ transition of the secondary theme into A Major, before the modulations to A Minor that herald the potent coda in the original C Major. The Adagio molto, as Gilels realizes it, anticipates the deconstructive practice in Webern, the voices rising in the variegated colors of different instruments. Attacca, and  we swagger into the Rondo, in which Gilels can demonstrate that ferocious trill in the right hand. Even the sweeping turbulent episodes in A Minor and (staccato) C Minor communicate Gilels’ velvet paw, the triplets glittering at every turn. The scale of the conception easily hearkens to the Gilels of the Emperor Concerto, all the while dancing in plastic harmony. The prestissimo coda, appearing after the music seems to have evaporated, explodes in delicate fury, a scintillating Aeolian harp in vigorous raiment.

The little tune by the Czech Paul Wranitzky (1756-1804) was composed for a ballet of 1796. Beethoven wrote his variations in 1797, attracted by the theme’s asymmetrical divisions of the bar line, ten and nine. Gilels adopted this rare work around 1952 and took it with him on his 1966 tour of the USA. Typical of Beethoven, the variants display his bravura runs and wicked modulations, the triplets mixed into the 2/4 time enough to distort the metrics into 6/8. Gilels keeps a steady hand on the pulse, often beating out the original tune through the fierce ornaments so its definite outline never quite disappears.  The Variations in C Minor Gilels found to his taste as early as 1936, translating the continuous string of eight-bar unrepeated variations into something furiously monolithic. The sotto voce triplets and shifting harmonies point to the late piano sonatas, like Op. 106 and Op. 111. The galloping octaves prove mighty and effective, especially when juxtaposed against Gilels’ sterling legato.  Thoughtful and eminently musical, this rendition–and the towering Waldstein— warrants this disc’s price of admission.

Gilels concludes with Weber’s A-flat Sonata (1816), although the actual recital closed with Liszt’s Spanish Rhapsody. The Weber remains a gifted salon piece, and Gilels takes the first movement Allegro moderato extremely slowly, savoring its textures, which call for vocal legato in the manner of flighty Chopin or Moscheles. A drawing room charm suffuses its roulade-laden pages, the spirit redolent with the composer’s own Invitation to the Dance. The Andante proceeds as an ingenuous march in Mendelssohn’s colors until its middle section, a stentorian procession that anticipates Wagner. The Menuetto bristles with manic excitement, more scherzo than refined and civilized swirling of ballroom dresses. The Rondo calls for molto grazioso, and Gilels obliges with fecund richly chromatic filigree. Tasteful, articulate, the reading from Gilels elevates the parochial, if patrician, taste of Weber, who charms us with his Romantic’s vision of what had been Mozart’s special province.

–Gary Lemco

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