SCHUBERT: Piano Works, Vol. 7 = 4 Impromptus, D. 899; Four Impromptus, D. 935; Adagio & Rondo in F Major, D. 506; Moments Musicaux, D. 780; Variations in F Major, D. 156; Variations in A Minor, D. 576; “Grazer Fantasie” in C Major, D. 605a – Vladimir Feltsman, piano – Nimbus NI 6442 (2 CDs: 2:38) [www.wyastone.co.uk] *****:
The Schubert project initiated by Vladmir Feltsman (b. 1952) now incudes this set of works of Schubert’s final years, 1827-1828, recorded 9-11 October 2021 under the auspices of production supervisor Adrian Farmer. Feltsman has attended to the harmonic innovation instituted by Schubert, especially in his sets of Impromptus, their organization as sets, with three ascending minor thirds and an ascending second in D. 899; one ascending minor third, an ascending second, and descending fourth to conclude in the F minor tonality with which D. 935 opens. All of the eight pieces indulge in shifts of major and minor modes, often in relative keys; and the famous D. 899/3 in G-flat Major, is the first such work so designated, since Bach, Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven preferred to score their works in the enharmonic F-sharp.
Schubert favors tripartite structures – excepting the Impromptu in B-flat Major, D. 935/3 set as a theme and variations – and their penchant for repeated notes, triplets, and consistent rhythmic pulse unites them stylistically. That the two sets of Impromptus might be construed as two complete, four-movement sonatas occurred to Robert Schumann and several other commentators. Feltsman plays the first, C Minor Impromptu, as a bleakly introspective, restless study on a single theme, presented in double ternary form. The music’s lonely, obsessive progression has some corresponding affect with the lied “Gute Nacht” from the Winterreise song cycle. The No. 2 in E-flat Major has the triplet and syncopated motion requisite to an étude, a dramatic contrast to the gloom of the preceding impromptu. Feltsman asserts its obsessive countertheme in B minor with resolve, and its alternating dynamics will color the coda’s eventual descent into the relative minor. The lovely triplets that define the G-flat Impromptu has Feltsman’s savoring the supporting tissue while maintaining the true songfulness of its lyrical expression. The rumblings in the bass suggest a subtext of disturbed passions. The use of broken arpeggios and triplets no less defines the last of the set, that in A-flat Minor, with a theme that glides along in various keys. Artur Schnabel brings an especial grace to this composition, while Feltsman offers virile energy. The middle section of this playful Allegretto, in a dark C# Minor, casts an agitated, convincing, romantic atmosphere in the repeated bass line, impassioned without exaggeration.
The tightly wrought set, D. 935, begins and ends with pieces in F minor, impetus for Schumann to declare them a rounded-out sonata. The first makes an epic statement, as poetic as it assertive, in double rondo format. Schubert eschews a development as such, rather insisting that the materials evolve by repetition, with some contrast in the two, extended “B” sections (of the five) away from the ritornello. The liquid tune in A-flat major becomes a source of haunted lyricism, the pulse syncopated in graded pulsations, as Schubert gradually modulates back to his broken chord opening. Feltsman manages a poetic tension throughout this tearful “ballade” edifice whose rival for me lies in a recital from Japan by Hungarian virtuoso Gyorgy Cziffra!
Schubert’s second of the D. 935 set, in A-flat major, projects an untroubled lyric that explores the modes of D-flat in its arpeggiated Trio section. Feltsman plays the secondary tune a bit more marcato than some interpreters, but the stately, quasi-martial, procession seems to dwell in past pleasures. The famous B-flat Major Impromptu explores an original theme and five variations, all invested with two repeated parts. The balletic nature of the main theme finds its way into Schubert’s music for Rosamunde. The variation 3 explores the minor mode with a feeling for nostalgic romance, the kind we find in the Wanderer Fantasie. When the music modulates into G-flat for the fourth variation, syncopations rule. We well appreciate the deft lightness in Feltsman’s grace notes and trills, rife with the accents that pervade Schubert’s waltzes and German dances. Running scales and an active bass line define variation five, which after an extended fermata, returns to a slow expression of the main tune, now an epilogue, in compressed metrics, concluding with two tonic chords that betray a sense of unrest. The last of the group, in F minor, agogically challenging in twos and threes, unfolds in rondo style, relishing its scale patterns, arpeggios, double notes, and trills, all of which Artur Schnabel managed in classic terms despite his digital limitations. Feltsman, however, suffers no lack of fingers and so delivers a pungent, even blistering, series of keyboard effects. The middle section wanders in circuitous routes, in scalar motions that emphasize three chords in various contexts. The coda provides a storm equal to powerful moments in Beethoven. Moody, daring, and impertinent, this impromptu well suggests Schubert’s personal deftness in spontaneous musicality, although this and fellow impromptus leave little to chance except the art of the interpreter.
Feltsman addresses the Adagio & Rondo in D of 1818, abridged and transposed by publisher Anton Diabelli from the Adagio in D-flat Major, D. 505. The Adagio may well have been intended for the Sonata in F Minor, D. 625, while the Rondo could have provided the fourth movement for the Sonata in E Minor D. 566. Though cut from 49 to 21 measures in length, the Adagio serves to introduce the Rondo in the same key. Some fascinating harmonies pass us by, ending on a suspended cadence to the conventional rondo form, a palindrome structure whose melody proceeds over a modified Alberti bass. The music explodes somewhat, then juxtaposes its dual impulses for some devilry for the hands. One may detect Hungarian impulses in the mocking style that seems to parody the airs of mountain laendler, a playful gambit Grieg would find
amusing.
Disc 2 opens with Feltsman’s rendition of the 1823-1828 six Moments musicaux (another publisher’s concoction to promote sales), the majority of which are set in tripartite ABA form, while No. 5 in F minor, Allegro vivace, moves in aggressive binary form. The first of the set, in C major, plays with the key in both modalities, moving to a serene G major in affectionate triplets. Schubert’s use of repetition and structural consistency binds us to the piece, even if we remain unaware of the application of 8 and 21 bars in alteration. For many, the No. 2 in A-flat Major proves the most lovely of the set, a modified rondo whose opening motif off ers a siciliana. The middle episode becomes a haunted lyric of dramatic power, an emotional outburst rife with pain, though a mere six measures in length. The original repose returns, perhaps shaded with a sense of lingering angst. The ubiquitous F Minor No. 3 (pub. 1823) engages us from the first with its alternate, left-hand eighth notes and its jaunty “Russian” melody that ends in the tonic major. Inn his notes. Feltsman likens the piece to a musical box. The No. 4 in C# Minor borrows immediately from J.S. Bach with tis ceaseless top 16ths and bottom 8ths, played extremely briskly here by Feltsman, reducing whatever poetry resides within. The middle part transforms into D-flat major in a martial mode, but gentle enough for Feltsman to add a poetic impulse into the mix. The No. 5 in F Minor, in spite of its brevity, urges some demons upon us. Feltsman unleashes its fury in bold terms, one long and two short notes in jabbed, staccato action. Even in its major mode finale, the excitement of a relentless obsession remains. In great contrast, the final piece, No. 6 in A-flat Major (pub. 1824), finds relief, or consolation, in a meditative, introspection, Allegretto, that reverses polarity at the end in the minor mode.
Feltsman turns to three, large posthumous works by Schubert, of which the first two, 10 Variations in F (1815) and 13 Variations on a Theme of Hüttenbrenner (1817), were both published posthumously in 1888. Schubert took as his model for the F major variations the Op. 34 of Beethoven, here employing asymmetrical pulsations in nine, seven, and five measure groups, no variations repeated. The former enjoys a liquid grace in Feltsman’s realization, despite a conventional strategy in alternate dynamics in major and minor modes. The latter set, inspired by a theme from personal friend (of Schubert and Beethoven) Anselm Hüttenbrenner (1794-1868) that resembles the dotted theme from the Allegretto of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7, which lies in the same key of A minor. The two sets present the initial theme in traditional permutations of shape, color, dynamics, and texture, and they end with an elongated, flamboyant coda.
Feltsman closes with Schubert’s 1818 “Grazer Fantasie,” posthumously discovered in the 1960s at the estate of Rudolph von Weis-Ostborn in Graz, Austria, its title page written by Anselm Hüttenbrenner, then published in 1969. An adumbration of the 1822 Wanderer Fantasy, while corresponding to the improvisational fantasies of Mozart, episodic, in the manner of K. 475. The piece suffers from a glut, a surfeit, of musical ideas, and so leads to a whimsical, unpredictable amalgam of moods, connected by the opening, broken, left-hand phraseology that appears as key moments as the structure unfolds. If this music approaches anyone else’s style, it would Chopin in his nocturnes, given the romantic haze that infiltrates the early pages and returns later. Having abandoned the tonic C major, the music gravitates to a section marked alla polacca in F# minor. Moving on to A-flat by way of bouncing rhythms and scalar patterns, the music combines Chopin’s rhythmic flair with the harmonic facility we often hear in Weber. Yet, the invention all belongs to youthful Schubert, aged 21, here a master of a brilliant control of a vocal style and embellished fioritura only a heartbeat removed from Chopin’s bel canto approach to keyboard writing. In the late section, Moderato, we hear fragments of what would become the Fantasie in F Minor for Four Hands, D. 940. A long, improvisational cadenza eventually segues into the resigned statement of the romantic opening, which leaps upward momentarily, only to sink into a nostalgic, long-held farewell.
—Gary Lemco
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From Nimbus Records, Vladimir Feltsman Volume 7 of piano works by Franz Schubert. Classical Music Review by Gary Lemco.
