Cembal d’amour CD 132, 73:48 (Distrib. www.cembaldamour.com) ****:
Any issue of the keyboard artistry of Mindru Katz (1925-1978) is for producer Mordecai Shehori a labor of love: Shehori was among Katz’s pupils in Israel, to which Katz had emigrated in 1959. These Chopin performances, culled from inscriptions and live recitals given in England and Israel, communicate a highly personal approach to the composer, less of Horowitz than of Horszowski or Moiseiwitsch, a combination of implosive technique and fervent devotion.
Katz opens with a streamlined, highly stylized B-flat Minor Sonata, conceived along classical lines, a strong sense of architecture. Katz takes the first movement repeat, but the forward motion hardly ritards; in fact, the inner propulsion becomes intensified. Katz seems intent on a controlled dynamic level at all times, requiring his mezzo-forte to accomplish what for others would take a fortissimo. His landing at cadences are lessons in themselves, again similar to what Schnabel and his ilk evince with greater applause but not more artistry. The so-called “trio” in the Funeral March proper, its silken trill, manage to salute pathos without any trace of the maudlin and a trill to die for. The last movement’s “wind over the graves” motion produces pleasure and pain, an epilogue of spasmodic power.
Rarely does anyone take the first section of the E Major Etude so slowly–maybe Pogorelich–but to sustain the tension of the lyric impulse is key. The middle section demonstrates various applications of touch, the tenuous relationship of legato and staccato incarnations of melody, beautifully, tastefully done. The C-sharp Minor from Op. 10 complements Katz’s work in Bach, motor power in the service of sweeping gestures and an unbroken tonal line. Ecstatic harmonies inform the A-flat Major Etude, its modulatory shifts paralleled by loving, pearly adjustments in register and timbre. The so-called “Winter Wind” Etude in A Minor from Op. 25 conveys girth and somber resolve at once, a large concept tightly leashed. The Ballade in A-flat Major, whose opening statement traverses three octaves and includes an athletic trill, enjoys Katz’s penchant for projecting the bass harmonies and the three-hand effects in vivid colors. The cantering figures gain expressive propulsion as they repeat and then dissipate into brilliant runs, power converted into lyric poetry. The harmonic and contrapuntal labyrinth thickens until Katz’s double octaves assert themselves, the trill triumphant until the last, fatal chords. A melancholy, autumnal beauty suffuses the F Minor Ballade, upon whose opening pages Katz bestows a warm arioso. A particularly expansive reading, Katz provides the piece ample opportunities for declamation and bel canto lyricism. Pyrotechnical display intimates itself in the rendering of knotty shifts of accent and chromatic lines, but never for its own sake. The interior shape and pulsation never falter, what Artur Rubinstein once characterized as Chopin’s “iconoclastic classicism.”
Katz verbally recounts his experience with dreams, especially in relationship to the music of Chopin, “the genius of Chopin and not just the notes of Chopin.” The etude in double-thirds proved troubling to Katz: a dream involving Artur Rubinstein transpired, in which Rubinstein placed Katz’s hand on the keyboard to finger the etude. Somehow, in having practiced and performed the Tchaikovsky Concerto, Katz found the proper fingering for rendering the technique of the Chopin etude. In another dream, one involving a near-death experience, Katz discovered the proper touch and realization for the Funeral March Sonata. Katz then illustrates the nature of the Chopin style through three more etudes: the G-flat Black Key with its passion and bubbles; the contrasting E-flat Minor Etude, rife with modal desperation and despair; then the C Minor, Op. 25, No. 12, a tragic protest, a resolve to hope and the achievement of spirited victory. Well-spoken, articulate, and poetically apt, Katz as raconteur and insightful artist makes a formidable combination well worth our undivided attentions.
–Gary Lemco
