Medici Masters MM010-2, 71:53 [Distrib. by www.mediciarts.com] **** [Distr. by Naxos]:
I must confess a particular partiality to the legacy of French piano virtuoso Robert Casadesus (1899-1972), my having participated in his son Jean’s piano literature class at SUNY Binghamton back in 1968. There may have been a temperamental affinity between Robert Casadesus and violinist Jascha Heifetz, as each artist “hid” his dazzling fervor for the music he played behind a veneer of perfect, classical poise. When Toscanini first heard Casadeus perform in a recital, he bulleted toward the pianist’s dressing room, “requesting” an audience. “Mozart, Mozart!” exclaimed The Maestro, vowing that the Austrian composer would consume their collaborative efforts. Happily, even Brahms made it to their synchronized repertoire.
The two Mozart collaborations here feature that other “cool” Mozartean, George Szell (1897-1970), for whom Mozart often proved a tonic to his naturally acerbic personality. The C Minor Concerto 27 June 1960) finds Casadesus in top form, thoughtful, articulate, and–as always–a bit fast for some tastes. A sense of totality grips this performance from first to last: every “t” is crossed, every “I” dotted. The musical procession flows so effortlessly, we might forget the pungency of those minor harmonies Mozart traverses in the course of his tragic vision. For the collector, that Casadesus employs a cadenza by that other French classicist, Saint-Saens, may prove fascinating. Besides an absolutely plaintive Larghetto, Casadesus’ grip on the theme-and-variations of the Allegretto compels us to attend to the unbroken melodic-harmonic line, the evenness of the colored filigree.
For me, the B-flat Concerto (8 September 1958) justifies any price of admission, so benignly thoughtful is the realization, those amazing upward scales as the first movement melodic tissue explodes in mournful harmony. Whether Mozart was aware that this B-flat Concert would prove his final effort in the medium, a palpable valediction rests upon each note in this reading. Clarity of line, structural continuity, all the classical elements proceed from a limitless, lyric source’ and even Szell’s orchestra sheds an iron tear in the Larghetto, much as Hades did for Orpheus. A music-box sonority lures us into the final Allegro, the pearly play and forgiving temperament irresistible. Nothing effeminate in this Mozart! In “spite” of the delicacy and chaste refinement, the figures often leap at us with a fury worthy of Blake’s Tyger or Goethe’s Truth and Poetry.
The Weber Concert-Piece was a Casadesus specialty, as it was one for Claudio Arrau, Casadesus having made a fine inscription with Szell, coupled with the Liszt A Major (ML 4588) and an earlier version with Eugene Bigot. Here (3 March 1954), he teams with a relatively unknown Romanus Hubertus (what a heftily Medieval moniker!) for this quasi-programmatic excursion of changing moods and temperaments, the very model for Liszt’s aforementioned A Major Concerto. As in all of these readings, there are no retakes or touches-up; the fiery, variegated sonorities Casadesus evokes from his instrument are as spontaneous as they are flawless. What I would give for Casadesus’ trill; and the final Presto giocoso flies off “turntable” into stellar space.
–Gary Lemco
