The Lost Tapes = BEETHOVEN: Piano Sonata No. 21 in C Major, Op. 53 “Waldstein”; Piano Sonata No. 23 in F Minor, Op. 57 “Appassionata” – Rudolf Serkin, piano – DGG 486 4935 (10/24/23) (54:56) [Distr. by Universal] ****:
Bohemian-American pianist Rudolf Serkin still elicits polar reactions from critics and musicians. His admirers grant him a limited hegemony in the music of Beethoven – this, despite his never having recorded the entire sonata cycle. Serkin himself avoided the epithet “Beethoven specialist,” and his programs and recordings extended deeply in the Central European canon, with occasional incursions into Chopin, Smetana, and Rachmaninoff. Detractors claimed that Serkin remained a percussive, driven pianist, less likely to produce beauty of tone than a hammered, overwhelming emotional experience, short on nuance. Serkin’s notorious obsession with keyboard practice became a justification for denying him any natural poetry: sheer manic, technical prowess would compensate for intuition and elegance.
Ludwig van Beethoven,
by Hornemann
DGG issues, as part of Rudolf Serkin’s 120th anniversary, two unreleased and un-approved, recordings by Serkin of Beethoven sonatas: the Waldstein from 15 March 1986 and the Appassionata from 31 May 1989. The fact that Serkin here presents an over-eighty-year-old man at the keyboard will invite even more skepticism about his interpretive powers. I took for a basis of comparison Serkin’s 1947 Appassionata and the 1952 Waldstein, both recorded for Columbia Records and available on Music & Arts (CD-1141). In these, while the emphasis lies in their respective momentum, the sonatas enjoy a crisp, articulate evolution, poise, and heroic majesty. In the 1980s, Serkin began to mellow: he relaxed the tensile strength of his musical line, allowing color and transitional hues to enter the musical equation. For me, his 1952 Waldstein “had it all,” so far as dynamism, color and proportion were concerned. Yet, here in 1986, with the benefit of digital technology, we may savor the degrees inflection Serkin evokes from his keyboard, given the greater breadth he allots the first movement (11:39) as contrasted with the 1952 Allegro con brio (10:37). While Serkin’s Introduzione: Adagio molto is quicker (4:11), as opposed to 1952’s 5:20, the last movement offers the much broader approach, 11:04 as compared with 1952’s volatile 10:09.
The proof of the pudding does not lie in numerics. Serkin always claimed the secret in his Beethoven lay in having established a basic tempo, making adjustments as the music proceeds. In 1986, Serkin could color his chords and project a rhythmic flexibility that prove persuasive and appealing, a truly lyric expression of Beethoven’s grand fondness for his dedicatee, Count Waldstein. The capacity for ff has not been sacrificed because of digital weakness or insecurity. The dynamics of this Waldstein soften or increase with dramatic efficiency, the large climaxes as convincing as the pearly, even feathery, pianissimos.
In 1936, Serkin made his solo appearance on record, via HMV, with Beethoven’s Appassionata Sonata. Already, the motor energy and ineluctable sense of direction permeates Serkin’s concept, and the 1947 version testifies to a demonic ferocity of conception. Except for the second movement Andante con moto, the theme and variations, which is virtually identical here, forty-two years later: 7:11 to the 1989: 7:10, the outer movements have gained a poetic expansiveness that eschews what critic Donal Henehan once described as “holy frenzy.” The sense of dire, urgent, even tragic, drama remains, but now tempered by a careful, liquid melodic line that basks in graduated colors. The magnificent Serkin trill resounds, perhaps a mite slower, but ever mighty. The opening movement, Allegro assai, rings with layered textures, crisp accents, and pungent inflections of line that move in a pre-determined progression richly, nobly satisfying for its dramatic closure: the four-note “fate” motif in the coda assumes a power we might ascribe to a Bach toccata.
I am tempted to apply poet John Donne’s “A Valediction Forbidding Mourning” as a rubric for the potent second movement, as here rendered by Serkin. The step-wise variant shifts that occur as the music proceeds coalesce into a song of thanksgiving, as tender as any lied Beethoven composed. Serkin’s transition to the last movement, Allegro, ma non tropppo – Presto, demonstrates a tender fluidity of line, a magnificent pause prior to moto perpetuo storm that ensues. DGG has captured the fecund, compelling authority that realizes a lifetime of conscientious musicianship at a sustained level: Rudolf Serkin.
Serkin had little use for recordings and the whole recording process, given his conviction, like that of Josef Hofmann, that any interpretation occurred merely for its own moment. The musician moves beyond the document, already considering the alterations that must appear if he or she is to mature as an artist. Serkin died before authorizing the release of these readings; but, as daughter Judith Serkin observes, the release “very much deserves to be shared.” Amen.
—Gary Lemco
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Rudolf Serkin – The Lost Tapes
