SCHUBERT: Piano Sonata in G Major, D. 894 “Fantasy”; Four Impromptus, D. 935 – Andreas Staier, fortepiano – Harmonia mundi HMC 902021, 70:53 ****:
Recorded July-August 2008, the G Major Sonata of Schubert (1826) with Andreas Staier (b. 1955) contributes a thoughtful reading to the school of authenticity, if one chooses to hear this elegant, haunted music on a Christopher Clarke instrument crafted on the model of the Conrad Graf original of 1827. The piece itself conveys an elastic sense of freedom, where perhaps Coleridge’s term “esemplastic” might be more apt, since the poet wanted the power of creative imagination to rival the very forces that created the cosmos. The first movement evolves from a single theme that varies in timbre and modality, which in turn begets splinters and tributaries with which Schubert can develop or improvise according to this fancy. The fortepiano certainly captures the dominant level of pianissimo in the movement; and the few outbursts of fortissimo or fff become that much more dramatically contrasted. The sense of poetic musing, of liquid, imaginative wandering, almost a musical corollary of Friedrich’s painting of “The Wanderer Above the Sea of Mist” seems immanent.
The expected, lyrical Andante, though it opens with a cantabile, gentle affect, evolves into an aggressive, fateful meditation in fortissimo and non-legato chords whose syncopations become subdued and dissolve or “resolve themselves into a dew.” A feeling of mortal resignation saturates the latter episodes of the movement, and one could easily–except for the modal or enharmonic puns in the melodic line–assume the music is by Beethoven. The Andante’s final stillness leaves us uneasy, and the ensuing Menuet communicates no less gravitas and emotional agitation. The trio, however, resorts to a village laendler, a jeweled German Dance of diaphanous, ingenuous beauty. The finale, a bucolic rondo-Allegretto, assumes a tripping lightness of tone in nervous figures that suggest Botticelli’s “Primavera.” Long chain-figures bubble forth from Staier, a ceaseless babbling brook of glittering melody in both hands, perhaps from a shepherd’s deft pipe. The contrasting middle part reminds us of Schubert’s lied The Young Nun for ardent doubt quelled by a faith that Nature and the Divine are one and the same.
I confess to having become so habituated to the modern piano for the Schubert Impromptus that their presentation on the pianoforte feels effeminate. Still, the intimate nature of the instrument brings out the subtle color variations in the opening F Minor, despite its reduced, sonic scale. My favorite among the Op. 142 (D. 935), the F Minor plays like a detached sonata-movement whose episodes can alternately flutter and sing with introspective passions. The A-flat Allegretto lies somewhere between minuet and contradanse, a martial piece with lyrical tendencies. The pianoforte imbues the movement with a brittle character that becomes more substantial as the music adds arpeggios and roulades to the trio’s mix, which Staier delivers at a hearty speed. For delicacy of touch and melodic articulation, the B-flat Major (“Rosamunde”) variations of the third Impromptu fare best, especially as flair and dynamic subtlety prove Staier’s strong suits. The last F Minor Impromptu, Allegro scherzando enjoys Hungarian inflections, an abridged, three-section rondo in liquid colors that, again, achieve a rare intimacy from the pianoforte that the more clangorous, modern piano would have rendered strictly as a bravura showpiece in fleet and witty motion. For the Schubert connoisseur, a rare treat in the highly stylized manner of the period.
–Gary Lemco
