Youra Guller plays CHOPIN: Piano Concerto No. 2, solo pieces, bonus interview – Tahra

by | Jul 8, 2007 | Classical Reissue Reviews | 0 comments

Youra Guller plays CHOPIN = Piano Concerto No. 2 in F Minor, Op. 21; Barcarolle in F# Major, Op. 60; Mazurka, Op. 30, No. 3; Mazurka, Op. 41, No. 3; Mazurka, Op. 24, No. 2; Nocturne No. 7, Op. 27, No. 1; Nocturne No. 4, Op. 15, No. 1; Bonus Track: Youra Guller in conversation with Franz Walter (in French)

Youra Guller, piano/ Orchestre de la Suisse Romande/ Edmond Appia, conductor – Tahra TAH 630, 67:38 (<https://www.tahra.com>www.tahra.com) *****:

Over twenty years ago, the Nimbus label issued two CDs devoted to the art of the elusive Russian pianist Youra Guller (1895-1981?), who had been motivated by Martha Argerich to make the original inscriptions for Erato. Besides having possessed a singularly huge talent–Nikita Magaloff quipped Guller embodied at once the best and worst of Horowitz–Guller looked like classical music’s version of the young Joan Crawford crossed with Luise Rainer, and at least one MGM producer offered her a role originally intended for Greta Garbo! At one point in her life, Guller was mistress to Vladimir Nabakov.

Often compared to her alter ego, Clara Haskil, Guller gained a repute like that of Carl Tausig: impeccable, with fingers of steel – an artist of style and brio. The Chopin F Minor Concerto (10 June 1959) enjoys a rhythmically varied, fluid, and eminently muscular realization, with the orchestra under Edmond Appia (1894-1961) thoroughly on fire, adding a potent girth to Chopin’s otherwise rhetorical orchestral tissue. Within a classical approach, Guller reveals a subtle rubato and a capacity for a long, flexible line. The Larghetto is Guller’s opportunity to sing bel canto in a grand style, pregnant breaths between phrases. The darkly dramatic middle section is a Bellini operatic scene, madness trembling in the air around Lucia di Lammermoor. The storm passes, and limpid cascades return us to a world of aerial, demurely graceful beauty. The Allegro vivace opens in the salon but soon expands the sonority to embrace the orchestra’s outdoor serenade. Very soft col legno from the orchestra strings as Guller applies sinewy, deft hesitations and jeu perle to the melodic line, a krakowiak strewn with garlands. A suggestion of the hunt leads to more fluent roulades, filigree most debonair and extroverted.

The Barcarolle was inscribed 17 February 1960, and the mazurka group dates from 6 June 1962. Chopin’s gondola song ripples and sways with full cognizance of its harmonic audacities and transitional ornaments. Intelligent and sensuous at once, the masterly realization compels our rapt attention. The Mazurka, Op. 30, No. 3 begin with noblesse and large gestures but soon cavorts in a most rustic manner, never sacrificing for a moment its innate national character. The Op. 41 moves from militancy to mercurial dance hall, an etude in touch and temperament. Mists and secret assignations inhabit the Op. 24, No. 4, a sweet dalliance haunted by flares of passion. The two nocturnes (20 October 1975, stereo) are played by an eighty-year-old Guller whose capacity for musical eroticism has not diminished. The Op. 27, No. 1 moves with a slow but inexorable pace we might have heard from Elly Ney, but Guller’s is a Slavic passion born. Even the recitatives writhe vehemently. The Nocturne, Op. 15, No. 1, by contrast, traverses a light, foamy air of relaxed nostalgia, almost an evocation by Mendelssohn. But its middle section, too, troubles the waters with turgid emotions and boiling ostinati. The placid mood returns, but the rhythmic pulls remind us how easily we were swept away.

The brief interview, in French (no translation provided), discusses Guller’s balancing some concert work with her teaching obligations. She admits to having suspended her career from personal illness and because of World War II. She credits Monsieur Ansermet for the renaissance of her career, which soon embraced Bach and Scarlatti. When Walter compliments her playing, she insists he is too kind.

— Gary Lemco

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