At Carnegie Hall on Friday evening the highly acclaimed pianist András Schiff gave a recital that featured the final piano sonatas of the greatest of the Classical composers - Haydn, Beethoven, Mozart and Schubert. This was not the first occasion on which the pianist had performed a program of these composers' works. I had in March attended another recital at the same venue at which Mr. Schiff had played a different set of sonatas by these same masters. As on that prior occasion, it was incredibly exciting than to hear what are arguably the greatest works in the piano repertoire interpreted by so capable a musician.
The program opened with Haydn's Piano Sonata in E-flat Major, Hob. XVI: 52 (1794). If this was the last of Haydn's solo piano works it was also arguably his best. A good deal of the credit for this accomplishment is due to the evolution of the instrument itself and to its changing role in Western music. In the Baroque period, the keyboard most commonly in use was the harpsichord, an instrument employed primarily as a form of basso continuo within the context of the concerto. In other words, the harpsichord supported the soloist, and parts for it were not generally written out. The very construction of the harpsichord, in which the strings were plucked by quills, precluded any expressive use on the part of the performer and thereby rendered it unsuitable as a solo instrument. This tradition was still in place when Haydn began his career. Accordingly, most of his earliest solo sonatas - some now thought lost because he did not think highly enough of them to copy out - were intended as exercises for his students rather than as pieces to be published and publicly performed. This unsatisfactory situation had already begun to change with the introduction of the fortepiano, pioneered by Bartolomeo Cristofori at the beginning of the eighteenth century, an instrument in which the strings were hammered rather than plucked. This development, which gave much greater control to the performer, allowed the rise of the piano virtuoso, such as the young Mozart and later Beethoven, and caused composers to view the piano in a new light as a solo instrument. But even then it was not until Haydn encountered the modern piano, manufactured by Broadwood, on his second trip to London that he was able to realize the full potential of the instrument. At that point he was encouraged to produce his finest work by the presence in London of the excellent pianist Therese Jansen, a former student of Mozart's one time rival Clementi, to whom the autograph of the score was dedicated.
The next work was Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 32 in C Minor, Op. 111 (1821-1822). This, of course, was not only the composer's final sonata but also one of the last pieces he wrote for the piano. It's an astounding piece of music and just about everything that can be said about it has already been said, most often in superlatives. But the most telling comment was Beethoven's own, made shortly after he'd completed the work, that the piano was "after all an unsatisfactory instrument." One has to bear in mind that Beethoven had begun his career as a pianist before he was ever known as a composer. It was his skill at the keyboard that won him his first renown and that was central to his conception of the music he composed in his early and middle periods, even those in which the piano did not appear as a solo instrument. It was only in his late period, when his deafness had become total and he was no longer able to play, that his vision was finally able to extend itself beyond the possibilities offered by this instrument. I think it would then be better to view this sonata not so much as a summation but as a turning point. After this, aside from the Diabelli Variations, a project that after all was thrust upon him, his major works - the Missa Solemnis, the Ninth Symphony and the late quartets - had no connection to the piano. By then, thinking in pianistic terms as he had done all through his career had become a hindrance rather than a help. The Op. 111, magnificent as it is, was really only a stopping point beyond which the composer still needed to travel in order to make the profound musical statements that were yet to come.
After intermission, the recital continued with Mozart's Piano Sonata in D Major, K. 576 (1789), one of six written for the Prussian Princess Friederike. It is the extensive use of counterpoint in both the opening and final movements that renders this sonata so difficult to perform. As a Program Note from the Seattle Symphony states:
"A playful Allegretto born of a simple melody sets the music in motion. Once Mozart presents the tune he immediately adds a contrapuntal second theme constructed from rapid 16th-note triplets. This new motive appears in inverted form above the main theme, creating an example of expert double counterpoint, a nod to Baroque era polyphony. The composer had clearly absorbed old Bach’s rich fugal style that Mozart first fully explored in 1782 when Baron von Swieten, Imperial Viennese Court librarian, had lent the composer scores from his collection of music by the Cantor of Leipzig."
The program ended with Schubert's Piano Sonata in B-flat Major, D. 960 (1828). While listening to this magisterial work it's difficult to believe that Schubert's sonatas remained unappreciated and rarely played until well into the twentieth century. Even Schumann, who should have known better, had little positive to say about them. Today, of course, the late sonatas are recognized as being among Schubert's greatest creations, comparable in quality to Beethoven's own final works in the genre, and have become mainstays of the piano repertoire. Taken together, they reflect the composer's awareness of the shortness of the time left him and convey a sense of resignation underlain by quiet grief. Their meditative aspect can be heard clearly in the opening movement of the D. 960 in which shifts in tonality create in the mind of the listener an illusion of traveling from familiar ground to an unknown destination. While the work may not have been intended by Schubert as a valedictory piece, there is nevertheless within it a keen awareness of individual mortality.
I've long considered András Schiff to be among the best pianists now active. If I'd ever harbored any doubts concerning his ability, there were none remaining after his triumphant recital on Friday evening. Familiarity with the accomplishments of the major Classical composers sometimes deadens audiences to an appreciation of how innovative and technically challenging their works actually are. Mr. Schiff brought a freshness to all the pieces performed that allowed the listener to hear them anew and once again marvel at their depth and ingenuity.
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