SCHNABEL & BEETHOVEN

By Jay S. Harrison

Artur Schnabel, who died in 1951, was the most consistently profound musician I have ever heard. There was never a piece he played with which he did not identify completely, so much so that it was frequently impossible to separate the music from the interpretation. Schnabel was the music, and through his hands on the keyboard he gave us a complete picture of the composition as it was meant to sound. This inner penetration to the very core of a score, this inner exploitation of its meaning was unique and endlessly fascinating. Pressed close to the piano, his head either cocked to one side or bent low, Artur Schnabel made music which the gods might envy. He was ever at one with the spirit of the composer, and his performances were colored by the ring of immortality.

But concertizing at best is an ephemeral thing which disappears with the last note and then remains only in the memory and the mind’s ear. The sole exception to this, of course, comes about only via the instrument of recordings, and while Schnabel did not commit his complete repertory to discs, a large part of it was at one time available. Then, as new techniques and inventions galvanized the· recording industry, Schnabel was somewhere lost in the process. He had made only shellac 78s, and their early transferal to the LP was a makeshift affair which seemed to lose the particular essence that made the pianist the great, musician he was. But now Angel, as befits its name, has come forth with an angelic miracle. It has re-released the complete Beethoven sonatas and the five concertos as well. The magnificence of the undertaking cannot be accurately described—it must be experienced, examined, savored. For the two sets, GRE-4005 and GRM-4006, return Schnabel to us in as close to his true glory as we are likely ever to have.

The sonatas occupy 13 records, the concertos five. They are a priceless document but not in the historical library sense, for there is no dust of time upon these performances. True, every student worthy of the name should hear them, but Schnabel’s interpretations are not to be held up as curios newly repressed for the inquisitive. These are readings that breathe air in the modern manner, for they are as contemporary as tomorrow’s news. Schnabel’s way with Beethoven cannot, to my knowledge, be improved upon. And a thorough going examination of both albums makes it abundantly clear that there is not, at this moment, a Beethoven player in the world able to duplicate Schnabel’s feats of fancy, psychological penetration and sheer knowledgeableness where the composer is concerned.

Further, the sonatas offer us a panorama of the Beethoven that pedants discuss in terms of his “three periods.” The first, they claim, is one of youth and joy, with Beethoven succumbing to a variety of Classical influences. The middle period, so it is said, was an era of consolidation, during which Beethoven broke loose from tradition and created his own. Finally, as the story goes, we arrive at the age of his ultra-maturity, when, being cut off from the world by his deafness, he communed exclusively with himself and wrote music of a depth that requires some sort of superhuman being to fathom it fully.

Now Schnabel, as it happens, gives the lie to this theory all at once. From the First Sonata through the 32nd he finds episodes that leap with boyish vigor or else turn inward, introspective, and massively heroic. If there are really three distinct periods to Beethoven’s creative output, it appears that Schnabel never heard of them, or at least never felt as such. To him Beethoven was Beethoven, and the year in which any given composition was created leaves him unimpressed. The stature of no single piece is diminished because of its date of birth. His approach, say, to the Third Sonata is not essentially different from his unfolding of the “Hammerklavier,” nor is the “Moonlight” any less brooding than the Opus 111. Naturally, Beethoven’s sonatas grew in direct proportion to his own growth as an artist. My only point is that Schnabel always molds his performances so that the nucleus of any number is laid bare regardless of when it was written. Wherever he turned, the pianist was able to find precisely the right level of expressivity to communicate precisely what Beethoven had in mind.

This is apparent in the concertos as well, though it must be admitted that the slow movements exceed in their luminosity the sections that surround them. Schnabel liked to bask in the flow of slow ideas; he enjoyed their repose, their tranquility, their gestures of quiet sentiment. This is not to imply, however, that he was offhand about allegros and kindred tempos—listen to any one of the five concertos and you will suddenly understand the meaning of brio as you had not before. I only wish to make it clear that andantes and adagios were a Schnabel specialty, and they are spellbinding in their effect. I can almost hear some mutters at this point to remind me that Schnabel was said to have a faulty technique, for which reason, it has been noted, he was more comfortable dealing with slow music rather than fast. This is madness, as the pianist was in full control of his instrument always and, barring a slip or two, tossed off the sonatas and concertos as though they were tailored to his fingers. Indeed, discussions about the Schnabel technique have been bludgeoned to death, and these recordings indicate that no phrase, large or small, was beyond his virtuosic grasp.

A final word about the Schnabel tone. It is unlike any in the whole spectrum of the performing arts. When necessary, it is clothed in velvet, but there is steel to it when the occasion warrants. He was never clangorous or harsh—he inevitably adjusted his sound surface to the specific requirements of the melodic idea and gauged every tonal effect so that it never failed to serve the textural demands of the score. In all, then, what Angel has given us is a restoration of the greatest Beethoven playing of our century, and it matters not a whit that the vintage caliber of the recording dates is somewhat obvious. Myself, I am convinced that the achievement here captured is without parallel. I am speechless in the face of it. •