Search - Franz Schubert, Artur Schnabel :: Schubert: Piano Sonatas D850, D959, D960; Moments musicaux D780; Artur Schnabel

Artur and his Ur - Schwung

jive rhapsodist | NYC, NY United States | 04/20/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Yes, as I get older this hero of mine can sometimes drive me crazy: all that rushing, all that swallowing of passagework. So then I say "OK, let's listen to Ushida, or Goode, or someone else." But then I notice their fussy little mannerisms: long uninflected sections, followed by rubato for no particular reason that I can ascertain, pointy little staccatos, GROOVELESSNESS! And I go running back to Artur. He "tells a story", the same way a great Jazz artist like Lester Young does. What's that quote from Chester Himes?:"It ain't what he's saying; it's what you can't do about it". Something like that...Sometimes the rushing has this kind of Charlie Parker - like breathlessness, taking a musical line, turning it away from a simple accumulation of pitches and changing it into pure gesture. Sometimes it's just...rushing. But what there absolutely NEVER is is preciousness. Every chord has its specificity, its appropriate weight. But Leon Fleisher said it best: "There would be this schwung, an irresistible swing to what he did, as though he were twirling you around in a dance. . . . The emphasis was that beats were never downward events, they were not like fence posts or the hammering of coffin nails--beats were upward springs that would spring you on to the next beat." Yes, that's what it is. When you listen to this music played this way, all the rituals of so-called "Classical Music" fall away. You understand what this culture achieved, you feel the collaborative synergy between composer and interpreter. You hear Schubert's voice speaking. More than anything else, Schnabel makes me feel that this music still matters. One last question, though: if he had recorded this set in our era, would he have gone over every little detail of the last movement of the A Major Sonata until it was note perfect? I'll let him have the last word - he once famously said "I might play it better, but it wouldn't be as good!""

Zeus+Apollo = Schnabel's Schubert!

Ryan Kouroukis | Toronto, Ontario Canada | 03/02/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This EMI Rerferences set is amazing! The sound quality is excellent for the late 1930's, loud and clear!



It is the best Schubert I've ever heard! And one could easily think that Schnabel is playing late Beethoven!"