Acoustic Sounds
DGG Original Source Series
By: Michael Johnson

October 24th, 2024

Category:

Discography

Piano-Palooza

Virtuosic performances on the keyboard from Maurizio Pollini and Friedrich Gulda


The music of Polish composer Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849) has, for most of my musical career, more or less eluded me. It may be because of his lack of non-piano output, or perhaps because his two piano concertos, while containing inspiring piano writing, didn’t really pass on that inspiration to the orchestral parts. I remember many rehearsals of boredom counting rests while listening to the brilliant melodic lines that Chopin gifted to the piano, but not us!

My woodwind playing resentments aside, I’ve been sorely remiss in my lack of Chopin appreciation, because his music written in his chosen form: the solo piano piece, is truly enchanting. And there is no better encapsulation of what this composer could do with short form ideas than in his 24 Preludes Op. 28.

Polish composer Frédéric Chopin

The early to middle romantic period, when Chopin was composing, was a time of musical intimacy. Composers like Robert Schumann, and Franz Schubert were pioneering their music not for the mass crowds of concert halls, or in the royal courts, but in the salons, where small groups of the cosmopolitan wealthy, but non-titled, bourgeois would gather to talk about art, culture, politics, and perhaps most importantly; to listen to music and poetry. It was this stage in which Chopin wrote and performed, primarily in the Salons of 1830s Paris, the same Salons that helped propel the revolutions of 1848 and establish the second French republic.

Chopin once said that “the crowd intimidates me, its breath suffocates me, I feel paralyzed by its curious look, and the unknown faced make me dumb.” This may be why the composer shied away from larger ensemble compositions that would facilitate larger venues and larger audience. The composer clearly preferred intimacy, and intimacy is definitely what comes across when listening to his work, especially the 24 Preludes completed in 1839.

The idea of a cycle of preludes, traditionally an introduction, was nothing new when Chopin approached the format. J.S. Bach’s famous 48 preludes and fugues are a notable example. But while Bach’s cycle follows a cycle of keys rising by a semitone, Chopin’s Preludes follow the circle of fifths, so the first prelude being in C major, it is followed by its minor relative: A minor, and so on throughout the circle.

The harmonic Circle of Fifths which Chopin used to organize his 24 preludes

The works are short, and are meant to capture a particular mood, feeling, or individual idea. Most of the preludes here are less than 2 minutes in length, and each of them are meant to stand alone as individual works. They range from the haunting and subtle, to the explosive and powerful. A full kaleidoscope of emotional range and color, from utter contentment to despair and desperation, can be felt when listening to these works played by competent hands.

Fortunately, Italian virtuoso Maurizio Pollini’s hands are more than competent, and give one of the standout performances of this repertoire on record. Pollini works with great dedication to bring out all the written indications in Chopin’s score, and highlight the harmonic structure of the work. Because of this his Chopin is dramatic when called for, but also reserved when not. He doesn’t overly sentimentalize lines that don’t call for it, which is especially apparent in the famous E minor Largo that will undoubtably be the one melody anyone can recognize from this set. Pollini does not drag the tempo down and overindulge in the sorrowful Largo, but rather plays a more reserved hand, and because of that the overall affect of the prelude comes across more clearly than some more indulgent readings I’ve heard over the years.

This set has long been one of the “essential” Chopin recordings out there, and that’s saying something given the fact that there’s stiff competition from the likes of Argerich, Moravec, and Arrau. But fortunately, the remastering work done by Emil Berliner here should seal the deal, because the refined performance by Pollini shines through on this vinyl version, which contains some of the better recorded piano sound I’ve heard from the label present or past.

What makes the piano sound “right” here?  Well for starters, the transient attacks of the keystrokes have a brightness that reminds me of hearing the instrument live, something I’ve always noted lacks on many recorded instances. Also, the octaves of the instrument are balanced, there is weight and depth to the lowest notes, something often critically lacking. In recordings I’ve heard where there is bass depth to the lower octaves, the strikes often sound muted in their attack, not here. I do wish there was more midrange bloom and warmth, but the nicely balanced lows and highs are a decent trade. On Rubenstein’s ‘Living Stereo’ solo Chopin recordings, there is spectacular midrange bloom on the piano sound, but the other ends of the range just do not sound as even and full as this example here. And when Pollini really gets going into more turbulent passages, the weight and clarity of this recording becomes a huge strength.

If that description sounds like your cup of tea, this record will satisfy your itch, and the combination of essential repertoire, standout performance, and excellent sound mean that this is an LP from this series that you should not miss.  One of my favorites in the Original Source Cycle so far!


Music 10/11

Sound 9/11

 

 

 

After last year’s successful reissue of Piano Concertos 25 and 27, DG has blessed us with another Gulda concerto disc, this time featuring the heavy hitters, the Concerto No. 20 in D minor K. 466, and No. 21 in C Major K. 467. These two concertos are among Wolfgang Amedeus Mozart’s (1756-1791) best known and most performed works, particularly No. 20.

Mozart’s Concerto No. 20 in D minor is a special piece, as it’s one of the rare minor key piano concertos from the classical period. It’s also one of the composer’s works that survived in popularity long into the 19th century, with romantic composers and performers such as Beethoven championing the work. The opening passages of the first movement in the orchestra are tumultuous and dark, not providing a melodic theme until further along, when the piano enters with a subtle whisper trying to hush the storm of the orchestra.

The second movement B-flat major ‘Romanze’ is more reserved, with the typical grace and poise in the melodic lines begun by the solo voice. Even this movement however, has some unusual elements such as frantic virtuosic runs later on when minor themes rear their ugly head.  The Finale is frantic and features a long development back in D minor which does not transition to any new key, but resolves in the final coda to D Major, a surprise resolution to a rather emotion laden concerto that can either be interpreted as hope or satire. With Mozart, sometimes you never know.

The premier in February of 1785 was a huge success for Mozart from both critics and the Viennese public. This may in part be why the composer penned a follow-up concerto in just four weeks, and thus on March 9 of 1785 the Piano Concerto No. 21 in C Major was premiered with the composer once again at the keyboard.

The original, autograph manuscript of Concerto No. 21 in C Major

I would not call the C Major concerto nearly as dramatic as its predecessor, it possess more classical sensibilities which are heard right away in the opening with its traditional introduction. However one thing the C Major concerto keeps is the incredible virtuosity in the solo line, and this work excels on the balance between energy and poise.

The second movement ‘Andante’ contains longer melodic lines than Mozart had previously employed, with gorgeous string and wind melodies floating over compound meter ostinati. and wanders into remote key changes in an almost dreamlike manner. This movement has most of the meat of the concerto in it, and it was so beautiful that director Bo Widerberg chose it to feature prominently in his romantic 1967 hit film Elvira Madigan. Once you’ve settled into your dreamlike wonder, you are shaken awake by the brief but incredibly catchy third movement ‘Allegro Vivace’, that you will find yourself humming long after the stylus slides into the run out groove.

Gulda and Abbado’s handling of these two works is superb, and both are readings that are taught, energetic, and quick. If you are looking for slow and dreamlike Mozart readings, you should look elsewhere, but if you want these pieces to rest on the balls of their proverbial feet, then this will do you nicely. The playing by both the soloist and the Vienna Philharmonic on this recording is of superb musicianship and technical ability, yet never robotic or fast for the sake of showing off. Because of this balance, it makes the performances incredibly approachable for newcomers to Mozart or to the piano concerto medium.

Emil Berliner have wisely chosen to split this formerly single disc album into two LPs, and while those past retirement age may bemoan having to flip the records at more frequent intervals, their extra aerobic exertion will be rewarded with distortion free musical enjoyment far away from the hazardous inner groove.

The sound of these discs is incredibly transparent, and lacks some of the pesky overly reverberant qualities that plagued the previous two releases I reviewed. Gulda’s piano is large in the soundstage, almost larger than life, placed firmly in the center-left stereo image. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is certainly a contrast to some more hall-sound oriented productions from stereo’s golden age. In fact all the instruments are placed fairly close to the listener, but there is still a great amount of separation and image width, especially in the D minor concerto where there is so much frantic activity from all over the orchestra.

My only real complaint is that some of the large orchestral moments are dampened by a noticeably thin violin sound in the upper register, this sticks out like a sore thumb here mostly because the rest of the sound, from the piano to the winds to the cellos and basses, is so nicely balanced, to have this edgy and harsh sound come through during moments of energy and motion is distracting. I know it’s something I’ve complained about many times before from these 70s DG recordings, but it’s a real problem and prevents some of these fine albums from taking their seat among the best audiophile orchestral vinyl experiences. However while that caveat may be a down side to this double album, the merits far outweigh the demerits, and this is an expertly played, open and clear sounding rendition of perhaps Mozart’s best compositions for Piano and Orchestra. I would still call it an essential buy in the series.

 

Music 11/11

Sound 8/11

Comments

  • 2024-10-25 03:08:30 PM

    Thomas Ream wrote:

    The Pollini is as superb as you say. I have not yet listened to more than the first side of the Gulda/Mozart, due to time. Odd that we have had two 2-LP releases of Gulda, and yet just one of Pollini - hopefully that is rectified. I would not have considered Gulda to be quite in the same league as Pollini. I will be the wise guy that points out that Gulda's first name is spelled Friedrich.

    • 2024-10-25 03:22:21 PM

      Michael Johnson wrote:

      Thank you for the catch, I knew on this review I was likely to get Chopin and Gulda's first names mixed up!

  • 2024-10-25 06:28:43 PM

    12CanDo wrote:

    I always look forward to reading about these new classical reissues. The TA crew is tops. I really enjoy Michael and Mark’s excellent writing. I do own all of the DGOS titles and I want to throw in my 2 cents.

    The Gulda/Abaddo Mozart is stunning. It’s goosebumps for 4 sides. There are interesting mastering choices that have been made, but IMO, that thin upper string sound adds to the illusion for me (3D imaging). The piano sound (and playing) is out of this world. The way the piano rings and its place in the orchestra is simply delightful. The record connects with the listener emotionally as good as any in my collection. I feel like I’m in the Musikverein!

    The Chopin/Pollini has no faults. I’m glad to own it, it just doesn’t have quite the harmonic richness as other DGOS releases. Orchestral musicians who hear many of these DGOS are simply blown away by what been captured to tape vs what has been released and consumed over the last 40 years. The Bruckner box has completely shifted my thinking of brass playing in Berlin in the 70’s, like completely. Anyway, this Chopin just doesn’t have that extra treatment that showcases how superior this series is to the previous releases of these recordings. I’m sure this is mostly due to the fact that it is solo piano.

    Maybe I’m a sucker for the reverb (I thought the Dvorak 9 was fine too)? We each have different strengths and weaknesses to our systems as well as different criteria for what makes something a 10 (or an 11!). I just think that it’s wonderful to have such high quality releases that we can even be having this discussion.

    • 2024-10-25 10:17:24 PM

      Thomas Ream wrote:

      I agree with Michael's review of the Kubelik Dvorak - the resonance during orchestral forte passages is bothersome, which is a shame given the quality of the performance.

  • 2024-10-25 07:36:34 PM

    Larry Letofsky wrote:

    I am concerned with comment "but not us!"?

  • 2024-10-25 10:12:27 PM

    Come on wrote:

    Thanks for another helpful review with especially realistic sound quality ratings, even when overall praised in words.

  • 2024-10-25 10:18:45 PM

    Thomas Ream wrote:

    One more comment on the series in general....I am still waiting for representation of Bach, Handel, Haydn and Wagner.......

  • 2024-10-25 10:26:26 PM

    Mark Ward wrote:

    I have a few comments re. the Pollini. Michael's assessment of the piano sound is dead on (there is a palpable sense of sitting in the room with Pollini). He makes this comment: "I do wish there was more midrange bloom and warmth, but the nicely balanced lows and highs are a decent trade." This is no accident. Anyone who is a Pollini obsessive like myself will know that the pianist favored a crystalline sound in which every musical line would be perceived - no Romantic "warming" like Rubinstein. It was achieved in large part by mechanical means, via a long-standing collaboration with his piano tuner and technician Angelo Fabbrini. In the booklet notes for the complete Pollini DG recordings on CD, Pollini's producer Christopher Alder gives a detailed account of how Pollini and Fabbrini would prepare for each set of recording sessions. It involved an incredibly convoluted process of lining up several different instruments, recording different passages on different instruments, experimenting endlessly with microphone placement, recording over many days etc. As Alder notes: "As with many aspects of recording, the advantage of, say, a brighter sound may be achieved at the cost of reduced bass or increased reverberation. It depends on the hall. The final decision ultimately comes down to taste and mood". I cannot recall ever reading about another pianist who was so intimately involved not only in every minute detail of his sessions, but who worked so closely with a piano technician to achieve a particular sound. Fabbrini also worked with Richter and, especially, Michelangeli - who shares with Pollini that crystalline piano sound.

    Not surprisingly, the Pollini sound came over more than attenuated on the original DG LPs. The CD reissues added some body and warmth, but nothing compares to the glorious sonic makeover on this OSS reissue. Please, DG and EBS, may this be the first of many Pollini reissues!

    If you want to learn more about the Pollini/Fabbrini "sound", I highly recommend this article I happened upon. https://www.classical-scene.com/2010/04/28/thoughts-on-hearing-maurizio-pollinis-hamburg-steinway-fabbrini-in-concert/

    • 2024-10-25 10:30:25 PM

      Mark Ward wrote:

      A salient extract from that article:

      "Maurizio Pollini’s touring Hamburg Steinway-Fabbrini concert grand exhibits exceptionally ravishing tonal and technical characteristics. The fact that this is a piano well outside our modern norm begs a number of questions, among which is, “Why don’t we regularly hear instruments of this subtlety and beauty?”

      But first, what goes into the production of a Hamburg Steinway-Fabbrini concert grand? Italian piano technician and entrepreneur Angelo Fabbrini, from Pescara, Abruzzo, purchases new Steinways from that firm’s celebrated Hamburg atelier and subjects them to minute technical fine-tuning, replaces or substantially rebuilds numerous crucial action components, and reworks the interaction between strings, bridges, and soundboard. The sound of the rebuilt instruments reminds one of the finest surviving pre-1912 Blüthner concert grands (from Leipzig) and of 19th-century concert instruments by Mason & Hamlin, the 19th-century Boston firm whose pianos were, by a comfortable margin, the highest-priced in this country.

      The Fabbrini design does not sustain tone for quite as long as these older pianos and the treble is gleamingly dark rather than the ethereal shimmering silver of the Blüthner Aliquot design. Unlike a standard New York Steinway, in which shadings under mezzo-forte can be difficult to control, sometimes even to produce, the Fabbrini Steinways offer the easy, wide dynamic range typical of pre-1920 pianos by the great German, American, and Austrian builders. The Fabbrini fortissimo is magnificent, but it is not as loud as the brash New York roar. Its top dynamic reaches are capable of considerable variation, and the tone production can be built up to near-orchestral volume without strain. In the course of the Celebrity Series of Boston concert at Symphony Hall on April 25, [reviewed here] Maurizio Pollini time and again called forth ppp and fff trills in the bottom two octaves, as effortlessly and clearly as at middle dynamic levels. Forte in the right hand against piano and mezzo-piano in the left became part of this recital’s wide dynamic vocabulary.

      Once an expressive norm for concert instruments, this clear-as-a-bell opposition of dynamic levels is heard infrequently these days. From a purely piano technical perspective, an occasion like this recital lodges in lifelong memory."

    • 2024-10-26 10:21:11 AM

      Come on wrote:

      Very interesting!!

      I have several of his older DGG piano recordings on LP for music reasons and I also have several of his newer (around 2019) digital ones. I must say the latter in this case sound more realistic (lower frequency aspects of the sound and richness). Not a matter of analog vs. digital but in case of DGG probably of recording/mastering choices or the monitoring situation, better matching todays’ playback equipment.

      Having quite daily heard my mother playing a small concert piano in the living room in my youth, piano on a recording was always extremely compromised for me. This because mostly the richness and lower parts of the frequency spectrum are missing on recordings and simultaneously the attack of the upper octaves not rarely leads to resonances on playback, which they don’t have live. Room sound is another topic.

      I guess such differences between live and recorded piano are even more obvious when a pianist favors a brighter sound, which works live but may work less on recordings, as then the lower octaves would need to be damn perfect. I think especially in such cases a piano sound transferred flat and most true to the recording is not always and not in all aspects the most realistic option when trying to match the live sound, except if it is really perfectly recorded and monitored. For me on a good day maybe 5% of piano recordings sound sufficiently realistic. Most others capture certain aspects (not just tonality related but also room sound related) well but others not. A difficult instrument to record and play back, especially when the lower end of the frequency spectrum wasn’t a strength of the label’s house sound.

      That doesn’t speak against the fact that those EBS releases are quite sure the best that could be extracted from what was recorded. From such reissues we always just hear how an event was recorded and produced, not, or very rarely, how about it sounded live.

  • 2024-10-26 12:04:14 AM

    Fred Morris wrote:

    Thanks to Michael for the fine review and to Mark for the helpful comments. But could we lay to rest the notion that physical exertion is the reason (even if tongue in cheek) that some of us are not fans of multi-sided records. Rather it’s the disruption of musical flow and the hassle factor, recognizing that sometimes (as in this case), the sonic benefits are worth it.

  • 2024-10-26 07:28:28 PM

    Don Pride wrote:

    I truly appreciate all the music reviews on this site and especially people like Michael Johnson and Mark Ward who really offer valuable info on the music itself as well as avenues for further study. I love it! It reminds me of the old days at TAS. Thank you!

  • 2024-10-30 04:33:31 AM

    Jennnifer Martin wrote:

    Well done, Michael. Thanks!