The Art and Technique of Pianoforte Playing by Petri Liebermann

MASTERS OF THE PIANO Brandish THEIR ARTISTRY

• March x, 1985

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March 10, 1985

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Egon Petri (1881-1962) was a well- known Dutch pianist, a Busoni student who settled in the United States in the 1930's and had a long and productive international career. But he never really made the public touch that was his correct. The short, baldheaded, serious Egon Petri was not exactly a glamorous blazon, and throughout his life he was looked upon past many concertgoers just as another 1 of those good pianists who made his annual recital tours.

Nonetheless he happened to be i of the supreme pianists of his fourth dimension. He seemed to take the unabridged repertory at his fingertips; his technique was flawless; he produced a gorgeous sound; his interpretations always had aristocracy, grace and flow, eye and listen. It was interesting to note that his New York recitals always attracted every professional in the vicinity. He had a tendency to concentrate on the big works of the repertory - the ''Hammerklavier,'' Brahms-Handel, the longer Liszt works, even the awe-inspiring Alkan symphony for solo piano. Petri - similar his master, Busoni - was playing Alkan long before the current revival. Just his penchant for the big works did not foreclose him from addressing himself to miniatures, and his performances of such works as the Chopin Preludes linger in the memory.

For a pianist of his stature he made very few recordings. Most of those were prewar Columbias. Fortunately we had him in the Liszt A major Concerto (absolutely divine, and long out of the catalogues) and a few other of his specialties. Petri is all only forgotten. Thus it is good news that an LP of hitherto unreleased Petri textile has recently been issued.

Petri is heard in the Franck Prelude, Chorale and Fugue, the three ''Petrarch Sonnets'' by Liszt, Busoni's ''Indianisches Tagebuch'' and Medtner's 2 Dances and ''Dansa Festiva'' (dell'Arte DA 9009, distributed past German News Company). All of the material on the deejay has been taken from radio broadcasts made in Switzerland in 1957- 58. The Franck performance is in stereo. Stereo hit the market in 1959, but record companies and broadcast studios were taking down textile on two tracks some time earlier 1959. Or mayhap this Petri operation was remastered in stereo. The other pieces on the disk are monophonically recorded. No matter. The audio remains very good once the somewhat booming bass is reduced.

Petri was in his seventy's at the time, simply you wouldn't gauge it. The playing is under supreme technical and intellectual control. What he does with the 3 Liszt ''Petrarch'' pieces should come as a revelation to today'due south school of pianism. It is non simply the magical quality of sound he conjures upwardly, and the way he tosses off the difficulties then that the music sounds simple. More than: there is an unforced, constantly singing line; there is a supple organization in which all elements are brilliantly integrated and where the bass lends back up to the melodies; at that place is an agreement of what to emphasize and what to subordinate; there is unfaltering rhythm that is constantly existence delicately adjusted for any given state of affairs.

Petri ever was recognized as a neat Liszt pianist. Now nosotros can mind to the playing of the old master and realize how great he really was. The Franck comes off merely as well; and in the shorter pieces Petri seems to exist having a proficient fourth dimension. Medtner was non a composer unremarkably associated with Petri, simply his playing of these trifles is perfectly idiomatic. If ever there was a pianist who used a colossal technique only every bit a means to a musical end, it was Egon Petri.

One of the all-time of the newer generation of pianists is Maurizio Pollini, and his most recent disk is devoted to Schumann - the ''Etudes symphoniques'' and ''Arabesque'' (Deutsche Grammophon 410 916-1). In the pop ''Etudes symphoniques'' Pollini includes the 5 posthumous variations. He also takes every repeat throughout the work. Suddenly the ''Etudes symphoniques'' sounds very, very long.

Playing all of the posthumous variations is a debatable thought. Schumann and, afterward, his married woman, Clara, discarded them in both editions published during the composer'south lifetime. They felt it made the work also long. They also may have felt that several of them were non besides strong musically. Pianists who insist on playing them thus become against the wishes of Robert Schumann and his greatest interpreter. Equally for taking all the repeats, it is quite the mode these days. But historically it may exist all wrong. At that place is every evidence that 19th- century performers did not mostly take repeats.

Anyway, Pollini is a neat pianist, and he goes about these two Schumann pieces with his usual finish, intelligence and musical devotion. As always he remains a petty outside of the music - simply, then again, he is a modernistic pianist who is more interested in structure than emotion. In one section of the final variation he takes an unfamiliar variant, going back to the first edition of 1837 rather than the second edition of 1852, which is the one used past most pianists. The recorded audio is clear, with noiseless surfaces.

Another impressive piano disk, with audio to friction match, comes from Andre-Michel Schub, who plays a fantasy program - Schubert's ''Wanderer'' Fantasy, Chopin's F pocket-size Fantasy and Mendelssohn's Fantasy in F sharp small (Phonation D-VCL-9075). Would it be out of line to suggest that Schub is the American Pollini? Both pianists take much the same infallible fingers, the same abrupt intelligence, the same literalism, the feeling more of structure than of poetry, the same kind of musical integrity, the same kind of severity rather than charm. They represent the apex of the modern style.

In the Schubert, Schub is direct and massive, creating spacious lines and a continuous arch to them. His Mendelssohn is elegant, marked by sparkling fingerwork that must be the green-eyed of his competitors. Only in the Chopin is there a bit of a letdown. Schub is not a main of the intimate gesture, and this is a rather severe Chopin with a dragging chorale section. Schub plays the chords in the chorale simply equally chords. Pianists of the past, such equally Alfred Cortot in his bang-up recording of the Fantasy, brought out the summit notes of the chords, and that gives the section infinitely more than variety and poesy.

A more than reflective kind of Chopin comes from Ivan Moravec, who plays 5 mazurkas, iii waltzes, the Polonaise in C sharp minor and the Polonaise-Fantasy (Vocalisation D-VCL-9050). Moravec ever has represented a kind of delicate lyricism. He gets his effects by multishaded finger and pedal work rather than rubatos or changes in rhythm. His playing is very direct and steady, devoid of eccentricities. The same can be said of the playing of the great so-called Romantic pianists of the past; far from existence willful or eccentric, it was e'er highly controlled and, if anything, classic. Moravec'southward operation of the Polonaise-Fantasy is particularly hitting. This is a hard piece to concur together, just Moravec succeeds in every particular. The conception is mature and broad, the pacings unhurried, the legato lines shaped with warmth and amore.

A disk that should have come off, but doesn't, is devoted to Liszt. The brilliant thought was to have several of Liszt's transcriptions of Schubert songs and contrast them with the originals. Thus on i side of the disk Julia Paszthy sings six Schubert songs, and on the second side Laszlo Baranyay plays the equivalent Liszt settings for solo pianoforte (Hungaroton SLPX 12310). Unfortunately, Paszthy is an unsteady singer not too accurate in pitch. And while Baranyay is a perfectly competent pianist, his playing lacks the mode and elegance that, say, Jorge Bolet has brought to his disks of Schubert-Liszt. It as well is a compassion that the song and the transcription did not immediately follow each other, to provide a song-by-song point of reference.

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