APR Releases Final HMV Backhaus Recordings

courtesy of Naxos of America

In November of 2018, I wrote an article about the recordings that pianist Wilhelm Backhaus made for HMV prior to the outbreak of World War II. These were two two-CD sets entitled, respectively, Chopin, Liszt, Schumann & encore pieces, recorded between 1925 and 1937, and The complete pre-War Beethoven recordings, recorded between 1927 and 1937. (The latter includes three “encores” of music by Johann Sebastian Bach.) These albums were produced by Appian Publications & Recordings (APR), which, this past November, completed the HMV anthology with the release of The complete 1940s studio recordings. In 1950 Backhaus would begin recording for Decca, resulting in a far more extensive anthology filling 39 CDs.

The Forties recordings amount to a somewhat uneven account of a difficult period in Backhaus’ life. After the Nazis took over Germany, Backhaus met Adolf Hitler; and, not long thereafter, he became the Executive Director of the Kameradschaft der deutschen Künstler (fellowship of German artists), which basically governed Nazi oversight of artistic activities. Backhaus clearly benefitted from Nazi favors, but his career in the rest of Europe was seriously jeopardized. He would eventually move to Switzerland to distance himself from the Nazis. However, the first recording on this new release was made in Berlin in 1941, a performance of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s K. 537 (“Coronation”) concerto in D major with Fritz Zaun conducting the Staatskapelle Berlin, the resident orchestra of the Berlin State Opera. All of the other recordings were made in Zürich over the course of three days, March 15–17, 1948.

It would probably be unfair to associate the Mozart concerto with any Nazi sympathies. While this may not, strictly speaking, be a “historically informed” performance, Backhaus followed Mozart’s lead in providing his own cadenzas. Indeed, he had his own take on Mozart’s prankish nature when, in the final movement, his cadenza toys with the opening measures of the final movement of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 21 (first) symphony in C major, in which Beethoven displayed his own capacity for prankishness.

The 1948 sessions were divided across compositions by Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and Franz Schubert. These are all solo works for piano, and Mozart is represented by his K. 331 sonata in A major. Here, again, Backhaus appreciates the prankishness of this music, particularly in the concluding “Turkish” rondo. A similar rhetorical stance can be encountered in the third (in the key of E-flat major) of Beethoven’s Opus 31 sonatas, one of the best examples of a sonata that playfully dismisses the “scowling Beethoven” cliché. Schubert is represented only by the second (again in the key of E-flat major) of the four D. 899 impromptus.

More interesting are the Bach selections, the first of which is the BWV 971 “Italian concerto” for solo keyboard in F major. Bach was particularly imaginative in being able to separate solo and ripieno ensemble passages while allowing both to inhabit the same single keyboard. Backhaus’ approach to phrasing gives the clearest possible account of the composer’s intentions. If the style is not “historically informed,” the spirit of the performance is still unquestionably valid. This is then followed by the B-flat major prelude-fugue coupling from the second book of The Well-Tempered Clavier, given an equally valid account for performance on a twentieth-century piano.

Backhaus’ HMV legacy may be modest, but it serves up any number of delights for the attentive listener.