courtesy of A440 Arts Group
A little over two weeks ago ARCANA reissued its nine-CD album of Paul Badura-Skoda playing the twenty piano sonatas of Franz Schubert. The original release was based on recordings made in Vienna between 1991 and 1996. All of the recording sessions involved Badura-Skoda playing on five fortepianos, all in his own personal collection and all made in Vienna between 1810 and 1846. Two of those pianos (at least) include “percussion stops,” which Badura-Skoda uses very sparingly but always with delightful results. (The only other pianist I know that has no trouble taking that liberty with Schubert is Andreas Staier.)
Those that are really serious about listening to the music of Franz Schubert tend to keep a copy of Otto Erich Deutsch’s thematic catalog close at hand, particularly when being presented with “complete” offerings. I therefore need to arrange a “preemptive strike” against those quick to point out that the index of instrumental music lists 22 entries for solo piano sonatas. However, the two entries that do not show up on Badura-Skoda’s recordings are incomplete sketches. On the other hand, the booklet for this release has its own index, which lists four of the sonatas as “composites” of two different Deutsch entries and one that amalgamates three of them! The booklet also includes an extensive essay by Badura-Skoda, translated from German into English by Frank Dobbins, which discusses his approach to each of the sonatas.
I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to listen to Badura-Skoda performances when I was living in Connecticut. (As I recall, I made one trip to New York to attend a performance at Alice Tully Hall in New York’s Lincoln Center and another to listen to a four-hand recital at Yale University. Living in Stamford had definite advantages!) I had cultivated my own interest in “historically appropriate” keyboard instruments through both Badura-Skoda and Malcolm Bilson, and that interest has never waned.
Similarly, when my fingers were more dexterous, I spent more time with the music of Schubert than I did with either Ludwig van Beethoven or Frédéric Chopin. Indeed, when I visited Seattle for my first encounter with a full performance of Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen (the ring of the Nibelung), I stayed at a Hilton Hotel next to a multi-level shopping mall with an atrium structure. Down at “ground level” was a grand piano; and I quickly learned that it was there for anyone that wanted to sit down and play. Every morning around 8 a.m. I would wrestle my way through D. 960 in B-flat major (Schubert’s final sonata), often receiving sympathetic nods for my struggles!
Listening to Badura-Skoda has prompted me to return to Schubert, this time trying to learn the earlier works. Too many pianists seem to be obsessed with the last three sonatas, all composed in September of 1828 (possible concurrently) about two months before the composer’s death. Badura-Skoda clearly believes that all of the sonatas are worthy of attentive listening; and, through these recordings, he makes his case admirably. Indeed, I rather regret that this collection has not been released for digital download, because every sonata deserves its own focused listening, which is more conducive to digital platforms. [updated, 6/27, 10:55 a.m.: There is, in fact, an Amazon.com Web page for downloading MP3 tracks of the entire collection. Furthermore, the PDF of the booklet is included when the entire collection is downloaded. That Web page appears to have been created during the period between the first release of the CD collection and the reissue released this month. This turned out to be one of several Web pages easier to find with Google than with the Amazon search engine!]
Nevertheless, that one observation is really my only negative impression of this reissue; and I could not be more delighted that this collection is once again in circulation.
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