The Rubinstein Collection, Volume 6

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共55首歌曲

艺人: Arthur Rubinstein
语种: 其他
厂牌: RCA
发行时间: 2001年10月01日
专辑类别: 合集、杂锦

专辑介绍

The term "Nationalism" might well be described as pluralized ego: nations and ethnic groups are, after all, comprised of people. Little wonder, then, that credit for the likes of Shakespeare, Rembrandt, Goethe, Einstein and Beethoven is proudly claimed by the societies from which they sprang. Sometimes, when a great talent represents a mixed heritage, or spends years of activity abroad, a tug-of-war ensues. Ergo, George Frideric Handel was, with unintentional hilarity, once described by a young music appreciation student as being "half German, half English and half Italian: he was rather large!"

Chopin, born of a French father and Polish mother, is quite a hotly contested genius. Born near Warsaw in 1810, he left, at the age of 19, to take up residence in Paris. His natural aristocracy and musical elegance enabled him to function with relative comfort in the French capitol's high society. But he remained, to the end of his all-too-few years, a fierce Polish patriot and was, according to all who knew him, profoundly homesick for the land of his birth, although he never returned. Chopin was arguably at his best in small, more intimate forms and composed almost exclusively for his own instrument, the piano. He, like Handel, had three "halves"—unlikely though it may seem: scrutinize his seminal music and you will also discover, I think, an "Italian" tinge to much of it (e.g., in the Polonaise-Fantaisie, or in his almost deliriously euphoric use of melodic double thirds and sixths in the Barcarolle and G Major Nocturne). This altitudinal touch or ardor, in truth, continues to perplex and even disturb musicians whose sensibilities were reared on more Teutonic terrain. In the middle of the 20th century, the distinguished pianist Artur Schnabel, with unfortunately characteristic pro-German bias, erroneously excluded Chopin from his pantheon of composers who wrote music "better than it can be played." And some seventy-five years earlier, the great pianist Ignaz Moscheles gave an assessment of Chopin's contribution that is worth pondering:

I am sincere admirer of his originality; he has given pianoforte players all that is newest and most attractive. Personally, I dislike his artificial and forced modulations; my fingers struggle and tumble over such passages; practice them as I will, I can never do them smoothly.

It should, in fairness, be emphasized that even Moscheles admitted that -when Chopin himself negotiated these daunting patterns, his music took wing and the modulations seemed less "forced"—his airborne pianism making it all sound deceptively easy. And many poets of the keyboard since have succeeded in unlocking his many exquisite secrets.

No less than Franz Liszt once noted that only a Pole could completely comprehend the true character of the mazurka. A moot point, perhaps, but let us remember that there are actually myriad kinds of mazurkas (for instance, the mazur or mazurek; the obertas or oberek, and the kujawiak from the neighboring district of Kujawy). All these regional variations, stemming from the archaic polska, are in triple time with strong accents (accompanied by a tap of the heel) falling on either the second or third beat of the bar. Some of these dances are fast and wild (e.g., the obereks); others are slower and often tinged with melancholy or other wild swings of mood. Indeed, with such an array, put these mazurkas into the hands of different Poles and—given this degree of contentiousness—you may well find these various protagonists to be, well, Poles apart!

Chopin, in his wonderful stylization, preserves the basic character of the dance (and song). We experience the modality, the bagpipe evocations, the sudden changes of emotion, and even, in a few of the pieces, the seeming inconclusiveness. He has remained true to the basic structures and rhythms, and simultaneously has evoked the quintessential wild-ness and asymmetry of the genre. But for all that, Chopin's Mazurkas are miraculous transformations of the basic ethnic musical structure, as with Dvorak, in his Slavonic Dances, but unlike the Liszt of the Hungarian Rhapsodies or the Bartók settings of Hungarian, Bulgarian and Romanian material; these diverse cameos evoke the Polish soil without containing actual quotes of folk material. They are, for the most part, remarkably urbane and sophisticated—even the seeming crudities and miracles of refined stylization. Chopin, then, has taken the soul of the genre and elevated it to the realm of high art. Generations of pianists and listeners have discovered that this music holds a seemingly inexhaustible plenitude of interpretative options. No wonder that so many have cited these bewitching creations as perhaps Chopin's greatest contribution of all.

The mazurkas, like the polonaises, were especially close to Rubinstein's heart as they particularly expressed Chopin's—and, likewise, Rubinstein's—proud nationalism. According to Donald Manildi's Rubinstein discography, the recordings of three mazurkas (the C Minor, Op. 56, No. 2; the D Major, Op. 33, No. 2; and the B Major, Op. 63, No. 1) antedate the first of the three integral sets, reissued in Volumes 6, 27 and 50 of this anthology. Harvey Sachs is partial to these early versions, made between 1938 and 1939: "They have a fresher, more improvisa-tional charm than most of the 1965—66 versions of the same pieces; their elan is wilder, their melancholy more profound, their overall expressive variety greater. To me, these early versions of the mazurkas comprise the most beautiful individual group of Rubinstein's Chopin recordings, and one of the most important parts of his recorded legacy. "

I am not about to disagree with Sachs' appraisal, but I hasten to emphasize that all three of the Rubinstein mazurka recordings represent the artist at his superb best. The 1938—39 versions are frequently fleeter and more teasingly mischievous; the 1952—53 performances show Rubinstein moving toward a deliberation that became even more pronounced in the final 1965 edition. I would not want to be without any of these distinguished compendiums.

But, as I have frequently opined, these exquisite, richly multidimensional dances are beneficially served by many utterly diverse, interpretative approaches. In general, Rubinstein's way—in all of his recordings—stresses a blessed "normalcy." His accounts, though never lacking vigor, put stress on urbane, nuanced elegance. In contrast to some other notable exponents of these highly stylized cameos, Rubinstein is sometimes apt to smooth over hemiolas (a musical rhythmic alteration), and, in his sophistication, refuses to let the climaxes cut loose with the jolting rambunc-tiousness that made Ignaz Friedman's celebrated mazurka renditions so unique. Conversely, it was especially beneficial for this burgeoning music lover to compare Rubinstein's forthright account of the D-flat Mazurka, Op. 30, No. 3 with Horowitz's febrile interpretation and to discover that alternations of pp and f do not, ipso facto, signify nuclear warfare!

Interestingly, Rubinstein had to learn some of these mazurkas for the first time on making these pioneering 1938—39 versions, and for all the beguiling freshness, a few tiny inaccuracies and misreadings got by. But a three-way comparison sometimes shows that, for his third recording, the artist chose to revert to some of the textual details of more than a quarter-century earlier (e.g., his final account of Op. 7, No. 1 reinstates the audacious little trill at measure 44 that had been expunged at the time of his 1952 taping). One would have to go to Rubinstein's final recording of the mazurkas to find a complete performance of the Mazurka in F Minor, Op. 68, No. 4; that morose little piece was reputedly written by Chopin on his deathbed, and Auguste Franchomme, unable to decipher the composer's handwriting, prepared a version for posthumous publication, unaware of a central episode. By the time Rubinstein rerecorded the mazurkas in 1966, scholars had discovered a new edition by the English musicologist, Arthur Hedley, of course unavailable to Rubinstein for the earlier traversais.

Rubinstein gave recorded history its first integral edition of the Four Scherzos in the days of 78rpm shellac records. These were always a particular Rubinstein specialty. The pianist's familiar way with these large-scale pieces is duly preserved in the excellent and characteristic 1959 stereo edition—and less notably so by the tenser late- 1940s mono version with its twangy reproduction. These 1932 recordings give us the "other" Rubinstein—an impulsive "firebrand" rather than the expansive, debonair sage. The bravura and energy level are fantastic, with the fast tempos always threatening to careen wildly out of control (I can entertain visions of Max Wilcox—Rubinstein's distinguished producer of later years—gasping in horror at some of the sloppy rushing, smearing and rhythmic distortions). For all that, these wild readings pack a tremendous wallop. And for some peculiar reason, the old sound somehow flatters these authentically vintage interpretations.

—Harris Goldsmith

Harris Goldsmith—musicologist, critic, pianist and author—writes extensively on music. His articles appear in many respected periodicals, including The Strad, The Musical Times, Musical America, High Fidelity, Keynote and The New York Times. His byline has appeared on many recordings, in both a literary and pianistic capacity. Mr. Goldsmith currently teaches piano and piano literature courses at the Mannes College of Music in New York City.

The Rubinstein Collection, Volume 6 - Chopin

专辑介绍

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