by Chang Tou Liang

There are pianists and there are piano-players. I was once invited to a private reception where the main draw was a piano recital performed by a gentleman of supposed repute who also happened to be an orchestral conductor. He was dapper, eloquent and looked very dashing for someone in his forties. He spoke warmly about his love of music and waxed lyrical about his student years in Vienna. Then he went on to dash all preconceptions by butchering the music of Mozart, Chopin and Johann Strauss Jr.

Like that unfortunate gentleman who remains better unnamed, I had never heard of German-born and England-based pianist Valentin Schiedermair prior to his recent hour-long recital at Singapore’s Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts. Schiedermair is also in his forties, looked much younger (in the same way the Boston Pops Orchestra’s Keith Lockhart looks young) than his age, and had an impressive resumé that included Mieczyslaw Horszowski and Gary Graffman among his mentors. Thankfully Schiedermair turned out to be a fine pianist and musician, rather than a mere piano player.

Schiedermair’s début recital disc is entitled The Romantic Spirit, recorded from a 2003 “live” recital in Taipei, Republic of China. Given its title, it was rather odd to begin with four sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti, after all this composer of 555 keyboard sonatas - was a Baroque composer. But when harpsichord works are played on a modern piano, these take on a new guise; they become transcriptions even if not a single note is changed.

I have always preferred hearing Scarlatti on the piano. The sustaining pedal and range of dynamics afforded by the piano gives the music a certain richness and colour that the clattery harpsichord lacks. Horowitz and Pletnev have given the world stunning recordings of these works despite not being Baroque specialists. Schiedermair plays four of the most popular Sonatas (including the numero uno popular Pastorale in D minor, K.9), and without repeats, they sound breezy and unfussy. His repeated note technique is also superb in the tricky “Guitar” Sonata in D minor, K.141.

Then he moves on to Beethoven - arguably the first Romantic composer - with the “Funeral March” Sonata in A flat major, Op.26. This being still early Beethoven. Schiedermair takes a rather fast view of its four movements, completing the sonata in 17 minutes, whereas most pianists hover around the 19 to 20 minute mark. The most notable departures come in the 1st (Theme and Variations) and 3rd (Funeral March) movements, which are played straight and without sentimentality. The directness of this approach, while reducing the effect of variation between the movements, worked surprisingly well because nowhere does he allow the music to linger or sag.

Turning to Emil Gilels’ DG recording of the 1980s (he takes 19 plus minutes) I felt a sense of gravitas lacking in Schiedermair’s reading. But this is a matter of preference. If you take to Sir Roger Norrington and London Classical Players’ ultra-brisk Funeral March from the Eroica Symphony, this is right up your alley.

The other major work of this recital takes the listener into the heart of Romanticism – Schumann’s Carnaval, Op.9. Again Schiedermair adopts a no nonsense approach where each dance, waltz and character of Schumann’s colourful world of romance, commedia dell’arte, Florestan and Eusebius come alive. There are no self-indulgent moments and all of its 20 movements coalesce into a coherent and quite gripping whole. The virtuosic movements, like Paganini and Pantalon et Colombine, hold no terrors for his very secure technique. This seamless performance, its drive and sheer sense of inevitability reminded this listener of Rachmaninov’s legendary recording on RCA Victor.

A little about the recorded sound. Although this was a “live” recording, one does not sense the presence of an audience until the applause after certain works. Edits, if any, must have been kept to a minimal. The piano sound, while near ideal in the quieter pieces, tended to become congested and plethoric in the more “busy” pieces, and this was the most apparent in Carnaval.

Also played in the recital were two Chopin Nocturnes – in A flat major (Op.37 No.2) and F sharp major (Op.15 No.2). Both had a nice but not excessive touch of rubato and added to the variety of the music played.

Finally, Schiedermair also displayed a rare sympathy for Russian music. There was genuine feeling in Scriabin’s Sonata No.4 in F sharp major, Op.30; reveling briefly in the 1st movement’s languor and yearning, and later taking flight in the breathless Prestissimo volando 2nd movement, which must have blown all and sundry away. This rocket-fueled approach was also applied to Rachmaninov’s transcription of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumble Bee, when just the gentle buzzing of apian wings would have been sufficient.    

The Romantic Spirit is a quite captivating recital by a clearly musical personality who has interesting ideas about the music he plays. While more revelatory recordings of each work may be found separately, the recital experience as a whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

 

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