From the first notes of
the D-sharp minor Capriccio that opens this set, you can
tell that something very special is unfolding before your ears.
Mikhail Rudy knows his way around Brahms’ music extraordinarily
well. He knows where to pause, where to let the notes gently
speed, then slow down, not forcing this rubato against the
general pulse of the music but moving with the pulse naturally
and organically. Nothing sounds calculated. Everything moves
as though it is living, breathing, truly alive.
Rudy also has a true sense of both the musical and dramatic
architecture of these works, knowing where to build tension,
where to release and where the culminating point of each piece
truly is. And although Rudy demonstrates a firm and instinctive
understanding of the interplay of light and dark, shade and
shadow that layers Brahms’ work as a psychological form of
counterpoint, he never unbalances the music by overstating one
emotion at the cost of others or turning the music into
psychodrama. The emotional complexities are allowed to remain
what they are – combinations of ever-shifting undercurrents,
sometimes changing abruptly and dangerously, at other times more
subtly, but truly never predictably.
Not
only is Rudy’s playing one continual marvel after another, but
the set pulls together many pieces worth hearing but seldom
recorded into one handy package. Even if there are recordings
of some of the better-known works that a listener may prefer,
this set is a great and relatively inexpensive way to one-stop
shop for a lot of great music.
More fascinating, each disc has been organized into a different
program, with the selections on each disc complementing the
whole and giving an intriguing look at different times and
aspects of the composer’s life. As musical autobiography, this
set is a mesmerizing compilation.
The
first disc shows the lighter side of Brahms at its two ends –
the Op 76 Klavierstücke piano pieces at the beginning and
Op 39 Waltzes at the end – flanking a short but serious core
with the Op 79 Rhapsodies. Here is the hale and hearty
mid-period Brahms, the man who often wore a mask of gruff
seriousness but who could also be gentle, considerate and
sensitive toward those who knew him well. The erstwhile
idolizer of Beethoven meets the hopeless lover of Strauss
waltzes. (Brahms and Johann Strauss Jr. were great friends who
respected each other’s music.) Rudy allows the easy charm of
the sunnier pieces to shine through without trivializing them,
yet gives them just enough sincere depth to be substantial
without making them dour. The more turgid works are also given
their due – mercurial, dramatic, even tragic (as at the end of
the E minor Rhapsody), but never overstated.
The
second disc showcases the Brahms sets of variations – the
blond-haired youth who showed up on Robert and Clara Schumann’s
doorstep in the autumn of 1853 and remained a devoted and close
friend to Robert and Clara for the rest of their lives. For me
this disc is the most intriguing one because the opening and
closing works on it – the Schumann and string sextet variations
– form a pair of musical bookends illustrating the beginning and
end of what could have been the high point in a
more-than-friendly relationship between Brahms and Clara. Even
with the extreme remoteness that anything physically intimate
could have taken place between those two, there remained what
could be construed as a pseudo-romance between them that could
have seemed much more than pseudo at one point, especially after
Robert’s suicide attempt in 1854, his institutionalization and
his continued mental collapse until his death two years later.
Take for instance what the liner notes state about the Schumann
variations:
“Brahms presented Clara with these variations on a theme from
Robert's 'Bunte Blatter,' Op 99, with the dedication: 'Little
variations on a theme by him, for her' ... In a reference to
Schumann's 'double,' some of these sixteen variations – those
which are delicate or poetic – are signed 'Brahms,' while
others, passionate or spirited, are signed 'Kreisler.' "
I
had already been taken by the range of emotion and passionate
intensity of the variations but paid even closer attention when
I read that passage. Brahms hewing close to the style and
character of Robert’s music is one thing, and something he was
very good at doing with whatever composer’s music with which he
was working. But aping Robert’s other compositional or literary
habits could seem a little odd in itself. Was it a case of
imitation as a sincere form of flattery? Or could Brahms have
been representing himself, however fleetingly, as a replacement
for Robert? Perhaps it is much ado about very little.
At
the other end of the spectrum, the stormy and emotionally
devastating sextet variations sound very much like Brahms
himself. Written in 1860, the composer dedicated this piano
transcription to Clara. As extraordinarily passionate as this
set of variations is, it seems to form a bookend to Op 9, right
down to its final air of resignation. It is very difficult to
tell that this piece was originally written for six string
instruments. The freshness of the music is preserved intact
while sounding incredibly pianistic in its own right.
In
both these works and the other sets of variations in-between,
Rudy handles everything extremely well. The emotional range he
conveys is enormous, and he is very adept at switching from the
extreme passion and earnestness of the Schumann and sextet
variations to the wit and whimsy of the Haydn variations. His
variety of touch and rhythmic suppleness keeps the ear and mind
constantly alert, and as in the shorter discs on the first disc,
his natural rubato and unhurried pacing allow the music to bloom
fully.
The
third disc is Brahms of the final years – the man who outlived
many of his friends, including Clara, and who saw the musical
and cultural world he knew start coming to a close. As the
pieces he wrote shortened in length, they concentrated in
emotional strength and deepened in overall tone – many times
darkly, as though Brahms was peering through the starless
midnight hour of his soul. Rudy allows the melancholy its due,
not allowing it to overwhelm and make the music a series of
one-note pieces but showing how acutely it shadowed and
inflected all the other feelings Brahms expressed. In short,
Rudy makes these pieces more moving, collectively desperate, yet
incredibly varied in mood.
In
three hours, an incredibly rich musical voyage and retelling of
a composer’s life in his own works. The time Rudy takes,
telling us this story masterly as he shares these compositional
gems, could be spent on far, far worse things, but we would be
all the poorer for not having heard them this way.
In Singapore, EMI CDs
may be bought most inexpensively from SING MUSIC, The
number to call is (+65) 62358960. The address is 304 Orchard Road
#02-75 Lucky Plaza Singapore 238863. Simply mention the magic
words "The Flying Inkpot" and receive 10% off all purchases
(except for nett items).
