Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Impromptus
I think we discovered Schubert's impromptus more or less by chance when we happened to hear Imogen Cooper play one of them (D899 No.1) on or about December 9th 2009. Since then I have acquired Barenboim doing rather more of them on vinyl and earlier this year we heard Andreas Staier do the same D899 No.1. Maybe there have been other occasions.
Anyway, by way of preparation for a concert on Monday past, last week I thought to give the Barenboims a go, to find myself quite stunned by the opening bars of same D899 No. 1. Throat tight & all the trimmings, all of which took some seconds to wear off: and this from a bit of vinyl at home. Music clearly has occasional fast track access to important parts of the brain; or at least it is stronger in this department, for me anyway, than words in a book, spoken words or pictures. It is rare that any of these last come anywhere close to matching the visceral effect on this vinyl occasion. Played it again a few hours later and the effect was much reduced.
So off to the Wigmore on Monday, for our first outing of this sort this year, to hear Nikolai Demidenko on a rather loudly labelled Fazioli (I am sure we have seen such a thing before but blog is silent on the point) do all four D899 impromptus, the D946 three piano pieces and the D958 sonata. Usual full and enthusiastic house, only marred for BH by her having as an immediate neighbour a fidgety Russian lady who was old enough to have known better. Luckily for me she was not in my field of vision.
D899 might not have achieved immediate impact in the vinyl way, but impact did build. I do not think I had heard any of D946 before - no vinyl despite having the script in the fine Wiener Urtext Edition, so no opportunity for swatting. They went off well enough nonetheless. And I am not sure if we had heard D958 before, but it was certainly quite something and it did appear to include several bits which I had heard before; perhaps they were quotes from other pieces. All in all a very successful evening.
Coffee, wine and cake from http://www.pontis.co.uk/jsp/pontis.jsp. A bit more comfortable than squatting in the downstairs bar at the Wiggers.
Must chase down a set of Schubert sonatas. Only seem to be able to manage one or two of them as things stand.
Anyway, by way of preparation for a concert on Monday past, last week I thought to give the Barenboims a go, to find myself quite stunned by the opening bars of same D899 No. 1. Throat tight & all the trimmings, all of which took some seconds to wear off: and this from a bit of vinyl at home. Music clearly has occasional fast track access to important parts of the brain; or at least it is stronger in this department, for me anyway, than words in a book, spoken words or pictures. It is rare that any of these last come anywhere close to matching the visceral effect on this vinyl occasion. Played it again a few hours later and the effect was much reduced.
So off to the Wigmore on Monday, for our first outing of this sort this year, to hear Nikolai Demidenko on a rather loudly labelled Fazioli (I am sure we have seen such a thing before but blog is silent on the point) do all four D899 impromptus, the D946 three piano pieces and the D958 sonata. Usual full and enthusiastic house, only marred for BH by her having as an immediate neighbour a fidgety Russian lady who was old enough to have known better. Luckily for me she was not in my field of vision.
D899 might not have achieved immediate impact in the vinyl way, but impact did build. I do not think I had heard any of D946 before - no vinyl despite having the script in the fine Wiener Urtext Edition, so no opportunity for swatting. They went off well enough nonetheless. And I am not sure if we had heard D958 before, but it was certainly quite something and it did appear to include several bits which I had heard before; perhaps they were quotes from other pieces. All in all a very successful evening.
Coffee, wine and cake from http://www.pontis.co.uk/jsp/pontis.jsp. A bit more comfortable than squatting in the downstairs bar at the Wiggers.
Must chase down a set of Schubert sonatas. Only seem to be able to manage one or two of them as things stand.
# posted by Jim @ 11:16 AM 
