Open Web Player
Raymond Beegle, Fanfare magazine
The great Goethe would have difficulty being published if he were writing today. For instance, his politically incorrect remark that “common people are accustomed to transform the great and sublime into a sport” would never make it into the pages of the New Yorker. Many of Fanfare’s “serious record collectors” might agree with me that performing the works of the greats has indeed become a sport in the hands of our most fashionable pianists. Lang Lang, Daniil Trifonov, and Yuja Wang, pretty to look at gymnasts, can play as loud and as fast as the legendary virtuosos, but gymnastics for them, as graceful and transcendent as those might be, have become an end in itself. For Rachmaninoff and Josef Hoffman it was only a beginning, a means of speaking the truths and mysteries that lie somewhere behind or above the music.
Samson François, in this 1960 SWR broadcast, speaks the language of his venerable predecessors. Notwithstanding the flamboyant cast of his personality there is an inherent humility in his work, as he is willing to risk going beyond his technical powers to deliver his conception of the music. One hears poetry as well as gymnastics in the Chopin BI-Minor Sonata, in contrast to Yuja Wang’s wild gallop to the double-barred finishing lines of the first, second, and last movements. The two Lieder ohne Worte, played with exquisite simplicity, bring a luster and charm so glaringly absent in the readings of Daniel Barenboim (Deutsche Grammophon), who has taken many undercooked dishes out of the oven and put them up for sale. I attended Barenboim’s New York performance of these pieces, given just before the recording took place. His eyes were glued to the music, his mind seemed only intent on playing the next right note, and his heart, in this performance and the subsequent recording, was nowhere to be found.
François speaks perfect French in his Debussy préludes, elegant, with an array of beautiful tone and subtle nuance. Although he speaks Russian with a slight French accent, the Prokofiev Sonata, with its hard surfaces and sharp edges, rings with authenticity, a powerful statement of the human condition at the extremes of fear, despair, and wonder. Perhaps the Gilels recording (Melodiya) creates a darker, more violent picture, but the second movement seems more elevated, more ethereal in the hands of Samson François.
SWR is the second largest broadcasting organization in Germany, with an audience of 14.7 million, and generous government funding. My baser instincts would like to imagine Herr Rudolf Mittag, Artistic Director, and Doktor Sören Meyer-Eller, Executive Producer of this recording, hung by their heels for 57 minutes and 18 seconds—the duration of this recording—for giving an artist of this stature such an abominable, poorly tuned instrument on which to play.
Enjoy fast, free delivery, exclusive deals, and award-winning movies & TV shows with Prime
Try Prime
and start saving today with fast, free delivery
