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WOMEN AT THE PIANO:
AN ANTHOLOGY OF HISTORIC PERFORMANCES, Vol. 1 (1926-1952)

CAMILLE SAINT-SAENS Toccata
ISIDORE PHILIPP Feux-follets
SELIM PALMGREN Evening Whispers
ANTON STEPANOVICH ARENSKY Etude de Concert in F#
FRANCOIS COUPERIN Le carillon de Cithere
RICCARDO PICK-MANGIAGALLI La danza di Olaf
CLAUDE DEBUSSY Poissons d'or
DAVID GUION Country Jig
FRUCTUOSO VIANNA Corta-jaca
SERGEY PROKOFIEV Valse
GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL Passacaglia
MANUEL DE FALLA Andaluza
ARNOLD BAX Paean
BERNHARD STAVENHAGEN Menuetto scherzando
DARIUS MILHAUD Alfama
SERGEI RACHMANINOV Prelude Op. 23/5
ALFRED GRUNFELD Soiree de Vienne
FRANZ LISZT Feux follets; Les jeux d'eau a la villa d'Este
EMMANUEL CHABRIER Bourree fantasque
GABRIEL PIERNE Etude de Concert
IGNACY JAN PADEREWSKI Cracovienne fantastique


Naxos Great Pianists 8.111120 [77 mins]

This is the first volume of a Naxos collection of piano favourites, short pieces extracted from piano recordings in the first half of the 20th century, giving a good impression of the taste of the time and the playing styles of fine pianists (many items will have been recital encores). Some of the pianists were famous in their day and are well remembered, others forgotten; likewise the composers represented.

There are 22 pianists and 22 tracks, assembled from disparate sources, performed on dfferent pianos (Erard, Grotian, Pleyel, Bosendorfer & Steinway) and venues (some dry, others reverberant). They have been restored with modern techniques and assembled to create 'a seemless listening experience'. Discographic documentation is excellent, with fuller details on the Naxos website, and sound samples too.

I enjoyed it all immensely.

P.S. Naxos entitles this CD Women at the piano and they request feedback and suggestions. I have seen a scathing review which castigates the transfer quality and the meagre selection of Vol.1 with many chosen pianists who had recorded extensively ill-represented (M. & V. Ledin promise to "revisit some who left larger legacies").

I deplore (whilst understanding) that it was gender which determined the project, upon the basis that although the general public considered women as great musicians, their artistry went undocumented. That this was so is extensively, and embarrasingly, documented, with a telling quotations from George Eliot and a patronising one from Musical America. Peter Grahame Woolf

WOMEN AT THE PIANO - AN ANTHOLOGY OF HISTORIC PERFORMANCES, Vol. 2 (1926-1950)
[Naxos Historical - Great pianists 8.111121]

Bach; Vogrich; Liszt; Garreta; Hummel; Liszt; Couperin,
Weber; Rachmaninov; Goossens; Ibert; Chopin; Schumann;
Villa-Lobos; Gould; Lecuona; Bartok; Dohnanyi; Scriabin

SCHUMANN: Aufschwung (Ania Dorfmann); LISZT: Etude No. 6 (Theme and Variations) (Marie-Aimée Warrot [Varro]); GARRETA: Sardana (Blanche Selva); WEBER: Sonata No.1 in C major: Rondo (Perpetual Motion) (Ginette Doyen); DOHNANYI: Rhapsody No. 3 in C major (Johanne Amalie Stockmarr); LECUONA: Malagueña (Olga Samaroff); IBERT: Le petit âne blanc (France Marguerite Ellegaard); GOOSSENS: The Hurdy-Gurdy Man (Claudette Sorel); RACHMANINOV: Barcarolle in G minor (Madeleine de Valmalète) etc

In the sixties, social and cultural change brought with it a raft of radical theories, of which structuralism and feminism were the most prominent. In some cases, such as Western Marxism, other political changes since, too obvious to mention, have left these ideas perplexed. But in general, those influenced by such thought as students are now the political and cultural establishment in Western countries, so instead of seeing theory as a set of idealistic ideologies, we experience their watered-down influence in public and social policy.

In this sense, Naxos' Women at the Piano series is a generation too late. We would no longer learn the same political lessons from a piano equivalent to Germaine Greer's The Obstacle Race (on visual art). The equality of the sexes is not now contested, even if its implementation can still be problematic. The analysis within the liner notes is in any case sketchy; they are mainly (disconnected) biographies of the performers, with little explanation as to why each piece was chosen.

 

If, however, we accept that women pianists were historically disadvantaged, this set is a good introduction to the subject. Two CDs cannot hope to be more than a sample (think how many discs Phillips offered for their Great Pianists series). However, to look back even beyond the age of recording is to find that a figure like Clara Schumann, who bore and nurtured an enormous number of children, while supporting her troubled husband, at the same time as being regarded as one of the world's premier concert pianists. No less remarkable, therefore, than a Liszt or a Thalberg, and given due respect in her lifetime.

 

So are women different at the piano? Physiologically, it is surely true that men on average have larger hands and bigger muscles. Music written by organists such as Franck is a priori harder for women to play (although Clara Haskil, celebrated as a 'feminine' pianist, could stretch a thirteenth). Some aspects of virtuosic display are also traditionally associated with men. Hence women are supposed to be good at interpreting composers (Mozart, Schubert) where ego-less playing carries an advantage. Here, too, it is easy to think of counter-examples, Leonskaya in Brahms, Grimaud in Beethoven, Argerich in, well, anything. Perhaps it is, therefore, that to be a concert pianist in itself is more extraordinary than the gender component of that identity.

 

It is hard to see if any helpful conclusion arises from the disc. In some cases (in the Rigoletto paraphrase), a woman is clearly as virtuosic and technically gifted as a man, in others, (Weber) we see the dexterity of her fingers), in still others, (such as in Ibert's Little White Donkey) we see the stereotypically feminine virtues of intimacy. On the other hand, one could as easily assemble discs with the repertoire played with the same virtues, but by men.

 

There is much fine playing on the disc, but as a whole, it is a hotch-potch of programming, and there does not seem any rhyme or reason as to which piece appears where (or indeed, between this disc and Vol. 1, which covers exactly the same historical period) - since it is neither the age of the pianist nor the date of composition, nor the date of recording that determines the order. This is not a coherent musico-political statement, but may be a success for budget historical CDs.

 

Buy it as a sampler for your own research. If it encourages you to seek out other recordings by these indeed neglected historical pianists; excellent. The title 'Women at the Piano' is simply an accident of marketing.   

            

© Ying Chang