Volume 26 Issue 5 - February 2021

Schubert: The Power of Fate
Mathieu Gaudet
Analekta AN 2 9183 (analekta.com/en)
! What simple,
unexpected gifts
we receive from
the hands of
Mathieu Gaudet. In
May of 2020, this
writer reviewed
Gaudet’s disc,
Late Inspirations,
the second installment in a broad Schubert
project from Analekta. Then in June, Gaudet
went back into the studio to record two
sonatas by his indelible muse, his wonderful
counsellor, Franz Schubert. Dubbed “a lifelong
vocation for Gaudet,” the music of
Schubert yet radiates evergreen melody and
benevolent light on this third record in the
cycle. Themed The Power of Fate, Gaudet’s
newest release features the little-known
Sonata No.7 in E-flat Major, D568 and the
seminal and nearly balladic Sonata No.25 in A
Minor, D845.
Right from the first, open-hearted phrase of
the E-flat Major, Gaudet warmly arrays us in
a universe rich and rare. Herein, Schubertian
laws of musical physics reign supreme and
such unlikely sonatas as this are realized,
beguilingly, with warty oddities explained
and youthful charms celebrated. How marvellous
that, even today, corners of the keyboard
repertoire remain unfamiliar. Gratefully,
Gaudet unearths gem upon gentle gem for
our benefit.
The second work on the record opens
a portal onto a shrouded musical garden,
darkly glistening from a different sphere. The
characterization of every last note is vividly,
patiently considered by Gaudet as he soars yet
loftier heights with the making of each new
Schubert disc. I am reminded of Leon Fleisher
– an important mentor of Gaudet’s – who
once described this sonata’s second movement
as “the fluttering of a songbird’s wings
in flight.”
Adam Sherkin
Reincarnation – Schubert; Messiaen
Karin Kei Nagano
Analekta AN 2 8778 (analekta.com/en)
! Musical
programming can
often be summarized
as either
contrasting or
complementary,
using the similarities
and differences
between two
pieces to serve a specific purpose as outlined
by the performer. Nagano’s Reincarnation
attempts to do both simultaneously, drawing
conceptual connections between Schubert’s
Sonata in B-flat Major, D960 and Messiaen’s
Première communion de la Vierge while
clearly contrasting these disparate works from
different times and places.
Schubert’s Sonata is a late masterwork,
one of three large-scale sonatas written
in the final year of his life. These sonatas
were composed simultaneously, beginning
with initial drafts in the spring of 1828 and
concluding with final revisions in September,
just two months before Schubert’s death; they
share a number of musical similarities in both
style and substance that continue to inspire
and engage performers and listeners alike.
Nagano successfully captures the spirit of
this work that, far from being a self-obsessed
elegy dwelling on the composer’s imminent
demise, is primarily a calm, graceful and optimistic
survey of early Romantic pianistic skill.
Over a century after Schubert’s death,
Olivier Messiaen was finding new ways
of expressing his deep Catholic devotion
through stylistic syntheses, using modes and
rhythms that could be transposed, used in
retrograde, and combined in a unique and
immediately identifiable musical language.
Written in 1944, Vingt regards sur l’Enfant-
Jésus is one of Messiaen’s most intense and
spiritual scores, expressing and conveying the
various contemplations of the child Jesus in
the crib from the Father, the Church and the
Spirit, among others. Première communion
de la Vierge (The Virgin’s first communion)
is, much like the Schubert Sonata, a calm
reflection interspersed with moments of
joy and exaltation, including an ecstatic
middle section with pulsing rhythms and
fleeting gestures.
Nagano’s Reincarnation is an exploration
of deep profundity disguised in highly
appealing, refined compositions. This is music
with many layers, and the opportunity for
listeners to continue to revisit and explore
these works, drawing new discoveries and
experiences each time, is one that should not
be missed.
Matthew Whitfield
Bach at the Mendelssohns
Mika Putterman; Jory Vinikour
Analekta AN 2 9532 (analekta.com/en)
! Historical flute
specialist and
music-history
researcher Mika
Putterman has
investigated the
musical life and
culture of late-18th
and early-to-mid-
19th-century Berlin and the Mendelssohn
family. Her research informs this recording, a
re-creation so to speak of a musical soirée at
the home of Sarah Levy, Felix Mendelssohn’s
great-aunt.
According to the liner notes, “when
19th-century musicians performed Baroque
music, they paid little attention to what
performance practice norms of the Baroque
period might have been and instead used the
expressive devices of their day.” Her stated
intention in this recording is to explore “new
territory, envisioning how the Romantics
would have played Bach.”
The result is a kind of hybrid interpretation
of three of the flute sonatas traditionally
attributed to J.S. Bach, combining much
that sounds like contemporary historically
informed Baroque interpretation with
moments of Sturm und Drang and others
of heart-on-sleeve Romanticism. With the
very able collaboration of fortepianist Jory
Vinikour, she has put together an altogether
convincing performance.
The cornerstone of the whole production
is Putterman’s transcription of Felix
Mendelssohn’s Violin Sonata in F Minor,
Op.4, in which the performance practices of
the early 19th century make total sense. The
extension of these practices into the flute
sonatas, odd as it sounds on first listening,
actually works! So, kudos to Putterman and
Vinikour for opening at least my ears, and
hopefully many others, to what might have
been the sensibility of a long-lost time.
Allan Pulker
Romantic Fantasies
Aliya Turetayeva
KNS Classical KNS A/090
(aliyaturetayeva.com)
! Schumann was
the quintessential
Romantic composer
– a dreamer and
idealist who
particularly excelled
at short forms such
as art songs and
piano pieces. Yet
his symphonies
and larger piano works attest to his proficiency
with more extended compositions.
This disc, with the young Kazakhstan-born
pianist Aliya Turetayeva, portrays Schumann
as both miniaturist and as a composer of
larger canvases, presenting two of the most
renowned pieces of the Romantic period
repertoire, the Sonata in G Minor Op.22 and
Kreisleriana Op.16.
The piano sonata – his last contribution to
the form – was composed between 1830 and
1838 and has long been known for its technical
demands. From the outset, it’s clear
that Turetayeva is in full command of this
daunting repertoire, but in no way is this
empty bravura. The first movement is marked
So Rasch wie möglich (“as fast as possible”)
and while her tempo is brisk, it’s never frenetic,
her phrasing carefully articulated. The
second-movement Andantino is suitably
lyrical and the fourth-movement Rondo:
Presto demonstrates a bold confidence.
Schumann’s set Kreisleriana was written
in 1838 but thoroughly revised a dozen
years later. Inspired by E.T.A. Hoffmann, it
comprises eight highly contrasting movements.
Turetayeva approaches the score
thewholenote.com February 2021 | 41