Musical Thoughts & Afterthought

162 Pages·1976·5.215 MB·English

by  Alfred Brendel

ALFRED
Musical Thoughts
and Afterthoughts
Musical
Thoughts &After~
Thoughts
ALFRED BRENDEL
Robson Books
THIS PAPERBACK EDITION FIRST PUBLISHED IN
GREAT BRITAIN IN 1982 BY ROBSON BOOKS LTD.,
BOLSOVER HOUSE, 5-6 CLIPSTONE STREET,
LONDON W1P 7EB. ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN
HARDBACK BY ROBSON BOOKS IN 1976
COPYRIGHT © 1976 ALFRED BRENDEL
ISBN 0 903895 43 9 HB
ISBN 0 86051 187 1 PB
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in
any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photo¬
copying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permis¬
sion in writing of the publishers.
Printed in Hungary
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The Preface, ‘Schubert’s Piano Sonatas, 1822-1828’, Jeremy Siepmann’s interview and ‘The
Process of Foreshortening in the First Movement of Beethoven’s Sonata Op. 2, No. 1 ’ were
written in English. ‘Form and Psychology in Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas’ and ‘Liszt’s Hungarian
Rhapsodies’ were translated from the German by Eugene Hartzell. All the other essays were
translated by Paul Hamburger.
The lecture on ‘Form and Psychology in Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas’ was first given in
German at Professor Harald Kaufmann’s Institut fur musikalische Wertungsforschungin Graz
in 1969, and in its English version at the 1970 Dartington Summer School. The lecture on
‘Schubert’s Piano Sonatas, 1822-1828’ was first delivered at the Santa F6 Chamber Music
Festival, 1973.
In a similar or considerably divergent form, the following articles have previously been
printed:
‘Notes on a Complete Recording of Beethoven’s Piano Works’ (‘Anmerkungen zu einer
Gesamtaufnahme der Klavierwerke Beethovens’) - in Hi Fi Stereophonie, Karlsruhe, May
1966;
‘Form and Psychology in Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas’ - in Music and Musicians, London,
June 1971;
‘Schubert’s Piano Sonatas, 1822-1828’ - as an accompaniment to a Philips boxed set con¬
taining my recordings of Schubert’s later piano works, and, simultaneously, in Hi Fi
Stereophonie, Karlsruhe, June 1975; it was also used as the basis for a BBC discussion with
Stephen Plaistow in 1974;
‘Liszt Misunderstood’ (‘Der missverstandene Liszt’) - in Phono, Vienna 1961;
‘Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsodies’ - as a sleeve note for a Vanguard record, 1968;
‘A Peculiar Serenity’ (‘Busoni, Vollender des Klavierspiels’) - in Osterreichische Musik-
zeitschrift, Vienna 1954;
‘Arlecchino and Doktor Faust’ - in Die Presse, Vienna, 2/3 April 1966;
‘Remembering my Teacher’ (‘Edwin Fischer zum Gedenken’) - in Osterreichische Musik-
zeitschrift, Vienna 1960;
‘Coping with Pianos’ (‘Vom Umgang mit Fliigeln’) - in Hi Fi Stereophonie, Karlsruhe,
December 1974.
Jeremy Siepmann’s interview originally appeared in Music and Musicians, London,
December 1972; it is reprinted here in a slightly abridged version. Although its form is not that
of an essay, I decided to include it because it makes a number of points which I thought fell
within the scope of this book.
My thanks go to all the above publishers, as well as to Mr Lawrence Schoenberg, who kindly
gave permission to quote from Arnold Schoenberg’s notes on Busoni’s Entwurf einer neuen
Asthetik der Tonkunst.
A.B.
CONTENTS
Preface 9
BEETHOVEN
Notes on a Complete Recording of Beethoven’s
Piano Works 13
Werktreue - an Afterthought 26
Form and Psychology in Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas 38
SCHUBERT
Schubert’s Piano Sonatas, 1822-1828 57
LISZT
Liszt Misunderstood 77
Liszt and the Piano Circus - an Afterthought 82
Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsodies 84
Liszt’s Piano-Playing 88
Turning the Piano into an Orchestra (Liszt’s
Transcriptions and Paraphrases) 92
Fidelity to Liszt’s Letter? 98
BUSONI
A Peculiar Serenity 107
Arlecchino and Doktor Faust 113
Afterthoughts on Busoni 116
EDWIN FISCHER
Remembering my Teacher 121
Afterthoughts on Edwin Fischer 124
Coping with Pianos 129
Jeremy Siepmann: Talking to Brendel 143
Appendix: The Process of Foreshortening in the
First Movement of Beethoven’s Sonata Op. 2, No. 1 154
Selected Bibliography 162
Index 166
PREFACE
These writings on music, musicians and pianos do not represent the
whole scope of my musical interests; they do not cover the ground of
my entire repertory, nor do they show the proportion of my involve¬
ment with any composer. The occupation of a performer who tries to
nurture a wide range of works leaves little room for the discipline of
writing. Thus many plans have yet to be realized, accounts of my
experiences with the Mozart concertos, Schoenberg’s Piano Con¬
certo Op. 42, and Liszt’s B minor Sonata amongst them. A great deal
of material on Beethoven’s sonatas awaits inclusion in a more
comprehensive study. And a dictionary of prejudice in music has
been on my mind for a long while. Much of it will remain unwritten as
long as I am able to put forward my arguments as a practising musi¬
cian, by playing the piano.
Some of these articles are, at times, rather technical. It is impos¬
sible to avoid superficiality without, at certain points, talking about
music in specialized terms. Some are only outlines for further
investigation; I thus invite colleagues whose time is less limited than
my own to test and pursue more thoroughly Beethoven’s use of the
technique of foreshortening which I have sketched in the lecture on
‘Form and Psychology in Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas’. To me it has
explained a number of matters which other methods of analysis have
left untouched. It makes a difference, of course, whether one verifies
a method in one’s mind, as I constantly do when I play, or listen to,
Beethoven’s works, or whether one tries to communicate its opera¬
tion with the help of words. My use of the words ‘psychology’ and
‘foreshortening’ has been called in question. If anyone can think of
more fitting terms, I shall be delighted to know them.
10 MUSICAL THOUGHTS AND AFTERTHOUGHTS
Those who look for contradictions will be amply satisfied. The
profession of a performer is full of paradoxes, and he has to learn to
live with them. He has to forget himself and control himself; he has to
observe the composer’s wishes to the letter and create the music on
the spot; he has to be part of the music market and yet retain his
integrity. While re-reading my older articles I found it necessary to
revise them. While revising them, new essays emerged from my after¬
thoughts, either to clarify or to modify previous views. In the series of
articles on Liszt, the first, adoring essay is put into perspective by
other, more critical ones. None of my writings presumes to be the last
word on anything.
I most gratefully acknowledge the help and valuable suggestions I
have received from Paul Badura-Skoda (Vienna), Hermann Baron
(London), Professor Gerald Fitzgerald (Melbourne), Hans Keller
(London), Janet Rosenwald (Santa Fe, New Mexico), Professor
Rene Taube (Washington D.C.), and Katharine Wilkinson
(London), among many others. Finally, I should like to thank Jeremy
Robson, who put the idea of a book to me - it would not have
materialized without his gentle persistence - as well as my translators
for their patience and perception, and Carolyn Fearnside, my editor
at Robson Books, for the attention and care she has given to this
book.
London, 1976 A.B.
BEETHOVEN
NOTES ON A COMPLETE RECORDING OF
BEETHOVEN’S PIANO WORKS
I
I must begin with a qualification: this first recording of Beethoven’s
piano works, which I made for Vox-Turnabout between 1958 and
1964, is not entirely complete. There seemed to me little virtue in
rescuing from oblivion works that are totally devoid of any touch of
Beethoven’s mastery and originality. It was without regret, therefore,
that I omitted pieces like the deplorable Haibel Variations, which
could have been written by any of Beethoven’s contemporaries, as
well as certain student exercises, Albumblatter, studies, sketches and
curiosities, most of which were never intended for publication -
pieces, that is, which are merely of interest to the historian. These
include the total output of the Bonn period (among which are the
Variations on a March by Dressier by the twelve-year-old Beethoven
and the two preludes through all the major keys, curiously published
later on as Op. 39), the Easy Sonata in C major, WoO 51, the Varia¬
tions on the ‘Menuet a la Vigano’ by Haibel which I have already
mentioned, the pieces WoO 52, 53, 55 (the Prelude in the style of
Bach), 56, 61 and 61a, as well as the little dance movements WoO 81-
86, of which I retained only the Six Ecossaises, WoO 83, although in
all likelihood these are transcriptions of an orchestral score, and the
single extant copy, passed down by Nottebohm, may well be dubious
in some of its detail. It is not for nothing that virtuosi have been stimu¬
lated again and again to make arrangements of these spirited pieces.