"These are both beautiful performances—recorded live, apparently at one concert in Paris on December 8, 1955. Haskil’s elegance, purity of tone, evenness of articulation, and utter naturalness of phrasing serve both concertos magnificently, and Cluytens is an attentive, sympathetic partner. This is a disc I missed the first time around on Music & Arts and am thrilled to have encountered now." Henry Fogel, Fanfare

A Review of this Recording

by Bill Rosen

This disk pairs what I consider Mozart’s greatest piano concerto with Beethoven’s greatest piano concerto.

In addition to having all the virtues of a mature Mozart piano concerto, the #24 has something extra, something vital to Mozart’s makeup, but rarely displayed. It is something not found in Bach or Beethoven. It is the quality of tragic passion that is often demonic; it is a raging against fate that knows at the same time that it is futile. Examples of it appear in Don Giovanni, the Dies Irae of the Requiem, the Symphony #40 and the “Prague Symphony”.

Beethoven’s 4th Piano Concerto is one of the “gentle giants” Beethoven wrote when all his power and resources were expressed in a more restrained way: 4th  Symphony, 6th Symphony, Violin Concerto, 4th Piano Concerto, “Archduke” Trio and Violin Sonata #10.

In the Concerto #24, the orchestra is very good and supportive of Haskil if occasionally untidy. Haskil is superb: aggressive yet very poetic; forward-moving yet lyrical; never overwhelmed by the orchestra. She more than holds her own in the development and seems to take over in the shortened recapitulation. The cadenza is unfamiliar, but relevant. Only in the final post-cadenza phrases does she purposefully let her drive flag as Mozart exhausts his demonic intensity and prepares for the end of the great first movement.

The second movement sometimes seems a letdown, but not this time! Haskil is taut, lyrical and keeps the drive going. The last movement has much for the virtuoso in it, but Haskil emphasizes emotional weight and its kinship with first movement.

In Beethoven’s 4th concerto, the orchestra seems much finer than in Mozart’s #24. Haskil has more gentleness than she did in #24, but the drive is still strong. The performance is superb and I would cite three places in the first movement that moved me  particularly:

1. The end of the exposition for her combined firmness and lyricism
2. The start of the recapitulation for her strong forward motion
3. The superb playing of the cadenza

In the second movement, I would wish that the strings were a bit gruffer, but the answering piano, so sostenuto, noble but not pleading, surely has never been bettered.

The last movement is unbuttoned, but not quite all the way. Schnabel found a little more play. The cadenza is thrilling and the ending is so very joyous.

The new XR sound process makes talking about sound almost unnecessary. There is no hiss or background noise. The piano is very clear and centered.

If I could only have one recording of each of these works, these would do very well.

Clara Haskil

Clara Haskil was born in Bucarest. Romania on 7 January 1895. She came, as she later wrote: "of a family in which music held a very important place. and was taken while still a child to Vienna by an uncle who was a great music lover. There I began my musical education. As far as I can remember, I was sensitive, and even hypersensitive to music. My difficulty was which instrument to choose, because I was as much attracted by the violin as by the piano."

A child prodigy who made her concert debut at age 10, Haskil studied at the Paris Conservatoire from 1905 (from 1907 on with Cortot, who had just been appointed to the faculty). In 1911 Busoni heard her play in Basel and invited her to join his school in Berlin. Because of ill health (which plagued her all her life) Haskil was compelled to decline. Soon after leaving the Conservatoire, she was forced because of sickness to give up playing for four years. She resumed her career and again started to give public concerts in 1921.

Although Ysaye, Casals and Enesco had chosen her as a sonata partner by the mid-1920's, Haskil was modest, shy. and plagued by self-doubt to the end of her days. She recalls: "Although they appreciated my playing and complimented me on it, they looked in vain for me beside them when the time came to bow to the audience. From the wings, where I had taken refuge, I could see the great master make his bow. I was terrified to go back onto the platform; to go first seemed impossible ... I felt alone when I played with Enesco. because I could not imagine that there was really any true relationship between that man of genius and [me]. And yet we were born in the same country and people said that our styles went well together ... Unfortunately, an extreme shyness and inborn timidity made me afraid to meet people; and everyone used to say of me, 'she comes in creeping along by the wall.'''

From 1927 to 1940, Haskil lived in Paris where she gave frequent concerts with the Radio Orchestra. Here she met her countryman Dinu Lipatti, the brilliant shortlived pianist, who was to become one of her few close friends, in 1938. With the German push into France she retreated with the Radio first to Rennes, then to Marseille. There she developed a tumor on the optic nerve and was saved from unbearable migraines and double vision by a successful operation.

In November 1942, the Germans occupied the south of France; thanks to influential connections, Haskil managed to escape to Switzerland, where she lived with her oldest sister for the rest of her life. She became a Swiss subject in 1949. After the War, her career at last took on momentum and she became internationally famous, appearing at major festivals (notably Lucerne. Prades and Montreux) either as soloist or as partner of such well-known artists as violinist Arthur Grumiaux and pianists Geza Anda and Nikita Magaloff. She excelled, in particular, in Bach and Mozart. piano concertos, the Schuman concerto and solo works ("Abegg" Variations, Kinderscenen, Bunte Blatter, Waldscenen) and the Beethoven violin-piano sonatas (in which her last illustrious partner was Grumiaux). Clara Haskil died in Brussels on 7 December 1960.

From the sleevenotes, ©1995, Music & Arts Inc.

Find out more:   Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 4 : 2. Andante con moto CD covers to print:   CD-writing cuesheet: [What's that?]

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