Composer: Franz Peter Schubert
Performer: Valery Afanassiev
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: ECM
Catalogue: 4764580
Release: 2012
Size: 538 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
Moments Musicaux, D780, Op. 94
01. No. 1, Moderato
02. No. 2, Andantino
03. No. 3, Allegro moderato
04. No. 4, Moderato
05. No. 5, Allegro vivace
06. No. 6, Allegretto
Piano Sonata No. 17 in D major, D850
07. I. Allegro vivace
08. II. Con moto
09. III. Scherzo. Allegro vivace
10. IV. Rondo. Allegro moderato
Pianist Valery Afanassiev – renowned for his strikingly individual and deeply introspective interpretations of the music of Franz Schubert – has paired two often extrovert works by the composer: the set of six Moments Musicaux and the Sonata in D major, D850. Recorded in September 2010 at the Auditorio Radiotelevisione Svizzera, Lugano, this is ECM’s second Schubert recording by the Moscow-born pianist.
Composed from 1823 to 1827, the year before the composer’s premature death, the Moments Musicaux brim with song and dance, as well as Schubert’s characteristic mood swings from major to minor, from light to dark. The Sonata D850, written in 1825, is one of Schubert’s most ebullient piano sonatas – with yodelling-like melodies, simulated horn calls and strongly syncopated rhythms – but like so many works by this composer, there are passages with an air of nostalgia and emotional ambiguity.
Valery Afanassiev previously released on ECM New Series a live recording of Schubert’s final Sonata (in B flat major, D. 960) performed at the 1986 Lockenhaus Festival that has become a connoisseur’s favourite (4627072).
A pupil of Emil Gilels at the Moscow Conservatory, Afanassiev’s international career took off after he won the 1972 Queen Elisabeth Piano Competition in Brussels. His recordings feature music by Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Schumann, Mussorgsky and Chopin, as well as Schubert. His chamber music partners have included Gidon Kremer and Mischa Maisky. He also has a second career as a writer – of novels and plays – and has written intriguing liner notes for this album that mark him out as a renaissance man.
Russian pianist Valery Afanassiev recorded an album of Schubert’s late piano sonatas that inspired wildly divergent reactions with its tremendously unorthodox readings. This release on ECM shares much with the earlier album, and it may too be one of those things you either love or hate. As with the earlier release, CD buyers will get Afanassiev’s own quirky but far from dull notes, which range over topics from Goethe’s Faust to Bruckner’s Symphony No. 9 to Japanese philosophy. Afanassiev once again favors slow tempos. They’re not quite as extreme as on the sonata album, but his approach is similar: he presents, so to speak, exploded views of each phrase of Schubert’s music. His lines are fantastically detailed without being particularly expressive, and this is probably what fascinates some listeners while driving others crazy. It may be that his Schubert playing works better in some pieces than in others. The six Moments Musicaux, D. 780, will really make you sit up and take notice. What Afanassiev catches here is that these works (not a set, but substantial little pieces far from the bonbons that the publisher-supplied title would suggest) were written for an intimate, sophisticated audience that would have gotten his Faust references and would have been interested in a performance that explores the structure of the music in the way he does. The Piano Sonata in D major, D. 850, is not nearly as successful; the limpid central movements simply plod. The very fine sound and the overall abstract quality of ECM’s presentation both work as X factors in favor of what many will still find a slightly bizarre recording, but one that can’t be easily dismissed.