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Vladimir Sofronitsky plays Schumann (2002)

Posted By: Benzok

Date: 21 Dec 2010 08:40:18

An individualist of powerful personality Sofronitsky’s last, live recordings – he preferred them to studio ones - have generally been shrouded in rumour as to his state of health. His early death has been ascribed to alcoholism but arrhythmia has been convincingly advanced as a reason for his increasing debilitation during those final years. Certainly these Schumann performances enshrine uneven musicianship which at its best rises to exceptionally eloquent heights but which can also rely on less immediately appealing characteristics. In Carnaval for instance he takes time – understandably – to warm up but also indulges in some precipitous voicings and some harsh accents (in Préambule), quixotic tempo acceleration (Pierrot) and heavy handed phrasing (Coquette). This is the kind of performance to be judged on its own terms and reference to say, Rachmaninov’s or Myra Hess’s legendary recordings is best put to one side. Sofronitsky is aptly full of vigour and incisive rhythm in Lettres dansantes (though his speed here is relatively sedate) but does tend to make a bit of a meal of the rubato, voicings and dichotomy between rough rhythm and legato in Estrella.

Kreisleriana amplifies these occasional extremes of response. In places he’s quite expansive, and he tends to prefer relaxed nobility of rhythm to say, Horowitz’s sense of momentum. That said his gravity and weighted chords in the fourth of the pieces (Sehr Langsam) is undeniably affecting and taken at a convincing tempo. Arabesque is also fine and an attractive reading.

Uneven yes but unsettlingly human and with a technique still able to cope with most demands, Sofronitsky remains one of the troubling giants of post-War pianism. –-Jonathan Woolf

Biography

by Robert Cummings

Vladimir Sofronitsky was among the greatest Russian pianists of the twentieth century, and, while he had become a somewhat less prominent figure following his death, he must be still considered in the company of Richter, Gilels, and Yudina. In his time, Sofronitsky became widely recognized as the leading interpreter of and authority on the music of Scriabin in Eastern Europe. He was also highly praised for his interpretations of the piano works of Robert Schumann and he was a highly respected teacher.

His father, a successful physicist, took the family to Warsaw in 1903, where the young Sofronitsky would grow up and develop his musical skills. As a child, he showed unusual talent on the piano and his parents arranged for studies with A. Lebedeva-Getsevich and Aleksander Michalowski. At the age of 15, Sofronitsky enrolled at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, where he studied under Leonid Nikolayev. Maria Yudina was also a student at the conservatory and soon entered the same class, where she remained with Sofronitsky for a year. She would report that he was already playing with remarkable interpretive insight and virtuosic skills. Sofronitsky also took classes in composition at the conservatory from Maximilian Steinberg. In 1920, Sofronitsky married the oldest daughter of Scriabin, Elena. While he had already divulged a sympathy for the piano music of the recently deceased mystic composer – as attested by Yudina – he now had a greater intellectual and emotional connection to Scriabin's works through his wife, also a talented pianist, and through the Scriabin in-laws. Sofronitsky graduated from the conservatory in 1921, giving, among other works in his recital, a performance of the Liszt Sonata in B minor, which much of the faculty and student body found both thrilling and thought-provoking. Throughout most of the 1920s, Sofronitsky built up a brilliant career as a concert pianist in Russia. His first tour abroad came in 1928 and after playing in Paris, he decided to stay on. In the end, he remained two years, then returned to his Leningrad. Sofronitsky joined the faculty at the Leningrad Conservatory in 1936 and remained there until the Nazis' infamous siege of the city. He escaped by plane to Moscow in 1942 and immediately began teaching at the conservatory there. He gave many performances at the Scriabin Museum in Moscow, especially during the latter part of his career. He gradually developed alcohol and drug addictions, and in his last years his pianistic skills declined noticeably.

Sofronitsky made a fair number of recordings in the last two decades of his life, but a relatively paltry number compared with the efforts of Richter and Gilels. Not surprisingly, Sofronitsky recorded a large number of Scriabin works and also compositions by Chopin, Rachmaninov, Schumann, Prokofiev, and others. His recorded performances from the 1940s are generally more representative than those from the last decade.

Tracklisting

01. Arabesque Op 18 / 6:20
02. Carnaval op 9 - Preambule / 2:15
03. Carnaval op 9 - Pierrot / 0:58
04. Carnaval op 9 - Arlequin / 1:10
05. Carnaval op 9 - Valse noble / 1:06
06. Carnaval op 9 - Eusebius / 1:26
07. Carnaval op 9 - Florestan / 0:55
08. Carnaval op 9 - Coquette / 1:02
09. Carnaval op 9 - Replique / 0:59
10. Carnaval op 9 - Papillons / 0:37
11. Carnaval op 9 - A.S.C.H. / 0:49
12. Carnaval op 9 - Chiarina / 0:55
13. Carnaval op 9 - Chopin / 1:13
14. Carnaval op 9 - Estrella / 0:22
15. Carnaval op 9 - Reconaissance / 1:51
16. Pantalon et Colombine / 0:56
17. Valse allemande / 2:15
18. Carnaval op 9 - Aveu / 0:49
19. Carnaval op 9 - Promenade / 1:49
20. Carnaval op 9 - Pause / 0:17
21. Carnaval op 9 - Marche des 'Davidsbundler' contre les Philistins / 3:21
22. Des Abends / 3:20
23. Kreisleriana op.16 - Ausserst bewegt / 2:25
24. Kreisleriana op.16 - Sehr innig und nichts zu rasch / 8:33
25. Kreisleriana op.16 - Sehr aufgeregt / 4:39
26. Kreisleriana op.16 - Sehr langsam / 3:23
27. Kreisleriana op.16 - Sehr lebhaft / 3:04
28. Kreisleriana op.16 - Sehr langsam / 3:38
29. Kreisleriana op.16 - Sehr rasch / 2:18
30. Kreisleriana op.16 - Schnell und spielend / 3:27

log EAC

Exact Audio Copy V0.99 prebeta 5 from 4. May 2009

EAC extraction logfile from 30. June 2010, 22:41

Vladimir Sofronitsky / Schumann

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TOC of the extracted CD

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2 | 6:20.08 | 2:14.47 | 28508 | 38604
3 | 8:34.55 | 0:58.25 | 38605 | 42979
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9 | 15:12.26 | 0:59.06 | 68426 | 72856
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11 | 16:48.14 | 0:49.32 | 75614 | 79320
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14 | 19:45.45 | 0:21.64 | 88920 | 90558
15 | 20:07.34 | 1:51.12 | 90559 | 98895
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29 | 60:29.19 | 2:17.70 | 272194 | 282538
30 | 62:47.14 | 3:27.06 | 282539 | 298069

Range status and errors

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