Early Music Review
June 2002
This is one of the best fortepiano records I have heard
for a long time. The instrument (a Johann Schantz of c. 1800) is superb,
and the playing no less so. Sevskaya plays the Beethoven with both passion
and wit, eliciting an astonishing variety of dynamics and tone-colours
from the fortepiano. Her use of the knee-levers is most convincing, and
Beethoven's careful articulation markings, for example in the triplet
semiquavers at the recapitulation in the second movement, are always
clearly audible (on the modern piano their existence is often more in the
imagination than in the ear). The moderator is used quite a lot, but the
effect of its sudden removal in bar 58 of the Rondo makes the fortissimo
truly shocking. My only small quibble (if it isn't churlish to mention it)
is that the arpeggiated first chord doesn't seem quite compatible with the
fp marking. Thurston Dart once said that this chord should sound as
if a hammer had been dropped on the instrument! Every string or wind
player knows that fp is an instruction to start a note forte and
drop down quickly to piano, but how is a poor keyboard player to simulate
such an effect? I wonder if fp should be regarded as the equivalent
of Mozart's notation in which a minim chord includes some black
note-heads, presumably as a signal to release those notes quickly but hold
the others?
The Ries 'trifles' are very entertaining, full of
delightfully over-the-top operatic (and pianistic) gestures - though
perhaps No. 5 goes on a bit too long. As recital pieces, the only snag is
that they would keep the audience in fits of unseemly laughter. They were
presumably written with the English grand in mind, but Sevskaya does a
marvellous job of simulating its effects by adroit use of the knee-levers
and by avoiding the characteristically sharp staccato possible with
Viennese dampers. She makes a persuasive case for Dussek's substantial,
dramatic sonata in the grand manner. Personally, I feel that Dussek is an
unjustly neglected composer, who should arguably be rated higher than the
undoubtedly worthy but sometimes desperately dull Clementi.
Strongly recommended: this recording should be required
listening for all modern pianists, to show them what they are missing!
Richard Maunder
