Monthly Archives: July 2019

When I began my Facebook page The Piano Files with Mark Ainley ten years ago, I had no idea that it would grow to the extent that it has – that wasn’t the intention. It all started rather innocuously: a friend commented on a post on my personal page asking whether I would list some recommended recordings for people like him who didn’t know much about classical music. I had joined some groups on Facebook, then in its early years, so I decided to create a piano group myself. The name The Piano Files was one I had come up with a few years earlier when proposing a piano-themed radio program to the CBC (unsuccessfully in one way, not in another: a producer called from head office in Toronto to tell me that mine was the best proposal they’d received in many years but that it was too ‘specialized’ for their perceived audience). This simple play on the word ‘pianophiles‘ was one that stuck with me that I decided to keep ‘on file’ for later use, and this online forum seemed to be a suitable opportunity.

I started the Piano Files group and soon after noticed that there was a ‘fan page’ format that Facebook offered which seemed to be easier to manage. I tried to delete the group so that I could simply run the Piano Files ‘page’ instead, but Facebook wouldn’t allow me delete the old group. In order to get people to join the correct forum when searching for ‘the piano files,’ because both would show up, I made the title of the page a bit different by adding my name – and thus The Piano Files with Mark Ainley was born. It was a few months before I could finally delete the original group, and then at this point Facebook wouldn’t allow me to change the name of the page! And so my own name stayed attached to it.

Back before Facebook started limited posts with algorithms, everyone who had joined the page received each post, and while that changed over the years, membership grew and engagement has stayed high and in fact has increased. At a time when the term ‘social media’ was not yet being used and the platform consisted primarily of silly cat videos, the page was a hub for lovers of fine piano playing, and fortunately that has been a constant these ten years as Facebook has grown into a medium that seems indispensable in modern life.

I still remember when we hit 500 as it seemed like such a milestone (and I suppose it was) … and just recently we crossed the 9000 barrier, which was a remarkable threshold to cross. But it’s never been about the numbers but rather having a community of piano fans who appreciate the historic recordings that have been my musical focus since my teens.

And what a community it is: while I have been active and well-connected in the classical music scene for some time before Facebook, through this page I’ve had the opportunity to connect with the descendants of great pianists I had not previously been in contact with, among them the children of Witold Malcuzynski, Rudolf Firkusny, Jakob Gimpel, Rosa Sabater, Ozan Marsh, and Franz Josef Hirt, as well as Artur Schnabel’s granddaughter. I have also had a chance to correspond with and meet pupils of Jorge Bolet, Sidney Foster, Rudolf Firkusny, Marian Filar, Mieczysław Munz, Bruce Hungerford, and others, and managers and assistants to Youri Egorov and André Tchaikowsky. It was through this page that I met Zsolt Bognar of Living The Classical Life, who invited me to be the guest on an episode of his acclaimed interview series, and that’s how my work became known to pianist-lecturer Lisa Yui, who offered me an opportunity to present a guest lecture in her class about historical piano recordings at Manhattan School of Music. Decca in London offered me the chance to host an exclusive preview of a Benjamin Grosvenor video prior to an album launch, and Eloquence in Australia commissioned me for some liner notes after reading my posts.

The page has also provided an opportunity to connect with pianists whom I hadn’t previously had personal contact with: Michel Dalberto, whom I remember from my early years of listening to recordings, commented on some of my Facebook posts; Kirill Gerstein met up with me when passing through town, having seen my posts for some time; and I recently received an email from Sergio Tiempo thanking me for what I articulated in my recent article on interpretation. Even more of a surprise was meeting the brilliant young pianist Andrew Tyson in Vancouver a few months ago: I spoke with him after his post-recital Q&A session (during which he had professed his love of Cortot, something that was obvious in his playing), and when I introduced myself, he said, “Wait, are you Mark from The Piano Files? I’ve followed your page for years.”

So when people complain about Facebook and how it is ruining communication, culture, and society, I most certainly beg to differ! Like anything in life, how you use something is as important as what it is that you are using.

A lot happened over the year quite independently of the Piano Files page due to my previous work in the field of historical recordings. After some thirty years of researching Dinu Lipatti recordings, which led to the first publication of a number of rare items between 1995 and last year, I was invited to give presentations in his home country of Romania for the first time, and that was most certainly a dream come true. Additionally, a contact I’d met years back in London connected me with Benjamin Grosvenor, whom I consider to a pianist who plays in the great Romantic tradition, which led to numerous interviews and being able to attend a number of events (including one in London at which I met his teacher). I’ve also had a chance to present again on James Irsay’s radio program decades after my first 1992 appearance (some can be heard on my HearThis page – thought it must be said that most of our communication takes place via Facebook (again, those who think it’s ruining communication…).

Due to my commitment to post daily on the page (except when offline on retreat or on major holidays – I even posted when in the hospital a few years back), I have had to expand my own knowledge of pianists and as a result have discovered some marvellous pianists I had never heard of before. Thanks to the efforts of YouTube uploaders and other fans of great piano playing, I have in the last decade come across some great performers for the first time: Sidney Foster, Jakob Gimpel, Aline van Barentzen, Franz Josef Hirt, Ozan Marsh, Hans Henkemans, Maryla Jonas, Albert Ferber, Agnelle Bundervoët, Jacqueline Eymar, William Murdoch, and several others are pianists whose playing I first encountered while searching for recordings to post on my Facebook page.

I have in the last decade also developed the website you are currently reading in order to add some longer articles and create an online resource: it has recently received a significant upgrade thanks to sponsorship on my Patreon subscriber page, and once the funds are raised, my Dinu Lipatti website will be getting a similar makeover. And I have also been adding to my YouTube channel, where I’ve uploaded a number of videos of rare recordings or fine transfers of 78rpm discs: several of the latter have been provided by Tom Jardine (who happens to be friends with Ward Marston), who has generously allowed me to share the beautiful transfer work he does as a hobby. And I have for the last year or so been posting on the HearThis site my own audio programs, the production of which is supported by subscriptions at my Patreon page.

And so for this anniversary, I want to acknowledge and thank all of the enthusiastic participants who have read, listened, clicked, and shared; those who have invited their friends to join (some have added hundreds to the page over the years); and those who have contributed via Patreon. Some of the first 100 members are still very active participants on the Facebook page. I’ve learned so much from the comments of many members over the years, and I have been delighted to see people from all over the world, of all ages, and from all walks of life come together to appreciate some inspired music making. Long may we continue, as Jascha Spivakovsky said, ‘to seek what they sought.’

And so, as a celebration of ten years of The Piano Files on Facebook, ten uploads:

 

1. First, my latest podcast episode, which features the playing of 7 ‘unsung pianists’, artists who are worthy of more recognition than they generally receive(d). Ever since I came across Joseph Villa’s artistry in 1991 (I have two episodes devoted to him on my HearThis page), I have been interested in pianists who for some reason never had the recognition their artistry warranted. In this series of podcasts, I will present great performances by such pianists. In this first episode, I feature seven remarkable artists, most of whose playing I first encountered while running my Piano Files page on Facebook.

 

 

2. The pianist Marian Filar is one I first heard of via a longtime subscriber to my page who studied with him, pianist Beth Levin. I only recently heard an early LP of Filar and was absolutely blown away. Levin’s colleague Charles Birnbaum studied with the Polish pianist as well and recently sent me a number of recordings, including this transfer of another early LP (ca.1950) featuring Chopin Nocturnes, as well as the lovely photograph reproduced in this video I made. In these exquisitely beautiful performances, Filar plays with remarkably clear textures, an incredibly pure singing tone, a soaring melodic line phrased with extraordinary suppleness, and a steady rhythmic pulse fused with natural timing. With Levin’s and Birnbaum’s assistance, I will be preparing a tribute article and further uploads of this marvellous artist, and offering a giveaway contest of a CD of the pianist.

 

 

3. A performer I don’t recall coming across prior to my operating my Facebook page was Jakob Gimpel, a wonderful Polish pianist who somehow never fully got his due despite having made several records for the high-profile Electrola label in the 1950s and playing the piano part in the Academy Award-winning Tom & Jerry cartoon Johann Mouse. I’ve featured this great pianist several times on my page, in both earlier and later concert recordings. This unpublished 1970 concert recording of Chopin’s Nocturne in E Major Op.62 No.2 was shared with me by the pianist’s son and is made available here for the first time (check my YouTube channel for other Gimpel performances, including two more from this recital). In this reading, we hear Gimpel’s beautifully forged singing line, mindful pedalling that never obscures the texture or line, and incredible nuancing: notice his timing at transitional points between phrasing and how he adjusts dynamic levels as well…  and if you listen closely you can also hear Gimpel humming along a bit with the performance.

 

 

4. Natan Brand was a pianist I first encountered thanks to Bryan Crimp, founder of the APR label that produced the first memorial set devoted to this pianist back in 1991. A second set would later be produced on the Palexa label by a Montreal-based friend whom I’d known back in the late 80s and early 90s when we were both young piano fans (Jean-Pascal Hamelin, now an esteemed conductor). When in New York in 2014 to film my episode of Living The Classical Life, I called up Brand’s widow and she enthusiastically invited me to visit her and generously shared a number of precious recordings and videos with me (some uploaded in this post I produced about Brand). The performance below of Chopin’s Ballade No.1 in G Minor Op.23 has never been shared before and is especially moving because it comes from the pianist’s final recital, given in Amherst on July 16, 1990. This impassioned reading is filled with creative voicing, soaring phrasing, and Brand’s full-bodied singing sonority – a remarkable performance!

 

 

5. André Tchaikowsky was a true original of the keyboard who also left us far too soon, dying of cancer at the age of 46 (the same age as Brand). His commercial recordings are far too few for a pianist of his incredible capabilities and fortunately a remarkably comprehensive memorial website has been set up which features incredible documentation and concert performances. The Bach Concerto in D Minor BWV 1052 performance below hails from a July 24, 1973 London concert and finds the pianist playing with his usual rhythmic buoyancy, crystal-clear tone, and creative nuancing.

 

 

6. The last few years I have been mesmerized by the playing of Jascha Spivakovsky, whose playing was completely unknown to even the most ardent collectors because he never produced a solo recording, unlike his famous violinist brother Tossy. When his family began releasing private and broadcast recordings on the Pristine Classical label in 2015, my colleague James Irsay in New York (on whose radio program I very nervously first appeared in 1992) wrote to me raving about the playing and I immediately knew there was remarkable pianism of great historical interest here. I have since visited the family in Australia – this tour of his music room gives great insight into his story – and I have since been writing the notes for all of the Pristine releases, in addition to publishing an overview of the pianist’s life and art in Clavier Companion magazine.

Schumann’s now-seldom-played Piano Sonata No.3 played a key role in Spivakovsky’s life: this work was the ‘quick study piece’ that he had to prepare without the aid of a teacher for the 1910 Blüthner Prize (which he won at the age of 13 – the final-round judges were Busoni, Gabrilowitsch, and Godowsky) and he programmed it throughout his entire career. This 1963 broadcast recording from over half a century after his competition win is overflowing with passion, featuring soaring phrasing and deeply forged baselines, while discreet pedalling and the skillful use of finger legato serve to burnish melodic lines.

 

 

7. A pianist whose playing I still don’t know particularly well but have been enjoying in the last year or so is the obscure German pianist Erik Then-Bergh. APR has released his complete Electrola and Deutsche Grammophon recordings, and an Eloquence CD transfer of his Reger Telemann Variations has absolutely mesmerized me. This 1955 concert broadcast of Beethoven’s Fourth Concerto captures the German pianist’s playing at its most robust, with a blend of earthy vivacity and reverential refinement that suits Beethoven’s masterpiece perfectly.

 

 

8. The Australian pianist William Murdoch is one who escaped my notice for a long time – I’ve never seen an LP devoted to him, and I have only one CD of his playing that I’ve come across (collectors can look forward to something more comprehensive very soon, I’m happy to report) – but his playing is absolutely magnificent, revealing a strong character and mindful musician. The clip below features Murdoch’s 1932 Decca recording (K.682) of two Waltzes by Chopin, the Waltz in G-Flat Major Op.70 No.1 and the Waltz in D-Flat Major Op.64 No.1 (the “Minute Waltz”). These two works are despatched with tremendous rhythmic vitality, sparkling tone, beautifully defined articulation, and attentive voicing. Marvellous playing by a sadly overlooked figure in pianism.

 

 

9. One of the amazing things about historical recordings is that you get to hear the playing of artists from a complete different generation. Francis Planté was born in 1839 and actually heard Chopin play, and he played chamber music with performers who had performed with the composer himself. His only recordings were made on two days – July 3 & 4, 1928 – on his Érard piano at his home in Mont-de-Marsan. Planté and Vladimir de Pachmann are the only two pianists born during Chopin’s lifetime to have made electrical (aka microphone-amplified) recordings. Aged nearly 90 at the time these discs were produced, Planté was obviously not at his most dextrous in these performances, and yet there is much to appreciate in his playing: a robust sonority, attentive balance of left and right hands, natural timing (his rubato could in no way be considered extreme), and beautiful tonal colours. We owe Tom Jardine a debt of gratitude for providing this exceptional transfer from his own copy of the disc.

 

 

10. One of the first recordings that I read about as a student exploring early discs – and therefore a fine one with which to end this anniversary post, with an exceptionally fine transfer superior to all that I’ve heard – was Josef Lhévinne‘s magnificent reading of the Schulz-Evler Arabesken über ‘An der schönen blauen Donau’ von Johann Strauss, aka The Blue Danube Waltz. Lhévinne’s recording has been so universally praised and played that many were and still are unaware that he played a rather truncated version of the Schulz-Evler transcription in order to fit the work onto the two sides of the 12-inch RCA 78rpm discs. This popular record was the Russian pianist’s first disc for RCA, set down on May 21, 1928, yet Lhévinne would not produce another recording until 1935, and his total studio discography totals about an hour. This glorious reading features the artist’s remarkably polished sonority, taut rhythmic bounce and pulse, sumptuous phrasing, and incredibly refined nuancing – a performance that continues to delight listeners 90 years after it was made. Many thanks to Tom Jardine for providing his fantastic transfer of the performance from an original 78rpm disc for use in this upload.

 

I hope that you have enjoyed these postings. We are truly living at an amazing time, when great historical recordings are more accessible than ever before. I am grateful that my Facebook page has been such a wonderful hub for likeminded piano fans to gather and enjoy glorious piano playing, and I hope it will continue to be for many years to come.

 

 

 

“My earliest reaction to music, as far as I can recall, was one of fascinated terror.” It seems amazing that a pianist who produced one of the loveliest sonorities ever captured on record would have this initial response to the art form to which he would dedicate his life, but so said Harold Bauer in the opening of his autobiography Harold Bauer: His Book. Fortunately for posterity he overcame that adverse reaction and became a performer and teacher of great distinction, as well as a recording artist who left behind a small but precious discography of remarkably beautiful performances.

Bauer was born near London on April 28, 1873 and would soon overcome any fear he had of music: on his fourth birthday he composed a polka and would soon after have piano lessons from his aunt and violin lessons with his father. It was the latter instrument that was his prime focus for many years, and he was not the only pianist to have started with this instrument: Dinu Lipatti, Clara Haskil, and Egon Petri all began with the violin before becoming pianists. The great Joseph Joachim took an interest in Bauer when the ten-year-old boy wrote him a letter asking him to play a certain Bach Prelude and Fugue as an encore “because I play that piece too.” Joachim wrote back with an interest in hearing him play, and when he did, he encouraged him to study at the Royal College of Music; however, Bauer’s father instead had him study with the great teacher Adolph Pollitzer, with whom Bauer would learn the entire violin repertoire.

On the advice of Paderewski, Bauer moved to Paris to get ahead in his career as a violin soloist. Once there, he worked as a piano accompanist to make some extra money, leading to an opportunity to tour Russia accompanying the singer Louise Nikita at the piano. He had already performed admirably in London, with programmes including Liszt’s Feux Follets and St. Francis Walking on the Waves, and when he became more visible accompanying other musicians at the piano, this instrument would become his focus. He stated that he had “become a pianist in spite of myself, yet I had no technique and I did not know how to acquire it,” but he was soon engaged by Paderewski’s London manager to play two concerts in Berlin, the first of which consisted of Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto, Saint-Saëns’s G Minor Concerto, and Liszt’s Hungarian Fantasia – “a thoroughly conventional program, typical of those days,” he wrote of something that would be inconceivable for a pianist today, let alone for a musician for whom this was their second instrument. The performance was a great success and Bauer’s trajectory as a professional pianist was set.

While he made quite a career as a soloist, Bauer was still active as a chamber music player and he toured Brazil with Casals in 1903. The following year, they met with Ernest Schelling in Rio and it appears that critics had divided themselves into two camps, those who preferred Bauer and those who proclaimed Schelling the superior pianist. To take advantage of what they viewed to be ‘ridiculous but amusing,’ they created a huge musical event together with the local pianist Arthur Napoleao at the Opera House: “We engaged the entire Opera orchestra, and each of us played and conducted alternately, using every possible combination of duet and trio throughout the evening.” Reproduced here on the left, courtesy the Brazilian Piano Institute, is the programme of the remarkable event, which I’ve never seen published before. Artistically the concert was a success, though a scuffle broke out between a Bauerite and a Schellingite in which Schelling himself intervened – ironically, he was the one who got punched and a bloody nose. Despite this whole situation, Bauer and Schelling remained very good friends (years later they would both serve on the Artist Auxiliary Board at the Manhattan School of Music) and when they ended up on board the same ship taking them home shortly after this concert, they “astonished the passengers by the magnificent duets [we] played upon any and every musical instrument obtainable on board.”

As an interpreter, Bauer played without excess although he was not one who worshipped the text and the intention of the composer over individual performance. Although he would look attentively to the score – indeed, he edited a great many works for Schirmer – he believed it was important not to bring one’s own intelligence to one’s reading of it. “The ordinary man who fails to realize what lies in the music beyond the printed indication is just…an ordinary man.” After relating a tale about how examining various editions and the manuscript of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata led him to adjust his approach, he stated that, “the composer, as a general rule, cannot be regarded as the most reliable guide to the interpretation of his music. The best proof of this is that in those rare cases where the composer is a fine executant and plays his music as well as it can be played, it is not difficult, if the performance is compared with the printed page, to find literally hundreds of details where the two fail to correspond.” Listening to his playing, however, we do not hear an excessive display of individuality but rather a respectful balance of personal style with the music being played.

Like many pianists of the time, Bauer produced player-piano rolls and he was in fact one of the most prolific pianists in this medium, making over 100 such rolls. Unfortunately he did not make as many records: he began recording in 1924, making only two discs with the acoustical recording process (whereby the instrument was amplified with a cone-shaped horn) before the new technology of electrical recording (with the use of microphones) was employed. He also made an early film appearance and we can see him in this April 2, 1927 footage accompanying violinist Efrem Zimbalist in the last movement of Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata, a piece that would have meant a great deal to him: he wrote enthusiastically about Joachim’s performance and how the last movement needed to be repeated as an encore. In this amazing footage we can see Bauer’s effortless technique and fluidity of movement. On the same occasion he apparently recorded Chopin’s Polonaise Op.53 but that footage has regrettably not been made available – one certainly hopes that it will!

Even before this filmed performance, Bauer’s first large-scale recording was of chamber music: on December 21 & 23, 1925, he made the first recording of the Brahms Piano Quintet Op.34 with the Flonzaley String Quartet, with whom his close friend Ossip Gabrilowitsch would record the Schumann Piano Quintet Op.44 two years later (they had recorded a truncated account of the latter work in 1924). Bauer’s integrity as a musician shines through in his collaborative approach, never overpowering the musicians he plays with in this spirited performance.

Harold Bauer’s 1935 recording of Schumann’s Fantasiestücke Op.12 is the first of the work (the second would be Arthur Rubinstein’s 1949 account). While Bauer had made his earlier recordings for Victor in the US, in this case he set down this reading at their sister company EMI’s Abbey Road Studios on their Steinway piano. The pianist was evidently in good form at the session, as 5 of the 8 sides required only a single take, the remaining 3 receiving no more than a second attempt. Throughout this account, we hear Bauer’s sumptuous singing sonority, fluidly phrased legato line, purity of tone at all dynamic levels, and balance of primary and secondary voices.

Very few broadcasts of the pianist have been located and none have been made commercially available, but fortunately some are on YouTube. A performance of the first movement of Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto is unfortunately marred by the incorrect ordering and poor splicing of the acetate discs (something I am working to correct), all the more regrettable as there are no other known recordings of Bauer with orchestra. This May 24, 1936 broadcast of Bauer playing Chopin’s Third Scherzo is also of great interest, as it is a work he never recorded commercially. His wonderfully clear sound, refined dynamic and tonal colours, and magical pedal effects are a marvel to behold.

Bauer is today better remembered for his readings of the German and Romantic repertoire, yet he also played the new music of the time, giving the Paris premiere of Debussy’s Children’s Corner suite and the New York premiere of Ravel’s Concerto in G Major. Those who are surprised by this might be even more amazed to know Ravel dedicated Ondine from his now-legendary suite Gaspard de la nuit to Bauer – alas, although Bauer played it the world over for decades, he never recorded it. In one of his two recorded performances of Debussy, the lesser-known Reverie, we hear his glorious singing tone and mastery of the pedal helping mould the colours and dynamic gradations called for by this music.

Bauer’s last recordings were made on January 8 and 9, 1942 of works by Grieg, another composer whom he knew after having met the Norwegian in Amsterdam at the home of their mutual friend Julius Röntgen. For some reason most of these performances were unissued, among them the three Lyric Pieces presented here (The Butterfly Op.43 No.1, Valse Impromptu Op.47 No.1, and Nocturne Op.54 No.4):

Bauer would retire soon after this session, spending his remaining years in Miami. He was tired of the performing and touring life and stated in his autobiography, “I am never going to practice the piano any more.” Yet he stayed active in musical arenas, as he had his whole life. Having emigrated to the US during World War 1 (he was naturalized in 1917), he was founder-director of the Beethoven Association of New York (1918-1941) and president of the Friends of Music of the Library of Congress. For years Bauer had headed the piano department at the Manhattan School of Music (he was founding member of their Artist Auxiliary Board in 1918 and gave his first master classes at MSM in 1924) and beginning in 1941, he taught master classes each winter at the University of Miami while serving as Visiting Professor at the University of Hartford Hartt School of Music from 1946 until his death in 1951 at the age of 77.

Despite his relatively small discography for an artist of his stature and a reputation that waned even during his lifetime, RCA produced two LPs that featured his 78rpm discs in the early years of the new medium, an honour also granted Rachmaninoff and Paderewski but not Levitzki or some other great pianists to have recorded exclusively in the 78 era. Years later, the International Piano Library (later Archives) produced an LP featuring some of his rarer recordings, including the Brahms Third Sonata recorded for the lesser-known Schirmer label. Today, his complete solo recordings are now available on a marvellous 3-CD set on the APR label (it does not include the Brahms Quintet). While we may wish for more recordings – and perhaps some more broadcast performances will turn up and be made available – we should be grateful that we do have what we do of this superb musician. Not only are his recordings required listening, his autobiography should be required reading for insight into the universal issues facing musicians and even society as a whole.

If there is one recording for which Harold Bauer should be remembered, it is the Valse from Arensky’s Suite for Two Pianos Op.15, recorded with Ossip Gabrilowitsch at the other piano. The two pianists did at least 13 takes over the course of four sessions at Liederkranz Hall in New York between June 13, 1928 and September 19, 1929, with the issued take being the final one (matrix number CVE 45630-13). This is one of the most charming piano recordings ever made: Bauer and Gabrilowitsch play with a gorgeous full-bodied sonority, fluid legato phrasing, beautifully refined dynamic shadings, silky pedal effects, wonderfully defined articulation, and a delightful rhythmic lilt, all of which make this such an infectiously joyous performance, a testament to his inspired music-making and glorious pianism.