SEP 01, 2001
The Other Schnabel, Reticent Composer
By ANTHONY TOMMASINI
Artur Schnabel was arguably the most respected and influential pianist
of the 20th century. His vibrant, probing, lucid performances of
Beethoven and Schubert during the 1920's were altogether revelatory,
bringing new light to repertory that was inadequately comprehended.
Yet, Schnabel always considered himself first and foremost a composer.
Though he realized that the public knew him overwhelmingly as a
pianist, it was composition that seemed to engage him intellectually.
And he was no dabbler; his catalog of works is substantial, including
three symphonies, five string quartets, a piano concerto, songs,
piano pieces, trios and "Duodecimet," for string, winds and percussion,
his last completed composition.
These works are little known today. The paradox of Schnabel's career
is that unlike other 20th-century composers who were also important
pianists - Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, Bartok, Messiaen among them -
Schnabel never played a note of his own music in public. And although
in the early 1920's he took part in some of the first performances
of Schoenberg's "Pierrot Lunaire," it was rare for him to program
any works written after Brahms.
Why was this? And why do his works remain so little known today?
These questions were the focus of a two-week workshop conducted by
Musical Observations 2001, directed by the violinist Paul Zukofsky
and the cellist Joel Krosnick. Each year the workshop concentrates
on a single composer, and this year's choice was Schnabel. On Thursday
night two chamber works and a piano piece were presented by musicians
from the workshop in a concert at the intimate Landon Gallery across
the street from Lincoln Center.
The "silly reason" for choosing Schnabel, Mr. Zukofsky said before
the concert, was that this was the 50th anniversary of his death.
More important, he added, was that after 30 years of working with
Schnabel's music, Mr. Zukofsky has come to consider his output of
"great importance, beauty and interest." On hand to endorse this
assessment and introduce the concert was no less formidable a voice
in composition than Milton Babbitt, who met Schnabel in 1935 while
studying with Roger Sessions, one of many composer colleagues who
respected Schnabel's music.
Mr. Babbitt began by saying that it was impossible to overstate how
exalted Schnabel was as a performer during the middle decades of the
20th century. "He was the thinking man's pianist," Mr. Babbitt
said, "and in spite of that was very popular."
In Berlin in 1927, at age 45, Schnabel performed a complete cycle
of the 32 piano sonatas by Beethoven; the historic event decisively
changed the understanding of Beethoven's accomplishment. The late
sonatas had been rarely performed and were widely thought to be
mercurial, if not downright odd. No pianist of consequence had ever
tried to present the complete Beethoven sonatas as a comprehensive
body of work. It became clear that in these sonatas, virtually one
by one, Beethoven grappled with the compositional challenges of his
day and worked out an entirely new way to conceive of music.
Mr. Babbitt said that Schnabel was tough on contemporary composers,
that other than Busoni and Schoenberg the only composers he was truly
interested in were Ernst Krenek and, to a lesser degree, Hindemith.
To explain why Schnabel did not perform these works, Mr. Babbitt
told a story about the time one of Schnabel's colleagues, hearing
him play for himself the opening of Schoenberg's Piano Piece, Op.
33A, asked why he didn't program the work. Schnabel answered: "I
only play problematic works," meaning the sonatas of Schubert and
Beethoven. "Schoenberg is not problematic to me."
Then why didn't Schnabel at least perform his own music? Surely he
must have known that he could use his stature as a pianist to promulgate
performances of his compositions, which fared poorly during his life.
His string trio languished for 10 years without performance.
As it happened, the concert opened with the Larghetto movement of
that string trio, composed in 1925, performed by Tricia Park (violin),
Eve Wickert (viola) and Arash Amini (cello).
The inward, pensive piece began hauntingly. Schnabel's musical voice
was steeped in late, heavily chromatic, essentially atonal harmony.
The music gets rather free-roaming harmonically, but at every moment
you sense Schnabel's keen ear at work. Then comes a contrapuntally
complex, overly busy excursion. Is it craggy or just out of control?
The ending is completely strange, a long- sustained high note on the
violin over a quietly, slowly pulsating repeated pitch in the cello,
with some near- inaudible stirrings on the violin. Yet the effect
of the piece lingers.
The "Piece in Seven Movements" (1936) for piano, was played compellingly
by Anton Vishio. When it started, with mysterious and discursive
counterpoint with just a toe-hold on tonality, it was hard to imagine
why Schnabel did not perform this piece frequently. Some 20 minutes
later, when there were still two movements to go, you understood.
The episodic music is by turn aggressively Expressionistic, wistfully
lyrical, abstract, ecstatic and neo-Baroque, with industrious fugal
episodes that cut off abruptly. You sensed a musician pouring
everything he had to say into one piece. On first hearing, it seemed
shapeless. How could Schnabel be so perceptive about structure in
Beethoven and not address this issue in his own piece? Nonetheless,
it was fascinating.
The concert concluded with the Piano Trio (1945). Again, this music
was an off-kilter mix of styles and ideas. But the work teems with
energy, content and captivatingly astringent harmony. The shifting
materials, thick textures and often virtuosic demands of the music
surely make it extremely difficult to perform. Despite the brilliance
and command of Jennifer Choi (violin), Clarice Jensen (cello) and
Eric Huebner (piano), the piece did not ultimately come off. Surely
it almost never will; still it was engrossing.
You were left thinking that Schnabel erred by not performing his
works in public, and by not working harder to get others to play
them. His music could have benefited from bumping up against audiences.
By collecting more reaction from musicians and listeners, he might
have learned more about how to shape and gauge a work effectively.
But you were also left in awe of Schnabel's musical mind. He was
one of music's great intellectuals. And what aroused his intellectual
curiosity was playing Beethoven, Schubert, Mozart and Brahms - and
composing his own uncompromising works.
Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company
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