St John’s, Smith Square
Schumann – Geistervariationen in E-flat major, WoO 24
Schumann – Davidsbündlertänze, op.6Liszt – Années de pèlerinage: Deuxième année (Italie), S.161: ‘Sposalizio’, ‘Il penseroso’, ‘Canzonetta del Salvator Rosa’, and ‘Sonetto 104 del Partrarca’
Wagner – Elegie, WWV 93
Wagner, arr. Kocsis – Tristan und Isolde: Prelude to Act I
Liszt – La lugubre gondola, S200/1
Wagner, arr. Liszt – Isoldens Liebestod – Schlußszene aus Richard Wagners Tristan und Isolde, S447
The Southbank Centre’s
International Piano Series came to a season close with Imogen Cooper, on
Schumann’s birthday. The first half, not unreasonably, was devoted to Schumann’s
music: never something about which I am likely to complain, and certainly not
here. That said, I find the Geistervariationen
disturbing music indeed, even when performed with such warmth of tone as on
this occasion. Cooper gave the theme the nobility of late Beethoven; its
simplicity is not entirely dissimilar either. The strangeness of the first
variation disconcerted all the more. And so Schumann’s final work went its own
strange way, but with a quiet, assured sense of purpose. Its flights of fancy
continued to disturb, but the turn to the minor mode brought with it both an
almost Classical self-justification and post-Schubertian poignancy. The return
of the theme had it sound both the same as before and yet utterly transformed
by experience, almost as if we had just heard the Goldbergs.
The Davidsbündlertänze followed, seemingly flowering in the wake of
death yet to come. A veritable kaleidoscope of colours was to be heard even in
the first piece, announcing a grand manner that not only suited the work
surprisingly well but also laid some of the groundwork for Liszt in the second
half. Cooper’s leaning into phrases and her weighting of them always intrigued
and, far more often than not, satisfied. The second, marked ‘Innig’, sounded
just so, with finely judged balance between the melodic and harmonic demands of
inner voices. The third, however, sounded unduly deliberate to my ears,
ultimately remaining earthbound, although its successor made amends, with a
highly Romantic, even mercurial reading. I greatly enjoyed the semi-introverted
charm of the fifth and the stark power of the sixth, after which the sadness,
as well as the strength in sadness of the seventh suggested that this was truly
the emotional heart of the work. Agility and impetuosity were the hallmark of
its successor, although I sometimes wondered whether it might have yielded a
little more. The tenth certainly did, and was all the better for it. As we
neared the close, the splendidly judged heavy lilt of the thirteenth piece made
its mark, and somehow we always knew – even if, rightly we were made to doubt
this – that Eusebius would win out. So he did, of course; and so he should have
done.
Liszt was the most generous of
composers – in almost every sense. However, even he was known to use ‘leipzigerisch’
as a not entirely complimentary term with respect to Schumann and Mendelssohn.
Nowadays, we are perhaps more inclined to hear what Liszt and Schumann, Wagner
and Brahms, Berlioz and Mendelssohn had in common. At any rate, the second
half, of Liszt and Wagner, offered both things in common and a good deal of
contrast. I had not thought of Cooper in connection with Liszt before: my
oversight, for she revealed herself to be very much my sort of Lisztian, one
who takes Liszt’s music seriously, quite the antithesis of a shallow virtuoso.
‘Sposalizio’ brought strength and mystery in its opening bars, both
with respect to mood and to thematic working out. Cooper brought an undeniable
sense of narrative, with or without words (or images) to what we heard, in a
distinguished performance. ‘Il penseroso’ was grief-laden, but Cooper never
confused sentiment with sentimentality. Liszt’s extraordinary dissonances were
not exaggerated; they seemed ‘simply’ to speak. It sounded, like its
predecessor, as the visionary piece it is. I still do not quite understand what
the ‘Canzonetta del Salvator Rosa’ is doing in such company – doubtless my
problem – but it received a nicely jaunty performance, its sterner moments
registering too. It actually made for an excellent context from which the 104th
Petrarch Sonnet could emerge. Cooper had it do so without a break, in
commanding fashion. This full-blooded performance balanced well the demands of
the ‘public’ Liszt and interior eroticism.
Wagner’s Elegie is a fascinating miniature, serious indeed, clearly born not
only from the world of the scandalously underrated Sonata for Mathilde Wesendonck,
but also from the world of Tristan und
Isolde itself. Its curious insistency here sounded not un-Lisztian.
Likewise the Prelude to Act I of Tristan,
in Zoltán Kocsis’s transcription. Its
opening bars both melted and insisted, invited and warned. I remain ambivalent
about the transcription itself; here I could not help but wonder what Liszt
himself might have achieved. It was undeniably interesting, even provocative,
to hear it, though. Cooper offered a performance of considerable cumulative
power, a certain squareness to the arrangement notwithstanding. Instead of the Sailor’s
Song for which it cried out, we heard, still darker music, the first version of
La lugubre gondola, issued forth.
Venetian waters seemed to threaten to suspend rhythm as much as tonality; and
yet, quite rightly, they did not succeed in either case. Here, again, was Liszt
the visionary, but now the darkly embittered visionary of old age. If Wagner’s
death beckoned there, we heard transfiguration in the so-called ‘Liebestod’ (Liszt’s
fault, not Wagner’s). It sounded, resounded as a true conclusion to the arduous
journey taken. Cooper offered great tonal beauty, but that was never the point.
Her serious Lisztian credentials were furthered in her encore: the Fourth
Mephisto Waltz. Its Mephistophelian character told – how could it not? – yet so
did kinship with what had gone before: with Liszt and with Wagner. So too did
anticipations of Bartók.
