Todd A
pfm Member
Here’s a set I knew I needed to get as soon as it became available. I do enjoy me Wilhelm Kempff recordings. Basically the antithesis of the barnstorming virtuoso in his most famous recorded legacy, Kempff imbues his playing with poetry and nuance. In some late career live recordings, he demonstrated an ability matched only by Alfred Cortot to miss notes and otherwise botch passages yet make it sound like that’s the way it’s supposed to go. Even his Liszt concertos, pieces he should not be able to deliver at all, come off strikingly well once one accepts Kempffian style. The earlier recordings, though, show Kempff in better form. Certainly, there were more technically assured pianists in the 30s and 40s, but his LvB sonatas from the era display such a sense of freedom and perfect Beethovenian style, that had he completed the cycle – and he came tantalizingly close – then it, not Schnabel’s, would be the 78s era benchmark. And this set offers something even earlier. These basically century old acoustic recordings capture Kempff in his 20s. I mean, come on, how could it not be great? Sure, century old sonics suck, but Ward Marston knows his business, so one can be assured that this set is in the best sound possible.
Disc one starts off with some frustrating Bach. Frustrating because these recordings do nothing other than demonstrate how good of a Bach player Kempff was, which makes one want to hear even more. I have his late career Bach, and the WTC excerpts from elderly Kempff are remarkable, but the three solo Bach tracks here – two from the WTC, and one from the Italian Concerto – display freedom and flexibility and ease coming from a young man’s fingers. The two Bach-Kempff transcriptions do the same thing. Argh! The Gluck-Brahms, as well. A little bit less of an argh there. After that, three LvB sonatas get squeezed in – Opp 13, 26, and 27/2. Now, I have all three complete cycles from Kempff, plus the 30s and 40s recordings, and some studio one-offs, and some live recordings, so I am well versed in Kempffian Beethoven. As with the Bach, these display a flexibility and freedom and obviously live feel, and the young Kempff zips across the keyboard, never imparting a too-heavy romantic sound, but also not limiting himself to boring classical strictures. Op 13 sounds just nifty, with some slow playing in Grave, and some super-lithe if not super-accurate playing in the Rondo. Op 26 is a delight. Kempff plays the opening theme and variations with great distinction, and even plays with a scampish, almost silly humor in one variation. The Scherzo is lithe and light, Kempff just zipping through. The taut Funeral March has enough oomph and drama to satisfy, and Marston’s remastering is good enough to highlight some possibly dodgy tuning. Kempff then scampers along in the finale. The Moonlight sonata ends the disc. It more or less proceeds as one would expect, with a moody opener, punchy middle movement, and a zippy finale where Kempff pushes things just a bit too much and ends up garbling things a bit, but ya just don’t care.
The all-LvB second disc starts with a playful, swift, and light Op 33/5 Bagatelle and moves on to a 51/2 Rondo that sounds the same, and so free. Some of the runs sound improvised. Then it’s on to four sonatas, starting with the Waldstein. The repeatless Allegro con brio starts quiet and swift, and insofar as the listener can tell from the recording, swells just swell in terms of dynamics, and exhibits a degree of freedom and flexibility not present in even his wartime recording. Here’s turn of the 20th Century German pianism in its purest form. The Introduzione, though a bit swift, sounds slower than its timing and essentially perfect. The real magic happens in the final movement. It starts off more poetic and almost dreamy than any other version I’ve heard, and Kempff lets rip in the virtuosic passages. Here is properly proportioned, perfectly romantic, but not over the top playing. It emerges as one of the great recordings of the work. Op 57 follows, and the Allegro assai displays actual fire. Kempff roars throughout, and one can sense if not precisely hear the dynamics swells. He makes a few blunders, but that reinforces how live these recordings are. The second movement veritably sings and the tonal beauty reaches out from a century ago. (And is that some vocalizing I hear?) The finale displays the same fire as the opening movement and quite effective dynamic shifts. Op 81/a follows and here’s a case, familiar from later live recordings, where Kempff gets the spirit entirely right, especially in the slow movement, but makes a noticeable number of unforced errors, especially in the final movement. The spirit matters, the flubs do not. Op 90 wraps up the disc. In the opening movement, Kempff plays the two contrasting themes in as highly contrasted a manner as I’ve heard, playing with sublime beauty in the slow sections, and an intensity and speed in the faster music that I would have never envisioned from Kempff. Note perfect it is not, a musical wallop it is. Then comes the gorgeous, tender, endlessly lyrical second movement, and Kempff plays in a manner lovelier than his loveliest Schubert. An ancient blockbuster of a performance.
The final disc starts off with Op 101. The opening movement does an excellent job of immediately establishing a transcendent soundworld, with the young Kempff matching old Kempff. The march, though, is too pressed and rushed and overloaded with unkempt passages. The Adagio and then final Allegro basically repeat the same styles. Make no mistake, the highlights make it worth hearing, but this is not a top choice. Next, the tiny WoO 86 Ecossaises exhibit joy and, no joke, a rustic feel. No unnecessary refinement here. Next up is the C Major Piano Concerto in its first ever recording. The orchestral sound is of course distant and cloudy, but one can hear some old world portamento in the mix, and it delights. There is nothing current world HIP about it, and it sounds splendid. Kempff is closer to the acoustic horn of course, and so the balance difference is not so different from later recordings. The young man dashes off the playing with an energy and brio and virtuosity missing in his recordings from decades later. The finale, in particular, bubbles, and boasts an orchestral decelerando unlike any I’ve heard, and the same goes for the cadenza. A trio of Mendelssohn pieces follow, including 102/6, and Kempff displays an affinity for the music, even if one wishes he might have played a little more slowly. The Schumann Toccata follows, and while Kempff does well enough, he doesn’t make the work work – so very few people have. The set ends with the Brahms 119/4 that sounds a bit rough and does not reach the same levels as his later career late Brahms. I guess everything can’t be superb.
When I plumped for this set, I paid the highest per disc price I have paid in years, since I last imported a big haul from Japan. But given the artist and the music, I just had to have it. It was money well spent. Ward Marston and crew deliver, and not just in transfers, but in packaging and the accompanying essay. Sonics are as good as one can reasonably hope for, and headphone playback ends up more satisfactory than loudspeakers.
A purchase of the year.
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