Backhaus plays Brahms, Chopin & Liszt
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Anton (Grigor'yevich) Rubinstein, Franz Liszt, Fryderyk Chopin, Franz Schubert, Johannes Brahms
Label: Biddulph
Magazine Review Date: 2/1998
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 66
Mastering:
Mono
ADD
Catalogue Number: LHW038
Tracks:
| Composition | Artist Credit |
|---|---|
| Quintet for Piano and Strings, 'Trout' |
Franz Schubert, Composer
André Mangeot, Violin Charles Hobday, Double bass Frank Howard, Viola Franz Schubert, Composer Herbert Withers, Cello Wilhelm Backhaus, Piano |
| (28) Variations on a Theme by Paganini |
Johannes Brahms, Composer
Johannes Brahms, Composer Wilhelm Backhaus, Piano |
| (27) Etudes, Movement: A minor, Op. 10/2 |
Fryderyk Chopin, Composer
Fryderyk Chopin, Composer Wilhelm Backhaus, Piano |
| (27) Etudes, Movement: F minor, Op. 25/2 |
Fryderyk Chopin, Composer
Fryderyk Chopin, Composer Wilhelm Backhaus, Piano |
| (27) Etudes, Movement: F, Op. 25/3 |
Fryderyk Chopin, Composer
Fryderyk Chopin, Composer Wilhelm Backhaus, Piano |
| (27) Etudes, Movement: A minor, 'Winter Wind', Op. 25/11 |
Fryderyk Chopin, Composer
Fryderyk Chopin, Composer Wilhelm Backhaus, Piano |
| (16) Polonaises, Movement: No. 3 in A, Op. 40/1, 'Military' |
Fryderyk Chopin, Composer
Fryderyk Chopin, Composer Wilhelm Backhaus, Piano |
| Waltzes, Movement: No. 6 in D flat, Op. 64/1 (Minute) |
Fryderyk Chopin, Composer
Fryderyk Chopin, Composer Wilhelm Backhaus, Piano |
| (19) Hungarian Rhapsodies, Movement: No. 12 in C sharp minor |
Franz Liszt, Composer
Franz Liszt, Composer Wilhelm Backhaus, Piano |
| (6) Soirées de Saint-Pétersbourg, Movement: No. 1, Romance in E flat |
Anton (Grigor'yevich) Rubinstein, Composer
Anton (Grigor'yevich) Rubinstein, Composer Wilhelm Backhaus, Piano |
| Album of Popular Dances of the Different Nations, Movement: No. 7, Polka in G |
Anton (Grigor'yevich) Rubinstein, Composer
Anton (Grigor'yevich) Rubinstein, Composer Wilhelm Backhaus, Piano |
Author:
Nalen Anthoni’s perceptive appraisal of Wilhelm Backhaus’s art in ICRC (Summer 1997) quotes Abram Chasins who, in his book Speaking of Pianists (Da Capo Press: 1981), recalled “a shy, unaffected, recessive personality whose sensational capacities were so unsensationally projected”. Those words described Backhaus ‘on stage’, but the records – or at least the best of them – convey precisely the sort of “sensational capacities unsensationally projected” that Chasins highlights.
Backhaus was of course a fairly prolific recording artist, and yet readers weaned on his occasionally cavalier stereo Beethoven recordings from the 1960s (the work of a man well into his seventies) might not know that, as a young firebrand, he could strike keyboard lightning with the best of them.
Biddulph’s latest Backhaus collection includes an exceptional Grammophon (later Polydor) sequence from 1916, much of it repertoire that Backhaus subsequently re-recorded (Chopin Studies, Brahms Paganini Variations), but including some that he didn’t – a lusty Liszt Twelfth Hungarian Rhapsody, for example, and a delightful pair of Rubinstein miniatures. Granted, Ignaz Friedman’s 1928 recording of the Romance in E flat (on a four-disc set from Pearl) tops Backhaus for expressive rapture, but the G major Polka (shades of Smetana) wears a breezy, unaffected countenance that suits it to perfection.
Backhaus’s Chopin may have been thought startlingly brusque by some and yet a couple of modulating arpeggios inserted between the D flat Waltz and the A minor Etude (Op. 10 No. 2) recall an informal pre-war tradition that has all but vanished. The Study, Op. 25 No. 2 is breathtaking in its phrasal fluidity and ease of delivery, the so-called ‘Winter Wind’ Etude (Op. 25 No. 11) almost Richter-like in its boldness of attack. The Brahms Variations and Chopin A major Polonaise are very much ‘to the point’ (direct but never depersonalized) while the Trout Quintet – the only electrical recording on the disc – vividly reflects the music’s playful current. True, the string playing is quaintly old-fashioned (its expressive devices will be thought passe by some), but Backhaus sounds like a youthful scout from a later age. Come to think of it, most of these tracks could as well have been the work of a much later pianist: their patient interpretative objectivity is timeless, though their primitive sound quality rather gives the game away.
Still, Rich Torres has produced extremely good transfers, good enough in fact to have momentarily convinced me that the 1916 acoustical recordings were early electricals. Annotator Jonathan Summers mirrors his subject by providing us with the facts and the history without fuss. All in all, a real winner – provided that listening to old records is a favoured game.'
Backhaus was of course a fairly prolific recording artist, and yet readers weaned on his occasionally cavalier stereo Beethoven recordings from the 1960s (the work of a man well into his seventies) might not know that, as a young firebrand, he could strike keyboard lightning with the best of them.
Biddulph’s latest Backhaus collection includes an exceptional Grammophon (later Polydor) sequence from 1916, much of it repertoire that Backhaus subsequently re-recorded (Chopin Studies, Brahms Paganini Variations), but including some that he didn’t – a lusty Liszt Twelfth Hungarian Rhapsody, for example, and a delightful pair of Rubinstein miniatures. Granted, Ignaz Friedman’s 1928 recording of the Romance in E flat (on a four-disc set from Pearl) tops Backhaus for expressive rapture, but the G major Polka (shades of Smetana) wears a breezy, unaffected countenance that suits it to perfection.
Backhaus’s Chopin may have been thought startlingly brusque by some and yet a couple of modulating arpeggios inserted between the D flat Waltz and the A minor Etude (Op. 10 No. 2) recall an informal pre-war tradition that has all but vanished. The Study, Op. 25 No. 2 is breathtaking in its phrasal fluidity and ease of delivery, the so-called ‘Winter Wind’ Etude (Op. 25 No. 11) almost Richter-like in its boldness of attack. The Brahms Variations and Chopin A major Polonaise are very much ‘to the point’ (direct but never depersonalized) while the Trout Quintet – the only electrical recording on the disc – vividly reflects the music’s playful current. True, the string playing is quaintly old-fashioned (its expressive devices will be thought passe by some), but Backhaus sounds like a youthful scout from a later age. Come to think of it, most of these tracks could as well have been the work of a much later pianist: their patient interpretative objectivity is timeless, though their primitive sound quality rather gives the game away.
Still, Rich Torres has produced extremely good transfers, good enough in fact to have momentarily convinced me that the 1916 acoustical recordings were early electricals. Annotator Jonathan Summers mirrors his subject by providing us with the facts and the history without fuss. All in all, a real winner – provided that listening to old records is a favoured game.'
Backhaus plays Brahms, Chopin & Liszt
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