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3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Played with all the entheusiasm of elevator music..., March 21, 2003
..and with the musical accuracy of a blind man with a gun.
To start with, Arthur Grossman has a gorgeous sound both on the contra and on the bassoon, although it can be a bit stuffy at times. Unfortunately, he seems to be more interested in conveying this than he is in performing the music with any real degree of accuracy. To prove this I'll look at his performances of the Hindemith and Saint-Saëns sonatas, those two being the ones I have studied for the longest. First, seven problems that plague virtually every movement of every single work in this album, especially in the two pieces addressed here. They should be taken for granted as in addition to the problems mentioned afterward:
1. Tempo markings are often ignored.
2. Dynamic markings are completely ignored (for example, the two minute first movement of the Saint-Saëns sonata contains dynamics all the way from pianissimo to forte, with crescendos and decrescendos all over the place. Arthur Grossman and the pianist completely ignore every single one of these.)
3. Fast runs tend to be sloppy; there is an abscence of clean technique.
4. Styles are usually ignored.
5. The pianist seems afraid to be heard or is poorly microphoned.
6. There is absolutely no phrasing. At all. The musicians simply go from note to note matter-of-factly and it feels extremely choppy.
7. I don't think I heard Arthur Grossman play consistently in tune once on this entire album.
On to the pieces.
First movement of Saint-Saëns sonata:
1. The tempo is marked as "allegretto moderato," meaning literally "moderately lively/fast", and the movement is played somewhere around "andante moderato". This makes for a painfully slow first movement. In these first piano arpeggios, the pianist either slurs or holds down the pedal, which is not indicated in the music.
2. At the end of the first movement, the 8va, which covers the last two measures, is completely ignored until the (sounding) B4. This final note is quite sharp.
Second movement:
The tempo of the second movement is extremely slow. It is marked "allegro scherzando," meaning "fast, witty ("scherzo" being, literally, a joke)" and it is taken somewhere around "andantino" with no "scherzando".
Third movement:
The adagio is taken EXTREMELY slow. It is marked in 4/4, but Arthur Grossman takes it so slow that it seems subdivided into 16th notes. Also in the adagio, particularly in the opening pedals, the pianist ignores the staccato markings and plays with what sounds like a pedal. The "ad lib" toward the end of the development of the adagio is mostly ignored. In the vivace, the tempo isn't too bad, but the descending runs are rushed. Arthur Grossman makes an unmarked rallentando at the end of the sonata.
First movement of the Hindemith sonata:
Way too slow; somewhere around (dotted quarter) = 63 instead of the marked (dotted quarter) = 72. The "einleiten" at the end of the exposition is ignored. The slur in the final cadence is broken. Intonation is painfully bad.
Second movement:
1. In the "Langsam," the tempo is way too slow. The 32nd note ornaments are rushed. Pitch on the D2 in the cadence leading too the "Marsch" is extremely sharp, a problem characteristic to the bassoon which one would think such a well-known bassoonist would be able to correct with ease.
2. When they reach the "Marsch" it seems as though they forgot that "marsch" is, by common sense, not to be played in the same style as "langsam" and start to play a march that is more like an idle stroll with the style of a moderate church hymn. The march is taken something like five points slower than the metronome marking indicated in the music. Every once in a while they get into the marcato style nicely, such as in the climax of the trio, but for the most part the march is performed mostly like a romanze. For an example of how exciting this march can be with a marvelous pianist that isn't as shy as this one, I recommend Dag Jensen's performance of this same sonata on the MDG label.
3. The style of the "Pastorale-Beschluß" is fine and this section of the sonata is pretty clean from the five problems I mentioned earlier.. except, of course, the usual bit about dynamics being completely ignored. The tempo is taken ALMOST TEN POINTS SLOWER THAN THE INDICATED METRONOME MARKING.
These performances are boring. The extreme liberties taken by bassoonist and piano seem to say to me that they feel that they understand the intention of the music better than the composer did, which is extremely arrogant and a sign of a musician who has not yet matured. This would be very tragic in Arthur Grossman's case, as long as he has been a bassoonist.
An interesting technical fact about this album: the bassoon is barely audible in the Schreck sonata but severely overpowers the piano in the rest of the album.
Not recommended if you want to hear the pieces as written.
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