Paderewski: His Final Recordings – The HMV Recordings (Recorded 1937-1938)

Albumbeschreibung

As a pianist, composer, and a figure on the world's stage, Ignace Jan Paderewski was larger than life; he served as prime minister of the Republic of Poland in 1919, as benefactor to countless causes and even significantly contributed to the cultivation of wine in Paso Robles, CA. He also enjoyed one of the longest recording careers of any classical pianist in the 78 rpm era, beginning in 1911 and not ending until 1938, although the bulk of it was achieved by 1931 when he was 70. However, in 1936 there was a need for Paderewski to make records again with his starring role in the British film Moonlight Sonata; the film was made primarily to preserve his talent on film and provide an opportunity for aging music hall star Marie Tempest, but it proved a surprise megahit. Actress Marie Dressler once famously said that "you're only as good as your last picture," but the recordings collected on APR's Paderewski: His Final Recordings, made in early 1937 and then in a farewell visit to the studio in late 1938, could not possibly show him at his best; he was in his late seventies and the young pianist who once practiced 18 hours a day was now an old man who hardly practiced at all. His rendering of the Chopin A flat Polonaise gradually loses steam as it progresses, though Paderewski invests in it a wonderful sense of dance-like rhythm at its start, and ultimately the shortcuts and finger-slips take their toll. While the Presto agitato of Beethoven's "Moonlight" Sonata isn't as challenged, it certainly doesn't measure up to the expressiveness found in Paderewski's first movement of the same work. However, such misshapen relics of a grand artist in his final twilight are not so limiting that the whole disc is without merit. To a small extent, Paderewski utilized these sessions to record some material he did not otherwise visit in the studio, a drastically shortened Wagner/Liszt Liebestod from Tristan and Isolde, the Haydn Variations in F minor, and a couple of Mozart pieces. The Wagner/Liszt is a mess; it's rather frustrating to listen to the old lion paw his way through it, extemporaneously reinventing certain sections of the piece in a manner that nearly sounds like a drunken silent movie pianist. But the Haydn is a radiant, moving performance that shows Paderewski's sensitive side off at its absolute best. There are also other gems -- such as the Mozart Rondo in A minor, K. 511, of the F sharp Nocturne, Op. 15/2 -- where you take off your competition ears, stop worrying about how the well trodden text is being transmitted, and experience the sheer warmth of Paderewski's poetic, romantic pianism, and those decades of experience and the tradition they represent. While it won't work for the whole disc, the parts of the program that fall within this experience are magical and speak with eloquent testimony about what "larger than life" means in terms of the piano. Annotator Bryan Crimp makes the observation that these HMVs capture Paderewski in better sound than any other disc recordings, and that is somewhat debatable. While they have better bass response than his earlier recordings, there isn't a lot of top end and some are given to a small amount of rumble; however, Crimp seems to have tamed the crackle germane to the HMVs of this period. APR's previous Paderewski issue -- devoted to Paderewski's earliest recordings -- was outstanding; to follow it with his last was a brave and some would say anti-commercial measure to take, but one of great value to his legacy as a whole. This should prove both satisfactory and honest to Paderewski's fans and makes for a fine companion to the earlier APR disc.
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