Artistry and Repertory From the Head and the Heart

Having a reputation as a thinking pianist--a “musician’s musician”--once meant box-office death. We’re talking artists with the potential for virtuoso display who chose instead to go about their business quietly, steadily, searching a limited repertory for hitherto unexplored or undiscovered nuances. Theirs is an artistry and repertory that appeals to the head and often to the heart, rather than to the viscera. We’re not talking about Rachmaninoff or Tchaikovsky or Chopin’s “Revolutionary” Etude, or about instant standing ovations.

It is the difference between, say, Alfred Brendel and the late Vladimir Horowitz, the latter representing crowd-inciting virtuosity.

Brendel’s probing, dry-eyed interpretive style that has, it must be noted, made him one of the highly regarded (and wealthy) pianists of the ‘80s is epitomized in his ongoing traversal (his second in fact) for the Philips label of Schubert’s output for solo piano. The two latest installments include the big, moody Sonata in A minor, D. 845, and the three unconnected works known simply as “Klavierstucke,” D. 946 (422 075), and a coupling of the benign Sonata in G, D. 894, with the heroic, unfinished Sonata in C, D. 840 (422 340).

Brendel, with advancing age (he is 59), becomes ever more thinker than poet, etching rhythms with obsessive clarity, flattening out the big tunes with his clipped phrasing. A commanding artist, but hardly a lovable one.

The American pianist Richard Goode has been before the public for 28 of his 46 years, and while always accorded respect, he has been anything but a star. This is hardly surprising considering his devotion to chamber music and a solo repertory consisting mainly of Beethoven, Schubert and Brahms. But Goode’s time seems to have come--not because of any change in him, but because of changing notions as to what constitutes a major pianist in an age when gut-wrenching passion and flamboyant virtuosity are in short supply.

Goode is a thoughtful artist, but never a dogmatic one. He enjoys playing with tone and rhythm. He has power, but prefers the cushioned to the percussive tone; and he allows himself to dream, to linger over a favored passage. An unformed performance from this artist is unthinkable, likewise an overly studied one.

Among his recent recordings is a set (Elektra/Nonesuch 79211, two CDs) embracing the five late Beethoven sonatas, Nos. 28-32, which Goode executes with superb breadth, control and imagination. He does not, however, engage in the sort of heaven-storming normally associated with the “Hammerklavier” Sonata, which is more than usually pensive in his hands, nor is there the feeling of tough, Bach-like linearity in the finale of the mighty Opus 111, which is grandly expansive here.

That Goode can also be playful is obvious in his dashing performance of the Sonata in E-flat, No. 18, heard with its two companions of Beethoven’s Opus 31 on Elektra/ Nonesuch 79212.

In contrast to Goode’s combination of warmth and rhythmic acuity, the playing of Charles Rosen is hard-edged and brittle. Rosen, an American in his early 60s and an influential scholar in the field of music of the Classical era, likewise offers Beethoven’s three Opus 31 sonatas, as well as four others from Beethoven’s middle years (Globe 5018, two CDs).

Rosen too is happy with the tricky E-flat Sonata from Opus 31, but approaches it from a different direction, with the dry tone and spiky rhythmicality of period style. Comparisons to Glenn Gould could--but won’t--be made.

In the “Waldstein” Sonata, however, Rosen’s approach results in more clatter than transfiguring clarity, while in the “Appassionata” and the fanciful “Les Adieux” his terse, driving manner and shallow tone are simply trying.

Malcolm Bilson, who falls roughly between Goode and Rosen in age and perhaps aligns more closely with Rosen in his artistic aims, has proven his mastery of authentic style (and instruments) in his magnificent traversal of the Mozart piano concertos for Deutsche Grammophon.

The American fortepianist now turns his attention to Mozart’s less venerated and less demanding solo sonatas. The first volume (Hungaroton 31009, two CDs) includes the Sonatas K. 280-283, and K. 311, 330 and 331.

Here, as in the concertos, Bilson’s playing is a model of fluency and wit, with a degree of rhythmic freedom that was once (erroneously) considered the antithesis of Classical style.