Schnabel Work Revived in Piano Spheres Series

It is hardly a secret that pianist Artur Schnabel probed with such profound depth into the music he played, and particularly Beethoven’s, that it almost seemed as if he were the composer himself. He was, after all, one of the most famous pianists of his era, and his set of the 32 Beethoven sonatas, recorded in the early ‘30s, stands as one of greatest recordings of the century (no matter how select the list).

He had a major career as a soloist. An active pedagogue, he exerted untold influence on the interpretation of the Viennese classics. And although the Austrian pianist, who emigrated to America in the late ‘30s, never played modern music (he claimed Schubert was the last great composer), he was close friends with Schoenberg and admired his music.

In fact, “admired” is a understatement. There is a reason why Schnabel played like a composer; he was one. He wrote in an intense, uncompromising Schoenbergian style; and he wrote a lot--three massive symphonies, five substantial string quartets, a concerto, grand sonatas and much more. Yet he never played his music, and he didn’t encourage anyone else to either. He ignored it in his autobiography and left most of it unpublished at the time of his death in 1951. Very little is heard today, although there is the occasional champion.

Tuesday night, local pianist Susan Svrcek became the latest Schnabel advocate. She included on her annual Piano Spheres recital program “Piece in Seven Movements,” a half-hour work written in 1936, shortly after Schnabel made his Beethoven recordings (the program listed the date as 1947, confusing it with a later, companion work, “Seven Piano Pieces”).

The form is unique. The first movement, around a minute long, introduces the raw material of intervals and gestures, and each subsequent movement takes off from it but also expands it in unpredictable ways. First there are short, suite-like movements, then a long and heavy one, then a quick fleeting respite, then an even longer and heavier one until the piece simply seems to break at the seams. It ends with a brief, varied recapitulation of the first movement.

Schnabel was not a sensual or colorful pianist, and he didn’t write sensual or colorful music. “Piece in Seven Movements” is thick, dense, hard to follow; but there is a substantial richness to the weighty sonorities and a spooky harmonic force that pulls the listener along through the atonal thickets. Svrcek played it with a ferocious concentration and control that grabbed the ear.

Piano Spheres is held in the neo-Craftsman Neighborhood Church in Pasadena, and for this clear, cold night, with an imposing full moon above, there was unearthly music. The program began with Peter Michealides’ Four Nocturnes: “Night Scenes in an Enchanted Forest,” with its trills, its notes that hang in the air and its crashing chords that go bump in the night. “Nightstars” by Tom Flaherty, a composer at Pomona College, began with a big bang and then explored the gleaming sonic shards. Toru Takemitsu’s “Litany”--made of lush, thick, sad chords--invited Debussy’s ghost. Ramiro Cortes’ moody Sonata No. 3 verged on the despondent.

Fortunately, however, the pianist’s intelligence, commitment, authority and vision dispelled a sense of gloom such a series of pieces might otherwise have bestowed on the evening.