Beethoven: Hammerklavier; Schumann: Kinderszenen

A front-cover blurb on this U.S. release refers to the great Austrian Beethoven specialist Artur Schnabel, a comparison that may seem extravagant until you learn that American pianist Gabriel Chodos, a professor at the New England Conservatory of Music, numbers two of Schnabel's students among his teachers. The blurb also mentions Edwin Fischer and Myra Hess, but it's Schnabel who's most relevant. It's not that Chodos sounds like Schnabel in this reading of Beethoven's Piano Sonata in B flat major, Op. 106, "Hammerklavier." Schnabel was hardly at his best in this work, which lies, like the Symphony No. 9, at the edges of performers' capabilities. Chodos strikes a path between the interpretations of performers who slow the tempo down in the outer movements to clarify the details of its gigantic gestures and those who plunge in hell-for-leather. He makes the sonata into something that's both truly monumental and approaches the boundary of chaos. The first movement thrashes around and pushes the tempo, but never loses control; the fugal finale explodes into hard-edged dissonance when the tempo increases toward the end. The slow movement is taken quite deliberately; it almost seems likely to collapse under its own weight, but the payoff in the finale is tremendous. The Schumann Kinderszenen, Op. 15, that conclude the program have the effect of a gigantic release of tension; they are imbued with maximum melodic lyricism and seem less childlike than ecstatic. Clear, multifaceted concert-hall sound from the Mechanics' Hall in Worcester, MA, rounds out an exceptional program. ~ James Manheim, All Music Guide