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Bach, Beethoven, Schubert - Rubackyté

Bach, Beethoven, Schubert - Rubackyté

Lyrinx  LYR2238

Stereo/Multichannel Hybrid

Classical - Instrumental


Bach, Beethoven, Schubert

Mûza Rubackyté (piano)

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Review by John Miller - March 2, 2010

Lithuanua's world-class concert pianist Mûza Rubackyté set down this recording at two live performances in the Théâtre Nationale de Marseille La Criée during Jan 2004. Judging by the opening 'Ambience' track (and in subsequent rounds of applause at the end of several other tracks), the audience was sparse, as in multichannel one can count clapping individuals around one with ease. Judging from this track, the theatre has quite a reasonable ambience.

According to the rear disc case insert, the recording was made in 'original DSD' with Brauner VM1 and AKG 'The Tube' valve microphones. Tube electronics were 'by Lyrinx'. There is no hiss apparent even at quite reasonable listening levels; perhaps there has been some post-production noise filtering. The piano is described as 'Steinway des éditions Lyrinx' suggesting it has been modified in some way, but I can find no further information about this.

The Steinway's recorded sound lacks any of the aforementioned acoustic, and when Mûza Rubackyté plays below forte it sounds quite passable, but once above this volume, its dry closeness becomes glaringly obvious. The listener seems to have their head poised just above the strings. Of course the DSD resolution captures every detail of the myriad conflicting overtones of the piano's frame, every twang and buzz; the bass is clangorous and the treble often dead-sounding. This is not how the Steinway builders imagined their pianos to sound. The player's dynamic range is disastrously skewed up towards the loud end, so any quiet passages start from mezzo forte, and the fortissimos are rendered much louder than the composer intended. Plenty of air is needed around a Steinway to allow its characteristic tone to fully develop

The engineering thus does disservice to Mûza Rubackyté's playing, and to add insult to injury, the front cover of this disc has one of the most hideously unflattering designs I have seen; the dark blue skin tones of her portrait look like she has gone to an early and watery grave.Another production niggle is that the track list is only on the back of the disc case, and in tiny white print on a black ground.

Mûza Rubackyté concocted an interesting recital programme. She begins with JS Bach's First French Suite BWV 812, playing with clear articulation and sensible tempi, although lacking some of the supple shading and genuine dance-rhythms of Angela Hewitt's exemplary set on RBCD. It is very interesting to have the rarely-heard Fantasy-Prelude BWV 922 by Bach, with its remarkable rhetorical sections, although the dynamic shift of the engineering makes its more loud and passionate sections sound like late Beethoven in a very bad mood.

Busoni's astonishing transcription for piano of Bach's Chaconne from the solo violin Partita No. 2, BWV. 1004 is next, a trusty warhorse for concert pianists. Busoni's own piano-roll version of this must be heard, but Mûza Rubackyté follows the score very faithfully (not always the case!) and produces what would have been a very good performance - but mangled by the close piano sound, which is bereft of all the beauty of tone and richness of sonority which this majestic piece requires. Oddly, despite much fine playing, the audience applause is hesitant and thin after this piece. One wonders if this applause has been added on?

Moving on to late Beethoven, she chooses Beethoven's penultimate piano sonata Op. 110, because here the composer eschews normal sonata form to produce a suite of movements based on the Baroque dance forms. Beethoven was introduced to Bach and Handel's music by Baron Von Sweeten, librarian and patron, and this had a profound effect on him. Mûza Rubackyté puts in a convincing performance, but her Courante movement is blustering and seemingly ill-tempered compared with Alfred Brendel's, who finds a more brusque humour and wit in his sparkling playing.

The recital proper terminates with the often overlooked '32 Variations in C minor, WoO. 80', an early work of Beethoven's from 1806, which aptly seems to be in the form of a chaconne based on a skeletal theme. The variations often pose considerable technical difficulties, which Mûza Rubackyté negotiates with aplomb, but again her softer passages and 'leggiero' (lightly) sections suffer from the close-up high volume.

As an encore, Mûza Rubackyté launches pell-mell into Liszt's miraculous transcription of Schubert's Erl-King song, but here the piano's sonics represent the fast triplet chords as hammering and the octave bass motifs roar forth with headache-making overstatement. Relief is to be had by turning to Jorge Bolet's superb traversal of the Schubert song transcriptions (RBCD), where he captures all the missing mystery and occult magic of the piece, with much greater light and shade. However, the Marseilles audience seems to approve of this more than any other piece on the programme.

A thought-provoking recital, which merits re-hearing, but badly let down by its engineering. Play it at a very moderate volume, or, better still, audition it before purchase. The Schubert-Liszt track should reveal all.

Copyright © 2010 John Miller and HRAudio.net

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