Schubert Piano Sonata

Gould : I believe you can divide musical performance into two categories: those who seek to exploit the instrument they use and those who do not.

In the first category, if we believe history, is a place for such legendary characters as Liszt and Paganini as well as many allegedly demanding virtuosi of more recent vintage. That category belongs essentially to musicians determined to make us aware of their relationship with their instrument. They allow that relationship to become the focus of attention.

The second category includes musicians who try to bypass the whole question of the performing mechanism, to create the illusion of a direct link between themselves and a particular musical score. And, therefore, help the listener to achieve a sense of involvement, not with the performance per se but rather with the music itself. And in our time, there's no better example of that second musician than Sviatoslav Richter.

Schubert, Sonata in G major Snape Maltings, Aldeburgh, 1977

What Richter does is insert between the listener and the composer his own enormously powerful personality as a kind of conduit. And we gain the impression that we're discovering the work anew and, often, from a quite different perspective than we're accustomed to.

Richter : Schubert Sonata in G major Live recording from Bologna. This is my favorite Schubert sonata. But this recording of mine made no impression on me. That's all. I was the first to perform Schubert sonatas. Professors from the older generation saidto me, "Schubert? How tedious! Schumann fares better." Many said, "Is he crazy or what?" I don't play for an audience but for myself. If I enjoy my self, the audience will also enjoy it. I just want to play good music. Schubert has nothing to do with what Gould said...

Gould : The time I heard him play was at the Moscow Conservatory in May 1957, and he opened his program with the last of Schubert's sonatas, the Sonata in B Flat Major. It's a very long sonata, one of the longest ever written, in fact, and Richter played it at the slowest tempo I've ever heard, thereby making it a good deal longer, needless to say. I think, at this point, it's appropriate to confess who things, The first is that, heretical thought it may be, I'm not really addicted to Schubert's music. I find myself unbale to come to terms with the repetitive structure, and I get very restless and squirm when I have to sit through one of the longer Schubert essays. What happened was that for the next hour, I was in a state that I can only compare to a hypnotic trance.

Richter : He liked something in my performance, but he's talking about me, not Schubert! I don't know if he ever changed his mind about Schubert.

Gould : All my prejudices about Schubert's repetitive structures ware forgotten. musical details which I'd previously considered ornamental were given the appearance of organic elements. In fact I can remember many of those details to this day.U was witnessing a union of two supposedly irreconciable qualities. Analytical calculation revealed by a spontaneity akin to improvisation. And I realised at that moment, as I have many times listening to Richter, I was in the presence of one of the most powerful communicators the world of music has produced in our time.

Schubert Sonata in G Major