ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT Radio: Schnabel’s Grand Beethoven

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31145, 23 August 1966, Page 7

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT Radio: Schnabel’s Grand Beethoven

Arthur Schnabel was the first pianist to record the entire series of 32 Beethoven sonatas, a project that took from 1931 to 1935 and established him as one of the most influential interpreters of the century. The recordings were made for the subscribers of the HMV “Beethoven Society” and were only available for a limited period. "The series as a whole represents Beethoven playing such as we have not heard since Schnabel died,” com-

mented the “Record Guide” in 1955, urging that the recordings should be reissued. In recent years the long task of transferring the records to LP has been completed and the entire 32 sonatas are available again (although only a handful have so far been issued in New Zealand). In the many critical reassessments there seemed agreement that this was still an unparallelled series, even though occasional faults could be found.

“Schnabel’s Grand Way With Beethoven,” said “The Times” in a headline. “It would not be difficult to play Beckmesser, and chalk up fluffed runs, snatched cords, gabbled passages, even an occasional complete movement which sounds ugly, and then to recommend some other pianist who deals with each particular point,” the paper’s critic wrote. “Schnabel’s qualities were never those of justness and reliability. His failings were obvious; a technique which could not always bear the

force he put on it, an occasional irascibility, even wilfulness—but these failings were Beethoven’s too. This is not to suggest that any fifthrate pianist may excuse the liberties he takes on the grounds that Beethoven’s performances were probably not impeccable either—imperfections can never make good Beethoven —but in a musician of Schnabel’s grandeur temperamental quirks which correspond with Beethoven’s own should be easy to accept. “What could be intolerable would be anything sentimen-

tai, timid or sleek. There are few cycles of compositions, and even fewer performances of them, that compromise experiences as diverse, rich and liberal as can be drawn from these 13 discs. “Time and time again Schnabel’s phrasing of a noble melody seems to spring from such a bountiful nature that his listener’s responsiveness must surely be quickened, not just for that moment and that sonata, but for all music and all time.” The series will be broadcast in a series of 25 programmes, starting on Sunday with the first of the Op. 2 group (3YC, 7 p.m.) and introduced by Dorothy Davies, a New Zealand pianist who studied under Schnabel. HANCOCK Although television has its picture, speech still seems to be its primary means of communication. One can usually follow a programme if the picture of a set fails. In good television comedy the humour comes more from the funny lines than from purely visual gags—the exceptions being the ones that eventually become tiresome and repetitive—and the shows retain their humour when transferred to records or radio. A recent recording, “It’s Hancock” (Decca LKM.4740), containing the soundtracks from two of Hancock’s television series, illustrates this. The loss of picture seems unimportant when following the vocal exchanges. Both tracks will be broadcast in “Sunday Showcase” this week (3ZB, 8.15 p.m., Sunday). This was Hancock at his prime—as Britain’s top television comedian. Hancock as the boy from the Railway Cuttings at East Cheam is quite a character —ambitipus, aggressive, enthusiastic, 'yet in every venture doomed to failure. Sidney James is there as his more down-to-earth sidekick. The first story, “The Missing Page,” concerns a literary venture, while the second, “The Reunion Party,” considers what happened to the young bloods of East Cheam since the war. Some of the success of this series can be attributed to the fine scripts of Alan Simpson and Ray Galton. When Hancock wanted a change and left them, they went on to the very popular “Steptoe and Son” series. Hancock, to the regret of his admirers, did not have scripts as good in his next series and flopped badly.