The booklet contains
an informative note by the restorer
of this 1832 Clementi square piano,
Andrew Lancaster. Peter Katin himself,
as well as writing about the music,
also discusses the fascination which
playing the music on such an instrument
holds for him, when throughout his career
he has played it on the modern piano.
"It is necessary to understand
that here is a different and special
sound-world, and the player has to understand
that an equally valid interpretation
is possible within that sound-world."
All the same, for much
of this disc I couldn’t help wishing
he had recorded just one of the sets,
but twice over, once on this piano and
once one modern one. Otherwise, when
in the G flat Impromptu the pervasive
triplets are just that little bit too
loud, almost clattery, the melodic line
not quite standing out enough, when
the repeated chords in the middle section
of no.4 of D.899 are too heavily present
and, again, the melodic line is not
quite free over them, when the repeated-note
second theme of D.935/1 sounds lumpy,
lacking in the evanescent poetry it
can have, the performer seemingly hardly
daring to touch the keys, in the face
of all this and much more, how can I
know if this is what happens when you
play Schubert on an 1832 Clementi square
piano, or if it what happens when Peter
Katin plays Schubert on any piano?
However, I found that
the performance of the B flat Impromptu,
the variations on the "Rosamunde"
theme, explained most of my queries.
It is evident already in the theme that
the melody is now singing out over a
murmuring accompaniment; better still
the 16th-notes in Variation
1 are not pervasive and clattery
while the melodic line sings as it should.
The potentially thick chords in Variation
III are not clumpy as they were in D.899/4.
Furthermore, Katin has the right Schubertian
lilt all through the piece, he keeps
a reasonably consistent tempo through
all the variations (nobody expects the
pianist to make no change of
tempo, even if none is marked, but we
often hear very disruptive changes and
Katin seems to me just right in all
the variations). This is a performance
I will gladly hear again, not because
it’s played on an 1832 Clementi square
piano but because it’s played very beautifully.
So it would seem that
the piano is capable of all the Schubertian
poetry we would expect, but that, for
some reason, Katin has decided to give
it to us only in this one piece. For
the rest, it is highly articulate, intelligent,
observant (but must the first forte
outburst in D.899/1 be so jabbingly
staccato when Schubert hasn’t indicated
anything at all over the notes?) and
musical playing, but a bit dry, and
the evidence seems to be that this is
Katin’s doing not the piano’s.
We know what these
old pianos were like, but we don’t know
exactly how they were played; but I
suppose performers ranged between good,
bad and indifferent more or less as
they do now. So, if the historical exercise
appeals to you of hearing this music
as it may have sounded four years after
Schubert’s death on a typical domestic
piano of a country in which Schubert
never set foot (his own Viennese pianos
were quite different), then here you
are.
Christopher Howell
see also
review by Antony Hodgson
Peter Katin (Clementi square piano of 1832)
