After a few weeks of unseasonable, if enjoyable warmth, an overcast sky greeted me upon rising from bed this morning. It’s still winter, after all — this was my reminder.
Something about the melancholy cast of these waning days of winter, accentuated by creation’s almost palpable collective yearning for a spring close at hand, yet far away, turns my ears towards music to match the mood. Schubert seemed especially appropriate. I pulled my box of Paul Lewis’ Schubert from my shelf and played his recordings of the Moments musicaux and the D. 935 Impromptus. A doubly appropriate choice since I was scheduled to interview him later in the day. You can read that tomorrow, so do watch this space.
Lewis will be playing a program of Mozart, Debussy, and Poulenc at Zipper Hall this Sunday — not the typical repertoire he has been most celebrated for. Lewis, like Brendel, to whom he has often been compared, displayed a more eclectic repertoire in his younger days. Foremost is a magisterial Liszt Sonata in B minor that was among his earliest Harmonia Mundi efforts, and a recital of Schumann and Mussorgsky that followed a few years later. Turn back the clock a little further back and one finds more surprises: concerti by Grieg, Shostakovich (Op. 35), and Schnittke. Some of the plain-spoken introspection that characterizes Lewis’ best work is already incipient in the Shostakovich’s slow movement; his sense of stillness, of flow between action and silence would be wonderful to hear in the composer’s cryptic Second Piano Sonata.
This trajectory from flash to contemplativeness reminded me of another favorite pianist, the short-lived William Kapell. First staking his career by playing Prokofiev and Khachaturian, his later discography turned towards more inward-looking repertoire. Among those pieces he set down in the studio was Schubert’s A-flat Impromptu from the D. 935 set. Kapell’s recording is alive with an awareness of flickering light soon to be dimmed by everlasting night — a quality that Lewis also brings out with unforced eloquence in his own dazzling recording decades later.
Way back in my last days of high school, Kapell introduced me to this music of heartbroken joy; Lewis is the confirmation I need of the enduring grace of Schubert’s music. Take a listen to both recordings.