I was on February vacation last week, and though I didn't have a chance to escape our cold winter weather, I did have some time to take walks, listen to music, see some movies, and muse to myself about connections among these experiences. Early in the week, I already knew I'd be hearing acclaimed pianists Yuja Wang and Víkingur Ólafsson in a Friday duo-piano recital which would feature Schubert's remarkable Fantasy in F Minor for two pianists at one piano - so I chose to listen to that on a cold, gloomy, colorless Thursday afternoon walk.
The piano is such a generally self-sufficient instrument that piano duets are usually more about creating an opportunity for social music-making than they are about epic musical statements. Even works for two pianos, while allowing for some really big sonic energy, can seem excessive and without the advantage other chamber ensembles have of coloristic diversity resulting from the use of varied instruments. The kinds of textures enabled by four hands at one piano can shine more light on the delicate upper reaches of the instrument and can make it easier to weave multiple contrapuntal threads together than two hands can naturally handle. But there's still something surprising about how far Schubert was able to push this otherwise modest ensemble in this unique and unsettling fantasy. And no matter how much pianists like to talk about coloristic sonic possibilities, the sound of a piano still has a distinctly black-and-white (or grayscale?) character, which I believe Schubert uses to advantage here.
Anyway, almost as soon as the familiar haunting theme began on my Bose headphones, I thought how appropriate it was for the setting. There's so much I could say about this music, its unusual structure, its moments that sound like ice cracking open, but I was especially surprised by my reaction to the recapitulation which begins at the 12:53 mark in the video below. Although it begins as an exact repetition of the opening, I was struck by how different this music sounded after all that had come before.
This caused my mind to wander (to return!) unexpectedly to the movie my wife and I had seen in a theater the night before. The Return is a 2024 film which depicts the final "arrival back home" part of The Odyssey. We had gone to see it because it was playing at a local arthouse cinema, but didn't know much about it going in. I didn't love everything about it, but it is brutally honest as a depiction of what it means to return to a home that is no longer what it was - and the familiar events I've often thought of in high-minded literary context lead to an extremely violent and disturbing conclusion.
I'm not sure Schubert's Fantasy can be said to end with quite such an obvious bloodbath, but after the recapitulation first seems simply to be going home, a violently contrapuntal coda arrives [14:25] to dispel any sense that things will be the same. Although I wouldn't want to draw any one-to-one correspondences between these works of Homer and Schubert, there is a "Homer-ically episodic and adventurous quality to Schubert's Fantasy with its "trills gone wild" section [4:30], a tender love duet [5:24] and the swashbuckling scherzo (beginning at 7:12) that soon follows - plus the unsettling return [12:53] and the devastating finish. In short, it's remarkable that Schubert could pour so much depth of human experience into what first might seem to be a humble parlor duet - which would've been played on a much more modest instrument than the TWO nine-foot Steinways Wang and Olafsson used Friday night.
I could do a whole philosophical exploration on the propriety of using two pianos for this music intended for two pianists sitting side-by-side at one instrument, but will save that for later - or never. I will add that I met up a few hours before the Symphony Hall performance with the friend who had invited me. She and I read through the Schubert together, and though it was hardly polished, I think my three experiences of this music (via headphones on a walk in 20 degree weather, sightreading with a friend, and listening with 2500 other people) were all worthwhile and offered usefully different perspectives. For the record, the Wang/Olafsson performance was exceptionally well-played, although I'm not sure this music is most at home in a space as large as Symphony Hall, even with an extra piano thrown in.
And now it's time to end this winter journal journey by observing that today is the 18th birthday of this blog. MMmusing can now vote! As a special birthday offering, I'm uploading something Schubertian on an unusually large multimedia scale. When it comes to walking through snow and ice in the depths of winter, nothing captures that experience like Schubert's song-cycle Winterreise which, like the Fantasy, was written in the composer's final year. In fact, all of my favorite Schubert comes from this final year: Winterreise, the Fantasy in F Minor, the Cello Quintet (string quartet plus extra cello), the Piano Trio No.2 in E-flat, and the Piano Sonata in B-flat. It's unbelievable that one person wrote all of this earth-shattering music in a year in which his young and troubled life was coming to a much too early end.
The experience of listening to the Fantasy on a wintry walk prompted me to listen to a performance of Winterreise from 1997 in which I collaborated with a wonderful, expressive, and very intelligent bass, Mark Risinger. (Mark is also a world-class Handel scholar.) There's no video from that performance, but now that it's almost thirty years old (which is almost as long as Schubert lived), I really enjoyed listening to it and reliving the amazing experience of learning and performing it. As a one-off live performance, of course it isn't perfect, but I think it captures the music quite well, so it's worth sharing. Honestly, it's probably my favorite Winterreise recording, with no apology for personal bias.
Rather than add a score to follow, I've uploaded the video with the German text alongside English translations - I'm not sure I even knew these texts myself very well back in 1997, but I think Schubert's music often does a lot of the work.
Happy MMmusing Day. Enjoy this bitter walk through ice, snow, heartache, and death alongside a hurdy-gurdy! [direct link here]
