Valery Afanassiev ICH BIN MOZART

Today we are too fond of clear-cut solutions and exhaustive explanations. Writers and film directors are supposed to shed light even on those nooks and crannies which should remain dark for the sake of perspective. And readers as well as cinema goers should remain in the dark about this and that for the sake of the same perspective, the same space, the same labyrinth. Alas, there are no more dark ladies either in sonnets or in novels. We have forgotten the aroma of unanswerable questions. And yet every masterpiece is an unanswerable question. And so is every artist of genius. In Pushkin's short tragedy Mozart and Salieri there are many unanswerable questions. Actually it ends with such a question: 'Is an evil deed compatible with genius?' (Gesualdo, who was unquestionably a composer of genius, killed his wife. But does this murder answer the question?) In the opening monologue Salieri ruminates over his music-oriented life and asks a crucial question: 'Why would God choose an obscene child to be his instrument?' That is how Peter Shäffer formulates the same question in Amadeus. Was Mozart an obscene child? Why should God have chosen Salieri in preference to Mozart? Salieri was an honest, hardworking musician: neither Pushkin nor Shäffer deny him that. What is more, his musical erudition did not prevent him from relishing Mozart's masterpieces with every fibre of his being (with every fibre of his soul, as the Russians would say)—a rare, priceless gift. At the end of Pushkin's tragedy Mozart says that if everyone could feel harmony as Salieri does, the world might come to an end, no one caring about the base needs of life, everyone luxuriating in art. What a pity the world will never come to an end through art. As a matter of fact, to paraphrase T. S. Eliot, such an end might turn out to be a magnificent beginning. (From the essay “WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART” in the booklet)

Valery Afanassiev FRANZ SCHUBERT Moments Musicaux

Pianist Valery Afanassiev – renowned for strikingly individual and deeply introspective interpretations of the music of Franz Schubert – has now paired two often extrovert works by the composer: the set of six “Moments musicaux” and the “Sonata D 850”. Recorded in September 2010 at the Auditorio Radiotelevisione Svizzera, Lugano, this is ECM’s second solo Schubert release by the Moscow-born pianist, having previously issued a live recording of Afanassiev performing Schubert’s final “Sonata D 960” at the 1985 Lockenhaus Festival that has become a much-discussed favourite among connoisseurs.

Composed from 1823 to 1827, the year before the composer’s death at age 31, the “Moments musicaux” brim with song and dance, as well as Schubert’s characteristic mood swings from major to minor, from light to dark, often within a single piece. With its glittering surface, the brief “No. 3 in f minor” was one of Schubert’s more popular piano pieces for decades; but the ballroom-worthy tune has an odd tension underneath, as if the party were bound to end early. “No. 1 in C major” has melodies reminiscent of the composer’s “Winterreise”, while the two in A-flat major, No. 2 and 6, tap rich veins of melancholy, particularly in Afanassiev’s interpretations. “No. 4 in c-sharp minor” is another number that swirls like a woman dancing with tears in her eyes. “No. 5 in f minor” is the set’s lone thoroughly fast-paced number, although even its up-tempo leaps have a brittle quality. 

The “Sonata D 850”, written in 1825, is one of Schubert’s most ebullient piano sonatas – with Ländler-like melodies, simulated horn calls and strongly syncopated rhythms; he composed the piece over three weeks in the spa town of Gastein, so the environment undoubtedly contributed to the sonata’s high spirits. Yet, as with so many works by this composer, there are also passages in “D 850” pregnant with nostalgia and emotional ambiguity, especially in the second movement, which Afanassiev explores with meditative concentration. (ECM Records)