In March 1828, the last year of his life, Schubert enjoyed a success with a public concert of his works in Vienna. He attracted the interest of publishers, but nothing much came of it. Before long he was again penniless and miserable. His health, which had been terrible since he contracted what was almost surely syphilis in his mid-20s, steadily deteriorated.
NY:内田光子played Schubert's Last 3 Sonatas [音楽時評]
2011年11月７日に，サントリーホールで，シューベルトが死の年に一気に書き残したいわば遺作の３曲のピアノ・ソナタを，内田光子さんの演奏で纏めて聴いたのが，忘れがたい記憶として私の脳裏に焼き付いています．そのリサイタルは，時間を要するので，１８時半から始められたモノでした．
同じ３曲を纏めた演奏会を，私はアルフレッド・ブレンデルで，ロンドンのフェスティバル･ホールで聴いた記憶がありますが，それ以来私は，この３曲は是非纏めて弾いて貰いたいと考えています．
この４月11日の水曜日の夜，New York のCarnegie Hall で，内田光子が昨年11月17日のサントリーホール公演とまったく同じプログラムで，素晴らしい演奏会を開いたことがNew York Times に論評されていましたのでご紹介します．
演奏内容如何よりも何よりも，この３曲の間には論理的関連性があって，一緒に弾かれることが望ましいと書かれていていたことを特記したいと思ったのです．
Among several major composing projects during his final months, Schubert wrote his last three piano sonatas. Working with intense focus, he completed the scores in September 1828, about six weeks before he died in delirium at 31.
He must have known that there would not be a ready market for these long, mercurial and complex works. Clearly he was driven to write them, and he conceived them as a set. Theorists have uncovered thematic links among the scores.
New York TimesのANTHONY TOMMASINIが絶賛しておりますが，私は昨年11月17日の演奏会についてのブログで，一度書いておりますので，特に訳出することは控えます．
ただ，A Composer’s Score For a Dance With Death という記事のタイトルには，深い共感を覚えます．
どうぞ，あとはご自由に，ご渉猟下さい．記事に内田光子さんの年齢がずばっと書かれていますが，なるべく早い機会に，再来日してまた名演を聴かせて欲しいと切に願うモノです．
Music Review
A Composer’s Score For a Dance With Death
Chad Batka for The New York Times
Mitsuko Uchida: The pianist performed Schubert’s last three sonatas in a concert at Carnegie Hall on Wednesday night.
By ANTHONY TOMMASINI
Published: April 12, 2012
Among several major composing projects during his final months, Schubert wrote his last three piano sonatas. Working with intense focus, he completed the scores in September 1828, about six weeks before he died in delirium at 31.
He must have known that there would not be a ready market for these long, mercurial and complex works. Clearly he was driven to write them, and he conceived them as a set. Theorists have uncovered thematic links among the scores.
On Wednesday night the masterly pianist Mitsuko Uchida gave an overflow audience at Carnegie Hall (including some in stage seats) a rare chance to hear these last three sonatas, published after Schubert’s death, performed as a group. Ms. Uchida, who at 63 is among the most respected artists of our time, gave probing and magisterial performances.
She is renowned for the refinement of her playing. But as if to shake up preconceptions, she tore into the ominous opening of the first movement of the Sonata in C minor (D. 958), with its theme of assertive chords and scale passages that shoot across the keyboard. She played with crackling intensity and steely fortissimos.
Yet Ms. Uchida soon guided us through a mood shift to the eerily calm music of a long transitional section, where a fidgety melodic line spins out over rippling accompaniment, which she played with milky textures, letting dissonances blend into the harmonic haze. Her way with the Adagio kept you on edge: every time the tranquil theme seemed to settle into a contemplative mode, something terrifying would happen, like the pummeling triplet figures that drive the music through wayward harmonic realms.
On its surface the finale seems to be a dark, dancing tarantella, and Ms. Uchida conveyed its restless, brimming vigor. But without being a bit didactic, she brought out the crazed flights and harmonic discontinuities.
The next work, the Sonata in A (D. 959), is generally considered a noble piece and, in the scherzo, even fanciful. But hearing it in this context, and as played by Ms. Uchida, I was drawn to its dark side, which comes shortly after the stately opening theme, when a long transitional section is run through with a hammering short-long rhythmic figure.
And the Andantino, which starts like a forlorn song with a simple tune and accompaniment, evolves into an episode of wrenching torment and terror, all the more gripping here for the balance of sinew and sensitivity in Ms. Uchida’s playing.
The final Sonata in B flat (D. 960) is a work ideally suited to Ms. Uchida’s elegant artistic temperament. She brought exquisite shadings and wondrous serenity to the first movement. Yet the calm was deceptive, for just below the surface the ominous stirrings and fitful mingling of inner voices told a deeper story. And so the performance continued. You could detect the gremlins hovering over the high spirits of the scherzo and the restlessly energetic finale.
The ovation was tremendous. But Ms. Uchida played no encore. What could have followed these sonatas? In a larger sense, that truly was the question. Schubert was heading into some realm new for him, and for all of music. Just days before his death, he spoke to a friend of the “absolutely new harmonies and rhythms” running through his head.
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