Volume 4 of Can Cakmur's endlessly stimulating and thought-provoking series of 'Schubert plus' contrasts Vorisek's influence on Schubert with, for the first time in the series, a radical departure; Chopin and Scriabin are a far cry from Vorisek and Schubert.
Opening with two Impromptus by Vorisek(1791-1825, d. aged 34), the composer's whimsical and experimental nature, while modest in scale, surely paves the way for Schubert's greater imaginative scope and audacity. No 6, n particular opens with a magical chime before a dark and pulsing central kernal, a contrast already light years away from its time. Both Impromptus end abruptly, as if the composer had suddenly lost interest. In his accompying essay Cakmur includes what is, perhaps, understadably patronising praise from Beethoven; 'for a young fellow of this sort it was well done.'
Turning to Schubert is a huge advance, a singular reminder of a composer once considered as little more than a Viennese charmer and of small significance. For LIszt Schubert was 'the most poetic all composers.' Perceptive to the last, he hinted at a rich inclusiveness far above and beyond simple expectations. Cakmur's strkingly spare pedalling often allows for a novel persepctive in many ways radically different to conventional Schubertian wisdom. My one time and greatly missed colleague, Joan Chissell, writing about a Radu Lupu London recital exclusively devoted to Schubert, hoped that 'when he next visited these shores he would give us some of Schubert's substance as well as his shadows.' No question of shadows from Cakmur. Much of his approach is brightly lit and you are always made conscious of a penetrating mind at work, never of a pianist lost in his own reverie. This is Schubert, whether in the cascades of No 2 in E flat or in the timelessly extended beauty of No 3 in G flat that will make you think again.
And so to Chopin and a different reminder. Mozart may be the great finder- out of musical inadequacy but it is no less the case with Chopin. Bneath the often overwhelming romantic rhetoric lies an elusive idiom that has teased one generation after another out of thought. Andras Schiff once despaired of music both too gallic and slavic for his Hungarian nature, leaving it to Cortot and Rubinstine(the first fanciful and seeingly endlessly in flight, the second patrician, urbane and for Daniel Barenboim always with 'spine' in his playing).
No pianist has been equally successful in every composer and there is a sense that Cakmur is less than comfortable or at home in, once again, an elusive idiom that balances so miraculously discipline and freedom. I recall the Chinese pianist Fout'song telephoning me after he hd given a master-class at London's Royal College of Music, clearly frustrated and asking me if I knew how to teach 'tempo rubato.' I replied that I thought it impossible and that you could only teach by suggestion, by inplying that gentle give- and- take within the principle pulse, a natural but unmistkable musical breathing. Yet Cakmur is never less than challenging, happy to remove an old-fashioned or museum concept of interpretation. The volubility of No 1 is subtly and piquantly characterised and he is as thoughtful as he is gently fanciful in No 2. Others may be less emotionally restrained(he makes you curious to hear him in Chopin's large scale works, in the Sonatas, Scherzi and Ballades)but he is never less than personal and engaging. More controversially, he adds a sizeable amount of his own outwardly improvised decoration to the 'Fantasie-Impromptu,' some of it less than idiomatic.
In Scriabin he is very much back on form. The first Impromptu in F sharp major is already a step away from Chopin and Cakmur is memorable in this more congenial repertoire. In the B flat minor Impromptu he, again, comes into his own, brilliantly attuned to its storms and ending in a blaze of defiance.
As on previous occasions Cakmur has written his own notes, a model of scholarship and perception. He is as fine a writer as he is pianist, and this latest recording will surely be widely discussed, a Pandora's box of conflicting opinion.
Bryce Morrison