Search - Johannes Brahms, Robert Schumann, Wilhelm Kempff :: Kempff: Brahms Piano Sonata No. 3, Schumann: Papillions

In this BBC Legends disc, recorded at a 1969 recital in London, the 74-year-old Wilhelm Kempff performs three works that had been identified with him throughout his career. While two of the pieces (Brahms's Sonata No. 3 and Schumann's "Fantasie" in C) rank among the most technically difficult works in the German Romantic repertory, it seems safe to say that the septuagenarian pianist never played them better. In fact, this unedited performance of the Brahms sonata is not only more insightful, but also more exciting than the studio version Kempff recorded for Deutsche Grammophon in the 1950s. Its rugged virility and yearning lyricism place it in a niche heretofore occupied exclusively by the likes of Curzon, Katchen, Lupu (all for Decca), and Grimaud (Denon). In Schumannn's "Fantasie," Kempff shows understandable signs of pianistic fatigue while negotiating the next-to-impossible, contrary-motion skips in the second movement's coda. Otherwise, this performance is more majestic than the pianist's technically more assured 1957 studio version (DG) and more exciting than his cautious 1973 stereo remake. With phrasing filled with subtlety and flickering fancy, Kempff never failed to play the same composer's Papillons to perfection--never more so than on this occasion in London. --Stephen Wigler