Classical Court From Perotin to Prokofiev (and beyond), performed by Caruso to Khatia, it's all here.

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So. . . have you ever had the experience of being aware. . .

Posted by Chris from Lafayette (A) on October 20, 2020 at 11:34:38

. . . of particular musicians, and knowing that they're receiving accolades right and left - and yet, whether because of distractedness or misplaced skepticism, or some other reason, you yourself have managed to stay "in the dark" about their actual work, and decades go by without your actually hearing them? And then you finally hear them, and you think, "OMG - how could I have denied myself such fantastic musical experiences over most of my life?"

This experience just happened to me with the recordings Craig Sheppard, a pianist who won the silver medal at the Leeds Competition in 1972, when Murray Perahia won the gold medal and Eugen Indjic won the bronze. (BTW, what a fabulous field of winners that year!). Sheppard now teaches at the University of Washington. I remember seeing Sheppard's Liszt album not too long after that '72 Leeds Competition - it got extravagant praise from the British press, but I was inclined to dismiss these reviews because. . . you know. . . British chauvinism. (Even though Sheppard is an American, the Brits still like to promote their big British international piano competition winners a bit much sometimes - LOL!) Sheppard made a few more recordings over the next few years, although not that many, and my awareness of him stayed on the back burner. (And, BTW, I STILL have not heard this album.)

The recording I finally heard (just last week!) which made me sit up and think "What an idiot I was not to try to hear this guy's recordings sooner!" was an album recorded in concert by a woman who evidently was one of Sheppard's admirers, Annette Tangermann in Berlin: Bach's Goldberg Variations and Fifth Partita, recorded in the Philharmonie. In all, Tangermann released five CD's (evidently commercial CD's as opposed to private-label CD's, although her label is in any case very small compared to the big names in the business) of Sheppard's in-concert performances, all of which are apparently hard to get now.

Just from the first few notes of the Goldbergs, I was struck by how sophisticated Sheppard's mastery of tone and balance are, and how he keeps the textures absolutely lucid. I can say right now that Sheppard's Goldbergs join the Derzhavina, Perahia, and both Gould studio recordings at the top of my own favorites list. And if anything, the Fifth Partita is even better - I've never heard a more effortless sounding account of the work. It's a performance to make almost all other performances sound overly earnest and slightly bloated!

I then heard some of the other Tangermann recordings of Sheppard's in-concert performances, including the Chopin Preludes (including Op. 45), the Scriabin Preludes Op. 11, the Rachmaninoff Etudes tableaux, and, just last night, the little Schubert Impromptu in G-flat, a piece which is played by every Tom, Dick and Harry who wants to show how "sensitive" he is. Again, right from the opening notes, Sheppard's control of the balances and textures was compelling - I've never heard the "harmony filler" notes in the middle of the texture sound so subdued - and yet the pianist is still very mindful of their function. And Sheppard's subito piano playing at a couple of important modulatory points in this work will just stop you in your tracks - incredibly masterful and beautiful!

And here's the amazing thing: I STILL have not heard any of Sheppard's studio recordings, which include both books of the Well Tempered Clavier, the complete Beethoven Sonatas, the first two books of Liszt's Annees de Pelerinage, the Debussy Preludes, etc, etc! I will certainly be correcting much of my missing knowledge about Sheppard's playing in the next few days. In the meantime, here are a couple of YouTube videos (Debussy's Etude, "pour les arpeges composes", recorded on a Schimmel piano in the somewhat unflattering acoustics of KING-FM in Seattle, as well as a piano piece by Brahms which I'm willing to bet YOU have not heard before! ;-) ):

View YouTube Video

View YouTube Video

Edits: 10/20/20

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