Intégrale des sonates pour piano

Description

The Austrian Hummel belongs to the school of Clementi, Cramer, and Field, virtuoso pianists of the classical period. His career as a pianist and his art of improvisation led him to the court of Eisenstadt and then to Weimar, where he served as Kappellmeister. A child prodigy and a student of Mozart, he encountered the finest musicians of his time during his flourishing career, from Haydn to Chopin, including Beethoven, with whom he had a complicated relationship. He left a substantial body of works for piano in all genres: sonatas, variations, fugues, studies, and a method specifically dedicated to the practice of the pianoforte, which Chopin recommended to his students, particularly for its fingering technique. The Italian pianist Costantino Mastroprimiano offers us six sonatas from the piano corpus, played here on two pianos, an Erard and a pianoforte after Anton Walter. The sonatas never stray from the classical sonata form and Viennese style. The Opus 2, composed by the young Hummel at the age of fourteen, already demonstrates a strong character but especially the influence of Mozart and Haydn. The following opus is, in fact, a form of tribute to the latter as it is dedicated to him. While Opus 20 explicitly references Mozart (the Jupiter) in its first movement, the Fourth sonata more directly refers to Beethoven with its powerful motifs. Although these influences are noticeable, Hummel always navigates around them thanks to his sense of improvisation. His fantasy and natural virtuosity lead him more easily towards gallantry than tragedy. The Adagio of Opus 38 thus instills more tenderness than concern. The grand Sixth sonata, Opus 106, has a more romantic and passionate spirit, featuring a contrapuntal finale. The Erard used for the last sonatas is a good compromise between the hollow sound with deep harmonies of the pianoforte and the clarity of the modern piano. (Jérôme Angouillant)