DISCOVERING A LEGEND BEHIND THE FRUIT AND VEG

Although nowadays the process of acquiring records is, largely because of the internet, a good deal easier than it used to be, fond memories of past discoveries – found on a market stall here, or in an old record shop tucked away there – haunt the memory like toys from childhood. By way of an example, I recall a regular weekend bus trip (258) between Watford (where my wife and I lived at the time) to Harrow. Somewhere along the approach to Harrow there was a parade of shops, one selling fruit’n’veg.  For me the main draw wasn’t so much the food as unexpected bins of lps filling the shop’s dusty back yard (was I their only customer? It seemed so!), mostly pop but with a single bin devoted to classical. I recall everything I bought there, for example, Otmar Suitner conducting Reger on RCA and a couple of HMV lps featuring the Georges Cziffra, one devoted to Beethoven variations, the other to madcap virtuoso showpieces (both now reissued in Warner Classics’ handsome Cziffra: Complete Studio Recordings 1956-1986, 41cds, 9029672924, c£118.00)

Once back home in our attic flat (we’re talking well over 50 years ago when we were newly-weds), I rushed to my modest hi-fi system to sample what I’d bought. The Beethoven, fine, much what I’d expected, brilliant reportage of ingenious ‘variations on a theme’. As to the showpieces lp, I was flummoxed. Being a Horowitz fan, and therefore used to teasing rubato, phrases that toyed with simultaneous perspectives, featherlight runs and thunderous climaxes, always with a musical end view, Cziffra’s racehorse antics, with his unbelievable finger velocity but to no obvious musical ends (a Brahms Hungarian Dance proved especially perplexing) left me cold. So that was that, a few Liszt Hungarian Rhapsodies and a couple of Philips lps excepted (heard much later, and all included in this set) – until I recently discovered Warners’ Complete Studio Recordings, and then I realised how wrong I’d been.

I’ll cite just a handful of telling examples where Cziffra the virtuoso bows to Cziffra the musician. First and foremost, the piece that for me encapsulates musical Romanticism’s chromatic heart, Liszt’s ‘Aux cyprès de la Villa d’Este, Threnody No. 1’ (from Annés de pèlerinage, book 3), secure Brendel territory (still is of course) but where Cziffra reacts to every aching modulation as if it were of his own making. This is truly profound playing. The same CD contains an electrifying account of Liszt’s Dante Sonata, a piece that in so many cases hangs – rather than generates – fire. Here a driving nervous energy will keep you poised on the edge of your seat. Chopin’s First Concerto under Manuel Rosenthal is limpid, poetic and relatively relaxed, Cziffra’s finger work crystal clear. The same CD (17) includes the version of the Andante Spianato et Grande polonaise brillante with orchestra, the gentle Andante perhaps the best example of Cziffra in Chopin ‘Nocturne’ mode, the Polonaise played with a winning lilt. Cziffra’s son, György Jr,  was a professional conductor and participated in several concerts and recordings with his father (commercial orchestra-only recordings including Debussy and Brahms-Schoenberg, and Concertos with his father are included in the set). However, his promising career was tragically cut short by his death while still in his late thirties in an apartment fire. Cziffra, who was devastated by his loss, never again performed or recorded with an orchestra, and some critics have opined that the severe emotional blow affected his playing quality. Speaking personally, I don’t sense that being the case.

Mozart’s A minor Sonata K.310, features a wonderful performance of its central Andante cantabile played by Cziffra with a bewitching sense of stillness. Better still, on the same CD (21), is Beethoven’s Sonata No.22 in F major (various Beethoven sonatas are scattered throughout the set), the ‘Tempo di minuetto’ alternating soft, warmly shaded chords (especially telling in the bass register) with a dramatic staccato. Cziffra’s way with Schumann was a revelation, the Toccata (CD 25), played swiftly and multifariously coloured (such spot-on articulation), a riot of contrasts, likewise the Symphonic Studies (including the posthumous studies), from the mellow statement of the opening theme, then on to the flexibly handled first variation, the easeful brilliance of the third and so forth. Two versions of Carnaval are no less remarkable, while the Eighth Novelette (rather like Papillons, in style and length) finds Cziffra indulging the music’s innate sense of fantasy.

So much more, Baroque miniatures, a couple of Schubert Impromptus, the F minor another highlight though I rather baulked at ten more Brahms Hungarian Dances that followed, senselessly overworked (at least to these ears). Other transcriptions (on Johann Strauss and Romanian themes in particular) work much better. Cziffra, who was born into a poor Romani family and in wartime was imprisoned by Russian partisans (he had been sent to the Russian front) was shy and reserved.  But he was also brave. After attempting to escape Hungary in 1950, he was again imprisoned and subject to hard labour between 1950–1953. Cziffra frequently performed with a large leather wristband (frequently seen in photographs) to support the ligaments of his wrist, which were damaged after he was forced to carry 130 pounds of concrete up six flights of stairs during his two years in a labor camp. In 1956, he successfully escaped with his wife and son to Vienna, where he was warmly received.

Listening to Cziffra storm through Liszt’s Grand Galop Chromatique is like witnessing the soundtrack to those tempestuous years. Do consider buying this set. Georges Cziffra was a good deal more than a pianistic athlete and the depth of his musical responses is on offer here time and again. A wonderful and often humbling collection.