Rachmaninov

(part of comparative review)

“The surfeit of Rachmaninov’s piano music in the recording catalogue…” is how Jeremy Filsell begins his pitch for your money!

Both these pianists, established virtuoso and relative newcomer, include the shorter, revised version of Rachmaninov’s 2nd piano sonata, and both give fine, expansive accounts of it, Vinnitskaya slightly quicker, though you don’t feel it. Differences in presentation and couplings make any comparison invidious; both are admirable CDs.

Filsell gets my attention before I hear a note with his very personal Artist’s Note; really, all soloists ought to write their own notes, instead of relying on the musicologists?

Filsell is frankly autobiographical, beginning about his grandfather’s music library with “an expensive-looking hard-bound edition which provoked a greater fascination for Rachmaninov above other music” for the boy pianist to be, who struggled with the pieces “even before he could reach the piano’s keys and the pedals simultaneously”.

Filsell precedes the sonata with a selection of favourites from the Cinq Morceaux, the Elegie, the Preludes and Song Transcriptions (one of them elaborated by Francis Pott). Jeremy Filsell is perhaps even better known as a great organ virtuoso (q.v. Pott’s Christus Passion Symphony).

… So, dig deep in your pockets and buy them both.

There are plenty of Rachmaninov recital CDs on the market these days, but most are début albums from aspiring pianists, usually in their early 20s. Jeremy Filsell doesn’t fit into that category, and it is clear from his performance that his aims with Rachmaninov are entirely different. The attraction of this music for younger pianists trying to establish a reputation is surely that Rachmaninov wears his virtuosity on his sleeve – it sounds as difficult to play as it is.

But Filsell demonstrates that there is far more to Rachmaninov than that. As both a pianist and an organist he has a reputation of making light of technical demands, so he has nothing to prove here. Instead he puts his copious keyboard skills to the service of the music. The result is a deeply poetic reading of these Rachmaninov favourites. The playing is precise and the interpretations are keenly focussed, yetthere is no hint of dryness Rubato and pedalling are generously applied, but never to excess, and the melodic lines are always allowed to sing.

The Prelude in C sharp minor is given an appropriately atmospheric reading, with those sinister pianissimo chords in the opening passage loaded with anticipation for what is to come. And when the music does take off, it becomes clear that Filsell is a more moderate and level-headed interpreter of this work than many, including the composer himself. Many of the other works give that impression too, as if Filsell has retained the passion in Rachmaninov but avoided the neurosis.

Between this and the concluding Second Sonata, we are treated to two song transcriptions and the Op.23 and Op.32 Preludes. That all makes for a satisfyingly diverse programme, although even for Rachmaninov these works are on the note- heavy side. Not that programme ever feels dense or congested. On the contrary, Filsell makes such light work of the technical demands that the individual notes dissolve into the endlessly varied and expertly controlled textures.

The audio is good and complements Filsell’s technique, in that both balance the detail with the bigger picture. So the precision of the passage-work is always clear, both from the playing and the reproduction, yet the listener is able to take that more or less for granted and concentrate on the drama and passion of the music. And while the sound is precise, it is never over-analytical, thanks in part to the resonant acoustic of the Wathen Hall at St Paul’s School in Hammersmith. The Second Sonata provides a rousing finale to the programme. Filsell plays the revised 1931 version of the work, although you have to dig deep into the liner notes to find that out. It is an appropriately big-boned reading, by turns expansive and intimate. It is a much-performed (overperformed?) work, but Filsell gives a performance that can compete with the best on disc. The distinctive traits of his Rachmaninov again shine though, the effortless command of the technicalities, the even-handed approach to dynamics and phrasing, but above the passion and engagement that both transcends those technical accomplishments and makes them all worthwhile. An excellent disc of Rachmaninov piano music, no matter how many you already have on your shelves.

International Record Review, April 2011

Jeremy Filsell’s development as a pianist owes something to the random pile of sheet music he acquired from a grandfather he’d never even met. As anyone who has been bequeathed the fall-out from someone else’s endeavours will know, there is something oddly soothing about the feel and aroma of yellowing pages, a curiously indecipherable scribble here and there, and perhaps the tell-tale smudge of a wine glass or coffee cup to remind you that the person in question was a human being as well as (in Filsell’s grandfather’s case, at any rate) a pianist of some distinction. One can learn quite a bit about someone’s way of thinking from pencil squiggles and, were it not for these, Chopin’s pupils would not have been able to pass on to us little gems such as ‘the third finger is un bon chanteur’, the evidence for this insight coming in the form of a sequence of ‘threes’ written by the composer above a seemingly innocuous melody (in one of the nocturnes, if memory serves).

Aside from the indefatigable Wayne Marshall, Filsell is the only ‘double-yolker’ I can call to mind – a pianist and organist of equal note, whose academic and hands-on training included Oxford University (he was Organ Scholar there), postgraduate studies at the RCM and a Ph.D. in aesthetics and interpretation from the Birmingham Conservatoire. Filsell’s playing, while ardent, thoughtful and well informed, never comes over as stuffy or self-conscious, and I gladly indulged his enjoyably random selection of Rachmaninov pieces on Signum.

If I had a copy of the Moura Lympany Rachmaninov Preludes LP to hand (Filsell acknowledges Lympany as being among his formative heroes in regard to these pieces) I would have taken delight in seeing the extent to which his playing extended her pianistic vision, but no matter, I hugely enjoyed the disc anyway. Several performances stand out for their power and purpose: Francis Pott’s transcription of the song ‘What Happiness’ and the most sizeable item on the recording, the Sonata No. 2 in B flat minor, both high-octane works that also need a kindliness of touch in order to carry those long, long lines.

First a word or two about the six preludes Filsell includes, which are aJl beautifully honed and, in the case of the massive G minor. Op. 23 No. 5, astonishingly fast and furious: a real hell-raiser, sporting delectable octaves and a sensuous central section. The E flat No. 6 from the same opus is cool, unflustered and nicely contoured into the bargain; in fact, my treasured Howard Shelley recording is close to being toppled by Filsell here, and in one or two others besides. The C sharp minor ‘Prelude’, Op. 3 No. 2, which became the bane of the composer’s life (I can think of worse things to be cursed by), has commendably little hysteria and is indeed all the more listenable to for it. In fact all three of the preludes I’ve mentioned are a little brisker from Filsell than Shelley, but the music doesn’t drop in finesse as a consequence. The acoustic sounds nicely expansive (it’s St Paul’s School, Hammersmith) without running the risk of encountering a ‘bats in the belfry’ effect, and the playing throughout packs a punch.

The curtain-raiser to the Second Sonata certainly grabs you by the throat, just as it should, and Yevgeny Sudbin’s version is no less ecstatic; somehow, his recording has a touch more bite in places, however. The central Lento movement weeps tenderly, making fractionally better sense than the more generously oiled Sudbin account. Filsell’s finale is most definitely fit for purpose, with all kinds of attractive nuances tossed in for our pleasure (and his). Despite my quip about the randomness of the selection, the disc unfolds really well. I wonder what Filsell will come up with as a sequel – hopefully we’ll get to find out in due course.

Fanfare, September 2011

Jeremy Filsell has been widely recorded (and widely praised) both as a tactful, imaginative accompanist and as an organist, but this is my first encounter with him as a solo pianist. In his slightly Proustian notes-where he lovingly evokes the “unique dark blue leather cover” of the copy of preludes that he inherited from his grandfather – he talks both about the nostalgic pull of the earlier music and about his appreciation of the “more Neoclassical sensibility” of Rachmaninoffs late works, an appreciation that leads him to choose the leaner revised edition of the Second Sonata rather than the original. I therefore expected performances that, as a group if not individually, highlighted this central rift in Rachmaninoffs aesthetic. In practice, though, he doesn’t follow through; while the nostalgia is clearly evident, there’s little trace of the neoclassicism. I don’t want to fall back on generalizations about the connections between performers and their instruments, but as you listen, it’s hard to resist the thought that these are the kinds of weighty and bass-centered performances you’d expect from a romantic organist: rich in texture, somber in tone, generally slowish in tempo.

In many ways, the readings are eloquently persuasive. He’s certainly got the measure of Rachmaninoffs dark colors (try the sonata’s glowering middle movement), and his handling of texture is often beguiling (Francis Pott’s luxuriant transcription of op. 34/12 is an excellent example). Then, too, he’s unfailingly alert to Rachmaninoffs large-scale emotional curves, holding the music together with a powerful grip through his control of phrasing and especially dynamics. Listen, for instance, to his handling of the overall rise and fall of op. 32/10-a haunting performance or to the riveting build into the recapitulation of the sonata’s first movement.

That said, these interpretations – big in gesture, but generally inward in spirit – may be too consistently heavy, too full of emphatic point-making, for some tastes. Op. 23/5 is a case in point. Filsell reasonably alludes to Rachmaninoffs own recording to justify his slight alteration of the ending (although in fact the two are not quite textually identical). But in so doing, he not only defends his editorial practice, but also reminds us of how different the two pianists are in terms of interpretive practice. Certainly, compared to the composer’s fleeter reading (lighter in touch, keener in rhythm and articulation, and quicker in pace), Filsell’s seems marginally heavy-handed.

Still, this is well worth considering for those who like their Rachmaninoff on the hefty side. The excellent recording captures Filsell’s tone well.

In his booklet notes, Jeremy Filsell confesses that through featuring repertory that has remained in his consciousness ever since he ‘could first reach the piano’s keys and pedals simultaneously’ this recording represents ‘the sum of a personal musical journey’. Such close identification with what he terms ‘Rachmaninov’s inexhaustible variety of expression’ is strongly reflected in his well-chosen and warmly recorded programme which inevitably includes many familiar favourites.

The recital gets off to an impressive start with expressive accounts of the early Elegie Op. 3 and the ubiquitous Prelude in C sharp minor. In both works, Filsell creates a rich and tonally varied sound while at the same time demonstrating an instinctive feeling for rubato – features that are also very much in evidence in some of the slower Preludes such as the D major and E flat major (Op. 23) or the B minor (Op. 32). The G minor Prelude, on the other hand, is more of a mixed bag. Although Filsell brings out the beautiful inner part in the middle section, the balance of textures at the outset is skewed far too much in favour of the accompanying militaristic rhythms, particularly in the louder passagework. There are problems, as well, in the Sonata No. 2, performed here in the revised 1931 version. Although Filsell effectively conveys the restless agitato feeling of the first movement, the piano tone seems weak in the upper registers and lacks the mercurial brilliance that Yevgeny Sudbin on BIS brings to the movement. Filsell opens the Finale with urgency but runs out of steam just at the Presto, where you would expect him to drive the music to a fiery climax.