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WILLIAM KAPELL REDISCOVERED: THE AUSTRALIAN BROADCASTS

Jed Distler

Artistic Quality:

Sound Quality:

Prior to his tragic death in a plane crash on October 29, 1953 at age 31, pianist William Kapell toured Australia for three months, playing 37 concerts all over the continent. Certain broadcasted concerts were preserved on acetate discs, thanks to one Roy Preston, a passionate and prolific home-recording enthusiast. The discs came to light in 2003, and now have been restored for public consumption.

Kapell ReDiscovered stems from concerts at Melbourne Town Hall in Victoria, offering major repertoire new to the pianist’s discography, along with alternative interpretations of works previously available in Kapell performances. The authority and verve characterizing Kapell’s 1948 Toronto Rachmaninov Third Concerto broadcast (released by VAI) yields more detail and tempo flexibility five years later. We can only imagine what a projected 1954 studio recording with Fritz Reiner and the Chicago Symphony might have wrought!

The July 21 Mussorgsky Pictures at an Exhibition does not substantially differ from Kapell’s March 1953 Frick Collection performance, except that here the tempos seem steadier and more “settled in”, so to speak. As a result, the Limoges marketplace denizens interact rather than bump into one another, while The Old Castle is brisker and more fluid. Incidentally, in The Great Gate at Kiev Kapell opts for Vladimir Horowitz’s controversial melodic rewrite of the right-hand octave scales.

Regarding Bach’s A minor Suite, I prefer Kapell’s relatively direct and hard-nosed 1947 studio account to this more subjective and tapered rendition. These latter qualities prove more appropriately expressive in the Mozart sonata: a riper, far more involved reading than Kapell’s relatively two-dimensional 1947 broadcast. The Chopin E-flat Op. 55 No. 2 Nocturne’s tempo fluctuations integrate more organically in Victoria than at the Frick Collection. While Kapell’s deliberation, minimal pedaling, and sparseness of tone casts an ascetic hue, you’re quickly seduced by the subtle conversational interaction he achieves between the right-hand two-part counterpoint and the arpeggiated left-hand accompaniment. The Barcarolle is no less thought through and impressively worked out in detail (the ultra-disciplined double-note trills, the unwritten yet effective Rubinstein-like ritardandos in the coda), yet the overall effect seems sectionalized and lacking in cumulative impact.

In Chopin’s B minor Scherzo, the central Trio meanders, yet Kapell wraps a tight noose around the brisk outer sections, jabbing them with emphatic bass-note accents and highlighted figurations in a less necromantic manifestation of Horowitz’s febrile drive. Like Horowitz (and Jeanne-Marie Darre), Kapell plays the final chromatic ascent as interlocking octaves rather than the single-note octaves Chopin notated.

We also might expect Horowitz’s influence to permeate the Prokofiev Seventh sonata, yet here Kapell goes his own way. He intelligently alternates between lyrical and steel-edged phrasing in a way that illuminates the first movement’s thematic contrasts without going to extremes. I like the unusual bel canto sensibility that his free-spirited, liberally pedaled slow movement promotes, and how he brings out the multi-layered melodic implications in the finale’s motoric textures and builds the climaxes gradually. Yet perhaps the more modest textural dimensions of Debussy’s Suite bergamasque best showcase Kapell’s sophisticated sense of dynamic scaling and marvelously varied articulation.

While the original source material is far from state-of-the-art, Kapell’s piano resonates clearly if thinly, although overmodulated loud passages frequently blast. Radio cross-talk permeates certain quiet sections. To fill out the Bach Suite’s missing first movement, the producers utilized the aforementioned 1947 studio recording, adding fake audience coughs and rumbles to ensure continuity. Similarly, they patched The Great Gate at Kiev’s missing final 54 seconds with the Frick Collection version, adding fake 78 rpm surface scratch for the same reason.

Beyond question, Kapell’s most ardent admirers will find as much to savor as I did (and maybe more), notwithstanding sonic caveats. At a time when major labels have all but abandoned specialized historical projects, it’s heartening to see Sony/BMG once again step up to the plate on William Kapell’s behalf.


Recording Details:

Album Title: WILLIAM KAPELL REDISCOVERED: THE AUSTRALIAN BROADCASTS
Reference Recording: None for this collection

Various works by Rachmaninov, Mussorgsky, Mozart, J.S. Bach, Chopin, Prokofiev, others -

  • Record Label: RCA - 68560 2
  • Medium: CD

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