Egon Petri’s large-scaled, authoritative pianism effortlessly meshed with Brahms’ thorny keyboard writing. The pianist’s innate virtuosity and insightful musicianship pack a large scale punch in the variation sets while still letting the works speak for themselves. The Handel Variations particularly stand out for Petri’s architectural sweep and attention to detail. He invests the theme’s 32nd-note flourishes with purposeful direction and articulates the contrapuntal strands in Variations 2 and 5 by way of color and shading rather than highlighting “inner voices”. Variation 7’s French horn-like textures have all the vivacity Brahms asks for, while the three-against-two patterns in Variation 21 are uncommonly clear. The last three variations build with intensity and excitement, culminating in a suave and securely dispatched Fugue. Petri similarly transforms the Paganini Variations’ cruel technical hurdles into pure music as opposed to exercises.
In order to accommodate the work on two 12-inch 78s, Petri omitted most of the first-ending repeats. Both variation sets were recorded at EMI’s Abbey Road studios, and Stuart Rosenthal’s restorations capture the full-bodied sound of the originals, if not with the fullness of Seth Winner’s transfers for Pearl, and Bryan Crimp’s for APR. While Petri’s 1940 Brahms Op. 79 and Op. 119 No. 4 Rhapsodies album suffers from more constricted, boxier engineering, a tape I made years ago from worn 78s boasts more bass and treble information than Stuart Rosenthal’s transfers from much cleaner source material. Still, Petri’s sturdy, straightlaced interpretations are not as subdued as the reissue producers make them out to be–far from it. All told, here’s a handy and inexpensive way to acquire Petri’s solo Brahms 78s. Let’s hope Naxos can access Petri’s unpublished 1945 Columbia recordings of the Brahms Op. 118 piano pieces!
