With this release, the two albums of 40 Scarlatti Sonatas Wanda Landowska recorded for HMV between 1934 and 1940 appear for the first time in their entirety on CD, in contrast to EMI Référence’s ill-advised single disc of excerpts. Four of Landowska’s RCA Victor Scarlatti performances are thrown in for good measure, plus her HMV Bach C minor Fantasia and Handel Air and Variations. A 1943 CBC broadcast of C.P.E. Bach’s 1745 Concerto in D generously fills out the set.
When Harold C. Schoenberg described Landowska as “having a brain in every finger”, he was right. You notice her rhythm first, which has amazing resilience and equilibrium. Landowska articulates phrases with a fusion of clarity and character that treat the music’s dazzling elegance and elemental fervor on equal terms. Rapid passages, for instance, are impeccably proportioned, never for a moment sounding breathless or mechanical. Listeners accustomed to modern Scarlatti practitioners like Gustav Leonhardt and Scott Ross might find Landowska’s frequent registration changes jarring, perhaps anachronistic or garish; however, to my ears devices such as the lute stop in the K. 450 G minor Sonata and E major K. 380 add a welcome percussive snap to the underlying pulse.
One selection unwittingly embodies a shuddering sound effect, as a result of wartime conditions in 1940 Paris: during the D major Sonata K. 490 you hear anti-aircraft gunfire in the background. Landowska, however, defiantly continues to play. It’s also interesting to compare the harpsichordist’s transparent and lyrical 1940 D minor K. 32 to her plusher, more overtly “romantic” 1946 remake (they’re both on Disc 2).
Engineer Seth Winner minimizes surface noise to a large degree, yet without sacrificing the resplendence of Landowska’s robust Pleyel harpsichord. You could imagine more brightness and bite in the higher register, though, and for this reason I prefer the immediacy and impact of Winner’s earlier Pearl transfer for the 1930 Victor “Pastorale” Sonata K. 9 in the collection “Musique Ancienne” (Pearl 9019) to this new remastering. Winner also boosts the midrange and low end spectrum on Landowska’s 1923 acoustic D major K. 96 recording but loses clarity and definition in the process compared to Mark Obert-Thorn’s airier Biddulph transfer.
Certain sides, such as the C-sharp minor K. 247 and E major K. 206, are blighted with wobbly pitch and sound as if the harpsichord was submerged underwater. But Winner painstakingly corrects the unstable pitch problems inherent throughout the problematic 1939/40 originals. He also acknowledges the elements of distortion in the 35-year-old source tape made from the C.P.E. Bach concerto’s original CBC 1943 broadcast lacquers. Still, it’s good to have this spirited performance of a work Landowska otherwise didn’t record. Denise Restout’s superlative annotations round out this indispensable reissue.
