Quirky joy from a revolutionary pianist

Friedrich Gulda: Piano Concertos by Mozart, Beethoven & Strauss

In October 1950 the 20-year-old Friedrich Gulda made his Carnegie Hall debut, to significant acclaim. Six years later he was playing at another iconic New York venue, The Birdland, with a high-powered sextet put together especially for Gulda by producer John Hammond. I'm especially interested in how Gulda managed his two parallel music strands - classical and jazz - throughout his career. I'm listening, then, for any jazz influences in these piano concertos by Mozart, Beethoven, Haydn and Richard Strauss, recorded by Südwestrundfunk from 1959-63.

Gulda has sympathetic conductors with fine orchestras here. Joseph Keilberth conducts the Stuttgart RSO in Mozart's great K. 491 Concerto. Hans Muller-Kray leads the same orchestra in one of Gulda's signature pieces, the Beethoven 4th Concerto. Muller-Kray conducts the same orchestra in the Haydn and Richard Strauss works. Finally, Hans Rosbaud conducts the South West German Radio Symphony Orchestra, Baden-Baden in Mozart's K. 449 and 488 Concertos, two of my favourites. SWR's remastering of their original tapes is exemplary; these are very lifelike recordings.

And the influence of jazz on Gulda's classical music? It's a cool coincidence that I recently reviewed another 1959 recording by Gulda: his Beethoven Cello Sonatas with Pierre Fournier. I note in my review that Gulda largely plays it more or less straight, even more so than Wilhelm Kempff, who also recorded Beethoven with Fournier. Gulda is rather more relaxed in some of the concertos here, but he's still paying these great composers the compliment of respecting their scores. Remember that this was a time when Mozart concertos were sometimes played with sickly sentimentality and dubious ritardandos. But it's Gulda's surprising cadenzas that stand out as great examples of dramatic improv. It's instructive that some of the most interesting Mozart piano concertos of today are played by Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, who often plays Gulda's cadenzas. In a review of a recent release from Bavouzet's great Manchester series I say "Gulda lurks behind these, and other, concertos in the Mozart series; there is the same spirit of quirky joy here. I couldn't possibly give much higher praise." It's not jazz harmonies or rhythms, or anything more than a certain "swinging" feeling now and then, that informs Gulda's playing here, but a perpetual feeling that he is discovering something new in the music that surprises him as much as it does us. This happens in Gulda's classical music recordings as much, or even more, than in his jazz.

I'm a big fan of SWRmusic's historic re-issues, based on the really interesting musicians they've recorded, their meticulous re-mastering, and their excellent documentation. Classical music on the radio has a grand tradition, and German regional radio has been a real leader over the years. I look forward to more like this.

This album will be released on February 14, 2020.