Diane Walsh, pianist: Reviews

SCHUBERT Piano Sonatas : in a, D 845; in D, D 850 • Diane Walsh (pn) • JONATHAN DIGITAL JDR-1008 (79:37)

"This disc inaugurates an integral (5-CD) cycle of the Schubert piano sonatas, and judging from this first volume, it promises to be an outstanding one. Diane Walsh is well known in the New York area, as a soloist and a collaborative pianist, and she has also appeared in concert in major cities around the world. The recipient of many awards, she won the Concert Artists Guild International Competition and has been a prizewinner in competitions in Munich, Salzburg, and many other European cities. She has a strong technique, but her playing emphasizes her sensitivity to the music, not her power on the keyboard.
For this first volume, Walsh chose two sonatas stemming from the same year, 1825. Both are masterpieces-- very different from each other in character, but sharing the composer’s reflections on the countryside. This affinity for nature was described by the writer Hans Gál in his perceptive book Franz Schubert and the Essence of Melody (1970): “….a subject which is as important as it is difficult to grasp in rational terms: Schubert’s peculiar relationship to a landscape, to an open-air background which, though it can be felt everywhere, defies exact definition.” But there are some exact instances of these expressions of nature-- for example, the G major section of the Rondo finale of D 850, with its gentle, bucolic music; or the unbuttoned peasant dance rhythms of the Scherzo, which Schnabel vivified so brilliantly in his 1939 recording.
Diane Walsh would seem to be the perfect pianist for this music; she follows the score with the utmost fidelity, and her technical command, beautiful sound, and sensitive phrasing contribute to insightful performances. In an interview, she talks about the edition of the music she used, paying tribute to her Juilliard teacher, Irwin Freundlich, who gave her a gift of the complete Schubert piano works in a reprint of the first collected edition, which had been overseen by Brahms. She explains her desire to get as close to the original source as possible, and the result is a performance based on a score that is free of editorial changes, additions, or suggestions. (A case in point concerns the variations movement of D 845: some editors believed there were four measures missing in the first variation, and in two important scholarly “urtext” editions, these four measures were filled in by the editors, despite a perfectly logical reading without them.) To attempt to presume what Schubert, that most intuitive of composers (assuming that he actually left out some music) might have written seems to me to border on impertinence! But Walsh follows the original reading, as did Schnabel and many other pianists.
Diane Walsh is one of a group of several contemporary pianists who have found an affinity with Schubert and given impressive performances on CD, among them Paul Lewis, Gottlieb Wallisch, Christian Zacharias, and Martin Helmchen. Walsh proves to be a worthy addition to this assemblage, providing Schubert playing on the highest level."

"This is the first volume of what is expected to be Schubert's complete piano sonatas--an impressive challenge for any pianist to undertake....I was won over by the beauty of the playing and the untroubled interpretive smoothness. Walsh spins out the line with great attention to nuance and color...serenely moving, always song-like, and expressive."
January/February 2009

"Whatever one’s take on [Moises Kaufman's] “33 Variations” as a theater piece, it is an innovative and engrossing exercise in music appreciation. The pianist Diane Walsh plays extended excerpts from the “Diabelli” Variations, elegantly, in full view of the audience. In a way Ms. Walsh is a character in the play....Meanwhile, at preview performances of “33 Variations,” Ms. Walsh’s splendid recording for JDR (Jonathan Digital Recordings), available in the lobby, has been “selling like hotcakes,” Mr. Kaufman said."

BEETHOVEN: Diabelli Variations; Sonata 24
Diane Walsh, p JDR 1006 66 minutes
"Each month brings forth yet another recording or two of Beethoven’s most challenging set of piano variations. Trying to select one for purchase is a little like attempting to exist by consuming just one meal daily. It can be done, but when the tummy starts to growl only digesting another Diabelli makes the embarrassing noises stop.
Walsh establishes her credentials for Diabelli candidacy having won a host of competitions, including the Van Cliburn International. Of greater importance, Diabelli-wise, is her joining the cast of 33 Variations, the title of a new play by Moises Kaufman dealing with Beethoven’s last years and his writing of the Diabelli Variations. She performs on stage during the play.
Listening to this performance one is made aware anew of the composer’s inventive genius and vivid imagination. Only the best interpreters are able to capture that fully, and only the best interpreters are able to convey a sense of rediscovery where others seem to settle into bored complacency. From the very opening statement of the theme, Walsh asserts a liveliness and lightness. Variation 1 is not leaned on as heavily as in many performances and avoids the portentousness that tends to bog down so many pianists. Variations 6 and 10 bring more sparkling delights with outstanding clarity of execution.
The more somber Variations such as the ‘Grave e maestoso’ of Variation 14 and the tragic three variations preceding the ‘Fuga’ of Variation 32 are deeply felt and, coming before the upbeat triple fugue, lend a final catharsis before closing with an elegant and far from simple ‘Tempo di Menuetto’. Above all, Walsh plays the Diabelli as a study in contrasts and yet ties all together as a unified whole. This is not as easy as it sounds; many other pianists have failed to accomplish it. Although you will definitely need this for your collection, performances by Serkin, Demidenkl, Kovacevich, Brendel, and Anderszweski (among others) reach the top rung of the ladder as well.
The two-movement Sonata in F-sharp is a sunny work and makes an excellent foil to the serious monumentality of the Diabelli. Once again Walsh does everything right, at least for this listener. It is the kind of performance that makes one smile and the kind of performance that raises the hope of hearing more Beethoven from this pianist. Add to the mixture the pianist’s interesting notes and some excellent sound from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in New York City, and this becomes a choice recording."

Throughout we hear relevant fragments of the variations, expertly performed on the piano by Diane Walsh, who does admirable double duty as the show’s musical director."

"We get an excellent live pianist (Diane Walsh) playing substantial excerpts from the 33-variation set, including some of Beethoven's rough drafts and false starts.... Not every pianist enjoys playing, and not every concertgoer likes hearing, the "Diabelli Variations": Individually, each is a pianistic gem; played complete, the set can evoke a discomfiting sense of obsession... What 33 Variations occasionally lacks in the writing it makes up for in the resonance between its parallel stories, in the bouncy excitement of its performance, and, most of all, in Walsh's elegant treatment of the 88 little hammers that produce an inexplicable miracle called Beethoven."

Beethoven 33 Variations on a Waltz by Diabelli, Piano Sonata No.24
Diane Walsh (pn) JDR 1006 (77:00)

"This recording coincides with Walsh's current (October [2007]) Washington D.C. performances of op.120 as part of the Arena Stage's production of Moises Kaufman's play, 33 Variations. Although I have not seen the play, it is not surprising that Walsh won the audition. For more than three decades her performances and recordings of a wide range of repertoire have established her as one of America's most respected pianists. Her best-known solo recording is probably the one devoted to piano works by Barber, Martin, Bartok, and Prokofiev. "A performer of great honesty and integrity…lyrical, contemplative, powerful and very moving" is how a Boston critic once summed up her playing – and all of these qualities, together with a fine sense of Beethovenian humor, are showcased in the present disc. In some of the faster variations she might remind one of the heady approaches of Arthur Schnabel or Rudolph Serkin, and certainly where Beethoven demands vitality and punch – as in variations 23, 17, 28 and especially the exciting triple fugue –she does not hold back for an instant. But generally her tempos are more moderate than theirs, the colors more varied, and the moods more lyrical. In the wonderful slow variations 29–31, she is second to no one in plumbing the depths, with each note and rest given its due and as part of long musical sentences. The brief sonata glows with cheerful easy-going optimism, making it an ideal foil for the Diabelli. In short, a most rewarding disc."

"The title refers to Beethoven's Diabelli Variations, in which the composer used Anton Diabelli's waltz as a springboard for his own rich but playful ideas. (The pianist and musical director here, Diane Walsh, interprets the work with a graceful touch, allowing plenty of air and light to flow through it.)"

"Into the mix Kaufman gives us a pianist (Diane Walsh) whose playing of the variations keeps time with the deterioration of both Katherine and Beethoven. Walsh's fine accompaniment is particularly well used in a sequence in the archives in Bonn, where Kellermann's Gertrude explains, with the aid of Jeff Sugg's excellent projections, how the composer painstakingly wrote out his compositions."

"Transfiguration in both life and art is a constant refrain, but it's in his elucidation of the music that Kaufman elevates the play to another level. With pianist Diane Walsh playing excerpts or entire passages from the Diabelli Variations, breaking down intricate phrases to show us the patterns behind them, we share directly in the exaltation of Beethoven's artistry and Katherine's discoveries....Grenier's Beethoven ...is transporting as he verbalizes the creation of the powerful fugue variation No. 32, bathed in golden light and accompanied by Walsh's nimble playing."

"The play's excess of exposition is offset by a parade of musical interludes, provided by pianist Diane Walsh. She beautifully plays some of those variations _ as well as Diabelli's original composition. In these short bursts of Beethoven's musicality, you can hear genius at work."

"Kaufman also has a pianist just under stage right, and as the number of a given variation is projected onto the set, the pianist -- the very fine Diane Walsh -- plays part or all of it."

"...the seasoned American pianist's performances of two Schubert sonatas are as fine as any on disc.
She has a keen feel for Schubert's sometimes elusive harmonic structures, and phrases rise and fall with vocal sensitivity. Add gorgeous recorded sound – this from a boutique label – and you've got a high recommendation."

CLASSICAL RECORDINGS
Sonatas and Preludes
Diane Walsh, pianist.
Bridge Records 9151; CD.
"SAMUEL BARBER wrote his only piano sonata for Vladimir Horowitz, who gave its premiere in Havana in 1949. Naturally, Barber composed with Horowitz's virtuosic prowess and penchant for rhapsodic Romanticism in mind.
The resourceful pianist Diane Walsh begins her new recording with a dynamic performance of Barber's sonata. By placing this compact 20-minute work in context with major sonatas by Prokofiev and Bartok as well as a set of eight intriguing preludes by the Swiss composer Frank Martin, Ms. Walsh invites listeners to hear it as a formidable modern masterwork. Moreover, while she brings plenty of Romantic sweep and arching lyricism to her performance, her incisive, spiky and, where called for, percussive playing reclaims the work from its neo-Romantic trappings.

The first movement surges forward in this performance, alternating statements of its grimly nervous, dotted-rhythm theme with melancholic lyrical flights. Ms. Walsh makes the short, playful scherzo sound ingeniously intricate by pristinely executing the scampering figurations and maximizing the effect of the constant shifts between duple and triple meter. The slow movement, a lament, is performed with sensitive restraint. And Ms. Walsh brings unflagging stamina and bravura to the finale, an onrushing, stunningly complex fugue with a hellbent coda.

Her performance of Prokofiev's Sonata No. 2 exults in the music's turbulent energy and sarcastic wit. The Martin preludes - pensive, elusive works with loose tonal moorings - are a real discovery. Ms. Walsh gives a fearless account of Bartok's sonata, music that sounds as modern today as it must have at its 1926 premiere. With its pummeling octave passages and thick, finger-twisting chords, this score should carry a stamp from the surgeon general's office warning pianists that playing it could cause injury to the hands. But Ms. Walsh dispatches it with vigor and authority."
October 24, 2004

CLIBURN VET SCORES WITH BEETHOVEN RECORDING

Beethoven
Diabelli Variations; Sonata in F-sharp major, Op. 78. Walsh (Jonathan Digital Recordings)

"NEW SOURCES: With the once major record companies either moribund or turning out mostly reissues, interesting releases are as likely to be self-produced or issued by cottage-industry labels. Jonathan Digital Recordings is an offshoot of the long-established Jonathan Wentworth artist management. (Web site: www.jonathandigital.com.)

FIRST-CLASS: American pianist Diane Walsh, who took fifth place in the 1969 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, doesn't have the highest-visibility concert career. But this recording of Beethoven's 33 Variations on a Waltz by Anton Diabelli is top-notch. It puts to shame the recent version by that famous pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy.

DELIGHT, LOGIC: Mr. Ashkenazy, on Decca, clicked his way dutifully through the cycle with precious little imagination or expressivity. Ms. Walsh, by contrast, brings plenty of delight, even apt playfulness, to this often witty music. Her tone is bright and crisp, but not too much so. Rounding out the CD is an account of the Op. 78 sonata that perfectly balances formal logic and spontaneity.

BOTTOM LINE: Fresh, rewarding performances, beautifully recorded. More, please!"
November 3, 2007

". . . has already almost all the attributes of greatness. The power and animation in her playing made a great impression. I particularly admired . . . the range and beauty of her tone."

"...to each work she brought not only
a lovely tone and immaculate technique, but a deep sense of personal conviction."

"...a performer of great honesty and integrity...lyrical, contemplative, powerful, and very moving."

"...Jeffrey Sugg's projections are paired with pianist Diane Walsh's rich performances of [Beethoven's Diabelli] variations...."

"Most crucially, the "Diabelli Variations" are majestically performed live by pianist Diane Walsh, in an order that has its own lyrical logic. The overall effect is traveling not just to a different time and place but also through the music of the spheres."

"Kaufman engages a myriad of ear- and eye-catching devices to illuminate the cross-century currents. Designer Derek McLane frames rotating panels of pinned-up music sheets within a proscenium of shelved archive boxes, with David Lander sending light from unexpected places for a sensuous environment of intellectual mystery and discovery. Pianist Diane Walsh stirringly plays the music in snippets and long excerpts as it's created or discussed.

Jeffrey Sugg projects sheets from Beethoven's actual notebooks onto a screen to Walsh's accompaniment, permitting us to recognize Diabelli's three opening notes (C, A, B-flat) and hear them picked up, expanded and exploited in the various numbered variations as we look over the maestro's shoulder in the ecstatic act of creation."

"Diane Walsh performs the variations on a piano, stage right, to near perfection."