We are so used to the uniformity and reliability of concert grands that it is salutary to be reminded of the time when things were not so straightforward for keyboard players. At the Wigmore Hall, Andreas Staier was playing a programme of Schubert on a fortepiano made by Johann Baptist Streicher in Vienna in 1839. Instruments of that age are fragile and unpredictable, and the piano had been due to arrive in the hall early on the morning of the concert, allowing time for it to settle down and Staier to get used to its characteristics.
But, as explained to the audience before the recital began, the instrument failed to make it to the Wigmore until mid-afternoon, and a sense of something unsettled and not quite as good as it might have been persisted through the evening. Staier had programmed Schubert’s last two sonatas, the A major D959 and the B flat D960, challenging works at the best of times, though ones that can reveal new dimensions of colour and articulation when played on the kind of piano for which they were written, as András Schiff’s performances in recital and on disc have shown so eloquently.
But these performances didn’t come close to that level of revelation. Especially in its upper registers, the Streicher piano sounded far drier and less characterful than the magnificent Brodmann of the same vintage Schiff owns, and had gone badly out of tune by the end of the A major Sonata. (Although it was retuned during the interval, the middle registers especially remained problematic.) Given the circumstances, it was unsurprising that Staier’s playing took a while to reveal its usual crispness and precision. Parts of the A major Sonata seemed out of focus, with rubato often self-consciously applied. It was only in the final two movements of the B flat work that the performance seemed relaxed and naturally expressive. Not an evening to remember.
