San Francisco Classical Voice

Now, most of us have been warned against doing this sort of thing. The fear is that it leads us away from the composer's printed intentions into a radical and dangerous subjectivism. On the other hand, we need to make these judgments on a case-by-case basis. With Rangell we're in entirely safe hands; if there's a rhetorical moment, it always balances expressive and formal concerns in a carefully-considered way.

As to "the composer's intentions," that's a big subject. Even though Beethoven was quite scrupulous in his score markings, the material is so full of potentialities that the pianist who shies away from making choices is the one who risks infidelity to this composer. Rangell likes to say that he tries to "inhabit" the piece; it's a nice choice of words. I think the possession model is quite appropriate to musicianship of this kind. In Beethoven, at least, a profound collaboration between composer and performer/orator is exactly what's wanted.

Another admirable aspect of Rangell's Beethoven playing is that he happily embraces the often-jarring diversity of the composer's juxtapositions. Beethoven is rough-hewn one moment and sublime the next. Many pianists try to achieve a local coherence that isn't really there, or simply pretend that the awkwardnesses don't exist and play right through them. That's a mistake. There are some Beethoven movements that contain no rhetorical gestures — the finale of Opus 54 would be a good example — but the vast majority call out for an orator of Rangell's intelligence and stature.

He frequently emphasizes the need to respect the eloquence of silence in Beethoven. Expressivity is achieved not just with the notes and phrases, but with the spaces between them, which in Beethoven always have structural significance. And he's never intimidated by the fear of impatience in his audience, which is a rare quality in performers. He will play as slowly as he feels he needs to. It's all part of his felt imperative to draw us into his Beethovenian consciousness, by whatever means the music requires.

The best example of this is Rangell's recording of the E Major Sonata, Opus 109. It's the only recording I know of that allows the opening movement to be completely fragmented. He's saying: don't try to pick the broken pieces up off the floor — leave them there. The chorale-like theme for the variations of the last movement knits the key of E Major back together again and heals its wounds. It's an astonishing performance, and one you should certainly try to hear.

Andrew Rangell is an important artist; he deserves to be much more widely known than he is. But since he performs mostly in New England, his recordings (on Dorian label) will be your primary mode of access to his ideas. His CDs include the complete Bach Partitas, the “Goldberg” Variations, the “Diabelli” Variations, the complete Chopin Mazurkas, and the last five Beethoven Sonatas, as well as several discs of highly-eclectic short works. Be forewarned, however, that for a whole basket of reasons, including the nature of the compression protocol in the recording process, they're significantly more circumspect than his live performances. A case in point would be Bach's Partita in c minor; when I heard him play it here a few years ago, the intensity of the experience was positively terrifying. Now there's a word I don't often use in association with Bach.