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The piano art of Burkard Schliessmann / GRooVE back

Posted: September 17, 2024

GRooVE back's Andrea Bedetti writes…..The  German pianist is the protagonist of a double SACD released by the English label Divine Art and the result of two concerts held on 3 and 5 April last year at the Fazioli Concert Hall in Sacile, during which he presented pieces by Bach, Mendelssohn, Schumann and Chopin, displaying a refined timbre capable of blending with a precise and passionate reading.

English: A double SACD from the English record label Divine Art released a few months ago allows us to get to know a German pianist better, Burkard Schliessmann, one of the best and most interesting international pianists of the last few decades, given that in our country his name still circulates almost exclusively among piano music enthusiasts. These two SACDs were recorded live between 3 and 5 April 2023, when the pianist from Aschaffenburg held two concerts at the Fazioli Concert Hall in Sacile, performing pages by Bach, Chopin, Mendelssohn and Schumann, thus putting into play an interpretative compendium with a precise common thread, which can be summarized in the concept of the emergence, through the Kantor , and the progressive concretization of the tonal language and its supreme pianistic affirmation through that triad of romantic geniuses, as the Bavarian interpreter himself wanted to highlight in the accompanying notes in the booklet in three languages ??(Italian is obviously missing) hosted in the elegant box set.


The Fazioli Concert Hall in Sacile, appreciated for its acoustics, where Burkard Schliessmann held his concerts in early April 2023.
The anthology of pieces presented during these concerts in Sacile is extremely interesting and decidedly demanding: in the order of the playlist of the two SACDs we have respectively Bach's Partita No. 2 in C minor, BWV 826, the Concerto Italiano, BWV 971 and the Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue in D minor, BWV 903, while by Mendelssohn Schliessmann presents a rarely performed piece, namely the nineteen Variations sérieuses , Op. 54, which bring the first disc to a close; on the second disc, however, we have Schumann's Fantasy in C major, Op. 17 and Chopin's Waltz in C sharp minor, Op. 64 No. 2, with the addition of two encores , both again by Schumann, the twelfth piece of Carnaval , Op. 9, entitled Chopin , and the third of the eight Fantasiestücke , Op. 12, namely Warum? (for a total duration of the two SACDs of almost ninety-four minutes).


Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy in the portrait painted in 1834 by Theodor Hildebrandt .
What is to be understood by “partita”? Well, at the time of the Kantor this term, which was originally used for a series of variations performed above a bass, was by now completely analogous to that of “suite”; therefore, it indicated a series of dances introduced by a piece of an improvisational nature which, in Bach's six for harpsichord, is called in turn prelude, symphony, overture, fantasy, praeambulum, toccata. The first partita dates back to 1726 and from that moment the supreme genius from Eisenach composed one every year, to be precise on the occasion of the publishers' fair which took place annually in Leipzig. Thus, in 1731 he brought together the six written partitas and published them as the first part of the so-called Klavierübung . The overture which opens the second partita consists, after the introductory chord, on which there is the indication «grave», of some adagio bars. An allemande, a current, a sarabande and a rondeau follow . The last movement is truly special, defined by Bach as a capriccio. The choice of this title is given by the fact that it is a piece free from the usual formal constraints and is formed by two parts, both repeated twice, with the imaginative theme of the first that reappears ingeniously reversed at the beginning of the second.

Another stunning masterpiece is the Italian Concerto, in which Bach used the two manuals of the harpsichord to create a series of contrasts, clearly alluding to the type of compositional process developed by Antonio Vivaldi, as in the case of the theme of the ritornello which is treated in a contrapuntal way. Taking the title of the piece as a starting point, it can be said that the composition as a whole takes on the meaning of a keyboard reduction of a true orchestral work. The Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue, probably composed during Bach's years in Cöthen from 1717 to 1723, is a visionary work to say the least, looking far beyond its time in terms of formal construction, structure, character and musical language.

On an interpretative level, Burkard Schliessmann proves to be an atypical German artist, in the sense that his Bach is neither obsessively analytical, nor anchored to a performance dimension tied exclusively to the undeniable theological patina that such music expresses, but rather devoted to a vision that is closer to a Mediterranean esprit by way of a passionate jolt that feverishly runs through his reading, without however ever losing that indispensable discipline of touch and the relative mastery of the keyboard. Let me be clear, with this I do not mean to say that his is a “romantic” Bach, but it is certainly imbued with a sonic beauty, a nobility of timbre that makes the Kantor 's music flow with an accentuated sense of purity, a shining crystal that shines from the first to the last note, as can be seen from how he tackles the Partita n. 2. Furthermore, the ability to grace the rhythmic progression of the Concerto Italiano, playing and introducing subtle nuances of timbre with the precise aim of highlighting the melodic (and therefore Italian) side of the work, almost transforming it into an operatic aria, that is, exalting its “cantabilità”, without considering how the Bavarian pianist manages to convey the veins of clear Venetian origin that run through the entire marvelous Andante, without the expressive tension decaying into mere and inappropriate sentimentality. On the contrary, in the Chromatic Fantasy Schliessmann aims, and succeeds, to bring out the brilliant harmonic dimension of the piece through an expressive clarity that never loses the drama of the pianistic gesture, involving the listener in this continuous and exhilarating ascent, in which the melodic development is the climbing stick.

A necessary premise must be made about Mendelssohn's piece, the Variations sérieuses op. 54; composed in 1842, which since their appearance were considered one of the most virtuosic works of the piano literature of the time, capable of masterfully showing the range of the supreme piano technique through the process of variation. This is because each variation, in op. 54, is based on the other and develops from the harmonic and melodic energies of the previous variation, a sort of brilliant anticipation of what will be the so-called "variation in development" developed by Arnold Schönberg. The title of the Mendelssohnian page itself, quite unusual at the time, must be understood and interpreted as a precise reaction by the Hamburg composer towards an acquired and consolidated musical practice of his time, one that imposed, in a certain sense, the creation of Variations brillantes , that is to say purely virtuosic fantasies on fashionable themes, often taken from operatic arias. On the contrary, with his op. 54, Mendelssohn presented a work that on the one hand seems oriented towards Beethoven's Variations in C minor and, on the other, capable of anticipating Brahms's later style of virtuosic variation, in particular the Paganini Variations .

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