Volume 5 of Can Cakmur's arresting 'Schubert plus' series couples his central and key composer with Beethoven, and perhaps to an even greater extent than in previous issues, you are struck by a young pianist who vividly illustrates the changing nature of interpretation. Today, more than ever, you are made aware that what was once considered authentic is now frequently viewed as technically slip-shod and self-indulgent. Lack of precision, in particular, is now frowned on.
Yet even if you find such changes involve losses as well as gains you will surely marvel at Cakmur's characteristic mix of freedom and discipline, of pin-point definition and an all-embracing imaginative range.
Again, you may cherish a description of Schubert's A major Sonata, D.664 as 'succinct' and 'like the smiling lights and colours of a spring day' but you will wonder no less at Cakmur's strength of line and purpose, his feeling for a restless undertow beneath an outwardly amiable surface. He is as brisk as he is affectionate, never allowing textures to cloy. The powerful octave play at the heart of the opening 'Allegro moderato' is a reminder of the Beethoven link(I am thinking of the octave outburst in the opening movement of Beethoven's opus 54 Sonata in F). Then, in the central andante everything is kept on the move. with a refusal to allow sentiment to degenerate into sentimentality. The overall pulse is free and in a constant state of flux but focus is always maintained.
Beethoven may have taken a dim view of his 32 Variations in C minor but Cakmur's performance warns you of the dangers of accepting a composer's words at face value. He is truly 'leggiermente' in Variation 1, is piquantly 'pizzicato' in Variation 4, honours the brusque 'sf' markings in Variation 5 and makes a dramatic retreat from his powerful virtuosity into the shadows of Variation 12. I know of few performances of the C minor Variations of an equal vigour and scope.
Continuing with what E.M.Forster called 'the C minor of life' in Beethoven, Cakmur ends with the first of Schubert's final and incomparable trilogy of Sonatas, Once more everything is registered with a minutely calibrated command, complemented by an emotional response that captures all of the savage release of what was surely a private agony. There are few bleaker and more unaccommodating masterpieces in the whole range of piano literature(the chromatic gusts at the climax of the first movement development will strike a chill into even the most sanguine listener's heart). The 'Adagio's' relative oasis of calm quickly becomes clouded and distraught and the final 'Allegro'(for Cakmur in his illuminating notes 'a twisted tarantella') is a 'danse macabre,' a confirmation of all that has gone before.
This is a superb record, superbly recorded and I look forward to further issues in this engrossing series; particularly one that includes the great and final Sonata in B flat.
Bryce Morrison