GERHARD WILLNER

New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 531, 26 August 1949, Page 5

GERHARD WILLNER

wir have, 1 am afraid, found Mir. Willner’s» playing of the Mozart piano sonatas disturbing. Mozart demands a very great deal from a performer, but the absolute minimum demand he makes ‘is for clarity, and this is just what, to my mind, Mr. Willner does not give him. The runs which should be strings of pearls sound to me more like glass beads; the climaxes come with a roughness which might be in keeping with Beethoven’s "Sturm und Drang," but which to me sound un-Mozartian. Now this opinion of his playing I might have kept to myself except for one fact: checked by the score, Mr. Willner shows a disregard of Mozart’s dynamic markings which I can only characterise as amazing. Take, for example, his performance of the sonata K.283. As I followed this a doubt came into my mind that I was not judging Mr. Willner fairly. His playing disregarded so many of the expression marks that I thought that possibly my edition was one of those sprinkled liberally with dynamics introduced by a meddling editor. I could not be certain, for through 30 years’ use the outer pages of my copy have long since gone. However, when I checked my edition with the Kalmus Edition, which is completely unedited, I found that the dynamics Mr. Willner so cheerfully disregards are Mozart’s own! For example, in the first movement, the contrast of piano and forte in bars 31, 32, and 33 was simply overlooked, as it was later in the movement where the passage is heard again in another key, The similar contrasts which enliven the last movement and:add a piquant quality to the rondo at bars 65 and 89, and in the middle of the last section, were made nothing of whatever, These are the details which make up the quality of Mozart’s canvas, without attention to which no broad interpretation can possibly be acceptable.

D.

M.

(Wellington),