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Summary for the Busy Executive: Stunning.
Classical.net 11/04
Ginastera: Piano & Chamber Works, Barbara Nissman, Pierian Records [2CD] If one sees Alberto Ginastera (1916-1983) as primarily a composer full of nervous energy and brio, these performances are the ones to choose. The Nissman collection originated on two Newport CDs and is hereby released as a double. Nissman is a player of great energy. She does not lack a sense of lyricism, however, and the sound she produces is excellent…it is good to have these recordings back with us. American Record Guide Sept/Oct. 2001
Alberto Ginastera (1916-1983) All the piano and chamber works are on Pierian Records (2cds) in excellent performances by pianist Barbara Nissman, reissued from the decade-old Newport Classics 85510,85511. At the time of his death he had completed the first movement of a third piano sonata, written for Ms. Nissman. It is included in her set. Turok's Choice, Summer 2001
Chosen one of the Best Recordings of 1989 by bothGramophone and American Record Guide.
This is some of the most remarkable piano playing I have heard in many years.American Record Guide
This disc shows off well her magnetic keyboard personality and electrifying, stunning technique: even in an age where high virtuosity is commonplace, Nissman’s playing here is extraordinary.Gramophone
PROKOFIEV by NISSMAN Complete Piano Sonatas and Other Major Works Pierian Records PIR0007/8/9 (3CD set)
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"Barbara Nissman is probably the reigning Prokofiev specialist of the day." The New York Post
Composer
of
the
Month-Sergey
Prokofiev
Recommended
Disc
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Piano
Sonatas
and
other
works:
Barbara
Nissman,
Pierian BBC
Music
Magazine-
December,
2008
Jonathon Buckley, ed. "Classical Music on CD" (Penguin)
these are strong, searching performances of marvelously varied and inventive sonatas. Nissman brings to these fascinating sonatas an all-too-rare combination of stunning technique and unmistakable thoughtfulness. A significant release and a must for anyone with an interest in Russian piano music, 20th century piano music, or just great piano playing. American Record Guide
These recordings have been available before and are welcome back. A true virtuoso of 20th century music, Barbara Nissman serves all this music extremely well and is especially impressive in the cat-on-a-hot-tin roof hyperactivity much of it generates. The playing I enjoy most is in Sarcasms and Sonata No.7, but she has plenty of personal insights to communicate elsewhere, having evidently long pondered this music's differing impulses...Miss Nissman's playing is full of wit and bite, of dramatic shadings and crisp characterisations, not least in her splendidly relentless account of the Toccata (1912), a true conflagration between hands and keys....Sufficient to say that her interpretations of these larger works are replete with atmosphere and imagination, of astringency, brittleness, and extreme digital clarity. Melody has its claim too, yet much of this playing, like much of the music, has a sinister edge. Rachmaninoff Society Newsletter, July 2004
Barbara Nissman's admired recordings of the sonatas, together with the delectable Visions Fugitives and other pieces, have been re-issued by Pierian Recording Society as a boxed set for the 50th anniversary of the composer's death. They are released as Women in Music Volume Three - interesting that this should still be thought necessary in the 21st Century? Nissman has all the power required for Prokofiev, but she moderates the brutality in which some pianists revel and perhaps brings a certain femininity to relishing Prokofiev's lyricism, but free of sentimentalism. The sound quality as recorded in the RCA studio 1988 is ideal for home listening and Barbara Nissman's own extensive notes about the project are illuminating, as are her analyses of each of the nine-plus completed sonatas (two versions of No 5 and a fragment of the incomplete No 10) Unreservedly recommended; I loved them and they sent me back to the scores and to the keyboard to renew the sound and feelings under the fingers of the easier movement. Musical Pointers 5/9/04
Barbara Nissman’s cycle (Pierian:0007/8/9) is positively sensational, and might in many respects have been designed to vindicate Poulenc’s description of Prokofiev as “The Russian Liszt.” This is big, luscious, rhapsodic and often electrifying playing in the great Romantic tradition of Liszt, Rubinstein (both of them), Carreño, Horowitz and Argerich. The instrumentalism alone is quite stunning, and absolutely worthy of comparison with everyone in that list. Within seconds of Nissman’s volcanic opening of the First Sonata you half expect your equipment to go up in smoke. But it’s never instrumentalism alone. This is not only a truly great virtuoso but a deeply intelligent and thinking one. Her ability to unfurl long phrases with a panoramically epic reach is something most pianists would hardly be able to approximate, much less achieve. The lightly sprung rhythms, the propulsive and aerating articulation, the mastery of fluctuating tempos and the fantastic range of dynamic and rhythmic inflections proclaim her a Prokofiev interpreter to the manner born. A truly great recording. PIANO March/April 2003
Overview: Prokofiev Piano Sonatas American Record Guide March/April 2003
BBC Music Magazine/ July, 2002
It once seemed unlikely that anyone would manage this horrifyingly demanding movement (finale of Seventh Sonata) as well as Pollini in his classic performance, but Barbara Nissman is if anything even stronger and more exhilarating. The Seventh as a whole is the finest thing in her complete cycle, now reissued by Pierian (0007-09) as part of its ‘Women in Music’ series. Her intellectual grip on the difficult structures lets us follow her into the labyrinth with confidence… her Eighth Sonata is a fascinating alternative to the somber introspection of Richter. Three Oranges Journal/ November, 2002 Barbara Nissman’s beautifully-focused and intense performances of Prokofiev’s complete piano sonatas, along with several sets of shorter pieces (op. 17, 22) originally released on the Newport label, have been reissued… Nissman’s performances are still the most satisfying of the several “completes” TC has experienced (Bronfman, Chiu).Turok’s Choice 5/02Prokofiev: Complete Piano Sonatas, Four Pieces Op 4, Toccata Op 11, Sarcasms Op 17, Visions Fugitives Op 22. Pianist Barbara Nissman. Pierian 0007/8/9. Box set of 3 CDs with booklet.Before reviewing this set, I found out two things about Barbara Nissman. She is a recognised world expert on Prokofiev’s piano works. In 1989 she made history in being the first to perform the complete sonatas in a set of three recitals (New York and London) and to record them all on cd. What amazes me is, why did the sonatas have to wait so long for this honour? They are not obscurities. They are perfectly accessible masterpieces from the twentieth century’s most fecund melodist and one of its greatest piano writers. Nissman’s “first” originally recorded on Newport then transferred to Sony Classics, finally ends up safely archived on Pierian label which dedicates itself to “preservation of historic performances”. Scrape the fungus off that designation and give them their true status “ahistoric”, as these are performances that transcend history and will never date. Nissman’s spontaneity and exuberance ensure that. Nothing is stale or over-rehearsed. She plays them with a freshness and enthusiasm as though she had just discovered them yesterday. Hear her heady joie de vivre in the finale of No 4 and you’d swear she had swallowed a whole bottle of pep pills an hour beforehand. Her impassioned playing which always puts heart first, is nevertheless underpinned by a sharp intellect. Her perceptive booklet notes are a fascinating read. It shows the mind of a critical Prokofiev lover, not a blind sycophant. Read her provocatively honest comments on No 5 for instance. I totally agree with her view that Prokofiev was a fish out of water trying to cope with fashionable Stravinskyan neo-classicism in 1920s Paris when he wrote this work. Any fool can deduce similarities. It takes an expert to discern differences. Nissman never gives you peas out of the same pod. She enhances each sonata with its distinct individual personality exactly as in her written notes. This is quite marked in her accounts of the three wartime sonatas (6, 7 and 8) which belong among the greatest of the twentieth century. Her stinging performance of the abrasive opening movement of No 6 (possibly his finest sonata movement) is in sharp contrast to her warm and sinuously rubatoed account of the lyrically rich opening of No 8. Its length makes it the most problematic of all Prokofiev’s movements. Under lesser hands it collapses into wayward custard. Nissman’s structural insight into these sonatas enables her to give this discursive movement clear direction and shape. Virtuosic pianism is a prerequisite for nearly all Prokofiev. Here Nissman’s heady exuberance easily gives the impression of living dangerously which adds to the frisson in such sections as the final pages of the famous toccata movement in No 7 where chords leap helter-skelter across the keyboard. In the horrendously difficult Toccata Op 11 and Suggestion diabolique from the Op 4 set, she seems to take risk to the wires but her safety net is always her bravura technique. Even today when bravura pianists are a dime a dozen, Nissman’s virtuosity stands out. Angularity, acrobatics, muscularity, jest and scherzo-ness comprise much of the fresh unpredictability in Prokofiev’s writing and this is where Nissman’s sparing use of pedal is her potent weapon in giving the required crispness for these moods. I bet she didn’t touch the damper pedal once in the allegro inquieto sections which dominate the opening movement of No 7. For all the wide range of mood in Prokofiev, melodic richness is what Nissman clearly sees uppermost. Her poetic phrase shaping is everywhere apparent from the poignant beauty of those quietly spoken aphorisms in Visions Fugitives to those long spun melodies twisted in the middle of complex outer lines in the slow movements of Sonatas 4 and 8. This box set economically compresses all that’s important in Prokofiev’s solo piano music on three well-filled CDs with clean and vibrant sound quality to match. It should be a core of any pianist’s and piano lover’s CD collection. I note Pierian labels this “Women in Music Volume Three. When you get Prokofiev playing of this level, gender is irrelevant. Simply call it “Great Performances". Ian Dando, Music Critic, Christchurch Star, New Zealand Listener 1/6/02
Summary for the Busy Executive: A triumphant return Classical.net August, 2008
Valuable Document …a broad and valuable overview of an important part of Prokofiev’s works…she makes this document a musical feast. Algemeen Dagblad, The Netherlands
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Paganini Etudes |
Nissman enjoys a great reputation in America, both as pianist and scholar. Born in Philadelphia, she is particularly renowned for her studies and performances of the great romantics- Liszt especially. Her performance of Liszt’s Sonata in B minor is sensitive and far removed from the barnstorming approach adopted by those lacking in her perception. She rightly treats the work as a study in psychology and philosophy She never overplays the second theme and treats its wide-ranging thematic activity as the discourse of a great mind expounding in terms of a marriage between music and literature. The lesser pieces are all played with superb clarity and sensitivity. Here is a Liszt player of superior gifts. Let us hear more of her.Musical Opinion June/2003
Turok’s Choice April, 2003
Everywhere within Nissman’s reading, there are individual nuances of rhythm, dynamics, and phrasing that make the familiar score astoundingly fresh. She knows and feels the music from the inside; it belongs to her. This, I realized is one of the truly great recordings of the Liszt Sonata.The rest of the Liszt CD turned out to be of similar quality. The Rhapsodie Espagnole dazzles (the fiery technique is breathtaking). The “Paganini Etudes” (which Nissman plays in their later revision, the Grandes Etudes de Paganini) are not only dazzling but -good heavens!- wonderfully rich as music. And there is a heartbreakingly tender performance of the Consolation No. 3, Liszt’s intentional imitation of the Chopin D-flat Nocturne (and in the same key). San Diego Reader 3/7/03
Nissman whose new Bartok book emphasizes ability to analyze structure as an essential priority for playing Bartok, would be the first to agree that a performer who ignores form and structure in a work is flying blind. Do that in the Liszt Sonata and you won’t even get off the runway. No chance of that with Nissman. The way Nissman uses differentiated touch to highlight Liszt’s thematic intricacy would indicate she has put every bar of the work under the microscope. This lady has brains. An enormous range of tone colours is put to the service of guiding the listener through Liszt’s web of thematic subtlety. Her fugato third movement shows this potently. How well she highlights its contrapuntal sinews. This Sonata an old friend of Nissman’s. If anything, this new take on it shows Nissman taking tempo contrast and rubato to extremes. Her andante second movement typifies this. I have heard lesser pianists try this with devastating results on the work’s continuity. The reason why it never falls to pieces under Nissman is that she knows precisely when to stretch tempo like India rubber or to have a melodic line heavily rubatoed. If anything, it helps Nissman penetrate its poetry and enter the work’s spiritual realm. The outer movements need bravura technique put to the service of dramatic power. No problem there. Bravura technique is a given with Nissman. The Sonata demands so much. It needs intellect, poetic intimacy, dramatic power, bravura, an immense range of keyboard colouring for its kaleidoscopic spectrum of moods and all these put to the service of entering its spiritual domain. In short, it’s a manysided work. Few pianists encompass all this within one rendition. Nissman is one of the few who does. In the other major work, the six Grandes Études de Paganini, Nissman delivers such clean and elegantly wrought performances that you almost forget the fiercely difficult technical demands these pieces pose. That’s transcendental technique in its most musical sense. That is borne out by how sharply she delineates melodic foreground from bravura background. In the taxing tremolo background of No 1, her finely contoured melody remains supreme. Again the melodic breadth in No 2 never gets lost in the rapid scalic background. Her no 3 La Campanella, is a gem of refinement and clear detail. Nissman’s improvisatory approach is exactly right for the free fantasy style of Rhapsody Espagnole. Again foreground and background are in perfect perspective. Even in the dense bravura near the end which almost sounds four –handed pianism, her sense of perspective retains perfect composure. Liszt’s Consolation No 3 is virtually a Chopin nocturne. Nissman nurses it with intimately contoured melodic line and fine pedalling. All up, this is such a deeply absorbing Liszt recital, I only wish Nissman could follow up with a second CD – maybe the Transcendental Studies coupled with Liszt’s deeply spiritual Bénédiction de Dieu dans la Solitude. Ian Dando, New Zealand Listener
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BARTÓK by NISSMAN
Pierian Records PIR0016
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Barbara Nissman, as her name suggests, is not Hungarian, but few would guess it from her playing. Her commitment to every note is palpable, her pianistic command formidable, her psychologically penetrating emotional canvas revelatory, and her ability to combine eloquence with structural illumination is uncommon in every degree. Her programme, too, is refreshingly unusual, starting with the early, unpublished and very Brahmsian sonata (1898), which she discovered some years ago at the Morgan Library in New York City. Then come the Two Elegies, the Improvisations Op 20, the Four Dirges and, finally, a tremendous account of the Rhapsody Op 1 [Pierian 0016]. PIANO (UK) May, 2006
Unpublished it may be, yet this Sonata of 1897 or 1898 is safe in NY’s Morgan Library and Barbara Nissman, besides devoting eight pages, including music examples to it in her book, Bartok and the Piano, has now recorded it for the first time. …in the four ambitious movements we are reminded of Schubert, Brahms, Wagner, and above all of Liszt; for the young man was already a most capable pianist. So is Barbara Nissman and her performance is quite persuasive enough to convince us that the man who wrote this 25-minute piece will soon have important things to tell us. Not that the Opus 1 Rhapsody of 1904 is the piece one would choose to prove it, for this is Bartok still very much in Liszt’s shadow. It is in effect a Hungarian Rhapsody with a strong emphasis on 19th-century keyboard virtuosity and Nissman proves herself extremely capable in such playing. This CD’s main interest , however, lies in the rest of the music which is real Bartok. The Two Elegies of 1908-9 are indeed cries of agony; the first arising after Stefi Geyer terminated their relationship. In the second, the experience is more contained, yet the music is more original. The Four Dirges of 1909-10 are romantic and impressionistic at the same time but the Improvisations of 1920 are overwhelmingly the most important work on the CD, this being highly characteristic expression from a fully mature composer. Barbara Nissman’s playing is superlative, above all in its rhythmic acuity, and especially here. Indeed in the Elegies and Dirges, as well as the Improvisations, she illustrates precisely the exhortations in her book’s numerous Suggestions for Performance. Musical Opinion, September/October 2003
She also offers a Bartók disc, containing the first recording of a large-scaled Sonata he wrote in 1898 (at the age of 17), along with Elegies, Op. 8b; Dirges, Op. 9a; Rhapsody, Op.1; and the Improvisations, Op.20. The sonata, which takes up a third of the 75-minute disc, is- except for its biographical interest- not very impressive music. It sounds like everyone else but its actual composer, and is neither particularly attractive nor well written. Nissman presents it forcefully, and its presence gives this release discographic value beyond that generated by her excellent performances of the other pieces. The 17-minute Rhapsody represents Bartók’s starting out where Liszt left off, and her performance is brilliantly convincing. Although it has little of the composer’s later style in it, and in lesser interpretive hands can prove thickish, the piano writing has a Bartókian “feel” to it. The masterpiece on the disc is Op. 20, a reflection (like most of his mature works) of the composer’s exhaustive researches into Hungarian folk music. Nissman’s performance of it, and the Op. 8 and 9 combine thoroughly thought out interpretations with feelingful and near-improvisational freedom in the actual playing. Nissman’s insights into Bartók’s music have undoubtedly been sharpened by the research and experimentation that went into her book, Bartók and the Piano: A Performer’s View… Turok’s Choice April, 2003
This new CD offers the first recording of Bartók’s every early and unpublished Piano Sonata of 1898, Rhapsody Op 1 (1904) Two Elegies Op 8b, (1908-1909), Four Dirges Op 9a (1909-1910), and one work from his maturity – the Improvisations on Hungarian Peasant Songs Op 20 (1920). The unpublished Piano Sonata reveals the 17-year-old student Bartók working Germanic romantics such as Schubert, Brahms and Wagner out of his system. It is repetitious, over-written and completely without personality. Give it a curious hearing or two and move on quickly to his first published work, Rhapsody Op 1. Although this is still highly derivative (a quasi Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody), it’s got a few teeth to it. At least he’s getting to grips with his home country’s tradition. His thematic transformations are clever, the Lisztian bravura pianism is idiomatic and the cimbalom imitations and gypsy fiddling gestures are evocative. As a true Liszt fan, Nissman relishes anything Lisztian. She lays into the difficult Lisztian bravura with passion and shapes the work uninhibitedly with the free flowing fantasy that the work essentially is. By the time we reach his Two Elegies Op 8b Bartók has shed the overpowering Richard Strauss influence as in his orchestral work Kossuth. He now has a foot in each century. The flowery decoration is Lisztian, but his lean economy of thematic development and his near atonal writing in No 2 belong to the 20th century. He has also fully discovered Debussy. With Four Dirges finished in 1910, he has realised that the gypsy elements in Liszt and Brahms are the stuff of urban dilettanti and not true aboriginal music. These dirges are essentially Hungarian folk laments. They are only a hair’s breadth away from his mature style. These are profound miniatures with a sparse simplicity akin to late period Liszt in mood. Nissman shapes and pedals them with great care.With the eight Improvisations on Hungarian Peasant Songs you are now in the familiar territory of Bartók’s maturity. He transposes the folksongs direct. What makes them original composition are his variations on each one. The impulsive changes of tempo and accelerandi in these Magyar tunes give many of them a witty and capricious flavour which Nissman captures particularly well. Within the limitations of brevity in sleeve booklets, Nissman’s notes on each work are very precise and focused. If you want more detail, I suggest you delve into her new book Bartók and the Piano where you will find full coverage and analysis of all these works. This CD collection is not a ragbag of juvenilia. I sense that Nissman has planned the content judiciously to outline the genesis of a great composer’s style, especially if you listen to the tracks in chronological order at first. In that sense, this little journey of discovery to maturity is every bit as fascinating as following Schönberg’s evolution to his first totally atonal work – the Drei Klavierstücke of 1909, and Stravinsky from his 1902 Scherzo via his Rimskyan Firebird Suite to his completely original Petrushka of 1911. Ian Dando, New Zealand Listener
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CHOPIN by NISSMAN
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Summary
for the Busy Executive: Chopin as classicist.
Classical.net June '08 Those who go for flashy brilliance in Chopin need not read the rest of this review. Barbara Nissman plays with poetry and restraint, combining romantic sensibility with contemporary clarity. No moment stands out; everything has an organic logic. The melodic line and its subtle rise and fall are what Nissman emphasizes in the ‘Harp’, ‘Revolutionary’, and E-major Etudes. These are thoughtful ways of working out problems of technique and balance. Nissman plays with old-fashioned rhythmic elasticity; it is impossible to guess when she will slow down or speed up, but she is never wayward or arbitrary. The opening of the F-minor Fantasy and the rolled chords in the chorale of Scherzo 3 have an authentic 19th century feeling, but her crisp tone often seems modern. Lacking perfume, her nocturnes are gentle late-night contemplations. The Waltz in A-flat dances freely, with lots of rubato; the Fantasy-Impromptu is fluid and understated. Some will want more brio in the Polonaise in A-flat and Polonaise Fantasy, but I find the charm and lack of banging refreshing. Nissman writes her own notes; like her playing, they are probing and cliché-free. Perahia and Ax reign supreme among more restrained Chopin players, but this album is worth hearing. The recording is aptly unostentatious. American Record Guide May/June 2004
Ian Dando, New Zealand Listener
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BEETHOVEN by NISSMAN Pierian Records PIR0020
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Barbara Nissman’s recital discs of Chopin (0019) and Beethoven (0020) have a unique quality of intimacy, the ambience of a private performance for a small group of listeners gathered around the piano. This is assuredly different from the false intimacy cultivated by some in order to hide their technical deficiencies. Nissman plays two demanding programs: Beethoven’s Waldstein,Moonlight,Appassionata sonatas and Rondo à Capriccio, Op. 129 and Chopin’s Polonaise-Fantasy Op. 61, Fantasy in f minor, OP. 49, the Third Scherzo plus other well-known selections with her great facility and extraordinary musicianship. Part of the particular aura of these discs may stem from their having been recorded in the same venue in three consecutive days. Unusual, and recommended. Turok’s Choice October, 2004
Although Barbara Nissman presents the three most popular sonatas, her own brand of vitality and originality will prevent you yawning, “No, not another Moonlight .” Her very different treatment of the latter's opening movement will make you sit up. She wipes off the sludge of past over-romantic and over-pedalled interpretations to present a crisply restored version with little if any rubato, but with just enough sensitive una corda pedalling to have those moonbeams gliding across the lake for those romanticists who like the work to live up to its title (which Beethoven didn't invent and hated). Not many are aware that within its persistent unified triple figuration this movement is a true sonata form with second subject in a related key. Nissman's clear playing makes you aware of this subtlety. The Minuet, played almost senza pedale , comes through crisp and fresh while the finale is propelled with aptly turbulent momentum. Although Beethoven anticipated some aspects of the romantic era, Nissman correctly sees him as a classicist where form always controls feeling. The volatile feeling in his ideas often threatens to smash classical structure to smithereens, but doesn't quite. Even his most revolutionary works never abandon the classicist's motive development flowing through a planned architecture of formally proportioned key centres. This friction between idea and structure is the very thing that makes Beethoven's music so dramatic. These points are worth bearing in mind when you hear Nissman's stunning pianistic turbulence in evoking the Beethovenian fire in the belly of the Waldstein and Appassionata Sonatas. But she always keeps her aggression within a finely articulated structural sense. Like her Chopin CD, her fingering in the Beethoven is remarkably clear in detail. Where many pianists hit those angry fortissimo outbursts in the opening idea of the Appassionata with too much hysteria, Nissman's clarity with those heavy chords is pin sharp. The way Beethoven threatens the stability of the tonic key in the first page of the Waldstein always reminds me that great art is subversive. Here the ominous mood of Nissman's playing underpins this...Finally, as an encore, she chooses the six-minute Rondo a Capriccio Op 129. Despite its late opus number, it's a very early work which she dates as 1795- 8. True to its sub-title Rage over the Lost Penny, Nissman has it chasing its own tail furiously with gruff Beethovenian humour... Ian Dando, New Zealand Listener |
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SCHUMANN by NISSMAN
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| Schumann's great Fantasy in C major, Op. 17, Kreisleriana, Op. 16, Toccata, Op. 7 and Arabesque, Op. 18 are superbly played by pianist Barbara Nissman. Her recording is not altered, post-performance, by electronic enhancement of the sound as is usually done. This results in a sense of intimacy which reinforces the fine balance she achieves between virtuosity and direct emotional expression. Recommended, in a very crowded field. Turok's Choice, June 2005
Barbara Nissman has an unerring way to the essence of each of the composers explored in her ongoing, greatly rewarding series for Pierian. Her programme notes are succinct and perceptive, taking us into Schumann's mind set during his twenties in the 1830s, the decade which produced all these masterpieces, intimate diaries in which he confided his secret thoughts and fears, and his passion for Clara. Nissman traverses his constantly shifting and extreme emotions, best exemplified in Kreisleriana - future mental illness not far away. She relishes the composer's 'twisting voices' and impulsivity, with rhythmic surprises and abrupt modulations. I am not given to star ratings or comparative reviews; these works are all well represented in the catalogues. Nissman mentions the difficulty of this music that does not fit comfortably under the hand, and she does not flaunt her virtuosity, which is never in doubt. She cites the dangerous difficulties of the Toccata (practicing it could have contributed to Schumann's right hand becoming crippled permanently, Nissman suggests) and I was glad that she brings out the music in this piece alongside its pyrotechnics. There is a feeling of musical 'rightness' throughout, and sampling gave way to my playing the generous programme straight through. It is all engrossing and, to my ears, moving - the Phantasie especially. I don't need other interpretations of Schumann, my favourite pianist composer. You may find that the sound from Duquesne University is helped by a little adjustment of treble/bass controls, depending on our equipment. www.musicalpointers.co.uk June 2005
This is spontaneous and expressive Schumann-playing… Barbara Nissman brings zeal and poise, sometimes impetuosity…Yet there is much to admire than not, and she responds to the music as if the ink were still wet. Some of her address is eloquent and heartfelt, and she negotiates the thickets of notes in the Fantasy’s second movement with aplomb. Yet, if some detail can be intrusive there is also a great deal of thought and preparation behind what sometimes can seem an overly impromptu approach… there’s a swinging confidence to the playing, too… the opening of Kreisleriana, which has fine energy if a slight sense of struggle, and there is much that is touching over the course of the piece. “ Fanfare July/August 2005
How colourfully Nissman etches the wild and crazy contrasts of Schumann’s split personality from introspective despair to euphoria. She’s just the person to do this, as she is an intelligent and imaginative risk-taker with a mind of her own. No safe conventional playing from her, thank Heavens. She reminds me of the excitement of Argerich in that respect. It still surprises me how many pianists play Kreisleriana’s opening movement as mere bland figuration. But not Nissman of course. She links the two-note semitone fragments of each phrase into a highly passionate ascending melody just as it should be. And how telling is her natural feel for tempo rubato in the middle section of this opening. In the impassioned opening movement of the Fantasia. Nissman tugs your heartstrings pouring out Schumann’s insatiable love and longing for Clara, his future wife. The three shorter pieces include the notoriously difficult Toccata. Nissman handles its awkward chordal leaps and double notes with virtuosic sweep and clarity. Her Träumerai is tender while her Arabeske is a rapidly delicate whisper, rather Horowitzian compared with Rubinstein who slows it into an andante song. Schumann is not a conscious bravura writer in the Liszt and Chopin tradition yet his pianism is cussedly awkward because of the inner voices often woven into his richly chordal texture, sudden rhythmic surprises, abrupt key changes and fleeting mood swings. It needs a pianist clean with leaping chordal textures and Nissman excels with these Schumannesque quirks of technical difficulty. All up this is a very refreshing view of the typically romantic in Schumann. Ian Dando, New Zealand Listener
Further comments about Barbara's ongoing series for Pierian Records: Not a well-known name in UK, I encountered Barbara Nissman as a vivacious lecturer in an academic meeting about Prokofiev at Senate House, University of London. Happily, the day ended with a short piano recital, after which I received for review her CDs of the complete Prokofiev sonatas. Since then I have a batch of Barbara Nissman's recordings on Pierian Recording Societ (a non-profit, tax exempt organization, which deserves support for its dedication to preserving 'historic performances and obscure repertoire'). They can be bought from Amazon UK or Amazon USA. Barbara has been a welcome house-guest of ours for several weeks! There is in her recordings a rare combination of unassertive virtuosity, which never draws attention to itself, and an identification with each of her chosen composers. The liner notes by Barbara Nissman too are illuminating, as are those from the production team about the recording processes. They are 'straight' performances, without post-production manipulation. At first I found some of them a bit 'plummy' in the bass, but have been persuaded by the notes, which characterise us as 'conservative' listeners, and urge purchasers to play the CDs at a high volume for best results, as if we were sitting a few feet from the keyboard! That does work. I've never been one for listening comparatively and choosing "the best". Good recordings, and these are all such, take you in, and away from critical listening at the same time to other sounds and performances in your 'brain-bank'. My favourites include lesser known pianists, e.g. Schnabel in Beethoven, Olga Tverskaya & Schuchter in Schubert, Pachmann & Movarek in Chopin - to give some idea of the range - and Barbara Nissman lives comfortably in this company, and that of those who are currently lionised for their 'brilliance'. She puts the music and the articulation of its harmonic basis first, with flights of virtuosity often understated as filligree decoration, and a clear sense of the musical world each composer lived in. Barbara Nissman's website speaks for itself, with many reviews reprinted complete (not just the favourable quotes often used for publicity) and there are too, complete pieces from the CDs to listen to on line. www.musicalpointers.co.uk June 2005
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BRAHMS by NISSMAN
Pierian
Records PIR0027
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| Very personal, warm and vital Brahms performances by pianist Barbara Nissman. Turok's Choice March, 2006
www.musicalpointers.co.uk October, 2005
American Record Guide 1/06 To scythe through the thick Brahmsian chordal jungle needs a pianist with muscle. Barbara Nissman’s utter cleanness with heavy chords is ideal. Do that and you’re halfway there. The other half is to pedal it all so that the chords hang together as one thick legato melody nicely phrased and with rubato where needed. Nissman does all that too so she’s the ideal Brahmsian. Hear all the above at its finest in the two tightly written Rhapsodies. I have never heard them played better. After that, the two dear little Waltzes No 2 and 15 from the Op 39 set are played with the finesse and grace of elegant encores. Nissman’s unpredictable programming makes you feel as though you are encountering a well-known classic like Brahms for the first time. Among the three large early sonatas, Nissman avoids the most commonly played No 3 Op 5 and gives us a powerful but cleanly chorded Sonata No 2 in F sharp minor Op 2 followed by the Scherzo Op 4. The Op 5 has a more clear-cut personality and motive coherence than the diffuse Op 2 which needs the pruning shears to tidy up its gangly finale. But its echoes of Liszt’s great B minor Sonata in its frequent bravura writing and its motivically linked four movements make Op 2 an eventful listen. Nissman captures the youthful ardour of the 19-year-old Brahms with a strong Byronic sweep of impetuosity. The Op 76 set – four each of Capriccios and Intermezzi, anticipates the reflective introspection of the later groups of piano miniatures. I rejoice at Schönberg’s contrarian “Brahms the progressive” viewpoint when I hear the rhythmic complexity of some, especially No 8 in C whose syncopation is even more complex with its warp and weft of 6/4 and 3/2. Here Nissman gives us the best of both worlds. Her clarity shows the rhythmic ingenuity while her pedalling and singing tone makes the melodic flow all sound so natural and inevitable. Ian Dando, New Zealand Listener 1/06
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RACHMANINOFF by NISSMAN Volume 1: The Preludes
Pierian Records (PIR 0028)
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Barbara Nissman and Rachmaninov's Preludes constitute a good match. . . . the pianist's formidable projection, stamina and full-bodied sonority do full justice to the music's swirling display passages and quasi-orchestral textures. She proves strong in the ubiquitous C# minor, Op 3 No 2 where the intricate central episode builds to a radiant climax, as do the thick and rapid chords near the B flat (Op 23 No 2) Prelude's conclusion. Nissman manages to imbue the composer's marcato demands in the third and fourth Op. 32 selections with impressive concentration and sustaining power. The same holds true for contrasting works such as the brooding B minor Prelude (Op 32 No 10) where the pianist imprints a welcome lilt to the Lento that too many pianists drag out....one must grant Nissman's ease and fluidity over the E flat minor Op 23 No 9 Prelude's treacherous double notes. Gramophone November, 2007
Rachmaninov’s complete Preludes are commandingly played by Barbara Nissman (Pierian 0028). With superb technique, Nissman expertly separates the ubiquitous figurations and filigrees from the essential musical matter they surround, giving her playing of these pieces an unusual sense of shape. The performances are feelingful, but the feeling seems to emerge from within the music rather than the sentimental “heart-on- the-sleeve” aspects so often emphasized. Luminous, ear-opening performances, in very natural sound. Turok’s Choice 10/07
Nissman has all of the technique, musical sensibilities and intelligence to do real justice to Rachmaninoff’s music. Listen to the Prelude in G (Op. 32:5) to hear how she can float one of the most beautiful melodies. She does more with the less well-known Ab (Op. 23:8) than I am used to. The most difficult ones (B-flat, E minor, D-flat) are all handled with flair, but nicely balanced by sensitivity. She also seems more keenly aware than most of Rachmaninoff’s quotations of the most famous C-sharp minor motive in the final D-flat major. I could nit-pick and find moments when her playing gets too “notey”, which is very easy in the dense writing of Rachmaninoff. The benefit is that you get to hear some things that may be new to your ears. I will listen to this many more times. American Record Guide November, 2007
Nissman plays firm, persuasive Preludes The latest release in Barbara Nissman’s series of first-rate piano recitals for the non-profit Pierian Recording Society is this fine account of Rachmaninoff’s Complete Preludes, recorded July 5-7, 2006 at Duquesne University. Here we have the complete Op. 23 and Op. 32 sets, plus the early (and universally acclaimed Prelude in C# Minor. By all odds, this program should push the limit of an 80-minute compact disc. That it clocks in at 74:01 is a measure of the firm tempi Ms. Nissman selects and her no-nonsense approach to the music in general. That is particularly welcome in the much-abused C# Minor. Nissman gives it a persuasive performance that establishes its specific weight among the family of Preludes without making you feel a dreadful premonition that the world is about to end imminently. In Nissman’s performance, one of my favorite Preludes from Op. 23 is No. 2 in B-flat Major with its flamboyant, fanfare-like opening and jubilant coda, with cascading double notes from the right hand and its mellow inner voices in the left in the middle section. Nobility plus tender intimacy. No. 5 in G Minor is warlike, martial, a “Cossack parade” as it sometimes been described, with the uneasy melancholy of its middle section for contrast. No. 6 in E-flat major conveys a mood of tranquility reminiscent of Chopin. The nocturnal No. 10 in G-flat Major makes much of the alternation of two notes, D-flat and G-flat, accompanied by soft chords in the right hand, becoming wider spaced near the end – a miracle of utter simplicity and charm. In Op. 32 Nissman makes a fine impression with No. 3 in e Major, a processional with pomp and fireworks, clattering away in staccato passages down to the bottom of the keyboard at the end. No. 6 in F Minor is short, stormy and turbulent, while No. 7 in F Major is delicate, wistful with impassioned moments, rather like an impromptu. No. 10 in B Minor captures the joyous sound of Moscow bells, a fountain of notes sinking into darkness, a tribute in passing to Scriabin’s Fifth Sonata. No. 12 in G# Minor also evokes bells – tolling bells this time – with a whirlpool of downward four-note figures, a fortissimo climax, and then final phrases scampering away into oblivion. Wonderful!New Classik Reviews, Atlanta Audio Society, 12/07
Playing of this standard lavished on these fine preludes will hopefully snuff that patronising put down that Rachmaninoff is a Sunday afternoon composer. Such critics also look down on that Prelude in C sharp minor as hackneyed. To me it’s popular for the right reasons. It is a great prelude. Barbara Nissman’s analytic remarks are very pertinent such as the three-note motive appearing near end of the 24th prelude to give unity to the set. Sharper still is her analysis that the final chords of that prelude are a retrograde of the chord progressions which open Rachmaninoff’s second piano concerto. Her technique as a bravura pianist is still there in full measure. The thick Op 32 No.3 in E has her carving through the thick and fast chordal masses with cutting clarity. Her chording always was very clean, full and rich. Listen to her quadruple fortes when the main theme returns in four stave format in the C sharp minor prelude. How well Pierian label’s uncompressed sound makes these fat chords billow out so lustrously too. Nissman puts her bravura technique to work by encompassing even the most difficult of these preludes such as the one in double sixths, Op. 23 No. 9 with such a sweep of bravura playing. Her approach and quitting of climaxes is intensified by placing the flux of her rubatos right on the nerve of the climax of the phrase. This is Nissman’s supreme strength. In her very poetic phrasing of the Chopin nocturne-type Op 23 No 4 in D, the rubato climax hits the nerve right on that upward thrusting key change at 2.78. In those endless melody ones which was Rachmaninoff’s strength, Nissman has its rubatoed climax perfectly placed at 1.05. Her CD gets to the heart of the technical demands- expressivity through liberal rubato. This above all enables her to convey that essential Russian flavour of Rachmaninoff’s style. This is deeply satisfying playing. Ian Dando, New Zealand Listener, December ‘07 |
Rachmaninoff by
Nissman
Volume 2: The Etudes Pierian Records (PIR
0031)
Complete Etudes-Tableaux Op. 33 and Op. 39 plus 3 transcriptions
Click on picture to buy at Amazon.com |
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Listen to
sample from new release Etude-Tableau in C major Op.33 No.2 |
| RACHMANINOV
Vol. 1 (6 stars- highest rating). Vol. 2 (6 stars-highest rating)
Pierian is a small, independent, non-profit US label specialising in historical recordings (they have Albéniz, Debussy, Ravel and Respighi on their roster of artists), in rare repertoire and in female musicians. The gem in their crown is the American pianist Barbara Nissman, who has already recorded Bartók, Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin, Liszt, Prokofiev and Schumann for Pierian (a CD apiece); they have also re-released a double album of her performances of Ginastera – all outstanding releases in highly competitive markets. The first two releases in what I hope will be a complete Rachmaninov cycle outclass even these previous discs. What you have here is an ideal balance of brain and heart: Nissman has a powerful virtuoso technique and has plainly thought long and hard about the music. So she is constantly revealing details that you hadn’t really noticed before: she makes these teeming textures buzz with life. At the same time there’s such spontaneity in the playing that the music seems to leap straight off the page, supercharged with energy. A word of warning about the recorded sound: at first, the piano tone struck me as a little wooden. But then I noticed the warning on the back of the CD box: ‘No compression has been used in this recording. Therefore, to capture the full frequency range one must listen at a higher than normal dynamic level’. So I turned up the volume and what had seemed cramped turned into a fabulously natural piano sound – almost as if the instrument was sitting next to me as I listened. In short, this is just about the best Rachmaninov playing I’ve come across in quite a while.
Klassisk
(Norway) March, 2008 This is Volume 2 of Nissman’s Rachmaninoff project. I liked her Preludes last year. The recorded sound is exceptionally good, with notes about the recording equipment and software used. The packaging is also well above average, with Nissman’s own perceptive booklet notes, and the opening part of Op. 38, #7 silk-screened on the CD itself. Technically secure, Nissman makes some unusual, even quirky musical choices. Her performances are never run-of-the-mill and almost always interesting and thought-provoking. I would not learn any of these without reviewing her interpretation. For instance the E-flat major Etude of Op. 33, one that I have performed, Nissman made me think “that’s exactly the way I wished I could have played it.” American Record Guide May/June 2008
www.musicalpointers.co.uk January, 2008
Ian Dando, New Zealand Listener 1/08 |
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RECITAL
FAVORITES
by NISSMAN
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Recital Favourites Vol. 1, Vol. 2 Listening to these recitals (with more promised later in the year) is to be reminded of what is now generally held to be a bygone era. With so many young musicians focusing on the notes rather than what actually lies behind them, Barbara Nissman gives an object lesson in musical semantics. Time and time again she finds a way of subtly articulating important musical events in a way that illuminates the music that surrounds them. Even in such familiar territory as Beethoven’s ‘Pathétique’ Sonata, I found myself listening with renewed concentration. So often one hears the rapid scale descents of the introduction dispatched as though they were exercises in machinegun accuracy, whereas Nissman insinuates them into the textures with a glissandolike, will-o’-the-wisp, sleight of hand nonchalance that grips the imagination. One can hear a similar effect in the tricky upward arpeggiations that litter the opening of Schubert’s ‘Wanderer’ Fantasy, where Nissman focuses on the music’s thematic and harmonic exhilaration (and its essentially cantabile character) by integrating the flourishes naturally into the onward flow. Her Prokofiev (four Visions fugitives and the Third Sonata) lacks nothing in power and forward momentum, yet even when the composer is at his most vehement, Nissman exhilarates beguilingly in the music’s motoric energy rather than merely thrashing it into submission. She also demonstrates an unusual flair for the Hispanic muse in Granados’s ‘Quejas o la Maya’ (from Goyescas) and Argentinean Alberto Ginastera’s Danza de la mosa donosa and Danza del gaucho matrero. Yet perhaps the most revelatory playing of all is reserved for Franck’s Prelude, chorale et fugue, a work that in the wrong hands can seem interminable. The inner glow that is a feature of all of Nissman’s playing warms Franck’s neogothic textures to create a magical world of affectionate splendor. International Piano March-April 2009
On two discs offering her favorite recital pieces, Barbara Nissman plays superbly (Pierian:Vol.I,0035, Vol.II,0036). The repertory consists of large works as well as encores: two Beethoven sonatas (Op. 13[Vol.I], Op. 53[Vol.II], Schubert’s “Wanderer Fantasy,”[Vol.I], Liszt’s Mephisto Waltz No. 1[Vol.I], Bach’s Toccata, Adagio and Fugue arranged by Busoni and Franck’s Prelude, Chorale and Fugue [Vol.II]. With the exception of Debussy’s Clair de Lune and Chopin’s D-flat Nocturne, the encore-type pieces, rather off the beaten path, are by Prokofiev, Barber, Ginastera and Granados. Nissman plays with technical assurance but also with distinct personalization of the various pieces.
BARBARA NISSMAN Recital Favourites Volume 1. Pierian 0035. If favourites conjure up a CD full of warhorses, they are almost conspicuous by their absence here. Beethoven’s
Sonate Pathétique could almost be one but not the way Nissman refreshes it. Her fast finale ripples spontaneously. The heavy
tread of the introduction gives way to a menacing first movement full of urgency and forward
momentum. Nearly all the rest are anything but chestnuts. The rarely heard Prokofiev
Visions Fugitives Op 22 serve as poetic hors d’oevres to the even rarer Prokofiev
Sonata No 3. Nissman dispatches its athletic vitality with exhilarating energy. Her
Lisztian bravura playing is still as “grand manner” as ever in her Mephisto Waltz No 1
where she shows up its modernism of quartal harmonies in the driving opening
and the Scriabinesque harmonies in the poetic middle section. It is refreshing too to hear the
neglected Liszt transcription of Isolde’s Liebestod from Wagner’s Tristan und
Isolde.
Nissman shapes Wagner’s mouth-watering rhetoric leading to its immense climax of undisguised
orgasm with such inexorability. Her Chopin Nocturne in D flat Op 27 No 2. has refined rubato playing and
gracefulness with the decorative writing. To me Nissman’s great performance on this CD is her Schubert
Wanderer Fantasia. She once said that a pianist playing a work without analysing its structure is
flying blind. No road map is needed to follow her performance. Her navigation
skill guides you faultlessly through its non-stop four movements of opening march, adagio with variations
(8.40) bravura waltz (12.0) and a thumping fugato (16.51) changing to a virtuosic return of the
opening march. As music history’s first cyclic work where a non-stop multi-movement work is thematically
governed by variations of one motif (and culminating in Liszt’s B minor Sonata – the Romantic
era’s great cyclic masterpiece), Nissman’s unfailing insight shows how the Schubert opening Wanderer
motif in the first few bars keeps reinventing itself. Structurally it is the most clearly articulated
Wanderer performance I have heard yet and all propelled by Nissman’s exciting involvement as though she loves every bar of it.
As an added bonus this CD uses no compression of dynamics. Turn the sound up to concert hall level and aurally you are sitting
on Nissman’s own piano stool.
Ian
Dando, New Zealand Listener
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RECITAL
FAVORITES
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BARBARA NISSMAN RECITAL FAVOURITES Volume 2. Pierian 0036. Like its Volume 1 predecessor, there are few if any warhorses amongst this enterprising 75-minute compilation. Granados’s The Maiden and the Nightingale and Debussy’s Clair de Lune are, but Nissman’s freshness prevents them becoming chestnuts. Her two of the three Ginastera Danzas Argentinas are welcome as she worked with this Argentine composer while recording his complete piano works, She evokes his personality and the ethos of Argentina so well.The sinuous zamba sway in Dance of the gracious maiden on track 10 pulls the heartstrings of those of us who have seen a lot of Argentina and how it expresses the essence of being Argentinian. In the other short work, Samuel Barber’s elegantly underwritten dissonant piquancy in his Nocturne Op. 33,serves as a sorbet between the two richly written works by Busoni and Franck just in case his greasy and overwritten chromaticism at the end of the fugal movement in his Prelude, Chorale and Fugue causes you to throw up. How Nissman avoids slipping over in the mud negotiating Franck’s dense jungle of effusive chromaticism beats me, especially that clumsy shotgun wedding where he tries to marry the lovely chorale as countersubject to the fugue. My love-hate relationship with this work has enough love to make me glad Nissman included it, especially the Chorale with that wonderfully written thrice repeated melody in spaciously spread out arpeggios, quite the most moving and dignified Franck I have ever heard. That and the first half of the fugue are the essence of the best Franck. Nissman’s structural sense in everything she plays gives firm poetic shape to the wayward sections of the Franck. I admire her honesty with the Bach/Busoni Prelude, Adagio and Fugue in C in relating to this as a metamorphosis of Bach in romantic era terms, especially the way she brings out Busoni’s large range of piano tone colours in each fugal entry. Don Juan Fantasy is no longer Mozart. It is Liszt. The same with the Busoni. That’s exactly the way Nissman sees it. The outer movements of Nissman’s other major work, Beethoven’s Waldstein Sonata, I find a bit too fast and headlong. The finale’s elegantly poised opening theme is a beautiful woman emerging from a mist in dignified leisure of a moderato rather than allegro to my ears. However Nissman disagrees strongly and feels her tempi are totally true to her interpretative concept. In her favour I must say neither clarity of detail nor mood suffer. So the best advice is try these tracks and if you are happy with her tempi, buy, as it is in general, fine repertoire, fine playing and vividly realistic sound engineering free of dynamic compression, that bête noire of modern CD sound. Ian Dando, New Zealand Listener January, 2009
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RECITAL FAVORITES by NISSMAN VOLUME 3
JUST RELEASED |
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Listen to
sample from new release
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RECITAL
FAVORITES
by
NISSMAN
VOLUME
4
Pierian 0038
AVAILABLE SOON! |
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Click here to read a review of Barbara's recent releases on Pierian in Musical Opinion
Future Releases
Recital Favorites by Nissman Volume 5 & 6
Recorded: May 2009
Release Date: 2010
Recital Favorites by Nissman Volume 7
Recorded: August 2009
Release Date: 2010
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