Vladimir Sofronitsky

The name ‘Sofronichrist’ is a pun on Vladimir Sofronitsky’s name, one of the greatest Russian pianists of the 20th century.

Vladimir Sofronitsky liked to call his commercial recordings his « corpses ». However, it was these recordings that initially enabled the transmission of the pianist’s musical legacy, notably his recordings of Scriabin’s piano works. However, it is clear that Sofronitsky’s style has never been so embodied, so paroxysmal and simply so alive as during his concerts. Today we have many recordings of Sofronitsky’s concerts, but the sound quality is often mediocre and we can only hear the more or less well-preserved remains of the musicality that pervaded the entire hall. Sofronitsky always played with passion. Each of his recitals was a spiritual event for the audience. A true ‘living legend’ in the USSR, he interpreted with constant and ever-renewed inspiration a repertoire that is far from being limited to Scriabin alone, to which we too often tend to reduce him. Each of Sofronitsky’s interpretations is different, even within the same work. This difference between the calm and sometimes quiet of the studio and the fever of the concert is a characteristic divide in Sofronitsky’s playing. For this we need only compare the studio version of Beethoven’s 32nd Sonata, Opus 111, in its studio version – from 1956 – and its public version – from 1952. If the timing already indicates two totally different conceptions (27 minutes in the studio versus 23 in public), listening to the fifth variation proves it even more clearly. Indeed, if we are not witnessing a radical change of paradigm here, we immediately notice differences, and the first one that I think is obvious is that of commitment. Sofronitsky throws himself wholeheartedly into a celestial, unique and almost extreme conception in front of his audience when the studio leaves only room for great refinement – a refinement that can also be found, without having to look too hard, in the concert version. To sum up, one could almost say that in the studio Sofronitsky’s playing is thoughtful, almost composed (which is very rarely the case with Sofronitsky), while in public he seems almost possessed.

A Sofronitsky concert, even today when we listen to the recording (often, and unfortunately, of poor quality), is a moment that seems timeless. However, even if the interpretation still sounds extraordinarily natural, it is well thought out. Sofronitsky himself spoke of his work in October 1945: « My work may continue without the instrument, I may be talking to people, listening to them, answering quite reasonably, but work continues unceasingly inside. I was considered lazy when I was a boy—they did not understand that after playing a little on the piano and lying on the sofa afterward, I continued to work intensively inside, listening to the music, looking for the necessity and finding it. » The performer’s reflective work is very intense, especially in Sofronitsky’s work, and it is not by experimenting that he manages to find the ‘necessity’ that the piece demands. This is in contrast to the work of Vladimir Horowitz, for example. Harold Schonberg, former chief music critic of the New York Times, wrote of Horowitz’s performance of Chopin’s first ballad: « Every time he played the piece, he had new ideas. He could never decide exactly what he wanted to do with it, but he was as relentless in his search as Lancelot was in his search for the Holy Grail’.

So Horowitz did not find this ‘necessity’ by thinking and interacting internally, but by playing. To play, Sofronitsky explained, « One has to learn to hear oneself and that is very difficult. This is not a posture—I am speaking with absolute sincerity. First of all, a performance requires a will. A will—meaning to want a lot, to want more than you have now, more than you can give. For me the entire effort is strengthening the will. Here is all: rhythm, sound, emotion. Rhythm should be soulful. The whole piece should live, breathe, move as protoplasm. I play—and one part is alive, full of breath, and another part nearby may be dead because the live rhythmic flow is broken. » This rhythmic flow is extremely important in Sofronitsky. Take the climax of the first movement ( molto moderato ) of Schubert’s piano sonata D.960. Sofronitsky does not vary the tempo, yet it seems faster than before. The expressiveness, which Sofronitsky mentions above, is at its peak here, and yet it is noticeable that Sofronitsky never overdoes it, just as much as is necessary. The piece breathes in its 1960 interpretation, it is an organism that lives and moves before our eyes. Sofronitsky establishes a unique ambient balance, as celestial though less religious than her compatriot Maria Yudina for example. After having spoken about the specificity of Sofronitsky’s concert, I propose to turn your attention to the pianist’s more interior work, which we mentioned earlier. In an interview with Alexander Vitsinksy in 1945, Vladimir Sofronitsky’s second wife, Valentina Duschinova, spoke of her husband’s memorization work in these terms: « Vladimir Vladimirovich [ Sofronitsky ] usually takes a fragment of the work, typically just from the beginning of the piece, and learns this episode, works on it until it comes out exactly as he wants it. Then he takes the next, learns it, and so on. Mainly, it seems to me that he works from the beginning to the end on each segment until he achieves the result. » And Sofronitsky himself replies that the « most crucial is to find the heart of each piece or each sonata movement, feel its basic essence, culmination, and then—the same in each construction, every phrase. I played badly before, only in recent years have I come to understand—better and better—how to play. And if I am alive in several years then I will really start to play. »Here we see a very important aspect of Sofronitsky’s personality, namely this very special form of distance. Musically, this distance can be formulated in a rather simple way: you have to learn to hear yourself play. Alexander Vitsinky himself explained in the preface to his interview that « Such an approach to the situation would not have surprised anyone who knew Sofronitsky: he had no patience for any official business atmosphere, in which he tended to become tight and retreat into his shell. On the other hand, he liked meeting people, was open, friendly and sincere. Still, he could suddenly flare up when he encountered rudeness, vulgarity and banality. Except for such moments he was delicately tactful and attentively polite with all, starting with his students, and he enjoyed humor and joking. »

Vladimir Sofronitsky’s way of working leads us to the explanation of one of his own sentences, which I quoted earlier: The most f thing is to find the heart of each piece or sonata movement, to feel its fundamental essence, its culmination, and then to find the same thing in each construction, each phrase. The fundamental essence and culmination of the piece must be taken into account in the interpretation of each of the phrases that compose it. We are far from the effect that some interpreters may seek to « better render » this or that feeling, this or that climax or not of the piece. The audience feels what is happening and what is proposed to them, and they do not have to see the preparatory work of the performer in a direct way. Contrary to the audience’s point of view, this is in line with the idea put forward long after Sofronitsky by the conductor Sergiu Celibidache that the end must be contained in the beginning, since the coherence and musicality of the piece must be carefully thought out by the performer.

« I always find something new in the composition. My critics rebuke me that I have nothing determined and fixed, nothing stable in performing even the same piece. They do not understand that I have to justify the performance internally for myself, must hear and feel something new, different from the past. What is wrong with that? They say that I may play well by chance, or badly—also by chance. One cannot play well by chance, one can only play badly by chance », said Vladimir Sofronitsky. As we have already seen, one cannot play well by chance. The musicality of Sofronitsky’s concerts – and also of his studios – is a unique legacy to the history of music, singular at the same time as it has the power, through the obviousness and the necessary simplicity of the pianist’s interpretations, to bring together music lovers and musicians to this day.

Media for further reading :

An interview with Vladimir Sofronitsky: https://www.google.fr/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjgi5_7-uL-AhUoUKQEHbyiAUAQFnoECAgQAQ&url=http%3A%2F%2Fmath.stanford.edu%2F~ryzhik%2FSofrInterviewEdited-Oct2008.doc&usg=AOvVaw0o9THosgAOCauMG75kb-7T

My invitation to the Classical Music/ /Reference Recording channel to present Vladimir Sofronitsky (and talk about his Rachmaninov): https://youtu.be/drtQKAX_5cw?si=zE9uXqj4VlGBMyPe

The original podcast that was adapted to write this page