Edith Vogel
Aug 8th, 2009 by oldfogey
Sometimes intense experience catches you by surprise. It’s an ordinary hum-drum day. You’re not expecting it. And when it hits you, you wonder what hit you.
It was 1 December 1983. My career was on the slide. I didn’t fit in; I didn’t talk the same language. I was too intense. Things mattered to me that seemed of no consequence to those around me. They looked at me oddly, and, when at last I noticed, it was clear I was going nowhere. So it was Friday and I escaped to the church of St John’s, Smith Square, which the BBC broadcasted a weekly recital. I didn’t know what the programme was, but I didn’t care, and stumped up the fiver to get in - for an hour’s relief from incomprehension.
The recital was given by the Austrian pianist, Edith Vogel. Three Beethoven piano sonatas, ending with the ‘Appassionata’. She was then in her early sixties, the same age as I am now. She didn’t cut an impressive figure. She seemed dowdy, grey steaked hair, no concern for her appearance. And when she played she wasn’t without faults. Like Schnabel there were fluffed notes. But the moment she sat down and touched the keyboard it was like icicles forming in air. I could only listen with my mouth open.
This is from Beethoven’s Sonata No.21, the ‘Waldstein’, the first sonata she played on that programme. It starts with a slow Adagio which leads haltingly towards the final movement. Vogel plays the Adagio as tragedy, like a Shakespearean soliloquy, all internal self questioning and rage, unquenchable passion - then, at last, calmed, by that cascade of cooling harmony that is the heavenly melody of the final movement. Rage returns at intervals, but love and harmony win out in the end.
When I returned to work afterwards, I didn’t care. There were more important things.
This is my recording from that concert. For some reason, at the time, I edited out the applause, which is a shame, for it was tumultuous.
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it was a real joy to discover your posting.
I studied with Edith at the Guildhall school for a year in the early nineties and I can honestly say that I learnt more from her or rather she taught me to learn directly from the composer as an independent spirit.
she really was a wonderful musician and it’s a pity that her performances especially for Radio 3 are not more widely known or commercially available.
I do feel lucky , however, in that now have a lot of her broadcasts whish were originally on tape now transferred to Cd.
kind regards to a kindrid spirit!
Gareth, Thank you. I listened to many of Edith Vogel’s broadcasts and she always impressed me. She reminded me of Schnabel - her playing was always intense, and you always got the feeling that she was trying to bring Beethoven to you, rather than herself. Her technique too was like Schnabel’s - not immaculate - but she always brought you face to face with the composer. You don’t always get that seriousness and humility nowadays, where the instrumentalist is the celebrity! Regards OF