Alexander Paley - Weber: Complete Piano Music Vol.1-4 (2009)

These are the words of Carl Tausig, if we are to believe Wilhelm von Lenz's account when he met the great artist. Lenz seemed a great disseminator of Weber's piano music, introducing it to Liszt and Chopin, for instance. Tausig was familiar with some of Weber's famous concert pieces but even if his words were paraphrased (which they must have been), Tausig would seem to know the Sonatas, too. His declaration of what Weber "demands" is fascinating, but if we consider this present recording, it's certainly agreeable. This is the last volume in Naxos's survey of Weber's piano music, and it's an exciting finale to the series.

Up first is Weber's wonderfully expressive but somewhat deceptive Fourth Sonata in E minor. As this is the last Piano Sonata Weber wrote, we might expect a ravishing and sublime testament, like the last Sonata of Beethoven or Schubert. In a sense, we get a strange "programme" work. According to the liner-notes, "the composition is a picture of melancholy and despondency, which runs through all the psychological stages of hope and despair, culminating at last in mental and physical exhaustion and death." The first movement, with its echoes of contemplative sorrow and desperate struggle would surely support such a description. The Menuetto seems serious at first, but gradually gets more playful, especially in the trio, which bolsters the idea that hope and despair are in battle. The Andante is rather ambiguous in mood: gentle, lyrical