Con Brio:
Karl Ulbrich Schnabel, Master Teacher
of Piano
by Mary Lou Chayes
and Beverly Jones
The Cinema Guild, New York, 2002
VHS, 57 minutes, color
Sales, $295.00
ISBN: 0-7815-1009-0.
Reviewed by Stefaan Van Ryssen
Hogeschool Gent
Jan Delvinlaan 115, 9000 Gent, Belgium
stefaan.vanryssen@pandora.be
Karl Ulrich Schnabel (1909-2001) is the
son of the famous piano virtuoso Arthur
Schnabel. He began playing at the age
of five and made his debut in 1926. In
the following decades, he pursued a brilliant
solo career as well as reviving the piano
duo tradition, first performing with his
father, then his wife Helen Fogel and
later with Joan Rowland. He was the teacher
of Leon Fleisher, Peter Serkin, and Richard
Goode, among many others.
This video includes biographical material
about the Schnabel family, comments by
Schnabel's former students and clips from
teaching sessions with as yet unknown
pupils. It shows how Schnabel adheres
to a late romantic aesthetic and a view
of the virtuoso as a spiritual as well
as a technical master. In his view, music
should carry a message, at least from
the heart but possibly also from above.
It should inspire, enlighten and transcend.
On the other hand, Schnabel was a firm
advocate of the use of the original score
of a piece, comparing and studying several
editions to come as close to the original
as possible if the manuscript is no longer
available. He also developed newclassicaltechniques
for using both the keys and the pedal,
thereby extending the tone and the timbre
of the instrument.
Schnabel was an icon of a tradition that
seems a bit outdated in the twenty-first
century. He trained his pupils to become
the kind of musician who believes an extreme
individualism and an astounding technique
are the core of their businessperformers
of the great concertos of Mozart, Beethoven,
and Rachmaninov in the piano competition
circuses of the Old World. And he certainly
was good at it. The video itself is a
valuable document, even if it is a bit
lengthy, sometimes making your fingers
itch for the fast forward button. The
tone is definitely uncritical and apologetic.
Schnabel's portrait isn't painted against
the backdrop of a musicological and historical
context, which makes it at times embarrassing
to watch. I am quite certain a more nuanced
story would have made the master more
human and would have done even more credit
to the quality of his music and teaching.