22/03/2024
Just encountering this article, entitled 'A hidden gem'--the writer appears to be a Shanghai-based music blogger (?).
Disclaimer: I used itool.com to translate it, so there is no guarantee for accuracy (I believe that translation from Chinease to English is generally good)
https://www.douban.com/note/860057479/?_i=1104161YZ8-QwN,1104839YZ8-QwN
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A hidden gem
Among the pianists there are two famous Fischers—Edwin Fischer and Annie Fischer, whose names are well known. I was really surprised and delighted when I recently listened to the BBC radio recording of another unheard Fisher, the British pianist Norma Fisher. I was shocked that the record company would ignore such an amazing musician and never released a commercial recording for her; I was happy that the British label Sonetto Classics began to explore and organize her BBC radio recordings, and began to produce and release them in 2018. Three series of Norma Fisher At The BBC.
Norma Fisher was born in London in 1940 to a Russian-Polish immigrant family. She showed musical talent at an early age and was discovered by Gina Bachauer. She then studied piano with Hungarian pianist Ilona Kabos and French pianist Jacques Fevrier. In 1961, he participated in the Busoni Piano Competition and won second place. In 1963, he shared the Harriet Cohen International Music Award for Piano with Ashkenazy. After Norma Fisher won the award, she joined the ranks of Britain's top young pianists such as John Ogdon and Valerie Tryon, and performed continuously. However, until she retired from the stage due to arm muscle problems in the 1990s and turned to teaching, she never signed a contract with a record company and released an album.
Since the early 1960s, Norma Fisher has been participating in music programs on the BBC Radio Classical Music Channel as a guest performer. In the past 30 years, she has participated in more than 90 radio programs broadcast. Unfortunately, most of the recordings have not been archived by the BBC. Fortunately, Norma Fisher saved some pilot tapes herself, and the BBC program producers also saved a small number of working tapes. Since 2018, the producer of Sonetto Classics, Tomoyuki Sawado, has compiled and restored some of them. So far, three volumes of Norma Fisher At The BBC have been published. I bought the second and third volumes (these two volumes are available on Apple Music, Recommend friends to listen to it).
What impressed me most about Norma Fisher's performance is that she is good at exploring the artistic conception of the work through depicting details, focusing on small things and focusing on big things, so as to achieve the effect of seeing something from the inside. Mephisto's Waltz No. 1 in the second volume is magnificent and vivid in detail. It not only displays gorgeous virtuosity but also firmly grasps the musical mood of the music's repeated and dramatic changes, creating a stunning atmosphere and vividly portraying the characters. The Mephisto Waltz is often regarded as a virtuosic piece, and many performances are really virtuoso for the trees but not the forest. Her performance deepened my understanding of this work.
Another recording in the second volume that attracted me was a collection of creative compositions composed by the outstanding Polish pianist and composer Andre Tchaikowsky. The recording of this work is uncommon but very interesting. The composer used musical language to draw a sketch for each of his friends, including familiar pianists Stefan Askenase and Tamas Vasary, and Norma Fisher’s teacher Ilona Kabos. The most special thing is the image of Chinese pianist Fu Cong (=Fou Ts'ong). With just a few strokes, he vividly imitates Fu Cong's speaking tone, which is lifelike and vivid.
The third collection of Brahms' Fantasia No. 116 is another showcase of the master's handiwork by Norma Fisher. The implicit and restrained character of this work itself has provided a good platform for the performers. Norma Fisher clearly presented the different emotional directions among the seven pieces of music and the texture of each piece of music, using the interlacing light and shadow changes of light and dark. Showing the mottled growth rings of time, the cantabile melody not only recalls the passing years, but also occasionally flashes the shadow of death, with a lofty artistic conception.
Several Chopin songs in the third series were recorded in 1992. At this time, Norma Fisher was already deeply troubled by dystonia, and it was quite difficult to move her fingers. These recordings are both a reminder and a memory for the listener: a reminder of the existence of such an outstanding pianist, recalling her little-known career that was cruelly cut short by illness.
According to the producer of this set of records, Tomoyuki Sawado, he is still looking for and publicly collecting recordings of Norma Fisher's performances. Among the recordings that have been found is Busoni's Violin Sonata No. 2, a collaboration between Norma Fisher and Chinese violinist Hu Kun. Tomoyuki Sawado described the performance as "incredibly vivid", while Norma Fisher herself sighed after listening to the recording again. What a masterpiece." Look forward to Sonetto Classics publishing these recordings soon.
最初计划这个系列，原因没别的，就是我自己想看。 之前写外刊推荐的时候，看《留声机》每月选出的“月度唱片”，后来不写了，偶尔会想念那个栏目。这次又想起，想要么自己写？但手头已经有两个系列了。于是，邀请多.....
