In a certain way, she bears a resemblance to the fierce intensity of Helene Grimaud, but then Grimaud seems much more in the Horowitzian vein, whereas Sageman never careens into climaxes and shows no signs of wanting to reduce the piano to a pile of rubble. Her focus is intense, so one could hardly call Sageman’s style cold, but it is anything but warm and friendly. Though Sageman sings, she climbs mountains and has her emotional focus on visionary realms. She too brings out the singing, luminous qualities of the piece without swooning over it, yet it seems far removed from the personable warmth of Rubinstein. Sageman’s performance is quite different from either of these. The more adventurous performance that Vladimir Horowitz recorded for Columbia in the 1960’s (currently available on SACD from Sony) unfolds in a highly inflected fever-dream state, with Horowitz’s trademark attacks and detailed shaping. Rubinstein performs the piece ‘songfully’, surging with sweetness and memories in the reflective parts, and with tempered passion in the darker pages. Take her approach to Chopin’s Second Piano Sonata. With broad – yet never slack – tempos and a powerful sound that can yet retreat into luminous pearls, Sageman undertakes a voyage into rarely traveled terrain for Chopin pianists. Evidently, she absorbed whatever she needed from those legends but has subsequently continued along her own path. Interestingly, it is said that Caroline Sageman reveres Arthur Rubinstein and Claudio Arrau. It reveals some surprising new facets of Chopin’s diamonds.
I remain a devotee of the emotional, impulsive school of Chopin playing typified by Alfred Cortot, but after hearing this towering recording, I wouldn’t want to be without it. No sign here of Chopin as neurotic, hearts-and-flowers romantic – Sageman seems intent on proving that Chopin’s genius extends to structural and harmonic innovations that almost two centuries later still have the power to shock. This recording is mightily impressive to anyone who can accept a more granitic, monumental view of this composer. A more probing artist can potentially be very off-putting. The competitions, with their decisions made by committee, have a tendency to settle on mainstream, flashy players who moderately please everyone and largely offend no one. In the intervening years, I have not heard anything of the higher prizewinners – yet here is Sageman, emerging as a fully-formed, thoughtful artist of power and control. Caroline Sageman placed sixth in the International Chopin Piano Competition in 1990 (granted, she was only seventeen at the time). The finest artists rarely win the big international competitions.
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