Elly Ney

It is a bit surprising really that the German pianist Elly Ney hasn’t appeared here yet. Elly Ney is one of my very favourite pianists, and, funnily enough, she is a pianist who is particularly known for the quality of her performances in classical German repertoire… Beethoven in particular. This is a far cry from the Rachmaninoff which is my personal listening staple, but I do in fact adore Beethoven especially in the Concertos.

So, why haven’t I mentioned her earlier? Simply because Elly Ney cuts something of a controversial character having remained in Germany during the War, and having been said to have been strongly and even (according to some writers) keenly, linked to the German political shames of the time.

It is difficult, however, to be certain of her position – I once read that although Hitler claimed her as his favourite pianist, he only once attended one of her concerts, and left during the interval! Perhaps really we shall never know what her political mindset really was.

After the war she was largely discredited, and was reduced to recording for the smaller recording companies. We do, however, have a number of recordings that she recorded in the 60s for the Colosseum label. Here we have recordings of the 3rd, 4th and 5th Concertos of Beethoven, and marvellous they are too. I am not certain as yet as to which cadenzas she chooses for the 3rd and 4th concertos, but I have an idea they might be Busoni’s.

Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto if an interesting work – look at the score, and although it is not easy, compare it to the Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev and Bartok concertos and it looks easy, and probably is. The test here is to actually ‘bring it off’ and much as I love the Emperor concerto, very few pianists do actually satisfy me in this work. Elly Ney, in both her older recording with Bohm, and in the later one, seems to ‘hit the right spots’!

In her repertoire she had both the Brahms concertos, and there are two recordings of the 2nd, the latter one is marvellous and her reading is a powerful and dynamic one.

Many of her concerto recordings were recorded with her husband, Wilhelm Von Hoogstraaten.

I do find that if I am wanting to listen to Beethoven, then more often than not it is Elly Ney whose recordings I reach for. Her recordings did, naturally, extend much further than just Beethoven and Brahms; and I am very enamoured with her two recordings of the Richard Strauss Burleske.

At times she was not without a certain amount of individuality, as was said when, in later life, she performed the Tchaikovsky B Flat concerto – a work she hadn’t played for many years, and the resulting performance was, according to academic posterity, pretty idiosyncratic!