Irene Scharrer plays Chopin’ ‘Butterfly’s Wings’ Étude’, in G sharp major, op.25 no.9

I was listening to Irene Scharrer playing some Chopin the other day. One piece that stood out for me was the so-called ‘Butterfly’s Wings’ Étude in G flat major, op.25 no.9.  She recorded this piece for Columbia Electrics on 14 September 1933.  It was released on DB 1348 coupled with the Étude ‘Aeolian Harp’ in A flat major, op.25, no.1 and the ‘Thirds’ in G sharp minor, op.25, no.6.  This was to be her final recording of Chopin’s Études.

Irene Scharrer was born in London on 2 February 1888. She studied at the Royal Academy of Music under Tobias Matthay. Her debut as a concert pianist was in 1904 when she was only 16: she played Chopin’s Rondo in E flat Op. 16 ‘…with wonderful finish and very remarkable technical skill’.

Irene was to continue her public career until 1958 after which she disappeared from public view. Her final appearance was at a Matthay Centenary Concert held at the Royal Academy of Music when she played the Mozart two-piano sonata in D major, K. 448 with her friend and fellow-Matthay pupil Myra Hess. At the height of her career Scharrer toured in both the United States and in Europe, playing under conductors such a Nikisch and Richter.  She was deemed (by contemporary critics) to lack a powerful pianistic style: she had a sensitive, intimate technique that favoured the Romantic music of the 19th century with Chopin being one of her favourites.  Irene Scharrer died on 11 January 1971.

Étude, op.25 no.9 was composed during the mid-1830s. It was first published by Maurice Schlesinger and later by Breitkopf & Haertel, Leipzig in 1837. The complete op.25 set was dedicated to the German-born Comtesse Marie Catherine Sophie d' d’Agoult (nee de Flavigny). Marie was a French author who often used the pseudonym of Daniel Stern. She had a marriage of convenience to Count Charles d’Agoult in 1827, but she later left him to become Franz Liszt’s mistress. She was to have five daughters by him. Chopin knew the Comtesse when she was living in Paris. It is a matter of speculation as to why he dedicated them to her.

An advert in The Gramophone Magazine (April 1934) insisted that Scharrer’s new record was ‘a treat no music lover can afford to miss.’ Cost of the 78rpm disc was 2/6d. That would be equivalent to about £8.50 at today’s prices which was expensive for only six minutes of music.  The same issue gave a detailed review of the record. It suggested that Scharrer is an ideal player of Chopin’s music. The writer felt that she ‘scores highest of all in many of the Études, helped…by her highly finished [Tobias] Matthay technique’. He considered that she was at her best in the A flat [major] and the G flat [major] studies and that the listener would ‘go a long way without finding a more equal performance of the G sharp minor [Étude].

Not all the nicknames given to Chopin’s Études are universally admired. On the other hand, ‘Butterfly’ or ‘Butterfly’s Wings’ does seem an appropriate name for this graceful and attractive piece. Over and above, it reflects the old myth that a butterfly lives for a single day: its life, like this piece is over in a trice. Butterflies do live longer than a day, but we get the point. Extending the metaphor, one early commentator (James Gibbon Huneker, 1857-1921) suggested that ‘it [has] become the stamping-ground for the display of piano athletics.’ He further adds that ‘nearly all modern (Edwardian and Victorian) virtuosi pull to pieces the wings of this poor little butterfly. They smash it, they bang it, and, adding insult to cruelty, they finish it with three chords, mounting an octave each time, thus giving a conventional character to the close, the very thing the composer avoids.’

Irene Scharrer brings delicacy and control to this delightful Etude, which is the very antithesis of Huneker’s concerns. She manages to execute the continual figuration of a detached octave followed by two octaves with perfection.  Her interpretation, like the insect itself, seems to be ‘floating on a cloud.’

Irene Scharrer can be heard playing the ‘Butterfly’s Wings’ Étude’, in G sharp major, op.25 no.9 on APR  6010. I was unable to find a YouTube version of this recording but check out the Amazon etc for MP3 samples.