Großer Saal, Konzerthaus,
Vienna
Rameau – Suite in D minor/major,
from Pièces de clavecin
avec une méthode sur la méchanique des doigts
Mozart – Piano Sonata no.8 in
A minor, KV 310/300d
Beethoven – Piano Sonata
no.29 in B-flat major, op.106, ‘Hammerklavier’
Grigory Sokolov (piano)
I shall start at the end, in
order not to talk about the end. There is so much to say about this programme
as advertised that almost the least extraordinary thing about it was Grigory
Sokolov’s performance of no fewer than six encores, a 7.30 p.m. recital concluding
more than three hours later. Furthermore, I shall resist the temptation even to
name those encores – and not only because I have no idea what one of them was. For
an Englishman, to hear Sokolov at all is a thing of wonder, New Labour’s visa
regulations, perpetuated by the present government, meaning that he no longer
performs in London or indeed anywhere else in our sceptr’d isle. Vienna, Paris,
Rome, many other cities, yet not ours; this was therefore my first encounter
with a pianist many consider to be one of the finest and certainly one of the
most original alive.
There was something that one
might justly call genius in his performance of Rameau’s D minor Suite, not just
the finest performance I have heard of any of Rameau’s keyboard music, but the
finest performance of any of his music I have yet to hear – and suspect that I
ever will. ‘Les Tendres plaintes’, the first movement, perfectly set out
Sokolov’s stall. Rameau’s decoration was both meaningful and delicate, allied
to, indeed born of, a fine understanding of harmonic progression. (Those who
treat the writer of the Traité de l’harmonie
as an effete spinner of allegedly ‘stylish’ melodic inconsequentialities could
not be further from the truth; alas that is how we almost hear him, especially
in the age of ‘authenticity’.) A sturdy command of rhythm, including harmonic
rhythm, characterised ‘Les Niais de Sologne’, which yet remained wonderfully
catchy, as did its two doubles.
Repeated notes offered a masterclass in the striking thereof – aided,
admittedly, by the highly idiosyncratic regulation of Sokolov’s Steinway. Most
impressive of all, however, throughout these three movements was the cumulative
power achieved, again born as it necessarily must be of true harmonic
understanding. ‘Les Soupirs’ provided languor that was both authentically – in the
true sense – Ramellian and suggestive of the attraction of such music for
Debussy and Ravel. Prélude à l’après-midi
did not sound so very far away. Strength in the ‘ornaments’ showed them to be
anything but merely ornamental; once again, cumulative power was ultimately the
thing. (Unless, that is, one were to count the first of several mobile
telephone interruptions to the night’s proceedings. Appalling!) Mesmerising
digital dexterity, always at the service of the music, characterised ‘La
Joyeuse’, which was followed by a declamatory reading of ‘La Follette’,
rhetorical in a proper sense – as opposed to the inability to phrase that some
seem to think qualifies as a virtue. ‘L’Entretien des Muses’ benefited
likewise, with more than a hint of operatic drama. It emerged as the suite’s profound
‘black pearl’. ‘Les Tourbillons’ demonstrated beyond doubt Sokolov’s ability to
forge continuity of line out of apparent discontinuity. Doubtless this was
partly a matter of sheer happenstance, but I had been reading some remarks by
Schoenberg on Mozart earlier in the day, and was reminded very much of them
both here and in the performance of the subsequent Mozart sonata to which
Schoenberg refers:
When I composed my Fourth String Quartet
I said this time I must compose like Mozart does it, without looking at all
whether I see relations or not, juxtaposing ideas. This principle I had
conceived before, but this time I went very straight with this. And this is
what Mozart does; in the middle of a theme he will interrupt or abandon his
motifs and juxtapose new thematic formulations. We have it so clearly in the A
minor [piano sonata]. The characteristic for Mozart is this interruption, I
would not be sure to contend that this is a higher or a more primitive
technique [than Beethoven, inter alia].
It is difficult to evaluate this aesthetically. I think it derived from his
dramatic technique.
A sense of drama and once
again of dramatically-forged continuity was to the fore in 'Les Cyclopes'. The delicately grave beauty of 'Le Lardon' gave way to superbly judged harmonic progression in the
closing 'La Boîteuse'. Married to
appreciation of a truly outstanding performance was the sad realisation of how
poorly served Rameau has been by performers who fail to appreciate that
harmonic understanding is just as important in his music as in that of Mozart
and Beethoven.
Mozart’s A minor sonata came
next. The first movement plunged us immediately into a great drama, not hard-driven from without, but
a drama that arose from the material; Mozart’s minor-mode daemon spoke and told
its story, without a hint of being forced to do so. Passagework was as fluid as one could
reasonably hope for, truly ‘flowing like oil’. And again, continuity arose out
of discontinuity. The upward scale that initiates – perhaps better, provokes –
the recapitulation summarised in miniature the virtues of Sokolov’s
performance; I am not sure that I have ever heard it sound so dramatically
meaningful. (Well, perhaps from Barenboim, in his very different way.) A cavil?
Even Sokolov could not make the second repeat work. Anyway... Command of line
was very much to the fore once again in the slow movement. Incidentals – at least
were one to take a Schenkerian approach – such as repeated notes and trills
impressed, but the greater whole did so still more. I have heard this movement
sound more aria-like, and in general might well wish to do so, but I cannot
recall it sounding more pianistic. The full dynamic range of the piano – again,
at least as set up – was employed sparingly, but with powerful effect when the
extremes of fortissimo and una corda were heard. Balanced against
that must be the strange effect of hearing very strong overtones during the
finale, on account of the instrument’s regulation: C sharp against that crucial
third degree of the scale, C natural. Otherwise, that movement, in which
textures can readily become muddy, especially in the left hand, emerged clean
and yet ambivalent, as Mozart’s expressively dialectical demands require. The
sonata, then, was played as the masterpiece that is; its finale emerged as a
true Mozartian finale, not hankering
to be Beethoven, not unduly weighty, but necessary.
The Hammerklavier Sonata received a performance that was certainly
extraordinary but that was, to my mind at least, far more problematical. Perhaps
I have become too hidebound by what I have already heard, though I flatter
myself that I am open to performances as different as those by Schnabel and
Pollini. In that company, Sokolov was more ‘interesting’ than convincing. For
one thing, I felt that the modifications made to his Steinway were more of an
obstacle to unleashing Beethovenian force, not least since a preoccupation with
sound at times seemed to thwart the line so apparent in the first half; true,
miracles of voicing could be heard, but to what end? That said, and
irrespective of whether this were the (more or less Romantic) intent – I am not
at all sure that it was – the radical discontinuities of Beethoven’s musical
material reasserted themselves in true Adornian style; a performance that was
merely mediocre could never have achieved that. Those discontinuities were
still more apparent in the scherzo, thematic – almost a- or anti-thematic –
ghosts of the Eroica and all.
Chopinesque rumblings contributed rather than distracted. The slow movement
opened with a pathos that I found impossible not to consider Schubertian.
(Whether one thinks that appropriate is another matter; perhaps it is beside
the point.) This was certainly not a Beethoven who looked forward to Boulez;
but ‘we’ll always have Pollini’. Often closer to Les Adieux than the late quartets, save of course for inevitable
dislocation, Sokolov’s performance was fascinating, strangely compelling. It
was Romantic, strange, again often Chopinesque, not least in its cantilena; it
approached the bizarre, indeed arguably achieved it. But in its way it was
captivating, even if one would never wish to hear it that way again. Moreover,
one should remember that this music is
bizarre. Occasional clumsiness in the finale did not matter; it is pretty much
to be expected. The performance united – and disunited – those virtues and
oddities heard in the first three movements. At one point I thought the music
was about to metamorphose into Mussorgsky, at another Scarlatti; yet, another
telephonic intervention notwithstanding, my attention never wavered.
