Usher Hall
Chopin – Nocturne in E major, Op.62 no.2
Chopin – Piano sonata no.3 in B minor, Op.58
Liszt – Mephisto Waltz no.1
Sibelius – Valse triste, op.44
Ravel – Gaspard de la nuit
This was the strangest piano recital I have ever attended. Prefacing a transcendental account of Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit were some of the most astonishingly perverse performances of other works I can recall. Perhaps the least odd element was the pianist’s incongruous dress: black tie and tails. Of course, Ivo Pogorelich has always been a controversial musician. Fame was thrust upon him by elimination after the third round from the 1980 Chopin Competition in Warsaw. Martha Argerich was so outraged that she resigned from the jury. Thereafter, performances and recordings elicited wildly divergent appraisals. Some thought Argerich’s hailing of a ‘genius’ not at all far from the mark. At least two recordings would readily find a place in my pianistic pantheon: one of Scarlatti sonatas, the other of Prokofiev’s Sixth Sonata and Gaspard de la nuit. Others were shocked by the liberties they heard. I am certainly no purist and should always welcome with open arms explorative risk-taking over dreary conformism, but I was nevertheless entirely unprepared for what was to follow.
Speaking of competition-winners – or otherwise – few composers have suffered at their hands so much as Chopin. The number of bland, technically perfect performances inflicted upon this poet of the keyboard can scarcely be guessed. Pogorelich was having none of that, instead presenting a deliberate, nay trudging, E major Nocturne, with great emphasis – to put it mildly – placed upon the melodic line. Think of an organist thumping out a fugue subject on a trumpet stop and you might approach the idea. There was greater movement, for there could hardly have been less – or so I thought – as the music became more contrapuntally involved: fair enough. There was also a wholesale transformation from deliberation to an improvisatory quality that suggested bar lines had magically melted away. This was distinctly odd but in a way refreshing. But then, we returned back to earth with a reprise of the opening style. The music pretty much ground to a halt. I suppose it made one consider the score anew, but even so…
The opening to the Allegro maestoso of the same composer’s third sonata was certainly maestoso, though decidedly grim. Hints of passion could be heard – briefly – in the build up to the second subject, but were soon banished. That theme was sung, but sung in a decidedly aggressive fashion, as if Pogorelich were determined to rid the music of any hint of degenerate Bellinian inspiration. Perhaps he was. There was a general feeling throughout of great listlessness. The scherzo brought mercurial virtuosity but its trio was distended almost beyond belief. (The first but not last intervention of a mobile telephone intensified the agony, whilst the bronchially-challenged made their presence felt unusually keenly throughout.) A strangely severe introduction to the Largo sounded as though it had come from the weird world of late Liszt. It led us into a rhythmically implacable, utterly unsmiling, positively – or negatively – glacial account of a movement drawn out to mammoth proportions. I am all for a Largo sounding as a Largo, but even so… The finale was rather more fitting: restless, but that works better here. Not only did one hear often breathtaking virtuosity; there was a certain musical sense to a strormy, vehement performance. It was too late though.
Concluding the first part was Liszt’s first Mephisto Waltz. Weirdness is less out of place here but Pogorelich nevertheless exceeded the bounds of the imaginable. This extraordinary rendition was so disjointed that it appeared to lose musical sense entirely; it resembled a peculiar laboratory experiment rather than a performance. Hammered out, it utterly lacked charm: this was neither Liszt nor Faust the seducer. The contrasting forest-music material was once again glacial in the extreme, though a certain sadness occasionally seeped through. Mephistopheles did not insinuate; he straightforwardly brutalised. One gin-and-tonic was certainly not enough for this browbeaten reviewer during the ensuing interval.
Sibelius’s Valse triste seemed an odd programming choice, but the performance proved far odder still. It was almost unbelievably slow – and I am not sure why I appended ‘almost’. This is a sad waltz, I know, and one does not expect Richard, let alone Johann, Strauss, but even so… There was considerable variation in the basic pulse, sometimes providing relief, sometimes in the opposing direction. The intensity of the climax was quite staggering, yet seemed bizarrely misplaced. However, there was something chillingly pure to the voicing of the final chords, which made one wonder, despite the barrage of coughing, about what might have been.
Finally, Gaspard de la nuit. With the very opening of Ondine, everything suddenly sounded right – and righted. Shimmering right-hand figuration provided a perfect foil to the left-hand song below and above. One could hear every note – almost all of them correct – without any sacrifice to the poetic effect. This certainly sounded more Lisztian than the Liszt piece had, both harmonically and in the well-judged application of virtuoso technique to musico-poetic ends. In Le gibet, a glacial, obstinate persistency, of an infintely more atmospheric quality than earlier on, could at last truly come into its own. Terror was in the air, though so was the noise from another electronic device. Lisztian pyrotechnics were even more to the fore in Scarbo, which received a truly diabolical reading. This sprite was dartingly elusive and unmistakeably malignant. Pogorelich’s performance was a tour de force but a musical one, fantastic in more than one sense. What happened thereafter I cannot tell, since I quickly fled the hall, lest a perverse encore tarnish the memory of what I had just heard.
Showing posts with label piano recital. Show all posts
Showing posts with label piano recital. Show all posts
Sunday, 30 August 2009
Monday, 15 June 2009
Angela Hewitt piano recital, 13 June 2009
Wigmore Hall
Rameau – Pièces de clavecin (selection)
Dukas – Variations on a theme by Rameau
Couperin – ‘Sixième ordre’ from Pièces de clavecin, Book II
Ravel – Le tombeau de Couperin
We live in curious times, musically speaking. French Baroque keyboard music is undergoing a mini-revival of interest on the piano, such repertoire, Marcelle Meyer notwithstanding, never quite having been considered mainstream or even acceptable before. Meanwhile, the days when Bach and Handel were part of the symphonic and mainstream choral repertoire – again, the French Baroque never really was – seem more distant than ever. Almost sixty years ago, Theodor Adorno could see the way the wind was blowing, lamenting in his brilliant essay, Bach defended against his devotees, that the sole concern of Bach’s ‘devotees’ – soon to become the fully-fledged authenticke Taliban – was to ensure that ‘no inauthentic dynamics, no modifications of tempo, no excessively large choirs and orchestra’ should be employed. Palpable was the potential fury, ‘lest any more humane impulse’ should become audible. Things could only get worse – with the exception, that is of the piano. Pianists never agreed to relinquish Bach, of course, yet, even a few years ago, one would have been hard put to foresee that wonderful artists as eminent as Alexandre Tharaud and Angela Hewitt would be championing Rameau and Couperin. The clattering harpsichord retains the lion’s share of performances; yet, not only to reclaim lost territory, but to mount the occasional, though repeated incursion such as this, represents a remarkable turn of events.
One obvious way to programme such music is with later French piano music, especially that avowedly inspired by the clavecinists. Hewitt took this path, with results amply justifying the means. My reservations, such as they were, tended to lie with the later repertoire, in which I was not so convinced as I have been upon hearing, say, Tharaud in similar circumstances. Still, an enthusiastic audience – surely including a good number of Hewitt followers – seemed to respond most warmly of all to her Ravel, so mine was perhaps a minority opinion.
Opening the menu was a Rameau selection. From the Suite in D major we heard Le lardon and La joyeuse. Hewitt’s ever-sensitive touch seemed perfectly attuned to the delicacy required from the French baroque, never neglecting the pianistic opportunities afforded by the modern instrument. She proved flexible of rhythm and projected an undeniably ‘French’ quality to her performances. Likewise in the feminine charm of the Fanfarinette from the Suite in A minor and the succeeding selection of four pieces from the Suite in G minor. A nice contrast was drawn between the opening, gentle melancholy of Les triolets and the forthrightness of the celebrated piece, Les sauvages, subsequently incorporated in the opera-ballet, Les indes galantes. Les sauvages showcased Hewitt’s pianistic staccato and marcato, without unwarranted excursions into Gouldian territory (not that I am aware of her fellow Canadian ever performing French Baroque music). Repose and restlessness were held in perfect balance in the startling L’enharmonique, which does what it says on the tin. Telling rubato aided and abetted the composer’s chromaticism. The final piece, L’egyptienne employed the full panoply of the piano’s resources. In its almost Vivaldian – yet more interesting – drama, sequences and all, we heard an apt conclusion to this Rameau selection.
Paul Dukas’s 1902 Variations, interlude, and finale on a theme by Rameau followed, the theme being Le lardon, heard at the opening of the recital. The variations immediately plunge us into late-Romantic territory, the first almost Reger-like in harmony and texture. Yet there remained hints of the Baroque, pointed to in Hewitt’s underlining of dotted rhythms. I am not entirely sure that Dukas’s work adds up to more than the some of its parts, but it is an interesting journey, worth making occasionally. (In her programme notes, Hewitt related that she first learned the piece thirty years ago, when ‘some judges in international competitions couldn’t understand why I bothered!’) The fifth variation sounded somewhere between Franck and Busoni, whose parallel spirit surfaced from time to time throughout the work. Lisztian harmonies were projected to full effect in the sixth, followed by an admirably skittish account of the seventh, preparing the way for a big Romantic tone in the subsequent variation. In the final, eleventh variation, we heard a great build up of such tone, followed by an ominous subsiding into the interlude, and then the compendious finale. If a little distended, it was fun to hear hints – and more than hints – of what had gone before, with something of Franck (Debussy’s ‘modulating machine) and even the odd Debussyan shift.
The Couperin ordre received an alert, enlightening performance, its opening piece, Les Moissonneurs, presenting an immediate sense of gentle rhythm, nevertheless strongly projected: delicate, yet never effete. Les Langueurs-Tendres was languorous, as the title would suggest, without lacking in forward purpose. There followed Le Gazoüillement and Le Bersan, the former marvelously elegant, its chirping evoking mental images of a Watteau scene. Les Baricades Mistérieuses – what a wonderful title! – benefited from a nice swing, judicious rubato, and clear textures in a potentially muddy register. Les Bergeries sounded aptly pastoral, Hewitt evincing typical care for detail, yet pointing out the wood as well as the trees. I found La Commére somewhat strident, though perhaps it should be, in its presentation of a gossip. And the closing piece, Le Moucheron, once again benefited from an excellent sense of rhythm.
Ravel’s Le tombeau de Couperin was the masterpiece on the programme. Much of Hewitt’s performance was very good, but I sometimes found her a little lacking in style, especially when compared with her Baroque performances. The Prélude was forthright, resolutely unsentimental, but could perhaps have sounded a little more delicate. I suspect that the pianist’s chosen Fazioli instrument lessened the chance of pastel shades. Ravel’s part-writing was splendidly handled in the Fugue, followed by an excellent account of the Forlane. Here, Hewitt’s rhythmic sense was spot-on from the outset; we heard a true dance, elegant too, with links to Couperin, especially in the composer’s ornamentation, readily to be heard. It is difficult, though far from impossible, not to sound a little heavy-handed in the Rigaudon. Hewitt did not entirely succeed, though there was a lively and once again forthright character to her performance. The Menuet was startling slow, Romantic in both tempo and flexibility. Rhythms were nicely twisted and nostalgia pervaded without overwhelming. Old France was beautifully and movingly evoked; this is, after all, Ravel’s memorial to friends who had fallen on the battlefield. I was especially taken by the powerful climax in the minor-mode section. More than a hint of Liszt here prepared us for the pyrotechnics of the concluding Toccata. Hewitt sounded every inch the virtuoso here. She was generally elegant, though at times she could err a little towards the heavy-handed. The ‘French’ sound and style pervading her Rameau and Couperin were intermittently present in her Ravel, then; much the same could be said of the encore, Debussy’s Clair de Lune. Ultimately, however, this was a splendid opportunity to hear French Baroque music, not only on the piano, but in such enlightening company.
Rameau – Pièces de clavecin (selection)
Dukas – Variations on a theme by Rameau
Couperin – ‘Sixième ordre’ from Pièces de clavecin, Book II
Ravel – Le tombeau de Couperin
We live in curious times, musically speaking. French Baroque keyboard music is undergoing a mini-revival of interest on the piano, such repertoire, Marcelle Meyer notwithstanding, never quite having been considered mainstream or even acceptable before. Meanwhile, the days when Bach and Handel were part of the symphonic and mainstream choral repertoire – again, the French Baroque never really was – seem more distant than ever. Almost sixty years ago, Theodor Adorno could see the way the wind was blowing, lamenting in his brilliant essay, Bach defended against his devotees, that the sole concern of Bach’s ‘devotees’ – soon to become the fully-fledged authenticke Taliban – was to ensure that ‘no inauthentic dynamics, no modifications of tempo, no excessively large choirs and orchestra’ should be employed. Palpable was the potential fury, ‘lest any more humane impulse’ should become audible. Things could only get worse – with the exception, that is of the piano. Pianists never agreed to relinquish Bach, of course, yet, even a few years ago, one would have been hard put to foresee that wonderful artists as eminent as Alexandre Tharaud and Angela Hewitt would be championing Rameau and Couperin. The clattering harpsichord retains the lion’s share of performances; yet, not only to reclaim lost territory, but to mount the occasional, though repeated incursion such as this, represents a remarkable turn of events.
One obvious way to programme such music is with later French piano music, especially that avowedly inspired by the clavecinists. Hewitt took this path, with results amply justifying the means. My reservations, such as they were, tended to lie with the later repertoire, in which I was not so convinced as I have been upon hearing, say, Tharaud in similar circumstances. Still, an enthusiastic audience – surely including a good number of Hewitt followers – seemed to respond most warmly of all to her Ravel, so mine was perhaps a minority opinion.
Opening the menu was a Rameau selection. From the Suite in D major we heard Le lardon and La joyeuse. Hewitt’s ever-sensitive touch seemed perfectly attuned to the delicacy required from the French baroque, never neglecting the pianistic opportunities afforded by the modern instrument. She proved flexible of rhythm and projected an undeniably ‘French’ quality to her performances. Likewise in the feminine charm of the Fanfarinette from the Suite in A minor and the succeeding selection of four pieces from the Suite in G minor. A nice contrast was drawn between the opening, gentle melancholy of Les triolets and the forthrightness of the celebrated piece, Les sauvages, subsequently incorporated in the opera-ballet, Les indes galantes. Les sauvages showcased Hewitt’s pianistic staccato and marcato, without unwarranted excursions into Gouldian territory (not that I am aware of her fellow Canadian ever performing French Baroque music). Repose and restlessness were held in perfect balance in the startling L’enharmonique, which does what it says on the tin. Telling rubato aided and abetted the composer’s chromaticism. The final piece, L’egyptienne employed the full panoply of the piano’s resources. In its almost Vivaldian – yet more interesting – drama, sequences and all, we heard an apt conclusion to this Rameau selection.
Paul Dukas’s 1902 Variations, interlude, and finale on a theme by Rameau followed, the theme being Le lardon, heard at the opening of the recital. The variations immediately plunge us into late-Romantic territory, the first almost Reger-like in harmony and texture. Yet there remained hints of the Baroque, pointed to in Hewitt’s underlining of dotted rhythms. I am not entirely sure that Dukas’s work adds up to more than the some of its parts, but it is an interesting journey, worth making occasionally. (In her programme notes, Hewitt related that she first learned the piece thirty years ago, when ‘some judges in international competitions couldn’t understand why I bothered!’) The fifth variation sounded somewhere between Franck and Busoni, whose parallel spirit surfaced from time to time throughout the work. Lisztian harmonies were projected to full effect in the sixth, followed by an admirably skittish account of the seventh, preparing the way for a big Romantic tone in the subsequent variation. In the final, eleventh variation, we heard a great build up of such tone, followed by an ominous subsiding into the interlude, and then the compendious finale. If a little distended, it was fun to hear hints – and more than hints – of what had gone before, with something of Franck (Debussy’s ‘modulating machine) and even the odd Debussyan shift.
The Couperin ordre received an alert, enlightening performance, its opening piece, Les Moissonneurs, presenting an immediate sense of gentle rhythm, nevertheless strongly projected: delicate, yet never effete. Les Langueurs-Tendres was languorous, as the title would suggest, without lacking in forward purpose. There followed Le Gazoüillement and Le Bersan, the former marvelously elegant, its chirping evoking mental images of a Watteau scene. Les Baricades Mistérieuses – what a wonderful title! – benefited from a nice swing, judicious rubato, and clear textures in a potentially muddy register. Les Bergeries sounded aptly pastoral, Hewitt evincing typical care for detail, yet pointing out the wood as well as the trees. I found La Commére somewhat strident, though perhaps it should be, in its presentation of a gossip. And the closing piece, Le Moucheron, once again benefited from an excellent sense of rhythm.
Ravel’s Le tombeau de Couperin was the masterpiece on the programme. Much of Hewitt’s performance was very good, but I sometimes found her a little lacking in style, especially when compared with her Baroque performances. The Prélude was forthright, resolutely unsentimental, but could perhaps have sounded a little more delicate. I suspect that the pianist’s chosen Fazioli instrument lessened the chance of pastel shades. Ravel’s part-writing was splendidly handled in the Fugue, followed by an excellent account of the Forlane. Here, Hewitt’s rhythmic sense was spot-on from the outset; we heard a true dance, elegant too, with links to Couperin, especially in the composer’s ornamentation, readily to be heard. It is difficult, though far from impossible, not to sound a little heavy-handed in the Rigaudon. Hewitt did not entirely succeed, though there was a lively and once again forthright character to her performance. The Menuet was startling slow, Romantic in both tempo and flexibility. Rhythms were nicely twisted and nostalgia pervaded without overwhelming. Old France was beautifully and movingly evoked; this is, after all, Ravel’s memorial to friends who had fallen on the battlefield. I was especially taken by the powerful climax in the minor-mode section. More than a hint of Liszt here prepared us for the pyrotechnics of the concluding Toccata. Hewitt sounded every inch the virtuoso here. She was generally elegant, though at times she could err a little towards the heavy-handed. The ‘French’ sound and style pervading her Rameau and Couperin were intermittently present in her Ravel, then; much the same could be said of the encore, Debussy’s Clair de Lune. Ultimately, however, this was a splendid opportunity to hear French Baroque music, not only on the piano, but in such enlightening company.
Wednesday, 10 June 2009
Piotr Anderszewski piano recital, 9 June 2009
Royal Festival Hall
Schumann – Gesänge der Frühe, op.133
Bach – Partita no.6 in E minor, BWV 830
Janáček – In the mists
Beethoven – Piano sonata no.31 in A-flat major, op.110
What an intelligently constructed programme! Schumann’s Gesänge der Frühe – songs of dawn, or at least so the composer hoped – disintegrated, without a break, let alone applause, into the labyrinth of Bach’s minor-mode chromaticism. Janáček’s mists gave way to the sunlight of Beethovenian serenity, albeit with a great struggle to come. With Bartók (Three folk songs from the Csík district) and more Bach as encores, the programme extended with discernible purpose. And how intelligently it was performed too! Any reservations I might have entertained were almost negligible in the face of Piotr Anderszewski’s artistry.
I find the Schumann pieces profoundly disturbing. Fascinating, yes, and too good, at least in parts, to languish unperformed, yet ultimately indicative of the composer’s mental decline. ‘Because of the very unique [surely something is unique or it is not...] character of the work,’ the programme advised us, ‘Mr Anderszewski has asked if the audience could kindly restrain from applauding after the piece.’ And so it did. Anderszewski’s performance was aptly, indeed frighteningly, withdrawn. The first piece’s opening simplicity was striking, all the more so given the honest beauty of the pianist’s touch, and the underlying fragility thereby projected. Inner-part dissonances told without exaggeration. The fits and starts of the following piece I found straightforwardly distressing. With the following piece, marked Lebhaft, we heard disturbed and disturbing reminiscences of the composer’s Faschingsschwank aus Wien, both in the rhythms and aspects of the melodic profile. The fourth piece sounded beautifully Chopinesque, a weakened Eusebius making his final bow. And then the opening, noble stillness of the final piece faded into a chilling nothingness.
From this, emerged the opening flourishes of the Bach partita’s Toccata. For me, this movement was the sole disappointment of the recital. Reminders of the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue notwithstanding, the movement wanted grandeur, presenting in its place a surprising rhythmic straitjacketing (especially surprising given Anderszewski’s flexibility elsewhere). The fugue rightly revelled in Bach’s chromaticism; yet, the subject was hammered out a little too much at times. However, the following movements soon made up for this. Anderszewski managed an extraordinary yet necessary balancing act in the Allemande: a strong yet delicate rhythmic profile. Likewise in the ensuing Corrente, which proved nicely quirky in the handling of melodic twists, syncopations, and their harmonic implications. A strong sense of structure underpinned the dance, so much so that I wished it would go on forever. The melancholic Air proved an object lesson in projection of harmonic motion. Then came the emotional core of the suite, the Sarabande. A heart-stopping dignity characterised this magical, inward performance, its extremely slow tempo utterly justified by Anderszewski’s artistry. Rhythm was once again very much the thing for the Tempo di Gavotta movement, which led us into a sharply edged fugal Gigue of abiding, prophetically Beethovenian, cumulative power.
Janáček’s voice was nailed immediately in the performance of In the mists (V mlhách). The individuality of the composer’s piano writing was clear to all through Anderszewski’s wondrous, magical touch. Echoes of Chopin were heard in the second movement, yet quite transformed, both in the rapt, slow sections and the virtuosic Presto writing. Urgent insistence intervened and shattered the already broken lyricism of the following movement, preparing the way for Moravian melancholy in the final piece. Hints of Bartókian night music vied with almost operatic vocal lines and angry, yet never grotesque dissonances.
And so, the sun emerged for the paradoxical – or better, dialectical – opening of the Beethoven sonata. Anderszewski judged to a tee the opening’s innocence and experience. The turn to the minor mode, however, brought a sudden wintry cold, albeit a cold soon warmed by magical, Schubertian modulations. The Allegro molto proved a true scherzo: rhythm and gruff humour (unlike in Chopin’s scherzi) to the fore, and violence too, though never of the attention-seeking variety. With the Adagio ma non troppo instrumental recitative, we stood on the brink of the still centre of this work, a parallel to the Bach Sarabande. What must follow a recitative? An aria, or at least an arioso, but Beethoven’s Arioso dolente is a rare example indeed. Anderszewski’s performance was just what Beethoven’s title says it should be, but how it was sung, and how unutterably sad it proved! It was simple, yet anything but, another typical late-Beethoven dialectic. The fugal subject grew out of the conclusion to the arioso, just as the opening movement had emerged from Janáček’s mists. The pianist’s voicing was more exquisite than one could imagine, though never at the expense of real power in the bass octaves and indeed in his structural command. With the return to desolate arioso, the pain of Neapolitan harmony reinforced the composer’s nobility of utterance, which in turn led to a truly mysterious transition to the inverted fugue. This, rather like Mozart’s miracle of quintuple invertible counterpoint in the finale to the Jupiter Symphony, sounded like the most natural thing in the world. Beethoven and Anderszewski proved equally expert pupils of Bach. And yet, there remained something defiantly strange – or should that be strangely defiant?
Schumann – Gesänge der Frühe, op.133
Bach – Partita no.6 in E minor, BWV 830
Janáček – In the mists
Beethoven – Piano sonata no.31 in A-flat major, op.110
What an intelligently constructed programme! Schumann’s Gesänge der Frühe – songs of dawn, or at least so the composer hoped – disintegrated, without a break, let alone applause, into the labyrinth of Bach’s minor-mode chromaticism. Janáček’s mists gave way to the sunlight of Beethovenian serenity, albeit with a great struggle to come. With Bartók (Three folk songs from the Csík district) and more Bach as encores, the programme extended with discernible purpose. And how intelligently it was performed too! Any reservations I might have entertained were almost negligible in the face of Piotr Anderszewski’s artistry.
I find the Schumann pieces profoundly disturbing. Fascinating, yes, and too good, at least in parts, to languish unperformed, yet ultimately indicative of the composer’s mental decline. ‘Because of the very unique [surely something is unique or it is not...] character of the work,’ the programme advised us, ‘Mr Anderszewski has asked if the audience could kindly restrain from applauding after the piece.’ And so it did. Anderszewski’s performance was aptly, indeed frighteningly, withdrawn. The first piece’s opening simplicity was striking, all the more so given the honest beauty of the pianist’s touch, and the underlying fragility thereby projected. Inner-part dissonances told without exaggeration. The fits and starts of the following piece I found straightforwardly distressing. With the following piece, marked Lebhaft, we heard disturbed and disturbing reminiscences of the composer’s Faschingsschwank aus Wien, both in the rhythms and aspects of the melodic profile. The fourth piece sounded beautifully Chopinesque, a weakened Eusebius making his final bow. And then the opening, noble stillness of the final piece faded into a chilling nothingness.
From this, emerged the opening flourishes of the Bach partita’s Toccata. For me, this movement was the sole disappointment of the recital. Reminders of the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue notwithstanding, the movement wanted grandeur, presenting in its place a surprising rhythmic straitjacketing (especially surprising given Anderszewski’s flexibility elsewhere). The fugue rightly revelled in Bach’s chromaticism; yet, the subject was hammered out a little too much at times. However, the following movements soon made up for this. Anderszewski managed an extraordinary yet necessary balancing act in the Allemande: a strong yet delicate rhythmic profile. Likewise in the ensuing Corrente, which proved nicely quirky in the handling of melodic twists, syncopations, and their harmonic implications. A strong sense of structure underpinned the dance, so much so that I wished it would go on forever. The melancholic Air proved an object lesson in projection of harmonic motion. Then came the emotional core of the suite, the Sarabande. A heart-stopping dignity characterised this magical, inward performance, its extremely slow tempo utterly justified by Anderszewski’s artistry. Rhythm was once again very much the thing for the Tempo di Gavotta movement, which led us into a sharply edged fugal Gigue of abiding, prophetically Beethovenian, cumulative power.
Janáček’s voice was nailed immediately in the performance of In the mists (V mlhách). The individuality of the composer’s piano writing was clear to all through Anderszewski’s wondrous, magical touch. Echoes of Chopin were heard in the second movement, yet quite transformed, both in the rapt, slow sections and the virtuosic Presto writing. Urgent insistence intervened and shattered the already broken lyricism of the following movement, preparing the way for Moravian melancholy in the final piece. Hints of Bartókian night music vied with almost operatic vocal lines and angry, yet never grotesque dissonances.
And so, the sun emerged for the paradoxical – or better, dialectical – opening of the Beethoven sonata. Anderszewski judged to a tee the opening’s innocence and experience. The turn to the minor mode, however, brought a sudden wintry cold, albeit a cold soon warmed by magical, Schubertian modulations. The Allegro molto proved a true scherzo: rhythm and gruff humour (unlike in Chopin’s scherzi) to the fore, and violence too, though never of the attention-seeking variety. With the Adagio ma non troppo instrumental recitative, we stood on the brink of the still centre of this work, a parallel to the Bach Sarabande. What must follow a recitative? An aria, or at least an arioso, but Beethoven’s Arioso dolente is a rare example indeed. Anderszewski’s performance was just what Beethoven’s title says it should be, but how it was sung, and how unutterably sad it proved! It was simple, yet anything but, another typical late-Beethoven dialectic. The fugal subject grew out of the conclusion to the arioso, just as the opening movement had emerged from Janáček’s mists. The pianist’s voicing was more exquisite than one could imagine, though never at the expense of real power in the bass octaves and indeed in his structural command. With the return to desolate arioso, the pain of Neapolitan harmony reinforced the composer’s nobility of utterance, which in turn led to a truly mysterious transition to the inverted fugue. This, rather like Mozart’s miracle of quintuple invertible counterpoint in the finale to the Jupiter Symphony, sounded like the most natural thing in the world. Beethoven and Anderszewski proved equally expert pupils of Bach. And yet, there remained something defiantly strange – or should that be strangely defiant?
Thursday, 13 November 2008
Andreas Haefliger piano recital, 12 November 2008
Wigmore Hall
Janáček – Piano sonata 1.x.1905, ‘From the street’
Beethoven – Piano sonata no.21 in C major, op.53, ‘Waldstein’
Beethoven – Piano sonata no.24 in F sharp major, op.78
Brahms – Piano sonata no.2 in F sharp minor, op.2
Andreas Haefliger (piano)
Andreas Haefliger is a musician I have long admired, his intelligence in terms of programming and performance an example to many others. This recital, however, part of the London Pianoforte Series, was profoundly disappointing, the only estimable performance being the first, that of Janáček’s piano sonata.
As it stands, the sonata is in two movements, the composer having destroyed the third prior to the premiere. (He also attempted to destroy the other two shortly after, but the pages thrown into the Vltava failed to sink.) Like so many ‘unfinished’ works, however, the sonata works perfectly well as it stands; I have never felt the lack of a finale, intriguing though the prospect may be. The balance and development Haefliger posited between the Presentiment – Con moto and Death – Adagio seemed beyond reproach, reminiscent of Schubert’s ‘Unfinished’ Symphony. Janáček’s soundworld was captured from the outset, as was the characteristic tension between fluidity and stubbornness of repetition, especially during the first movement. Haefliger evinced an almost Ravelian delight in sonority but the dark Moravian soul could only be Janáček’s. The adagio proceeded as a sung lament for, in the composer’s words, ‘a humble worker František Paclík, stained with blook. He came only to plead for a university, and was struck down by murderers.’ The reality of the demonstrations of 1905 was a good deal more complex than that but for the duration of the sonata, we could all sympathise with Janáček’s Czech nationalism. There was a calm inner strength to this movement, possessed of the same inner obstinacy as the first, which grew in strength until reaching a truly Romantic climax. Haefliger’s tone was full but never forced, subsiding as if to return us to everyday life, leaving behind a memorial that triumphantly vindicated words from the composer quoted in the programme: ‘A fellow was holding forth to me about how only the notes themselves meant anything in music. And I say they mean nothing at all unless they are steeped in life, blood, and nature, Otherwise they are like playthings, quite worthless.’ Take that, Stravinsky.
After the Janáček, Haefliger’s Beethoven proved quite a shock. The first movement of the Waldstein sonata was taken ruinously fast, leading to more than one notable slip in the semiquaver runs. I doubt that such a tempo could ever have worked, but the pianist should certainly then have slowed considerably for the second group, which utterly failed to melt hearts. It actually was slower on repetition of the exposition, but this sounded merely arbitrary. The development section was impassioned but also generalised – and still too fast. The harmonic surprises that mark its conclusion and the dawn of the recapitulation were masterfully presented, opening up a whole new world. These were breathtaking but it was more than a little too late. The coda sounded more like a series of finger exercises than middle-period Beethoven. There was a nicely mysterious opening to the Introduzione, whose rests were really made to tell. Sung, sustained: there was a true sense of the ineffable. Moreover, the rondo emerged from these shadows with profound inevitability. Thereafter, however, much was heavy-handed and plodding. I am usually the last person to complain of excessive Romanticism, but there is something awry when this music sounds more like a Liszt transcription. (I was put in mind of the Schubert-Liszt Erlkönig.) The prestissimo coda sounded utterly unprepared, merely tacked on. It was headlong but not exultant. The F sharp major sonata, which followed after the interval, was better but far from startling. The extraordinary four-bar introduction sounded soft-focussed rather than poetic. Whilst the rest of the movement continued amiably enough, it lacked distinctiveness. And the Allegro vivace lacked the economical humour that points forward to the Eighth Symphony. It was fluently dispatched but little more.
We do not hear Brahms’s piano sonatas so very often. I suspect that anyone coming to the F sharp minor sonata ‘cold’ would, from this performance, have struggled to ascertain the identity of the composer. This may be early Brahms but I have never heard it sound so utterly unlike him. Haefliger’s technique was certainly up to the notes. There was some splendid virtuosity here – at least on its own terms, especially in the second movement variations. However, there was a curiously – I am tempted even to say bizarrely – rhapsodic sense to all four movements and to the whole. I do not mean that in a sense akin to Brahms’s own later rhapsodies, which are anything but sprawling or undirected. Much of this sounded like minor Liszt. There was a series of fleeting impressions, sometimes impressive as episodes, but with little sense of connection to an overarching structure. And if we know anything of Brahms, it is his iron-clad command of formal structure. Another, at least in terms of the piano music, would be his utterly characteristic sonority. Again, Haefliger suggested Liszt or perhaps Chopin, but rarely Brahms; dazzling brightness replaced mahogany. Most perplexing.
Janáček – Piano sonata 1.x.1905, ‘From the street’
Beethoven – Piano sonata no.21 in C major, op.53, ‘Waldstein’
Beethoven – Piano sonata no.24 in F sharp major, op.78
Brahms – Piano sonata no.2 in F sharp minor, op.2
Andreas Haefliger (piano)
Andreas Haefliger is a musician I have long admired, his intelligence in terms of programming and performance an example to many others. This recital, however, part of the London Pianoforte Series, was profoundly disappointing, the only estimable performance being the first, that of Janáček’s piano sonata.
As it stands, the sonata is in two movements, the composer having destroyed the third prior to the premiere. (He also attempted to destroy the other two shortly after, but the pages thrown into the Vltava failed to sink.) Like so many ‘unfinished’ works, however, the sonata works perfectly well as it stands; I have never felt the lack of a finale, intriguing though the prospect may be. The balance and development Haefliger posited between the Presentiment – Con moto and Death – Adagio seemed beyond reproach, reminiscent of Schubert’s ‘Unfinished’ Symphony. Janáček’s soundworld was captured from the outset, as was the characteristic tension between fluidity and stubbornness of repetition, especially during the first movement. Haefliger evinced an almost Ravelian delight in sonority but the dark Moravian soul could only be Janáček’s. The adagio proceeded as a sung lament for, in the composer’s words, ‘a humble worker František Paclík, stained with blook. He came only to plead for a university, and was struck down by murderers.’ The reality of the demonstrations of 1905 was a good deal more complex than that but for the duration of the sonata, we could all sympathise with Janáček’s Czech nationalism. There was a calm inner strength to this movement, possessed of the same inner obstinacy as the first, which grew in strength until reaching a truly Romantic climax. Haefliger’s tone was full but never forced, subsiding as if to return us to everyday life, leaving behind a memorial that triumphantly vindicated words from the composer quoted in the programme: ‘A fellow was holding forth to me about how only the notes themselves meant anything in music. And I say they mean nothing at all unless they are steeped in life, blood, and nature, Otherwise they are like playthings, quite worthless.’ Take that, Stravinsky.
After the Janáček, Haefliger’s Beethoven proved quite a shock. The first movement of the Waldstein sonata was taken ruinously fast, leading to more than one notable slip in the semiquaver runs. I doubt that such a tempo could ever have worked, but the pianist should certainly then have slowed considerably for the second group, which utterly failed to melt hearts. It actually was slower on repetition of the exposition, but this sounded merely arbitrary. The development section was impassioned but also generalised – and still too fast. The harmonic surprises that mark its conclusion and the dawn of the recapitulation were masterfully presented, opening up a whole new world. These were breathtaking but it was more than a little too late. The coda sounded more like a series of finger exercises than middle-period Beethoven. There was a nicely mysterious opening to the Introduzione, whose rests were really made to tell. Sung, sustained: there was a true sense of the ineffable. Moreover, the rondo emerged from these shadows with profound inevitability. Thereafter, however, much was heavy-handed and plodding. I am usually the last person to complain of excessive Romanticism, but there is something awry when this music sounds more like a Liszt transcription. (I was put in mind of the Schubert-Liszt Erlkönig.) The prestissimo coda sounded utterly unprepared, merely tacked on. It was headlong but not exultant. The F sharp major sonata, which followed after the interval, was better but far from startling. The extraordinary four-bar introduction sounded soft-focussed rather than poetic. Whilst the rest of the movement continued amiably enough, it lacked distinctiveness. And the Allegro vivace lacked the economical humour that points forward to the Eighth Symphony. It was fluently dispatched but little more.
We do not hear Brahms’s piano sonatas so very often. I suspect that anyone coming to the F sharp minor sonata ‘cold’ would, from this performance, have struggled to ascertain the identity of the composer. This may be early Brahms but I have never heard it sound so utterly unlike him. Haefliger’s technique was certainly up to the notes. There was some splendid virtuosity here – at least on its own terms, especially in the second movement variations. However, there was a curiously – I am tempted even to say bizarrely – rhapsodic sense to all four movements and to the whole. I do not mean that in a sense akin to Brahms’s own later rhapsodies, which are anything but sprawling or undirected. Much of this sounded like minor Liszt. There was a series of fleeting impressions, sometimes impressive as episodes, but with little sense of connection to an overarching structure. And if we know anything of Brahms, it is his iron-clad command of formal structure. Another, at least in terms of the piano music, would be his utterly characteristic sonority. Again, Haefliger suggested Liszt or perhaps Chopin, but rarely Brahms; dazzling brightness replaced mahogany. Most perplexing.
Saturday, 25 October 2008
Jean-Bernard Pommier, Beethoven sonatas, 24 October 2008
Hall One, Kings Place
Beethoven – Piano sonata no.1 in F minor, Op.2 no.1
Beethoven – Piano sonata no.2 in A major, Op.2 no.2
Beethoven – Piano sonata no.3 in C major, Op.2 no.3
Beethoven – Piano sonata no.4 in E-flat major, Op.7
Jean-Bernard Pommier (piano)
Daniel Barenboim’s selection of piano sonatas from throughout Beethoven’s œuvre to form a series of varied programmes is not Jean-Bernard Pommier’s way. His Kings Place cycle, of which this recital was the first instalment, will be strictly chronological, although, like Barenboim’s, it will be limited to the thirty-two ‘canonical’ works. There is something to be said for either approach and little, it seems to me, to be gained by lamenting that the other one has not been chosen – although this did not prevent low-level carping from the odd sour critic determined to knock Barenboim from his pedestal. Pommier’s cycle is to be taken at a slower rate than Barenboim’s, a recital a month. I make this initial comparison not out of an obsessive regard for Barenboim, but because they will naturally be in many listeners’ minds, following the great ‘event’ of Barenboim’s cycle.
And, of course, the venue is different: Kings Place, newly opened, rather than the Royal Festival Hall. I can say that the acoustic of the shoe-box-shaped Hall One, completely soundproof and lined with the wood of a single, five-hundred-year-old German oak, is excellent, if unsparing. There is nowhere for the musicians to hide, likewise for the audience, although this did mean that the sound of incessant fidgeting was magnified. Why were so many people shuffling, dropping, and picking up papers, or engaging in mysterious rubbing or goodness knows what? This is not a criticism of the hall in any sense but it is certainly a criticism of certain members of the audience.
The first half of the programme, consisting of the first two Op.2 sonatas, was in many respects disappointing. In an introductory note, Pommier cautioned us: ‘The important thing to remember is that these works do not start off in a “minor” way.’ Very true, but that is not necessarily the impression gained here. The first reading of the F minor sonata received a classical, neo-Mozartian reading, perhaps inspired by the opening ‘Mannheim rocket’, but also, it seemed, by Mozart’s great C minor sonata, KV 457. Whereas Mozart is straining at the bounds of what his material allows, Beethoven here sounded a touch reticent, which is hardly a Beethovenian quality. The Adagio displayed a commendable control of line and clarity but lacked magic. Pommier caught nicely the metrical ambiguities of the Menuetto, though his reading lacked mystery; a dash more pedal would not have done any harm. On the other hand, the contours of the trio were clearly felt and communicated. The Prestissimo finale was over-pedalled, some of its furious triplet figuration obscured. I wondered whether Pommier was taking the movement too fast, or at least too fast for him; the music sometimes seemed to run away with him, slowing sounding motivated by technical rather than musical considerations. This was not a problem later on and the movement concluded with real fire, but it was all a little late.
At the outset of the A major sonata, Pommier sounded more at home, attuned to the quirkiness of Beethoven’s writing. Yet his reading soon stiffened, lacking the flexibility that many players have brought to this work. The openings of the development and recapitulation brought a welcome sense of rejuvenation, although this was not altogether successfully sustained. Structure, however, was eminently clear. If the pianist brought a gruff nobility to the Largo appassionato, he was sometimes simply plain and charmless. Likewise, the line between pressing onwards and sheer relentlessness was crossed more than once. I liked the reappearance of a quirky mood in the scherzo; Pommier displayed a good rhythmic sense throughout. The rondo’s theme should sound melting, heart-rending even; here it sounded disconcertingly matter-of-fact. Beethoven marks it – unusually – grazioso. I found myself longing for a little mannerism, some sign of personality, even if it were imported from without. It was not to be. Pommier’s reading also lacked dynamic differentiation, although this became more pronounced as the movement progressed. Again, however, it was rather too late.
I do not know what was put into Pommier’s half-time oranges but the third of the Op.2 sonatas sounded as if the music had been brought sharply into focus. There was real Beethovenian character here: humour and vehemence from the opening bars. The music-making was more differentiated, more yielding. I still often missed a greater lightness of touch in the first movement, but it was not entirely lacking. There was certainly a greater sense of mystery than had previously been communicated, not least in the great cadenza and the approach thereto. The Adagio flowed but was not too fast. Pommier displayed a fine sense of harmonic and rhythmic momentum, aided by far more sensitive dynamic contrasts than had been heard during the first half. Lines sang more freely; there was even the odd presentiment of Schubert. With the scherzo came a greater lightness of touch than we had heard hitherto; I even thought once or twice of Mendelssohn. The whole was built upon a clear rhythmic security, without stiffness. Such attributes also shone through in the closing Allegro assai, joined by a sense of fun, especially at the opening statement of the principal theme. Pommier could still be a little heavy-handed but this was much less of a problem than before. His trills were excellent.
The Op.7 sonata marked something, I am afraid, of a retreat, though not entirely. The first movement started well, with a splendid sense of life. However, the syncopations at the end of the exposition – and their reiterations – could have told more, sounding rather limp. There was nevertheless considerable virtuosity on show here, virtuosity that never sounded as if it were being applied for its own sake. The slow movement was dignified but earthbound. I could not discern those great metaphysical vistas opening up, such as is the case in great performances of this work. The scherzo dragged at times, partly on account of a lack of lightness where required. However, the trio exhibited a winning Romantic vehemence, presaging Schubert and Schumann. It was very good; the rest of the movement was somewhat plain. Unfortunately, the magic that can sound from the very opening of the rondo – it certainly did in Barenboim’s performance – was simply not there. Forthrightness is all to the good, but it is far from the only quality the music demands. The C minor episode was splendidly dispatched but there was not nearly enough contrast when we needed repose. Too much of this movement sounded as though it wanted to be the opening of the Emperor concerto but could not. I shall pass over the frankly inappropriate encores.
Beethoven – Piano sonata no.1 in F minor, Op.2 no.1
Beethoven – Piano sonata no.2 in A major, Op.2 no.2
Beethoven – Piano sonata no.3 in C major, Op.2 no.3
Beethoven – Piano sonata no.4 in E-flat major, Op.7
Jean-Bernard Pommier (piano)
Daniel Barenboim’s selection of piano sonatas from throughout Beethoven’s œuvre to form a series of varied programmes is not Jean-Bernard Pommier’s way. His Kings Place cycle, of which this recital was the first instalment, will be strictly chronological, although, like Barenboim’s, it will be limited to the thirty-two ‘canonical’ works. There is something to be said for either approach and little, it seems to me, to be gained by lamenting that the other one has not been chosen – although this did not prevent low-level carping from the odd sour critic determined to knock Barenboim from his pedestal. Pommier’s cycle is to be taken at a slower rate than Barenboim’s, a recital a month. I make this initial comparison not out of an obsessive regard for Barenboim, but because they will naturally be in many listeners’ minds, following the great ‘event’ of Barenboim’s cycle.
And, of course, the venue is different: Kings Place, newly opened, rather than the Royal Festival Hall. I can say that the acoustic of the shoe-box-shaped Hall One, completely soundproof and lined with the wood of a single, five-hundred-year-old German oak, is excellent, if unsparing. There is nowhere for the musicians to hide, likewise for the audience, although this did mean that the sound of incessant fidgeting was magnified. Why were so many people shuffling, dropping, and picking up papers, or engaging in mysterious rubbing or goodness knows what? This is not a criticism of the hall in any sense but it is certainly a criticism of certain members of the audience.
The first half of the programme, consisting of the first two Op.2 sonatas, was in many respects disappointing. In an introductory note, Pommier cautioned us: ‘The important thing to remember is that these works do not start off in a “minor” way.’ Very true, but that is not necessarily the impression gained here. The first reading of the F minor sonata received a classical, neo-Mozartian reading, perhaps inspired by the opening ‘Mannheim rocket’, but also, it seemed, by Mozart’s great C minor sonata, KV 457. Whereas Mozart is straining at the bounds of what his material allows, Beethoven here sounded a touch reticent, which is hardly a Beethovenian quality. The Adagio displayed a commendable control of line and clarity but lacked magic. Pommier caught nicely the metrical ambiguities of the Menuetto, though his reading lacked mystery; a dash more pedal would not have done any harm. On the other hand, the contours of the trio were clearly felt and communicated. The Prestissimo finale was over-pedalled, some of its furious triplet figuration obscured. I wondered whether Pommier was taking the movement too fast, or at least too fast for him; the music sometimes seemed to run away with him, slowing sounding motivated by technical rather than musical considerations. This was not a problem later on and the movement concluded with real fire, but it was all a little late.
At the outset of the A major sonata, Pommier sounded more at home, attuned to the quirkiness of Beethoven’s writing. Yet his reading soon stiffened, lacking the flexibility that many players have brought to this work. The openings of the development and recapitulation brought a welcome sense of rejuvenation, although this was not altogether successfully sustained. Structure, however, was eminently clear. If the pianist brought a gruff nobility to the Largo appassionato, he was sometimes simply plain and charmless. Likewise, the line between pressing onwards and sheer relentlessness was crossed more than once. I liked the reappearance of a quirky mood in the scherzo; Pommier displayed a good rhythmic sense throughout. The rondo’s theme should sound melting, heart-rending even; here it sounded disconcertingly matter-of-fact. Beethoven marks it – unusually – grazioso. I found myself longing for a little mannerism, some sign of personality, even if it were imported from without. It was not to be. Pommier’s reading also lacked dynamic differentiation, although this became more pronounced as the movement progressed. Again, however, it was rather too late.
I do not know what was put into Pommier’s half-time oranges but the third of the Op.2 sonatas sounded as if the music had been brought sharply into focus. There was real Beethovenian character here: humour and vehemence from the opening bars. The music-making was more differentiated, more yielding. I still often missed a greater lightness of touch in the first movement, but it was not entirely lacking. There was certainly a greater sense of mystery than had previously been communicated, not least in the great cadenza and the approach thereto. The Adagio flowed but was not too fast. Pommier displayed a fine sense of harmonic and rhythmic momentum, aided by far more sensitive dynamic contrasts than had been heard during the first half. Lines sang more freely; there was even the odd presentiment of Schubert. With the scherzo came a greater lightness of touch than we had heard hitherto; I even thought once or twice of Mendelssohn. The whole was built upon a clear rhythmic security, without stiffness. Such attributes also shone through in the closing Allegro assai, joined by a sense of fun, especially at the opening statement of the principal theme. Pommier could still be a little heavy-handed but this was much less of a problem than before. His trills were excellent.
The Op.7 sonata marked something, I am afraid, of a retreat, though not entirely. The first movement started well, with a splendid sense of life. However, the syncopations at the end of the exposition – and their reiterations – could have told more, sounding rather limp. There was nevertheless considerable virtuosity on show here, virtuosity that never sounded as if it were being applied for its own sake. The slow movement was dignified but earthbound. I could not discern those great metaphysical vistas opening up, such as is the case in great performances of this work. The scherzo dragged at times, partly on account of a lack of lightness where required. However, the trio exhibited a winning Romantic vehemence, presaging Schubert and Schumann. It was very good; the rest of the movement was somewhat plain. Unfortunately, the magic that can sound from the very opening of the rondo – it certainly did in Barenboim’s performance – was simply not there. Forthrightness is all to the good, but it is far from the only quality the music demands. The C minor episode was splendidly dispatched but there was not nearly enough contrast when we needed repose. Too much of this movement sounded as though it wanted to be the opening of the Emperor concerto but could not. I shall pass over the frankly inappropriate encores.
Monday, 6 October 2008
Marc-André Hamelin piano recital, Wigmore Hall, 5 October 2008
Wigmore Hall
Haydn – Piano sonata in B minor, Hob.XVI:32
Chopin – Piano sonata no.3 in B minor, op.58
Debussy – Préludes: Book II
Marc-André Hamelin (piano)
The name of C.P.E. Bach occurred to me more than once during Marc-André Hamelin’s performance of Haydn’s marvellous B minor sonata. I subsequently discovered a guarded comparison between Emanuel Bach and Haydn in Misha Donat’s programme notes, so it seems that he, the pianist, and even your humble reviewer were thinking along similar lines – in my case, it must be said, as a result of Hamelin’s performance. Hamelin presented the sonata with some of the exaggerations that characterise the boundary between the Baroque and the Classical. The dynamic contrasts and use of the sustaining pedal were unashamedly Romantic but there were also numerous instances of late Baroque mannerism, not least in terms of the crushed ornamentation. It was rather as if Glenn Gould were being crossed with Mikhail Pletnev or even, given the sometimes chocolate-like tone, with Evgeny Kissin. I wondered whether the agogic exaggeration in statements of the first movement’s first subject would become merely irritating but it did not; instead, it heightened the sense of characterisation. This movement was taken quite fast for an Allegro moderato yet the tempo worked. Hamelin took the second repeat, adding to the distancing from the Classical period proper. The following major-mode minuet sounded duly Classical, almost Mozartian, yet also perhaps just the slightest touch empty, as if Hamelin were eager to return to the Sturm und Drang of B minor, which he did in the vehement trio. I wondered whether the Presto finale was a shade too fast, but Haydn’s marking is after all presto. Hamelin took it as a moto perpetuo, which swept all before it – all, that is, save for the slightly heavy-handed repeated notes at the outset, a problem that soon righted itself. His octaves were an object lesson in style and projection.
We remained in B minor for Chopin’s third piano sonata. I was not sure that Hamelin quite had the measure of this work as a whole, although his performance certainly boasted splendid aspects. It was almost as if the music were too easy (!) for such a super-virtuoso. In the first movement, we were treated to a melting second subject, on its first and subsequent appearances, but its predecessor was just a little straightforward. That said, there was a fine sense of musical transformation when it came to the recapitulation. Needless to say, any technical challenges were readily surmounted. The scherzo was a definite instance in which the music sounded a little too ‘easy’ for the pianist. There was a sense of him gliding over its musical substance. The trio appeared to benefit through its lack of virtuosity. Hamelin presented a ruminative yet nevertheless developmental Largo, with a fine sense of the barcarolle later on, although some of the earlier material sounded a touch matter of fact. The finale was impressively virtuosic, which is not to say emptily so, although, like sections of the third movement, it sometimes veered dangerously close to Rachmaninov. I wondered whether Hamelin would have been happier more at home performing Alkan.
Debussy seemed to speak more readily to this pianist, as we heard in the second book of Préludes. The veiled quality of Brouillards sounded spot on, followed by exquisite voicing in Feuilles mortes – that in a piece one would not necessarily have thought most lent itself to such ‘Romantic’ treatment. Its music was certainly heard ‘without hammers’ – likewise in Canape – and with fine use of the sustaining pedal. La puerta del vino suffered from a heavy-handed opening – repeated upon re-visitation of the opening material – but the piece was characterised more generally by a fine sense of insistent rhythm and exotic danger. La terrasse des audiences du clair de lune benefited from a nicely mysterious opening, the mood continuing throughout Hamelin’s performance. There was an interesting hint of an almost Brahmsian waltz rhythm at times. Not every prelude was equally successful. Bruyères, for instance, was well executed but a little plain. ‘General Lavine’ – excentric captured the eccentric aspect well but primary colours were a little too much to the fore elsewhere. Les Tierces alternées sounded a little too close to the parodic style Debussy had employed in Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum; again, I wondered if its technical challenges were not great enough. But in the final Feux d’artifice, post-Lisztian pyrotechnics were undoubtedly appropriate; Hamelin’s glissando was simply jaw-dropping. Despite certain reservations, then, this was in many respects an estimable account. I suspect that the audience would have been treated to an encore or two but this must remain mere suspicion on my part since, unfortunately, I had to leave immediately.
Haydn – Piano sonata in B minor, Hob.XVI:32
Chopin – Piano sonata no.3 in B minor, op.58
Debussy – Préludes: Book II
Marc-André Hamelin (piano)
The name of C.P.E. Bach occurred to me more than once during Marc-André Hamelin’s performance of Haydn’s marvellous B minor sonata. I subsequently discovered a guarded comparison between Emanuel Bach and Haydn in Misha Donat’s programme notes, so it seems that he, the pianist, and even your humble reviewer were thinking along similar lines – in my case, it must be said, as a result of Hamelin’s performance. Hamelin presented the sonata with some of the exaggerations that characterise the boundary between the Baroque and the Classical. The dynamic contrasts and use of the sustaining pedal were unashamedly Romantic but there were also numerous instances of late Baroque mannerism, not least in terms of the crushed ornamentation. It was rather as if Glenn Gould were being crossed with Mikhail Pletnev or even, given the sometimes chocolate-like tone, with Evgeny Kissin. I wondered whether the agogic exaggeration in statements of the first movement’s first subject would become merely irritating but it did not; instead, it heightened the sense of characterisation. This movement was taken quite fast for an Allegro moderato yet the tempo worked. Hamelin took the second repeat, adding to the distancing from the Classical period proper. The following major-mode minuet sounded duly Classical, almost Mozartian, yet also perhaps just the slightest touch empty, as if Hamelin were eager to return to the Sturm und Drang of B minor, which he did in the vehement trio. I wondered whether the Presto finale was a shade too fast, but Haydn’s marking is after all presto. Hamelin took it as a moto perpetuo, which swept all before it – all, that is, save for the slightly heavy-handed repeated notes at the outset, a problem that soon righted itself. His octaves were an object lesson in style and projection.
We remained in B minor for Chopin’s third piano sonata. I was not sure that Hamelin quite had the measure of this work as a whole, although his performance certainly boasted splendid aspects. It was almost as if the music were too easy (!) for such a super-virtuoso. In the first movement, we were treated to a melting second subject, on its first and subsequent appearances, but its predecessor was just a little straightforward. That said, there was a fine sense of musical transformation when it came to the recapitulation. Needless to say, any technical challenges were readily surmounted. The scherzo was a definite instance in which the music sounded a little too ‘easy’ for the pianist. There was a sense of him gliding over its musical substance. The trio appeared to benefit through its lack of virtuosity. Hamelin presented a ruminative yet nevertheless developmental Largo, with a fine sense of the barcarolle later on, although some of the earlier material sounded a touch matter of fact. The finale was impressively virtuosic, which is not to say emptily so, although, like sections of the third movement, it sometimes veered dangerously close to Rachmaninov. I wondered whether Hamelin would have been happier more at home performing Alkan.
Debussy seemed to speak more readily to this pianist, as we heard in the second book of Préludes. The veiled quality of Brouillards sounded spot on, followed by exquisite voicing in Feuilles mortes – that in a piece one would not necessarily have thought most lent itself to such ‘Romantic’ treatment. Its music was certainly heard ‘without hammers’ – likewise in Canape – and with fine use of the sustaining pedal. La puerta del vino suffered from a heavy-handed opening – repeated upon re-visitation of the opening material – but the piece was characterised more generally by a fine sense of insistent rhythm and exotic danger. La terrasse des audiences du clair de lune benefited from a nicely mysterious opening, the mood continuing throughout Hamelin’s performance. There was an interesting hint of an almost Brahmsian waltz rhythm at times. Not every prelude was equally successful. Bruyères, for instance, was well executed but a little plain. ‘General Lavine’ – excentric captured the eccentric aspect well but primary colours were a little too much to the fore elsewhere. Les Tierces alternées sounded a little too close to the parodic style Debussy had employed in Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum; again, I wondered if its technical challenges were not great enough. But in the final Feux d’artifice, post-Lisztian pyrotechnics were undoubtedly appropriate; Hamelin’s glissando was simply jaw-dropping. Despite certain reservations, then, this was in many respects an estimable account. I suspect that the audience would have been treated to an encore or two but this must remain mere suspicion on my part since, unfortunately, I had to leave immediately.
Friday, 19 September 2008
Cédric Tiberghien - Brahms and Bartók, 18 September 2008
Wigmore Hall
Brahms – Eight Piano Pieces, op.76
Bartók – Out of Doors, BB 89
Bartók – Three Hungarian Folksongs from Csík, BB 45b
Bartók – Mikrokosmos, BB 105, Book VI: Six Dances in Bulgarian rhythm
Bartók – Six Rumanian Folk Dances, BB 68
Brahms – Ten Hungarian Dances, WoO 1
Cédric Tiberghien (piano)
This was a fascinating programme, conceived both as a prelude to the Wigmore Hall’s ‘Bartók Day’ (20 September) and an examination of the differing approaches to ‘folk music’ by Brahms and Bartók. I use inverted commas, since Brahms’s material was based upon gypsy music and often ‘composed’ rather than traditional, although Brahms was largely unaware of this. Bartók on the other hand experienced an epiphany in 1904, hearing a Transylvanian folksong sung by a nurse-maid. What he and many others – including Brahms – had previously thought to be Hungarian folk music was indeed nothing of the kind. Bartók would devote a considerable part of his subsequent career to study of the ‘real thing’, however problematic that idea might be.
Brahms’s Op.76 pieces stand somewhat obliquely to this theme. There are some gypsy rhythms, for instance during the Capriccio in B minor, but for the most part it is better simply to consider this group as a valid introductory set in its own right. (And in retrospect, some pre-emptive respite from folksong, composed or traditional, was maybe not unwelcome.) Cédric Tiberghien proved himself a veritable lion of the keyboard, presenting a Brahms of high Romanticism rather than a progenitor of the Second Viennese School. This is to some extent a false opposition, since an interpretation can perfectly well encompass both of these views and indeed others, and there was certainly a strong sense of motivic development, heightened by telling cross rhythms, in the opening, F sharp minor Capriccio. That said, the general thrust stood closer to Chopin – this is not, after all, late Brahms – and even at times to Liszt, in spite of Brahms’s distaste for that composer. The first piece announced an echt-Brahmsian sonority and sentiment, married to superbly natural flexible tempi, a characteristic that persisted throughout the set, even when, as in the final, C major Capriccio, I wondered whether the Romanticism was a little overdone and we veered dangerously close not only to Chopin but even to Rachmaninov. I mean this purely in terms of sonority, for there was nothing flashy about Tiberghien’s performance; it was simply abundant in passion. Virtuosity was readily deployed, for instance in the C sharp minor Capriccio, but always at the service of the music. Helpful in this respect was a strong underlying rhythmic impulse, apparent throughout. So was a great skill for voicing, without ever tending towards sub-Horowitz narcissism. I was very much taken with the B flat major Intermezzo, in which Tiberghien captured perfectly its unassuming though far from inconsequential nature. It was only really in the sixth piece, the A major Intermezzo, that a refreshingly Schumannesque – Liszt might have said ‘Leipzigerisch’ – inheritance shone though, not least in its quizzical opening and thereafter in the involved thematic development, though once again the performance remained outwardly impassioned too.
Bartók’s Out of doors suite rounded off the first half. I may only have had incidental reservations concerning the Brahms but here I had none whatsoever. From the opening bars of With drums and pipes, with their stomping percussive chords, this was utterly characteristic Bartók – from both composer and pianist. The Barcarolla was splendidly insistent and again utterly attuned to the composer’s sound world. That insistence carried through into Musettes, accompanied by a pianist’s sonorous delight in Bartók’s drones. In The night’s music – a title so prophetic for much later Bartók – one could almost see the insects of the night, so vividly did Tiberghien portray them. Yet his reading was certainly not merely colouristic; there was always clear direction, married to razor-sharp rhythmic definition. It made me want to hear Tiberghien’s Debussy. In The chase we were treated to a climactic, almost Lisztian abandon: Mazeppa or Mephisto, or perhaps both. Tiberghien unleashed breathtaking virtuosity, which enabled great textural clarity without ever sounding clinical. It is no exaggeration to say that he reminded me here of Maurizio Pollini.
After the interval, the opening group of three short sets displayed three different varieties of Bartók’s inspiration and composition: straightforward setting of folksong material, compositional inspiration from folksong rhythm – in this case of the Bulgarian ‘additive’ variety – and elaboration of existing material. In the short Three Hungarian folk songs from Csík, Tiberghien resisted any temptation to over-play these simple folksong settings. There was here a strong, direct simplicity, married to an exquisite touch. The melancholy of the first and second songs shone through but they were never sentimentalised. These songs were simply and rightly presented rather than ‘interpreted’. The Six Dances in Bulgarian Rhythm from Mikrokosmos, that astonishing set of teaching material – yet think of Bach, as Bartók so often did – were by contrast most definitely ‘composed’ and therefore ‘performed’. Tiberghien nevertheless never overdid the ‘interpretation’; his achievement was such that this once again sounded simply as Bartók. He employed a telling yet natural rubato allied to tight rhythmic command: alive to the twists and turns of Bartók’s dances but never ‘quirky’ for the sake of it. Quickfire repeated notes gave ample and apposite opportunity to utilise rather than merely to display his virtuosity. The ever-popular – in various guises – Six Rumanian Folk Dances were infectiously strident where necessary but were equally characterised by a wonderful delicacy. ‘Eastern’ sounds were full of promise and not without a hint or two of danger. Repetition was exciting rather then tedious, as can sometimes be the case with inherently anti-developmental folksong. But it was above all the melancholy lyricism that will linger for me.
From the outset of the solo version of the Ten Hungarian Dances, it was clear that we had returned to Brahms: the highly Romantic Brahms we had earlier, but nevertheless still Brahms. The German composer’s darkness and charm were equally present. And the difference between Bartók’s Hungarian material and Brahms’s gypsy music was clear. Impassioned nostalgia might be a good way to characterise the openings of the second and fourth dances. In the latter we heard the cimbalom as clearly as we had heard the insects of the night in Out of doors. The syncopations of the third dance were projected with great dramatic flair. If there were occasional hints of rhythmic hardening, as in the fourth, and of matter-of factness, as in the fifth, these should not be exaggerated; they were probably only noticeable because the Bartók performances had been so utterly remarkable. And Tiberghien elsewhere, for instance in the seventh dance, showed that he was quite able to adopt a characteristic gypsy freedom of tempo. The Brahms works, then, were very good, but Tiberghien’s Bartók was quite outstanding, indeed faultless. And yet he surpassed himself in terms of Brahms by providing as an encore a haunting E major waltz (no.2) from the Op.39 set. We were left wanting more – which is just as it should be.
Brahms – Eight Piano Pieces, op.76
Bartók – Out of Doors, BB 89
Bartók – Three Hungarian Folksongs from Csík, BB 45b
Bartók – Mikrokosmos, BB 105, Book VI: Six Dances in Bulgarian rhythm
Bartók – Six Rumanian Folk Dances, BB 68
Brahms – Ten Hungarian Dances, WoO 1
Cédric Tiberghien (piano)
This was a fascinating programme, conceived both as a prelude to the Wigmore Hall’s ‘Bartók Day’ (20 September) and an examination of the differing approaches to ‘folk music’ by Brahms and Bartók. I use inverted commas, since Brahms’s material was based upon gypsy music and often ‘composed’ rather than traditional, although Brahms was largely unaware of this. Bartók on the other hand experienced an epiphany in 1904, hearing a Transylvanian folksong sung by a nurse-maid. What he and many others – including Brahms – had previously thought to be Hungarian folk music was indeed nothing of the kind. Bartók would devote a considerable part of his subsequent career to study of the ‘real thing’, however problematic that idea might be.
Brahms’s Op.76 pieces stand somewhat obliquely to this theme. There are some gypsy rhythms, for instance during the Capriccio in B minor, but for the most part it is better simply to consider this group as a valid introductory set in its own right. (And in retrospect, some pre-emptive respite from folksong, composed or traditional, was maybe not unwelcome.) Cédric Tiberghien proved himself a veritable lion of the keyboard, presenting a Brahms of high Romanticism rather than a progenitor of the Second Viennese School. This is to some extent a false opposition, since an interpretation can perfectly well encompass both of these views and indeed others, and there was certainly a strong sense of motivic development, heightened by telling cross rhythms, in the opening, F sharp minor Capriccio. That said, the general thrust stood closer to Chopin – this is not, after all, late Brahms – and even at times to Liszt, in spite of Brahms’s distaste for that composer. The first piece announced an echt-Brahmsian sonority and sentiment, married to superbly natural flexible tempi, a characteristic that persisted throughout the set, even when, as in the final, C major Capriccio, I wondered whether the Romanticism was a little overdone and we veered dangerously close not only to Chopin but even to Rachmaninov. I mean this purely in terms of sonority, for there was nothing flashy about Tiberghien’s performance; it was simply abundant in passion. Virtuosity was readily deployed, for instance in the C sharp minor Capriccio, but always at the service of the music. Helpful in this respect was a strong underlying rhythmic impulse, apparent throughout. So was a great skill for voicing, without ever tending towards sub-Horowitz narcissism. I was very much taken with the B flat major Intermezzo, in which Tiberghien captured perfectly its unassuming though far from inconsequential nature. It was only really in the sixth piece, the A major Intermezzo, that a refreshingly Schumannesque – Liszt might have said ‘Leipzigerisch’ – inheritance shone though, not least in its quizzical opening and thereafter in the involved thematic development, though once again the performance remained outwardly impassioned too.
Bartók’s Out of doors suite rounded off the first half. I may only have had incidental reservations concerning the Brahms but here I had none whatsoever. From the opening bars of With drums and pipes, with their stomping percussive chords, this was utterly characteristic Bartók – from both composer and pianist. The Barcarolla was splendidly insistent and again utterly attuned to the composer’s sound world. That insistence carried through into Musettes, accompanied by a pianist’s sonorous delight in Bartók’s drones. In The night’s music – a title so prophetic for much later Bartók – one could almost see the insects of the night, so vividly did Tiberghien portray them. Yet his reading was certainly not merely colouristic; there was always clear direction, married to razor-sharp rhythmic definition. It made me want to hear Tiberghien’s Debussy. In The chase we were treated to a climactic, almost Lisztian abandon: Mazeppa or Mephisto, or perhaps both. Tiberghien unleashed breathtaking virtuosity, which enabled great textural clarity without ever sounding clinical. It is no exaggeration to say that he reminded me here of Maurizio Pollini.
After the interval, the opening group of three short sets displayed three different varieties of Bartók’s inspiration and composition: straightforward setting of folksong material, compositional inspiration from folksong rhythm – in this case of the Bulgarian ‘additive’ variety – and elaboration of existing material. In the short Three Hungarian folk songs from Csík, Tiberghien resisted any temptation to over-play these simple folksong settings. There was here a strong, direct simplicity, married to an exquisite touch. The melancholy of the first and second songs shone through but they were never sentimentalised. These songs were simply and rightly presented rather than ‘interpreted’. The Six Dances in Bulgarian Rhythm from Mikrokosmos, that astonishing set of teaching material – yet think of Bach, as Bartók so often did – were by contrast most definitely ‘composed’ and therefore ‘performed’. Tiberghien nevertheless never overdid the ‘interpretation’; his achievement was such that this once again sounded simply as Bartók. He employed a telling yet natural rubato allied to tight rhythmic command: alive to the twists and turns of Bartók’s dances but never ‘quirky’ for the sake of it. Quickfire repeated notes gave ample and apposite opportunity to utilise rather than merely to display his virtuosity. The ever-popular – in various guises – Six Rumanian Folk Dances were infectiously strident where necessary but were equally characterised by a wonderful delicacy. ‘Eastern’ sounds were full of promise and not without a hint or two of danger. Repetition was exciting rather then tedious, as can sometimes be the case with inherently anti-developmental folksong. But it was above all the melancholy lyricism that will linger for me.
From the outset of the solo version of the Ten Hungarian Dances, it was clear that we had returned to Brahms: the highly Romantic Brahms we had earlier, but nevertheless still Brahms. The German composer’s darkness and charm were equally present. And the difference between Bartók’s Hungarian material and Brahms’s gypsy music was clear. Impassioned nostalgia might be a good way to characterise the openings of the second and fourth dances. In the latter we heard the cimbalom as clearly as we had heard the insects of the night in Out of doors. The syncopations of the third dance were projected with great dramatic flair. If there were occasional hints of rhythmic hardening, as in the fourth, and of matter-of factness, as in the fifth, these should not be exaggerated; they were probably only noticeable because the Bartók performances had been so utterly remarkable. And Tiberghien elsewhere, for instance in the seventh dance, showed that he was quite able to adopt a characteristic gypsy freedom of tempo. The Brahms works, then, were very good, but Tiberghien’s Bartók was quite outstanding, indeed faultless. And yet he surpassed himself in terms of Brahms by providing as an encore a haunting E major waltz (no.2) from the Op.39 set. We were left wanting more – which is just as it should be.
Wednesday, 28 May 2008
Krystian Zimerman, piano recital, 27 May 2008
Royal Festival Hall
Bach – Partita no.4 in D major, BWV 828
Beethoven – Piano sonata no.32 in C minor, Op.111
Brahms – Four piano pieces, Op.119
Szymanowski – Variations on a Polish folk theme in B minor, Op.10
Krystian Zimerman (piano)
Let it first be said that Krystian Zimerman is a great pianist, with a touch as an exquisite as any. I have long treasured a number of his recordings, perhaps above all his Webern solo piano works and his Ravel with Pierre Boulez. The evidence of this recital, however, was somewhat more mixed. There could be no doubting his stellar qualities as a pianist, but they did not always seem to stand in ideal sympathy with the music. By the same token, I did not sense a particular idea behind the programme beyond Zimerman’s choice of some favoured works. That there happened to be a brief fugato towards the end of the Szymanowski Variations does not seem to me in itself, as the programme notes had it, to return us in any meaningful sense to Bach. I am far from saying that every concert programme need be explicitly didactic in its intent, but the unfailing artistry in putting together a programme shown, for instance, by Boulez, is a great example to all manner of musicians. There had been a pre-concert talk, which I was unable to attend, so maybe this would have made matters clearer.
The Bach partita received an excellent performance. My single reservation lay with the somewhat hurried tempo of the courante, but even this presented a welcome contrast with the preceding allemande, and its trumpeting of bright D major was an undeniable joy. The ‘ornaments’ too were truly melodic, a quality too often disregarded or unappreciated by the more fey Bach would-be interpreters. The opening Grave adagio of the sinfonia was conceived in a grand, Busoni-like fashion, followed by a spellbinding hush for the Andante section, which opened out perfectly into the principal Allegro. Rhythmic definition and momentum were impeccable throughout. The echt-Bachian dissolution of the distinction between harmony and counterpoint came to the fore in the allemande and rondeau. The allemande received a dreamily Romantic reading, shaded with great beauty, whilst the exquisite variation between shades of legato, non legato, and staccato in the rondeau evoked impressions of other Baroque keyboard composers, notably Rameau and Scarlatti. Zimerman’s ravishing touch presented the sarabande, quite rightly, as the still heart of the work. And when it came to the final capriccio, utterly pianistic in its conception, we were treated to an almost Chopinesque beauty of sonorous articulation.
Chopin, however, seemed a little too present in Beethoven’s final piano sonata. There were many admirable aspects to Zimerman’s performance, but also some which seemed rather less appropriate. It started off very well, with truly thunderous trills, although I wondered whether the Allegro con brio was taken a little too fast. My doubts concerning this were largely dispelled by the commendable flexibility of tempo Zimerman displayed – and by serene moments of Olympian calm. I did not mind hearing the Revolutionary Etude foreshadowed just before the end of the first movement; indeed, it was salutary to hear the connection, when so often one is told that Chopin, alone amongst Romantic composers, honoured Beethoven by failing to be influenced by him. Moreover, the Pollini-like beauty of the trills in the second movement, without the slightest hint of rigidity, was also something at which truly to wonder. Yet, on the whole, I found this movement in particular too ‘pianistically’ conceived, drawing attention to the instrument and to the pianist rather than to the music. Even the undoubtedly ravishing filigree of the high passages sounded just a touch narcissistic. And whilst there was a splendid expression of joy in the third variation, I had a nagging sense of it being taken unusually fast at least partly because the pianist could. This may be an unfair estimate of his intention, but it did come across just a little like that. And the opening statement of the great theme, almost Gluckian in its noble simplicity – at least in the score – was by turns both just that and excessively manicured. However beautiful the trees, we need always to have our eyes firmly set upon the wood. If only I had not heard Daniel Barenboim perform this work in February at the end of his Beethoven sonata cycle, I might have been less critical; but I had, and so I was.
The Brahms Op.119 Pieces were similarly mixed. I entertained no reservations whatsoever concerning the opening B minor intermezzo. The ‘grey pearl’ to which Clara Schumann so perceptively likened it did indeed ‘look as if … [it was] veiled,’ and was certainly ‘very precious’. Zimerman seemed perfectly attuned to mood, style, and the construction of the piece from that truly Brahmsian interval of the falling third. There was here the profoundest melancholy, but not as Nietzsche so maliciously alleged, the ‘melancholy of impotence’. Instead, there was a true sense of intervallic proliferation, looking back to Bach – here there was certainly a valid connection in the programming – and forward to Webern. The ineffable sadness of the final B minor chords was lain bare for all to hear. In the following intermezzo, its outer sections marked Andantino un poco agitato, Zimerman’s flexibility just about prevented one thinking his basic tempo too fast, but it was a close run thing and this is certainly not how I should understand an andantino, however agitato. There was once again a welcome hint of Chopin in the central waltz, which lilted unforgettably. However, I found the third intermezzo simply too close to Chopin and longed for something more weighty, Klemperer-like even, despite the undeniable structural soundness of Zimerman’s reading. Perhaps the weight had been held in reserve for the concluding rhapsody, I thought, although some passages sounded curiously withdrawn for such forthright music; these contrasts sounded excessive, even wilful. That said, there was a magnificently tumultuous conclusion, which put me in mind of the first piano concerto and swept all before it.
I cannot imagine Zimerman’s performance of the early Szymanowski Variations on a Polish folk theme ever being surpassed. He seemed perfectly attuned to the shifting moods of the variations, and was unabashed in exhibiting the often exacting technique they require. A splendidly exploratory tone was set in the introduction, Debussyan in its ambiguity. The theme again sounded almost French, albeit with an undeniably Polish longing and nostalgia, evoking the Chopin of the mazurkas in its harmonies. Rachmaninov seemed to loom large in a number of the variations, although this may have been as much correspondence as influence. Certainly the passage work of the first and the torrentially cascading octaves of the second sounded as much ‘music for the Steinway’ as that of the Russian composer. This was counterbalanced by a sense of disquiet in the third variation and a rapt stillness in the major-mode sixth variation. The funeral march of the eighth inevitably brought Chopin to mind, but the physical sense of a passing cortège also evoked Mussorgsky’s Bydlo. The fff passages – I imagine they would be thus marked, since I do not have access to a score – were truly thunderous, but never harsh, whilst the final disappearance was a moment of pianistic magic. Debussy reappeared – or at least seemed to, for those of us who know his music better than that of Szymanowski – during the ninth variation: somewhere between Ce qu’a vu le vent d’ouest and Feux d’artifice, albeit without the individuality of the Frenchman’s harmony. Zimerman’s virtuosity in the finale dispelled any lingering doubts one might have entertained concerning the slightly derivative nature of some of the music. This set of variations received a performance I should unhesitatingly describe as magnificent. Perhaps next time, though, we might have some music from Chopin himself?
Bach – Partita no.4 in D major, BWV 828
Beethoven – Piano sonata no.32 in C minor, Op.111
Brahms – Four piano pieces, Op.119
Szymanowski – Variations on a Polish folk theme in B minor, Op.10
Krystian Zimerman (piano)
Let it first be said that Krystian Zimerman is a great pianist, with a touch as an exquisite as any. I have long treasured a number of his recordings, perhaps above all his Webern solo piano works and his Ravel with Pierre Boulez. The evidence of this recital, however, was somewhat more mixed. There could be no doubting his stellar qualities as a pianist, but they did not always seem to stand in ideal sympathy with the music. By the same token, I did not sense a particular idea behind the programme beyond Zimerman’s choice of some favoured works. That there happened to be a brief fugato towards the end of the Szymanowski Variations does not seem to me in itself, as the programme notes had it, to return us in any meaningful sense to Bach. I am far from saying that every concert programme need be explicitly didactic in its intent, but the unfailing artistry in putting together a programme shown, for instance, by Boulez, is a great example to all manner of musicians. There had been a pre-concert talk, which I was unable to attend, so maybe this would have made matters clearer.
The Bach partita received an excellent performance. My single reservation lay with the somewhat hurried tempo of the courante, but even this presented a welcome contrast with the preceding allemande, and its trumpeting of bright D major was an undeniable joy. The ‘ornaments’ too were truly melodic, a quality too often disregarded or unappreciated by the more fey Bach would-be interpreters. The opening Grave adagio of the sinfonia was conceived in a grand, Busoni-like fashion, followed by a spellbinding hush for the Andante section, which opened out perfectly into the principal Allegro. Rhythmic definition and momentum were impeccable throughout. The echt-Bachian dissolution of the distinction between harmony and counterpoint came to the fore in the allemande and rondeau. The allemande received a dreamily Romantic reading, shaded with great beauty, whilst the exquisite variation between shades of legato, non legato, and staccato in the rondeau evoked impressions of other Baroque keyboard composers, notably Rameau and Scarlatti. Zimerman’s ravishing touch presented the sarabande, quite rightly, as the still heart of the work. And when it came to the final capriccio, utterly pianistic in its conception, we were treated to an almost Chopinesque beauty of sonorous articulation.
Chopin, however, seemed a little too present in Beethoven’s final piano sonata. There were many admirable aspects to Zimerman’s performance, but also some which seemed rather less appropriate. It started off very well, with truly thunderous trills, although I wondered whether the Allegro con brio was taken a little too fast. My doubts concerning this were largely dispelled by the commendable flexibility of tempo Zimerman displayed – and by serene moments of Olympian calm. I did not mind hearing the Revolutionary Etude foreshadowed just before the end of the first movement; indeed, it was salutary to hear the connection, when so often one is told that Chopin, alone amongst Romantic composers, honoured Beethoven by failing to be influenced by him. Moreover, the Pollini-like beauty of the trills in the second movement, without the slightest hint of rigidity, was also something at which truly to wonder. Yet, on the whole, I found this movement in particular too ‘pianistically’ conceived, drawing attention to the instrument and to the pianist rather than to the music. Even the undoubtedly ravishing filigree of the high passages sounded just a touch narcissistic. And whilst there was a splendid expression of joy in the third variation, I had a nagging sense of it being taken unusually fast at least partly because the pianist could. This may be an unfair estimate of his intention, but it did come across just a little like that. And the opening statement of the great theme, almost Gluckian in its noble simplicity – at least in the score – was by turns both just that and excessively manicured. However beautiful the trees, we need always to have our eyes firmly set upon the wood. If only I had not heard Daniel Barenboim perform this work in February at the end of his Beethoven sonata cycle, I might have been less critical; but I had, and so I was.
The Brahms Op.119 Pieces were similarly mixed. I entertained no reservations whatsoever concerning the opening B minor intermezzo. The ‘grey pearl’ to which Clara Schumann so perceptively likened it did indeed ‘look as if … [it was] veiled,’ and was certainly ‘very precious’. Zimerman seemed perfectly attuned to mood, style, and the construction of the piece from that truly Brahmsian interval of the falling third. There was here the profoundest melancholy, but not as Nietzsche so maliciously alleged, the ‘melancholy of impotence’. Instead, there was a true sense of intervallic proliferation, looking back to Bach – here there was certainly a valid connection in the programming – and forward to Webern. The ineffable sadness of the final B minor chords was lain bare for all to hear. In the following intermezzo, its outer sections marked Andantino un poco agitato, Zimerman’s flexibility just about prevented one thinking his basic tempo too fast, but it was a close run thing and this is certainly not how I should understand an andantino, however agitato. There was once again a welcome hint of Chopin in the central waltz, which lilted unforgettably. However, I found the third intermezzo simply too close to Chopin and longed for something more weighty, Klemperer-like even, despite the undeniable structural soundness of Zimerman’s reading. Perhaps the weight had been held in reserve for the concluding rhapsody, I thought, although some passages sounded curiously withdrawn for such forthright music; these contrasts sounded excessive, even wilful. That said, there was a magnificently tumultuous conclusion, which put me in mind of the first piano concerto and swept all before it.
I cannot imagine Zimerman’s performance of the early Szymanowski Variations on a Polish folk theme ever being surpassed. He seemed perfectly attuned to the shifting moods of the variations, and was unabashed in exhibiting the often exacting technique they require. A splendidly exploratory tone was set in the introduction, Debussyan in its ambiguity. The theme again sounded almost French, albeit with an undeniably Polish longing and nostalgia, evoking the Chopin of the mazurkas in its harmonies. Rachmaninov seemed to loom large in a number of the variations, although this may have been as much correspondence as influence. Certainly the passage work of the first and the torrentially cascading octaves of the second sounded as much ‘music for the Steinway’ as that of the Russian composer. This was counterbalanced by a sense of disquiet in the third variation and a rapt stillness in the major-mode sixth variation. The funeral march of the eighth inevitably brought Chopin to mind, but the physical sense of a passing cortège also evoked Mussorgsky’s Bydlo. The fff passages – I imagine they would be thus marked, since I do not have access to a score – were truly thunderous, but never harsh, whilst the final disappearance was a moment of pianistic magic. Debussy reappeared – or at least seemed to, for those of us who know his music better than that of Szymanowski – during the ninth variation: somewhere between Ce qu’a vu le vent d’ouest and Feux d’artifice, albeit without the individuality of the Frenchman’s harmony. Zimerman’s virtuosity in the finale dispelled any lingering doubts one might have entertained concerning the slightly derivative nature of some of the music. This set of variations received a performance I should unhesitatingly describe as magnificent. Perhaps next time, though, we might have some music from Chopin himself?
Wednesday, 14 May 2008
András Schiff, piano recital: Schubert, 14 May 2008
Schubert – Four Impromptus, D.899
Schubert – Six Moments Musicaux, D.780
Schubert – Three Klavierstücke, D.946
Schubert – Four Impromptus, D.935
András Schiff (piano)
This was a frustrating recital. András Schiff, it goes without saying, is an extremely fine musician, who has perhaps always been most at home in the Classical repertoire (and Bach). His touch, as once again displayed here, is almost unfailing beautiful, not for its own sake, but at the service of the music. His beloved Bösendorfer piano serves his approach supremely well: infinitely yielding, never strident, at one with the music. One cannot fault his musical seriousness, his absolute lack of empty showmanship, nor the evident fondness of his advocacy for Schubert.
What, then, was the problem? Sad to say, it lay in the programme itself. What could be wrong with an all-Schubert programme? Nothing, but the organisation of this particular all-Schubert programme was unfortunate. To perform the first three sets of pieces prior to the interval made for a very long ‘half’: an hour and a half. For much of the Three Piano Pieces, D.946, a large part of the audience seemed restless and even Schiff seemed at times a little tired. Doubtless the heat did not help, but I suspect the upshot might have been similar even in the dead of winter. It was telling that a number of audience members did not return after the interval – which was a great pity, since there were musical riches aplenty to be heard. However, it was not simply the length of the recital, which, beginning at half-past seven, did not end until about ten past ten. The concentration of so many Schubert pieces, without a single sonata, or indeed movement in sonata form, had the extremely unhappy consequence of making them sound too similar, especially those in ternary form. I am not convinced that the Moments musicaux are heard to best advantage as a set, but they were certainly not in this context; I rather think the programme would have been better without any of them, save perhaps as an encore or two. What might have made very good sense in a recording, namely collecting a good number of non-sonata works by Schubert, does not necessarily work as a recital programme.
I had heard the C minor Impromptu, D.899/1, in the same hall, six nights previously from David Fray. Schiff’s was a different performance, less Romantically volatile, but at least as fine. His subtle rubato was exquisitely tuned to the twists and turns of the music, whilst the Erlkönig-like triplets were suitably implacable. Inner voices, where they existed, were projected powerfully, to what was perhaps a surprising extent; so too were bass lines. The lightness of touch with which Schiff opened the second impromptu provided a great contrast from the outset, without precluding sterner minor-mode moments, even within the opening material, let alone in subsequent sections. Left-hand dissonances later on were keenly projected, in almost Bartókian fashion. Throughout this set, though especially in the second and fourth pieces, I was impressed by the lack of any vain attempt to hide the sectional nature of Schubert’s writing; instead, Schiff made a structurally contrasting virtue of it. Fray had also performed the G flat impromptu, no.3. If his performance had put me in mind of Mendelssohn, then Schiff’s did even more; there were even shades of Bach, in the near-complete obliteration of any distinction between melody and harmony. Here was a voice of great experience, yet an experience in no sense weary.
The Moments musicaux started well and, if the truth be told, continued well; my doubts concerned the programming rather than the performances as such. With the first, Schiff started extremely promisingly, providing a contrasting, quirkier Schubertian voice, married to an intensely lyrical middle section. A truly impassioned outburst performed a similar structural-expressive function in the second. Rhythms were nicely sprung in the celebrated – and considerably shorter – third piece, in F sharp minor. But by the time we reached the fifth, the only truly quick piece in the set, the relief was palpable, this despite great success purely on its own terms in projecting the quicksilver mood swings of the fourth. The sixth piece, sadly, sounded more like a reversion than anything new.
It was with the Three Piano Pieces, D.946, that even Schiff himself began to seem a little tired: not that there were inaccuracies, but dynamic and rhythmic contrasts at least appeared a little dulled at times. The first piece suffered least in this regard; indeed, its mood-swings were very well captured. When it came to the second, the barcarolle sections were achingly beautiful, but I felt that the first of the minor-key episodes was somewhat under-characterised, with the consequence that it came to sound prolix. There was no such problem with the second of these episodes, whose metrical change registered truly magically, exhibiting a pathos all the finer and truer for its complete lack of exaggeration. Audience restlessness, married to an undeniable similarity of mood between the first and third pieces, resulted in a sense of relief that the interval had finally arrived.
Duly refreshed, I felt in a much better position to enjoy the D.935 set of impromptus. There could be no doubt that Schiff was in his element here. Without attempting to wield the pieces closer together than their character could bear – Schumann was surely incorrect to dub them as a sonata in disguise – a looser unity, born of contrast as much as similarity, was confidently forged. The great strengths of Schiff’s technique and musicianship were allowed to shine, without the marring fatigue that had set in during the first ‘half’. For instance, although the second impromptu, in A-flat major, is rather similar in character and indeed in piano-writing, to some of the Moments musicaux, here it gained from its placing with more contrasted pieces. The grand manner of the opening of the first was surely contrasted with the most tender lyricism that followed. During the third, a truly exquisite set of variations, there was a sense of proliferation, of variety, rather than of undue regimentation, which suited Schubert’s brand of variation-writing perfectly. The anguish of the third variation was the more telling for developing, rather than being imprinted upon Schiff’s reading from the outset. And the quirky Hungarian style of the fourth suited him equally. The ambivalence and complications of metre were married to an exquisite legato in the more lyrical sections. There was no lack of virtuosity in the passage-work, but the word seems almost beside the point in describing so utterly musical an account. What a pity, then, that the impact of such a performance remained somewhat blunted by its overall context.
Schubert – Six Moments Musicaux, D.780
Schubert – Three Klavierstücke, D.946
Schubert – Four Impromptus, D.935
András Schiff (piano)
This was a frustrating recital. András Schiff, it goes without saying, is an extremely fine musician, who has perhaps always been most at home in the Classical repertoire (and Bach). His touch, as once again displayed here, is almost unfailing beautiful, not for its own sake, but at the service of the music. His beloved Bösendorfer piano serves his approach supremely well: infinitely yielding, never strident, at one with the music. One cannot fault his musical seriousness, his absolute lack of empty showmanship, nor the evident fondness of his advocacy for Schubert.
What, then, was the problem? Sad to say, it lay in the programme itself. What could be wrong with an all-Schubert programme? Nothing, but the organisation of this particular all-Schubert programme was unfortunate. To perform the first three sets of pieces prior to the interval made for a very long ‘half’: an hour and a half. For much of the Three Piano Pieces, D.946, a large part of the audience seemed restless and even Schiff seemed at times a little tired. Doubtless the heat did not help, but I suspect the upshot might have been similar even in the dead of winter. It was telling that a number of audience members did not return after the interval – which was a great pity, since there were musical riches aplenty to be heard. However, it was not simply the length of the recital, which, beginning at half-past seven, did not end until about ten past ten. The concentration of so many Schubert pieces, without a single sonata, or indeed movement in sonata form, had the extremely unhappy consequence of making them sound too similar, especially those in ternary form. I am not convinced that the Moments musicaux are heard to best advantage as a set, but they were certainly not in this context; I rather think the programme would have been better without any of them, save perhaps as an encore or two. What might have made very good sense in a recording, namely collecting a good number of non-sonata works by Schubert, does not necessarily work as a recital programme.
I had heard the C minor Impromptu, D.899/1, in the same hall, six nights previously from David Fray. Schiff’s was a different performance, less Romantically volatile, but at least as fine. His subtle rubato was exquisitely tuned to the twists and turns of the music, whilst the Erlkönig-like triplets were suitably implacable. Inner voices, where they existed, were projected powerfully, to what was perhaps a surprising extent; so too were bass lines. The lightness of touch with which Schiff opened the second impromptu provided a great contrast from the outset, without precluding sterner minor-mode moments, even within the opening material, let alone in subsequent sections. Left-hand dissonances later on were keenly projected, in almost Bartókian fashion. Throughout this set, though especially in the second and fourth pieces, I was impressed by the lack of any vain attempt to hide the sectional nature of Schubert’s writing; instead, Schiff made a structurally contrasting virtue of it. Fray had also performed the G flat impromptu, no.3. If his performance had put me in mind of Mendelssohn, then Schiff’s did even more; there were even shades of Bach, in the near-complete obliteration of any distinction between melody and harmony. Here was a voice of great experience, yet an experience in no sense weary.
The Moments musicaux started well and, if the truth be told, continued well; my doubts concerned the programming rather than the performances as such. With the first, Schiff started extremely promisingly, providing a contrasting, quirkier Schubertian voice, married to an intensely lyrical middle section. A truly impassioned outburst performed a similar structural-expressive function in the second. Rhythms were nicely sprung in the celebrated – and considerably shorter – third piece, in F sharp minor. But by the time we reached the fifth, the only truly quick piece in the set, the relief was palpable, this despite great success purely on its own terms in projecting the quicksilver mood swings of the fourth. The sixth piece, sadly, sounded more like a reversion than anything new.
It was with the Three Piano Pieces, D.946, that even Schiff himself began to seem a little tired: not that there were inaccuracies, but dynamic and rhythmic contrasts at least appeared a little dulled at times. The first piece suffered least in this regard; indeed, its mood-swings were very well captured. When it came to the second, the barcarolle sections were achingly beautiful, but I felt that the first of the minor-key episodes was somewhat under-characterised, with the consequence that it came to sound prolix. There was no such problem with the second of these episodes, whose metrical change registered truly magically, exhibiting a pathos all the finer and truer for its complete lack of exaggeration. Audience restlessness, married to an undeniable similarity of mood between the first and third pieces, resulted in a sense of relief that the interval had finally arrived.
Duly refreshed, I felt in a much better position to enjoy the D.935 set of impromptus. There could be no doubt that Schiff was in his element here. Without attempting to wield the pieces closer together than their character could bear – Schumann was surely incorrect to dub them as a sonata in disguise – a looser unity, born of contrast as much as similarity, was confidently forged. The great strengths of Schiff’s technique and musicianship were allowed to shine, without the marring fatigue that had set in during the first ‘half’. For instance, although the second impromptu, in A-flat major, is rather similar in character and indeed in piano-writing, to some of the Moments musicaux, here it gained from its placing with more contrasted pieces. The grand manner of the opening of the first was surely contrasted with the most tender lyricism that followed. During the third, a truly exquisite set of variations, there was a sense of proliferation, of variety, rather than of undue regimentation, which suited Schubert’s brand of variation-writing perfectly. The anguish of the third variation was the more telling for developing, rather than being imprinted upon Schiff’s reading from the outset. And the quirky Hungarian style of the fourth suited him equally. The ambivalence and complications of metre were married to an exquisite legato in the more lyrical sections. There was no lack of virtuosity in the passage-work, but the word seems almost beside the point in describing so utterly musical an account. What a pity, then, that the impact of such a performance remained somewhat blunted by its overall context.
Thursday, 8 May 2008
David Fray, piano recital, 8 May 2008
Wigmore Hall
Schubert – Impromptu in C minor, D 899 no.1
Schubert – Impromptu in G flat major, D 899 no.3
Mozart – Piano Sonata in B flat major, KV 333/315c
Mozart – Adagio in B minor, KV 540
Bach – Partita no.6 in E minor, BWV 830
David Fray (piano)
The audience at this Wigmore Hall recital was disappointingly small, despite the recent release of David Fray’s widely-lauded first disc for Virgin Classics. Perhaps this is a case of a record company – and record collectors – being more discriminating than concert audiences, for Fray, on the evidence of this recital alone, is a very important pianist. He does not need to be treated as ‘promising’; he is a fully-fledged musician. This is not to say that everything was performed at an equal level, but where I am more critical, namely in the performance of the Mozart piano sonata, this is more a reflection on the very high quality of the rest of the performance than upon any serious failings.
Clichés concerning French musicians, not least pianists, die hard, but the only thing Gallic about Fray’s performance was his appearance. Indeed, if one closed one’s eyes during the two Schubert impromptus, one might have guessed at least ‘school of’ Wilhelm Kempff. In his programme notes, Jonathan Burton likened the C minor Impromptu to ‘taking the tune for a walk,’ which was just how it sounded here. Fray’s alertness to harmonic motion ensured that we were in safe hands with regard to the walk’s direction, whatever its diverting twists and turns. Voice-leading was excellent, though never in a self-consciously ‘individual’ way. The Erlkönig-triplets were ominous but never melodramatic; this was an impromptu, not an aspirant sonata movement. And the way in which the music died away – an especial strength of Fray’s performances throughout the recital – was truly magical, testament to his powers of touch and phrasing. The G flat major piece rightly stood closer to Mendelssohn than to Bellini; if vocal this were, then it was a song without words, not an aria. It was again a performance driven by a profound understanding of the work’s harmonic sense. Schenker – and indeed Furtwängler – would have approved. The darker undertones were well judged: neither too little nor too much. Again, the music subsided into nothingness, the only Gallic concession being the shrug at the end.
Mozart’s sonata in B flat, KV 333/315c was the only work concerning whose performance I had reservations. The opening Allegro was taken at quite a speed. Though not really hard-driven, I did think that it could profitably have been taken down a notch, and that Fray might have yielded a little more to Mozart’s lyricism. In this respect, the second subject was moulded to better effect during the exposition repeat and the recapitulation than it had been upon its initial presentation. The ineffably operatic vocal leaps first heard at the end of the exposition would have benefited from more tender shaping. Moreover, the dynamic range was somewhat restricted throughout: Fray proved himself excellent at differentiating between a wide range of piano playing, but never rose to a true forte. His varied articulation, however, was excellent. The Andante cantabile was certainly a modern reading in terms of its flowing tempo, but ultimately it sounded ever so slightly impatient. Admittedly, the exposition sounded more relaxed the second time round, so this was not simply a matter for the metronome. The concerto finale, marked Allegretto grazioso, was not excessively fast, but again I felt that a slightly more measured pace would have been preferable, not least when we reached the coda, whose figuration, whilst perfectly delivered in technical terms, suggested that a slower basic tempo might have been beneficial. This movement sounded louder on the whole, sometimes to good effect, as in the ‘orchestral’ lead-up to the cadenza, although I missed the shades of piano evident during the first two movements. The cadenza certainly sounded as a cadenza should.
After the interval, Fray remained with Mozart, for the miraculous Adagio in B minor, KV 540. Here, from the word go, there were greater dynamic contrasts, indicating a greater willingness to employ more or less the full resources of the modern piano. Imitating the fortepiano merely reduces the music, and I fancy there was a little of this to the sonata performance. Having said that, there is the undeniable fact that to perform Mozart well is the most difficult of all musical tasks, so one should not be too harsh; I have heard far, far worse. At any rate, we were treated – in every sense – not only to a true forte, but even sparingly to a true fortissimo, albeit always at the service of the music. Great care was taken with the voicing of the semiquaver chords, enabling their rhythmic and harmonic momentum fully to register. And there was an undeniable sense of fatal progression, always leading to the desolation of the coda and the final consoling warmth of B major.
If the Mozart Adagio was excellent, then the Bach partita received a performance for which the word ‘great’ is not an exaggeration. There was no sense whatsoever here of fearing to use the modern instrument to the full; it is interesting, though regrettable, that pianists nowadays often sound more circumscribed in Mozart than in Bach. Indeed, it was absolutely clear from this performance that, for those for whom Bach is more – so much more – than merely decorative, generically Baroque, the continuously developing life-force of his music will always demand the piano. As Ernst Bloch put it, ‘the harpsichord’s sharp, short sound fulfils not a single one of Bach’s requirements. … there can be no doubt that only our own pianos, the incomparable Steinways that were born for the modern Bach, clear, booming, edged with silver, have revealed how the master should now be played.’
The Toccata began with a splendid sense of freedom, both rhythmic and dynamic, to the opening flourishes. There was an excellent sense of the counterpoint developing therefrom, rather than providing a mere contrast. Every note counted, both in itself and for where it was going. Here, the tempi sounded ‘right’ without fail; there was no sense whatsoever of being hurried. Finely modulated dynamic contrasts added to the great cumulative build up to the reprise of the earlier, freer music. This return sounded duly inevitable, yet the sense of transformation was truly magical. The Allemande brought a good sense of Bachian ambiguity between the melodic and the chordal in its arpeggio figuration. Intricacy, expressive rather than decorative, was the key to the almost Wagnerian sense of ‘unending melody’. The Corrente was nicely contrasted, sounding a more boisterous mood from the outset. There was a real sense of the corrente dance truly running, though running meaningfully, for there was real depth to the projection of the music’s chromatic twists. In the Air, an especial joy was the subtle contrasting of the presentation of the theme, allied once again to a supreme sense of line and unendliche Melodie. The beauty of the Sarabande’s broken chords showed what only the piano could do, yet these were not merely ‘colourful’. Indeed, there was a presentiment of Boulezian proliferation – Fray’s disc for Virgin combined Bach and Boulez – as the dialectic between harmony and melody worked itself out. Likewise, the ornaments were truly melodic, which had not always been the case in the Mozart sonata. There could be no doubt that this movement formed the still heart to the partita. Fray boldly projected the Gigue’s counterpoint. From the opening bar, it was sharply defined rhythmically, and showed how one can have drive without ever tending towards the hard-driven. Bach’s extreme chromaticism brings us close to Berg, an aspect Fray clearly relished. Moreover, the expressive potential of the intervallic relationships, especially in the wedge-like opening out of the themes, was frankly Webernian, to an extent I cannot recall hearing previously. At the end, one appreciated that Fray had conceived the performance as a whole, and had triumphantly succeeded. It only remained for the poet to speak in the magical Schumann encore with which Fray concluded his distinguished recital.
Schubert – Impromptu in C minor, D 899 no.1
Schubert – Impromptu in G flat major, D 899 no.3
Mozart – Piano Sonata in B flat major, KV 333/315c
Mozart – Adagio in B minor, KV 540
Bach – Partita no.6 in E minor, BWV 830
David Fray (piano)
The audience at this Wigmore Hall recital was disappointingly small, despite the recent release of David Fray’s widely-lauded first disc for Virgin Classics. Perhaps this is a case of a record company – and record collectors – being more discriminating than concert audiences, for Fray, on the evidence of this recital alone, is a very important pianist. He does not need to be treated as ‘promising’; he is a fully-fledged musician. This is not to say that everything was performed at an equal level, but where I am more critical, namely in the performance of the Mozart piano sonata, this is more a reflection on the very high quality of the rest of the performance than upon any serious failings.
Clichés concerning French musicians, not least pianists, die hard, but the only thing Gallic about Fray’s performance was his appearance. Indeed, if one closed one’s eyes during the two Schubert impromptus, one might have guessed at least ‘school of’ Wilhelm Kempff. In his programme notes, Jonathan Burton likened the C minor Impromptu to ‘taking the tune for a walk,’ which was just how it sounded here. Fray’s alertness to harmonic motion ensured that we were in safe hands with regard to the walk’s direction, whatever its diverting twists and turns. Voice-leading was excellent, though never in a self-consciously ‘individual’ way. The Erlkönig-triplets were ominous but never melodramatic; this was an impromptu, not an aspirant sonata movement. And the way in which the music died away – an especial strength of Fray’s performances throughout the recital – was truly magical, testament to his powers of touch and phrasing. The G flat major piece rightly stood closer to Mendelssohn than to Bellini; if vocal this were, then it was a song without words, not an aria. It was again a performance driven by a profound understanding of the work’s harmonic sense. Schenker – and indeed Furtwängler – would have approved. The darker undertones were well judged: neither too little nor too much. Again, the music subsided into nothingness, the only Gallic concession being the shrug at the end.
Mozart’s sonata in B flat, KV 333/315c was the only work concerning whose performance I had reservations. The opening Allegro was taken at quite a speed. Though not really hard-driven, I did think that it could profitably have been taken down a notch, and that Fray might have yielded a little more to Mozart’s lyricism. In this respect, the second subject was moulded to better effect during the exposition repeat and the recapitulation than it had been upon its initial presentation. The ineffably operatic vocal leaps first heard at the end of the exposition would have benefited from more tender shaping. Moreover, the dynamic range was somewhat restricted throughout: Fray proved himself excellent at differentiating between a wide range of piano playing, but never rose to a true forte. His varied articulation, however, was excellent. The Andante cantabile was certainly a modern reading in terms of its flowing tempo, but ultimately it sounded ever so slightly impatient. Admittedly, the exposition sounded more relaxed the second time round, so this was not simply a matter for the metronome. The concerto finale, marked Allegretto grazioso, was not excessively fast, but again I felt that a slightly more measured pace would have been preferable, not least when we reached the coda, whose figuration, whilst perfectly delivered in technical terms, suggested that a slower basic tempo might have been beneficial. This movement sounded louder on the whole, sometimes to good effect, as in the ‘orchestral’ lead-up to the cadenza, although I missed the shades of piano evident during the first two movements. The cadenza certainly sounded as a cadenza should.
After the interval, Fray remained with Mozart, for the miraculous Adagio in B minor, KV 540. Here, from the word go, there were greater dynamic contrasts, indicating a greater willingness to employ more or less the full resources of the modern piano. Imitating the fortepiano merely reduces the music, and I fancy there was a little of this to the sonata performance. Having said that, there is the undeniable fact that to perform Mozart well is the most difficult of all musical tasks, so one should not be too harsh; I have heard far, far worse. At any rate, we were treated – in every sense – not only to a true forte, but even sparingly to a true fortissimo, albeit always at the service of the music. Great care was taken with the voicing of the semiquaver chords, enabling their rhythmic and harmonic momentum fully to register. And there was an undeniable sense of fatal progression, always leading to the desolation of the coda and the final consoling warmth of B major.
If the Mozart Adagio was excellent, then the Bach partita received a performance for which the word ‘great’ is not an exaggeration. There was no sense whatsoever here of fearing to use the modern instrument to the full; it is interesting, though regrettable, that pianists nowadays often sound more circumscribed in Mozart than in Bach. Indeed, it was absolutely clear from this performance that, for those for whom Bach is more – so much more – than merely decorative, generically Baroque, the continuously developing life-force of his music will always demand the piano. As Ernst Bloch put it, ‘the harpsichord’s sharp, short sound fulfils not a single one of Bach’s requirements. … there can be no doubt that only our own pianos, the incomparable Steinways that were born for the modern Bach, clear, booming, edged with silver, have revealed how the master should now be played.’
The Toccata began with a splendid sense of freedom, both rhythmic and dynamic, to the opening flourishes. There was an excellent sense of the counterpoint developing therefrom, rather than providing a mere contrast. Every note counted, both in itself and for where it was going. Here, the tempi sounded ‘right’ without fail; there was no sense whatsoever of being hurried. Finely modulated dynamic contrasts added to the great cumulative build up to the reprise of the earlier, freer music. This return sounded duly inevitable, yet the sense of transformation was truly magical. The Allemande brought a good sense of Bachian ambiguity between the melodic and the chordal in its arpeggio figuration. Intricacy, expressive rather than decorative, was the key to the almost Wagnerian sense of ‘unending melody’. The Corrente was nicely contrasted, sounding a more boisterous mood from the outset. There was a real sense of the corrente dance truly running, though running meaningfully, for there was real depth to the projection of the music’s chromatic twists. In the Air, an especial joy was the subtle contrasting of the presentation of the theme, allied once again to a supreme sense of line and unendliche Melodie. The beauty of the Sarabande’s broken chords showed what only the piano could do, yet these were not merely ‘colourful’. Indeed, there was a presentiment of Boulezian proliferation – Fray’s disc for Virgin combined Bach and Boulez – as the dialectic between harmony and melody worked itself out. Likewise, the ornaments were truly melodic, which had not always been the case in the Mozart sonata. There could be no doubt that this movement formed the still heart to the partita. Fray boldly projected the Gigue’s counterpoint. From the opening bar, it was sharply defined rhythmically, and showed how one can have drive without ever tending towards the hard-driven. Bach’s extreme chromaticism brings us close to Berg, an aspect Fray clearly relished. Moreover, the expressive potential of the intervallic relationships, especially in the wedge-like opening out of the themes, was frankly Webernian, to an extent I cannot recall hearing previously. At the end, one appreciated that Fray had conceived the performance as a whole, and had triumphantly succeeded. It only remained for the poet to speak in the magical Schumann encore with which Fray concluded his distinguished recital.
Sunday, 6 April 2008
Mitsuko Uchida piano recital, 6 April 2008
Musikverein
Schubert - Piano Sonata in C minor, D.958
Kurtág - Antiphon in F sharp major
Bach - The Art of Fugue, BWV 1080: Contrapunctus I
Kurtág - Tumble-Bunny
Kurtág - Portrait 3
Kurtág - Dirge 2
Kurtág - Hommage à Christian Wolff (Half-Asleep)
Bach - French Suite no.5 in G major, BWV 816: Sarabande
Kurtág - Spiel mit dem Unendlichen
Schumann - Symphonic Etudes, Op.13
Mitsuko Uchida (piano)
This was a wonderful recital. Mitsuko Uchida, should anyone need reminding, is one of the greatest living pianists; her performances this evening attested to this in no uncertain way. The Schubert sonata opened with a Beethovenian vehemence: not manufactured, but intrinsic to the work, or at least to its opening. Not for nothing was this, the first of Schubert's 'late triptych', written in C minor. The second subject was beautifully - aching beautifully - voiced, an object lesson in sentiment without sentimentality. Uchida's balance between harmony and counterpoint was unerring. The line spun through the slow movement was as close to perfect as one is likely to hear, attentive to every melodic and harmonic development but never neglecting the greater structure. And the touch was to die for! The tricky final movement was perhaps not quite so compelling, with the odd awkward corner - admittedly, as much Schubert's responsibility as Uchida's - but this is so minor a caveat I wonder whether I should delete it.
The selection of Bach and Kurtág - a favoured combination of Kurtág himself - was equally marvellous. If there is any justice in the world - at best an open question - then this should have won a legion of new Kurtág devotees. There was no disingenuous attempt to make the music of the two composers sound alike, but a willingness to let the music speak for itself, once again exquisitely voiced, so that the listener would make of it what he would. Although in theory I regret not hearing more of the Bach, so beautifully performed as it was, at the time nothing could have been further from my mind, so engrossed was I by what came next. Kurtág's antecedents in Bach, but also in the language - extended - of Bartók and the almost unbearably expressive concision of Webern were there for one to hear, but not didactically so. The selection rather resembled a Baroque suite of its own. And the way Uchida and Kurtág made us listen more closely, for instance through the extremely quiet music of Spiel mit dem Unendlichen, was not wholly dissimilar from the insistence upon close listening of Nono's later music.
The shorter second half was given over to Schumann's Symphonic Etudes, which received a commanding, all-encompassing interpretation. Uchida is not short of vigour where required, but the utmost delicacy is equally available to her. What was perhaps most impressive about this performance was how truly 'symphonic' it became. As we progressed through the work, one noted the variation form, but in retrospect, the owl of Minerva only taking flight at dusk, one realised that there was something more, the finale being so in the strongest, symphonic sense. Voice-leading was as impressive and moving as the beautifully legato-pedalled chordal passages. There was virtuosity aplenty, but it almost seems shameful to name it such, so far were Uchida's concerns from anything other than the purely musical. After some of the perverse and, in one case, meretricious pianism I have heard recently, this was balm to the soul. So too were her Mozart and Schubert encores, the latter's G flat Impromptu of a distilled beauty rare indeed.
Schubert - Piano Sonata in C minor, D.958
Kurtág - Antiphon in F sharp major
Bach - The Art of Fugue, BWV 1080: Contrapunctus I
Kurtág - Tumble-Bunny
Kurtág - Portrait 3
Kurtág - Dirge 2
Kurtág - Hommage à Christian Wolff (Half-Asleep)
Bach - French Suite no.5 in G major, BWV 816: Sarabande
Kurtág - Spiel mit dem Unendlichen
Schumann - Symphonic Etudes, Op.13
Mitsuko Uchida (piano)
This was a wonderful recital. Mitsuko Uchida, should anyone need reminding, is one of the greatest living pianists; her performances this evening attested to this in no uncertain way. The Schubert sonata opened with a Beethovenian vehemence: not manufactured, but intrinsic to the work, or at least to its opening. Not for nothing was this, the first of Schubert's 'late triptych', written in C minor. The second subject was beautifully - aching beautifully - voiced, an object lesson in sentiment without sentimentality. Uchida's balance between harmony and counterpoint was unerring. The line spun through the slow movement was as close to perfect as one is likely to hear, attentive to every melodic and harmonic development but never neglecting the greater structure. And the touch was to die for! The tricky final movement was perhaps not quite so compelling, with the odd awkward corner - admittedly, as much Schubert's responsibility as Uchida's - but this is so minor a caveat I wonder whether I should delete it.
The selection of Bach and Kurtág - a favoured combination of Kurtág himself - was equally marvellous. If there is any justice in the world - at best an open question - then this should have won a legion of new Kurtág devotees. There was no disingenuous attempt to make the music of the two composers sound alike, but a willingness to let the music speak for itself, once again exquisitely voiced, so that the listener would make of it what he would. Although in theory I regret not hearing more of the Bach, so beautifully performed as it was, at the time nothing could have been further from my mind, so engrossed was I by what came next. Kurtág's antecedents in Bach, but also in the language - extended - of Bartók and the almost unbearably expressive concision of Webern were there for one to hear, but not didactically so. The selection rather resembled a Baroque suite of its own. And the way Uchida and Kurtág made us listen more closely, for instance through the extremely quiet music of Spiel mit dem Unendlichen, was not wholly dissimilar from the insistence upon close listening of Nono's later music.
The shorter second half was given over to Schumann's Symphonic Etudes, which received a commanding, all-encompassing interpretation. Uchida is not short of vigour where required, but the utmost delicacy is equally available to her. What was perhaps most impressive about this performance was how truly 'symphonic' it became. As we progressed through the work, one noted the variation form, but in retrospect, the owl of Minerva only taking flight at dusk, one realised that there was something more, the finale being so in the strongest, symphonic sense. Voice-leading was as impressive and moving as the beautifully legato-pedalled chordal passages. There was virtuosity aplenty, but it almost seems shameful to name it such, so far were Uchida's concerns from anything other than the purely musical. After some of the perverse and, in one case, meretricious pianism I have heard recently, this was balm to the soul. So too were her Mozart and Schubert encores, the latter's G flat Impromptu of a distilled beauty rare indeed.
Wednesday, 27 February 2008
Richard Goode, piano recital, 27 February 2008
Queen Elizabeth Hall
Bach – Prelude and Fugue in C major, BWV 870
Bach – French Suite no.3 in B minor, BWV 814
Chopin – Mazurka in C, Op.24 no.2
Chopin – Mazurka in G, Op.50 no.1
Chopin – Mazurka in E minor, Op.41 no.2
Chopin – Mazurka in B minor, Op.33 no.4
Chopin – Impromptu in F sharp major, Op.36
Mozart – Rondo in A minor, KV 511
Chopin – Scherzo no.4 in E major, Op.54
Debussy – Etude no.11: ‘Pour les Arpèges composés’
Debussy – Etude no.5: ‘Pour les Octaves’
Chopin – Nocturne in C minor, Op.48 no.1
Chopin – Nocturne in B major, Op.62 no.1
Chopin – Polonaise in F sharp minor, Op.44
Richard Goode (piano)
Richard Goode opened his Queen Elizabeth Hall recital, ‘Homage to Chopin’, with some of the best Bach playing I have heard. He took full advantage of the modern piano without ever straying into merely ‘pianistic’ vulgarity. The C major Prelude and Fugue from Book II of the ‘Forty-eight’ was a perfect curtain-raiser, functioning rather like an overture in an orchestral programme. Bach’s counterpoint was wonderfully clear throughout, yet never at the expense of the manifold harmonic implications of the score. ‘Implications’ seems an especially appropriate word for the Prelude, with its parts that grow into chords: Goode’s mastery of the numerous held notes on which this depends was something quite rare, in every sense. So was the splendidly vocal quality to his part-playing, both in the Prelude and in the little three-part fugue. To this was added, in the third French Suite, a markedly orchestral sense. Goode’s characterisation of individual lines was so apt that one could imagine this part being allotted to a flute, that to a ’cello. Moreover, he showed a rhythmic security, attentive to the harmonic implications of the work’s rhythms, characteristic of the best performances of the Orchestral Suites: Klemperer or Karl Richter, for example. This was never at the expense of the piano’s unique qualities, however; far from it. The hushed return of the fifth movement’s Menuet, for example, was quite magical in purely instrumental terms.
Chopin also adored Mozart, and the Rondo in A minor, perhaps Mozart’s single greatest work for solo piano, is more than suggestive of why. Some of its highly Romantic piano writing clearly looks forward to Chopin and even beyond. The music is often highly chromatic, as is the melodic line of the rondo theme, which suggests a vast range of harmonic possibilities, as in Bach. Textures are more complex than is often the case in the sonatas. Yet I did not feel that Goode responded strongly enough to these rewarding although admittedly treacherous possibilities. Whilst his Mozart was thankfully not of the ‘Dresden china’ persuasion, it still felt somewhat inhibited, despite marvellous incidental beauties, such as the perfectly articulated left hand staccato runs. The arrival of the A major episode, which should be a moment of utopian beauty, seemed oddly matter-of-fact. And where Mozart really goes for the jugular, at the beginning of the coda, Goode seemed far more wary of exploiting his modern instrument than he had in the Bach works.
Debussy’s celebrated line, that ‘Chopin is the greatest of them all, for through the piano he discovered everything,’ was quoted in the programme. One of Chopin’s greatest disciples was represented by two Etudes. The first, ‘Pour les Arpèges composés’, suffered from sounding excessively like a homage to Chopin. There was a full-blooded Romanticism, occasionally verging upon the heavy-handed, to its Scherzandere middle section, which, although it might have made sense in terms of the programme, did not really work in practice. ‘Pour les Octaves’, however, was marvellous, as full of suggestive wit as post-impressionistic ambiguity. Goode’s touch was fully equal here to whatever Debussy demanded. The composer’s marking, ‘Joyeux et emporté, librement rythmé,’ is an apt summation of Goode’s performance.
Chopin himself was well served. The selection of Mazurkas was masterfully characterised, both as a group and in terms of the individual character of the pieces. As with the Bach suite, Goode exhibited great sensitivity to the difficult balancing act between the dance origins of the works and their new life as instrumental pieces. Thus the rhythms danced and the progressions were suitably accented, not least the stomping middle section of Op.24 no.2, but this was accomplished through pianistic re-creation rather than slavish imitation. The painful sadness of Op. 33 no.4, marked Mesto, shone through as an exile’s longing for his homeland and his pain at that homeland’s suffering. At the same time, its dancing qualities ensured that it never descended into mawkishness. The larger pieces – the F sharp major Impromptu, the E major Scherzo, and the final F sharp minor Polonaise – received typically thoughtful performances. Effortless bravura is not Goode’s way, though this in no way implies any shortcomings in his technique. However, despite the thoroughly musical virtues of these performances, they could occasionally sound a little wanting in charm, when compared to the greatest Chopin players. Voice-leading, for instance, was for the most part carefully handled, with some revelations concerning inner parts; but the twinkle in the eye with which, say, Shura Cherkassky might have accomplished some such devilish feat was not to be seen (or heard, should that be possible). That said, the quasi-orchestral characterisation familiar from Goode’s Bach playing made a few appearances in his Chopin, and to equally good effect.
This was also apparent in the two selected Nocturnes, concerning whose performance I had no reservations whatsoever, at least after a slightly underwhelming opening to the great C minor Nocturne, Op.48 no.1. It is marked mezza voce, but this should not preclude, indeed it should encourage, a truly aristocratic poise. Thereafter, however, the growth of tension was unremitting, which owed a great deal to Goode’s understanding and projection of the underlying harmonic progression. The Doppio movimento section veritably seethed, all the more in retrospect, following the magical calming of the waves at the concluding diminuendo e rallentando. In the B major Nocturne, Op. 62 no.1, Goode’s expertise in part-leading came fully to the fore; here was the magic that was sometimes lacking in the larger Chopin works. There was magic too, in the purely pianistic roulades, spun with an almost Mendelssohnian gossamer. It was fitting that for his encore, Goode treated us to another Nocturne, that in E flat, Op. 55 no.2, whose fine performance reminded us of the virtues of its predecessors.
Bach – Prelude and Fugue in C major, BWV 870
Bach – French Suite no.3 in B minor, BWV 814
Chopin – Mazurka in C, Op.24 no.2
Chopin – Mazurka in G, Op.50 no.1
Chopin – Mazurka in E minor, Op.41 no.2
Chopin – Mazurka in B minor, Op.33 no.4
Chopin – Impromptu in F sharp major, Op.36
Mozart – Rondo in A minor, KV 511
Chopin – Scherzo no.4 in E major, Op.54
Debussy – Etude no.11: ‘Pour les Arpèges composés’
Debussy – Etude no.5: ‘Pour les Octaves’
Chopin – Nocturne in C minor, Op.48 no.1
Chopin – Nocturne in B major, Op.62 no.1
Chopin – Polonaise in F sharp minor, Op.44
Richard Goode (piano)
Richard Goode opened his Queen Elizabeth Hall recital, ‘Homage to Chopin’, with some of the best Bach playing I have heard. He took full advantage of the modern piano without ever straying into merely ‘pianistic’ vulgarity. The C major Prelude and Fugue from Book II of the ‘Forty-eight’ was a perfect curtain-raiser, functioning rather like an overture in an orchestral programme. Bach’s counterpoint was wonderfully clear throughout, yet never at the expense of the manifold harmonic implications of the score. ‘Implications’ seems an especially appropriate word for the Prelude, with its parts that grow into chords: Goode’s mastery of the numerous held notes on which this depends was something quite rare, in every sense. So was the splendidly vocal quality to his part-playing, both in the Prelude and in the little three-part fugue. To this was added, in the third French Suite, a markedly orchestral sense. Goode’s characterisation of individual lines was so apt that one could imagine this part being allotted to a flute, that to a ’cello. Moreover, he showed a rhythmic security, attentive to the harmonic implications of the work’s rhythms, characteristic of the best performances of the Orchestral Suites: Klemperer or Karl Richter, for example. This was never at the expense of the piano’s unique qualities, however; far from it. The hushed return of the fifth movement’s Menuet, for example, was quite magical in purely instrumental terms.
Chopin also adored Mozart, and the Rondo in A minor, perhaps Mozart’s single greatest work for solo piano, is more than suggestive of why. Some of its highly Romantic piano writing clearly looks forward to Chopin and even beyond. The music is often highly chromatic, as is the melodic line of the rondo theme, which suggests a vast range of harmonic possibilities, as in Bach. Textures are more complex than is often the case in the sonatas. Yet I did not feel that Goode responded strongly enough to these rewarding although admittedly treacherous possibilities. Whilst his Mozart was thankfully not of the ‘Dresden china’ persuasion, it still felt somewhat inhibited, despite marvellous incidental beauties, such as the perfectly articulated left hand staccato runs. The arrival of the A major episode, which should be a moment of utopian beauty, seemed oddly matter-of-fact. And where Mozart really goes for the jugular, at the beginning of the coda, Goode seemed far more wary of exploiting his modern instrument than he had in the Bach works.
Debussy’s celebrated line, that ‘Chopin is the greatest of them all, for through the piano he discovered everything,’ was quoted in the programme. One of Chopin’s greatest disciples was represented by two Etudes. The first, ‘Pour les Arpèges composés’, suffered from sounding excessively like a homage to Chopin. There was a full-blooded Romanticism, occasionally verging upon the heavy-handed, to its Scherzandere middle section, which, although it might have made sense in terms of the programme, did not really work in practice. ‘Pour les Octaves’, however, was marvellous, as full of suggestive wit as post-impressionistic ambiguity. Goode’s touch was fully equal here to whatever Debussy demanded. The composer’s marking, ‘Joyeux et emporté, librement rythmé,’ is an apt summation of Goode’s performance.
Chopin himself was well served. The selection of Mazurkas was masterfully characterised, both as a group and in terms of the individual character of the pieces. As with the Bach suite, Goode exhibited great sensitivity to the difficult balancing act between the dance origins of the works and their new life as instrumental pieces. Thus the rhythms danced and the progressions were suitably accented, not least the stomping middle section of Op.24 no.2, but this was accomplished through pianistic re-creation rather than slavish imitation. The painful sadness of Op. 33 no.4, marked Mesto, shone through as an exile’s longing for his homeland and his pain at that homeland’s suffering. At the same time, its dancing qualities ensured that it never descended into mawkishness. The larger pieces – the F sharp major Impromptu, the E major Scherzo, and the final F sharp minor Polonaise – received typically thoughtful performances. Effortless bravura is not Goode’s way, though this in no way implies any shortcomings in his technique. However, despite the thoroughly musical virtues of these performances, they could occasionally sound a little wanting in charm, when compared to the greatest Chopin players. Voice-leading, for instance, was for the most part carefully handled, with some revelations concerning inner parts; but the twinkle in the eye with which, say, Shura Cherkassky might have accomplished some such devilish feat was not to be seen (or heard, should that be possible). That said, the quasi-orchestral characterisation familiar from Goode’s Bach playing made a few appearances in his Chopin, and to equally good effect.
This was also apparent in the two selected Nocturnes, concerning whose performance I had no reservations whatsoever, at least after a slightly underwhelming opening to the great C minor Nocturne, Op.48 no.1. It is marked mezza voce, but this should not preclude, indeed it should encourage, a truly aristocratic poise. Thereafter, however, the growth of tension was unremitting, which owed a great deal to Goode’s understanding and projection of the underlying harmonic progression. The Doppio movimento section veritably seethed, all the more in retrospect, following the magical calming of the waves at the concluding diminuendo e rallentando. In the B major Nocturne, Op. 62 no.1, Goode’s expertise in part-leading came fully to the fore; here was the magic that was sometimes lacking in the larger Chopin works. There was magic too, in the purely pianistic roulades, spun with an almost Mendelssohnian gossamer. It was fitting that for his encore, Goode treated us to another Nocturne, that in E flat, Op. 55 no.2, whose fine performance reminded us of the virtues of its predecessors.
Sunday, 17 February 2008
Pierre-Laurent Aimard, The Art of Fugue, 17 February 2008
Wigmore Hall
Bach – The Art of Fugue
Contrapunctus I
Contrapunctus II
Contrapunctus III
Contrapunctus IV
Contrapunctus VI, im Stile francese
Contrapunctus XIII, a 3 (rectus)
Contrapunctus VII, per Augmentationem et Diminutionem
Contrapunctus XIII, a 3 (inversus)
Contrapunctus V
Contrapunctus IX, alla Duodecima
Contrapunctus X
[interval]
Canon alla Duodecima in Contrapuncto alla Quinta
Canon alla Ottava
Canon alla Decima, Contrapuncto alla Terza
Canon per Augmentationem in contrario motu
Contrapunctus XIV (Fuga a 3 Soggetti)
Contrapunctus XII, a 4 (rectus)
Contrapunctus VIII, a 3
Contrapunctus XII (inversus)
Contrapunctus XI
Pierre-Laurent Aimard (piano)
This was a puzzling concert: impressive in many ways and yet also oddly unsatisfying. One might claim that any performance of Bach’s Art of Fugue is bound to fall short, especially given the uncertainties attendant to all issues regarding performance (even, for a few, its desirability). Yet one could with more or less equal justice claim the opposite, namely that Bach’s contrapuntal compendium should be able to satisfy like almost nothing else, at least if one leaves aside its lack of completion. I list the order above in which Pierre-Laurent Aimard performed its constituent parts. He adopted a different order – I-XIII; canons; XIV – for his recent recording, and it would seem that he had originally intended to perform the pieces in an entirely different order as lain out in the programme, to which we were offered a correction sheet. It would be interesting to know whether he regularly changes the order; there is certainly no reason why he should not. The unfinished fugue was left in mid-air, unfinished.
Much of Aimard’s performance was extremely un- or even anti-Romantic. I do not mean this in a sense of veering towards ‘period performance’ characteristics, an even more problematical concept in this work than any other. Rather, it seemed as though his was in many ways a brazenly modernist conception. This should perhaps not surprise. Aimard is, after all, most celebrated for his work in new music, not least in that of Ligeti and Messiaen. What emerged from the first half of the recital and a good part of the second was a presentation of what one might – hedged with all sorts of qualifications – characterise as Bach’s music as music at its purest. It was severe, didactic, note-perfect. It is no coincidence that Boulez was so drawn to the Art of Fugue that he conducted it in his Domaine Musical concerts. (It would be wonderful if a recording survived, although I have never heard of one.) Although the music is tonal, the harmony seemed not to matter. It might as well have been early or serialist polyphony: Bach as Ockeghem or Stockhausen.
So far, so good: a fascinating conception, with much reason behind it. Yet Aimard’s performance was also – with a few exceptions – quite unyielding and downright heavy-handed, extremely ‘un-French’, one might say. Not quite everything, but a great deal of the music nevertheless, was, quite simply, very loud. It also lacked inflection. No one would expect him to play the Art of Fugue like Debussy, but should one really pay so little attention to the instrument chosen for performance? This was clearly a decision on Aimard’s part, but I am not sure that it proved convincing in and as performance. If it is decided – rightly, in my view – to treat the score as music to be performed, then surely it should actually be performed. What rather muddies the waters is the fact that there were exceptions to this manner of presentation. Occasionally, the subject was hugely emphasised, arguably over-emphasised, as if it were being played out on a trombone. The final canon, for instance, was performed with a great deal of dynamic inflection, both on a short- and long-term basis. So were several of the later fugues, although to a lesser extent. I have to admit that I could not understand the reason for this transformation of interpretative stance. Far more convincing was the skill with which, especially during the canons, Aimard drew to our attention – without undue underlining – the relation between what we were hearing and the original subject. In this, he took advantage of the piano, and reaped musical rewards for doing so. However, I emerged from the recital impressed by the work, whose dazzling array of contrapuntal devices had been very clearly presented, yet also somewhat relieved that it was over. This is not at all the reaction for which I had been hoping.
Bach – The Art of Fugue
Contrapunctus I
Contrapunctus II
Contrapunctus III
Contrapunctus IV
Contrapunctus VI, im Stile francese
Contrapunctus XIII, a 3 (rectus)
Contrapunctus VII, per Augmentationem et Diminutionem
Contrapunctus XIII, a 3 (inversus)
Contrapunctus V
Contrapunctus IX, alla Duodecima
Contrapunctus X
[interval]
Canon alla Duodecima in Contrapuncto alla Quinta
Canon alla Ottava
Canon alla Decima, Contrapuncto alla Terza
Canon per Augmentationem in contrario motu
Contrapunctus XIV (Fuga a 3 Soggetti)
Contrapunctus XII, a 4 (rectus)
Contrapunctus VIII, a 3
Contrapunctus XII (inversus)
Contrapunctus XI
Pierre-Laurent Aimard (piano)
This was a puzzling concert: impressive in many ways and yet also oddly unsatisfying. One might claim that any performance of Bach’s Art of Fugue is bound to fall short, especially given the uncertainties attendant to all issues regarding performance (even, for a few, its desirability). Yet one could with more or less equal justice claim the opposite, namely that Bach’s contrapuntal compendium should be able to satisfy like almost nothing else, at least if one leaves aside its lack of completion. I list the order above in which Pierre-Laurent Aimard performed its constituent parts. He adopted a different order – I-XIII; canons; XIV – for his recent recording, and it would seem that he had originally intended to perform the pieces in an entirely different order as lain out in the programme, to which we were offered a correction sheet. It would be interesting to know whether he regularly changes the order; there is certainly no reason why he should not. The unfinished fugue was left in mid-air, unfinished.
Much of Aimard’s performance was extremely un- or even anti-Romantic. I do not mean this in a sense of veering towards ‘period performance’ characteristics, an even more problematical concept in this work than any other. Rather, it seemed as though his was in many ways a brazenly modernist conception. This should perhaps not surprise. Aimard is, after all, most celebrated for his work in new music, not least in that of Ligeti and Messiaen. What emerged from the first half of the recital and a good part of the second was a presentation of what one might – hedged with all sorts of qualifications – characterise as Bach’s music as music at its purest. It was severe, didactic, note-perfect. It is no coincidence that Boulez was so drawn to the Art of Fugue that he conducted it in his Domaine Musical concerts. (It would be wonderful if a recording survived, although I have never heard of one.) Although the music is tonal, the harmony seemed not to matter. It might as well have been early or serialist polyphony: Bach as Ockeghem or Stockhausen.
So far, so good: a fascinating conception, with much reason behind it. Yet Aimard’s performance was also – with a few exceptions – quite unyielding and downright heavy-handed, extremely ‘un-French’, one might say. Not quite everything, but a great deal of the music nevertheless, was, quite simply, very loud. It also lacked inflection. No one would expect him to play the Art of Fugue like Debussy, but should one really pay so little attention to the instrument chosen for performance? This was clearly a decision on Aimard’s part, but I am not sure that it proved convincing in and as performance. If it is decided – rightly, in my view – to treat the score as music to be performed, then surely it should actually be performed. What rather muddies the waters is the fact that there were exceptions to this manner of presentation. Occasionally, the subject was hugely emphasised, arguably over-emphasised, as if it were being played out on a trombone. The final canon, for instance, was performed with a great deal of dynamic inflection, both on a short- and long-term basis. So were several of the later fugues, although to a lesser extent. I have to admit that I could not understand the reason for this transformation of interpretative stance. Far more convincing was the skill with which, especially during the canons, Aimard drew to our attention – without undue underlining – the relation between what we were hearing and the original subject. In this, he took advantage of the piano, and reaped musical rewards for doing so. However, I emerged from the recital impressed by the work, whose dazzling array of contrapuntal devices had been very clearly presented, yet also somewhat relieved that it was over. This is not at all the reaction for which I had been hoping.
Daniel Barenboim, Beethoven sonatas, 17 February 2008
Royal Festival Hall
Beethoven – Piano Sonata no.9 in E major, Op.14 no.1
Beethoven – Piano Sonata no.4 in E flat major, Op.7
Beethoven – Piano Sonata no.22 in F major, Op.54
Beethoven – Piano Sonata no.32 in C minor, Op.111
Daniel Barenboim (piano)
What a wonderful and unexpected programme for Daniel Barenboim to select to complete his Beethoven cycle! To include two ‘early’ sonatas underlined what should long have been clear from these performances, namely that these works should in no sense be seen as preparatory to middle- and late-period Beethoven. They are stunningly original works, with roots in Mozart and Haydn – and what is wrong with that?! – but which could have been written by one man alone. There may actually be a case for accounting the young Beethoven as one of the most underrated of great composers. The two-movement Op.54 sonata is a relative rarity, which again can only have benefited from its placing in this final recital. And then, it would surely have been folly to have ended with any work other than Op.111, but more on that below.
The E major sonata, Op.14 no.1, received a splendid performance. Such judgement as to how one might shape staccato or semi-staccato articulation within phrases (e.g., first movement: bb.23-4, 50-54) is rarer than one might think. Rhythms were buoyantly sprung and the balance between rhythmic and harmonic momentum was judged to mutual benefit. The clarity of part-writing was notable, especially during the second movement, although never at the expense of expressing the music’s vertical dimension, especially its beautiful chordal writing. I especially liked the suggestions of how the music would lend itself to string-quartet writing – Beethoven subsequently arranged it, up a semitone in F major (Hess 34) – without any misguided attempt to imitate or to prefigure. The interplay between parts was attended to, but so was the sheer pianistic pleasure of the semiquaver figuration in the first and third movements. Sforzandi were not underplayed, but were relatively gentle, as befits the character of the piece. In the final movement, I entertained a suspicion that the syncopation of the rondo theme’s final statement was anticipated in bars 82-3, but then wondered whether my ears had been playing tricks upon me. Whatever the truth of the matter, it worked rather well.
A grander canvas is prepared for the sonata in E flat, Op.7. Indeed, the drive with which Barenboim opened the Allegro molto e con brio almost looked forward to the Eroica symphony. The perfect balance between harmonic and contrapuntal concerns could all so easily be overlooked, but without it work and performance would have seemed a far lesser achievement, and would also almost certainly have seemed longer in duration. Syncopated dissonances sounded fun as well as harsh, which is at it should be, for there is a great sparkle to this movement, or at least there is when it is well performed. The Largo is again written on a grand scale, and presents the performer with a profound – in every sense – challenge in terms of its numerous silences. Needless to say, Barenboim, an experienced conductor of Bruckner, had their measure. The rests punctuated but also belonged to the melodic line. Whatever Beethoven’s music may be, it is not pointillistic. Barenboim’s skill at presenting Beethoven’s part-writing was once again to the fore in the third movement; this enabled the harmonic surprises to stand out without sounded forced. The arpeggiated Minore trio possessed an almost Schubertian beauty: not just or even primarily a matter of touch, but also of understanding its harmonic progression. And rarely if ever have I heard the Rondo sound more magical. Barenboim’s basic tempo seemed spot on, as if it were the only correct solution, which is how a ‘right’ tempo will sound, even if there are in reality several ‘correct’ choices one might make. The texture of the rondo theme sounded like ‘filled-in’ Mozart, delicate yet also rich in harmonic possibilities. Although the tempo would subtly shift for different episodes, there was always a sense of being welcomed home for the return of the rondo theme: both the same, and yet transformed by its new context. The pianissimo conclusion could not have sounded more beautiful, nor more apt. Barenboim’s performance was utterly at one with Beethoven’s music: a Romantic farewell to the eighteenth century. The Rondo was certainly grazioso, but this was a fond grace such as could only result from the dusk at which the owl of Minerva spreads its wings.
By the time we reach the minuet-style opening of the first movement of Op.54, the owl has flown some distance. For this is definitely a recollection of the eighteenth-century minuet: fond, but standing at a distance that permits humour without condescension. Barenboim once again presented the gracefulness required without sounding precious. He also presented the somewhat alarming double-octave triplet contrasts with a surety and vigour that yet managed to console, for we knew that our guide would see us safely to the other side. The concluding integration of the two themes, aptly characterised in William Kinderman’s programme notes as feminine and masculine, was achieved so as to make the combination more than the sum of its parts. There was no loss of character, but there was also something surprising, something new, and a proper sense of necessity for the following Allegretto to resolve their differences. Here, as so often in Beethoven, the dialectic between rhythmic and harmonic momentum is the key to understanding and to performing. Barenboim both understood and performed. He once again proved a trustworthy guide to the movement’s tonal plan and its spinning perpetual motion. The Più Allegro coda duly thrilled without undue haste, and its sforzandi bit, though never gratuitously so. There was a true sense of arrival as the music reached its conclusion, which could only have arisen from a profound understanding of where it had been heading all along.
The last time I had heard the Op.111 sonata had been in January, in a recital given by Stephen Hough at the Wigmore Hall. That had been a creditable performance, with a number of positive attributes, but now, faced with an indisputably great performance, I realised just how insufficient ‘creditable’ is in this music. (More suitable programming helps too.) As the inevitable culmination to the cycle of thirty-two sonatas, this was always going to be something special, both for performer and audience (even for those of us who had not been fortunate enough to attend all eight concerts). I was nevertheless quite unprepared for what was to come. This performance was symphonic and personal, orchestral and instrumental, summing up and looking forward. Let there once again be no doubt that Barenboim’s piano technique is more than adequate to face any of the challenges Beethoven hurls his way, even in what is probably, with the exception of the Hammerklavier sonata, the most technically difficult of the late sonatas. Yet whilst Barenboim has command over his instrument, this is not the command that is generally called ‘pianistic’ in terms of drawing attention – intentionally or no – to pianistic matters. Beethoven’s music is presented first as music, second as music written for and performed upon the piano. At the same time, the hushed tones of the Arietta’s leggieramente passages were as beautifully conceived in purely pianistic terms as one could imagine; they were never, however, merely ends in themselves.
The first movement, with its Maestoso opening, diminished sevenths crucial, leading into the Allegro con brio ed appassionato, inevitably recalls the Pathétique sonata, but it is equally clear that something more is at stake. Barenboim’s vehemence was not only audible, but clearly visible. He did not try to conceal the enormous physical effort Beethoven requires, which perhaps bonded performer and audience still more closely. The fugato was clearly and powerfully projected. This counterpoint is not neat, and Barenboim did not present it as such; it is, rather, superhuman, which is how it sounded. Inner parts were not only heard but sang, whilst the composer’s C minor daemon drove onwards, the counterpoint working – and worked out – as much through blood and sweat as through intellectual rigour. (Note ‘as much’: I have no desire to elevate the ‘emotional’ over the ‘intellectual’, an irredeemably false distinction. However, I do wish to deny any notion of the hermetic to late Beethoven.) The subdominant colouring of the coda was wonderfully tender, leading with inexorable sadness to the non-triumphant C major of the final bars, and thus preparing the way for the Arietta. ‘Sublime’ may be a word over-used, but is entirely apt for both score and performance. Beethoven’s marking Adagio molto semplice e cantabile informed and infused the spirit of Barenboim’s reading. One was left in no doubt that the harmony, which is often very simple indeed, could not be other than it was, that Beethoven could now speak, or sing, with such noble, powerful simplicity, that we stood on the verge of something noumenal, both ineffably human and yet unutterably divine. The rhythms of the extraordinary ‘boogie-woogie’ variation were precise without any loss of warmth, never losing sight of the humanism that pervades this movement even at its most celestial. And ‘celestial’ is certainly the word to characterise the closing pages, with their awe-inspiring trills, insistent yet as far from hectoring as could be conceived. The swelling counterpoint above and beneath sounded perfectly in harmony – in every sense – with the magic of the arpeggiated accompaniment. No wonder that, for once, the conclusion met with true silence, followed by the inevitable rapturous standing ovation.
Beethoven – Piano Sonata no.9 in E major, Op.14 no.1
Beethoven – Piano Sonata no.4 in E flat major, Op.7
Beethoven – Piano Sonata no.22 in F major, Op.54
Beethoven – Piano Sonata no.32 in C minor, Op.111
Daniel Barenboim (piano)
What a wonderful and unexpected programme for Daniel Barenboim to select to complete his Beethoven cycle! To include two ‘early’ sonatas underlined what should long have been clear from these performances, namely that these works should in no sense be seen as preparatory to middle- and late-period Beethoven. They are stunningly original works, with roots in Mozart and Haydn – and what is wrong with that?! – but which could have been written by one man alone. There may actually be a case for accounting the young Beethoven as one of the most underrated of great composers. The two-movement Op.54 sonata is a relative rarity, which again can only have benefited from its placing in this final recital. And then, it would surely have been folly to have ended with any work other than Op.111, but more on that below.
The E major sonata, Op.14 no.1, received a splendid performance. Such judgement as to how one might shape staccato or semi-staccato articulation within phrases (e.g., first movement: bb.23-4, 50-54) is rarer than one might think. Rhythms were buoyantly sprung and the balance between rhythmic and harmonic momentum was judged to mutual benefit. The clarity of part-writing was notable, especially during the second movement, although never at the expense of expressing the music’s vertical dimension, especially its beautiful chordal writing. I especially liked the suggestions of how the music would lend itself to string-quartet writing – Beethoven subsequently arranged it, up a semitone in F major (Hess 34) – without any misguided attempt to imitate or to prefigure. The interplay between parts was attended to, but so was the sheer pianistic pleasure of the semiquaver figuration in the first and third movements. Sforzandi were not underplayed, but were relatively gentle, as befits the character of the piece. In the final movement, I entertained a suspicion that the syncopation of the rondo theme’s final statement was anticipated in bars 82-3, but then wondered whether my ears had been playing tricks upon me. Whatever the truth of the matter, it worked rather well.
A grander canvas is prepared for the sonata in E flat, Op.7. Indeed, the drive with which Barenboim opened the Allegro molto e con brio almost looked forward to the Eroica symphony. The perfect balance between harmonic and contrapuntal concerns could all so easily be overlooked, but without it work and performance would have seemed a far lesser achievement, and would also almost certainly have seemed longer in duration. Syncopated dissonances sounded fun as well as harsh, which is at it should be, for there is a great sparkle to this movement, or at least there is when it is well performed. The Largo is again written on a grand scale, and presents the performer with a profound – in every sense – challenge in terms of its numerous silences. Needless to say, Barenboim, an experienced conductor of Bruckner, had their measure. The rests punctuated but also belonged to the melodic line. Whatever Beethoven’s music may be, it is not pointillistic. Barenboim’s skill at presenting Beethoven’s part-writing was once again to the fore in the third movement; this enabled the harmonic surprises to stand out without sounded forced. The arpeggiated Minore trio possessed an almost Schubertian beauty: not just or even primarily a matter of touch, but also of understanding its harmonic progression. And rarely if ever have I heard the Rondo sound more magical. Barenboim’s basic tempo seemed spot on, as if it were the only correct solution, which is how a ‘right’ tempo will sound, even if there are in reality several ‘correct’ choices one might make. The texture of the rondo theme sounded like ‘filled-in’ Mozart, delicate yet also rich in harmonic possibilities. Although the tempo would subtly shift for different episodes, there was always a sense of being welcomed home for the return of the rondo theme: both the same, and yet transformed by its new context. The pianissimo conclusion could not have sounded more beautiful, nor more apt. Barenboim’s performance was utterly at one with Beethoven’s music: a Romantic farewell to the eighteenth century. The Rondo was certainly grazioso, but this was a fond grace such as could only result from the dusk at which the owl of Minerva spreads its wings.
By the time we reach the minuet-style opening of the first movement of Op.54, the owl has flown some distance. For this is definitely a recollection of the eighteenth-century minuet: fond, but standing at a distance that permits humour without condescension. Barenboim once again presented the gracefulness required without sounding precious. He also presented the somewhat alarming double-octave triplet contrasts with a surety and vigour that yet managed to console, for we knew that our guide would see us safely to the other side. The concluding integration of the two themes, aptly characterised in William Kinderman’s programme notes as feminine and masculine, was achieved so as to make the combination more than the sum of its parts. There was no loss of character, but there was also something surprising, something new, and a proper sense of necessity for the following Allegretto to resolve their differences. Here, as so often in Beethoven, the dialectic between rhythmic and harmonic momentum is the key to understanding and to performing. Barenboim both understood and performed. He once again proved a trustworthy guide to the movement’s tonal plan and its spinning perpetual motion. The Più Allegro coda duly thrilled without undue haste, and its sforzandi bit, though never gratuitously so. There was a true sense of arrival as the music reached its conclusion, which could only have arisen from a profound understanding of where it had been heading all along.
The last time I had heard the Op.111 sonata had been in January, in a recital given by Stephen Hough at the Wigmore Hall. That had been a creditable performance, with a number of positive attributes, but now, faced with an indisputably great performance, I realised just how insufficient ‘creditable’ is in this music. (More suitable programming helps too.) As the inevitable culmination to the cycle of thirty-two sonatas, this was always going to be something special, both for performer and audience (even for those of us who had not been fortunate enough to attend all eight concerts). I was nevertheless quite unprepared for what was to come. This performance was symphonic and personal, orchestral and instrumental, summing up and looking forward. Let there once again be no doubt that Barenboim’s piano technique is more than adequate to face any of the challenges Beethoven hurls his way, even in what is probably, with the exception of the Hammerklavier sonata, the most technically difficult of the late sonatas. Yet whilst Barenboim has command over his instrument, this is not the command that is generally called ‘pianistic’ in terms of drawing attention – intentionally or no – to pianistic matters. Beethoven’s music is presented first as music, second as music written for and performed upon the piano. At the same time, the hushed tones of the Arietta’s leggieramente passages were as beautifully conceived in purely pianistic terms as one could imagine; they were never, however, merely ends in themselves.
The first movement, with its Maestoso opening, diminished sevenths crucial, leading into the Allegro con brio ed appassionato, inevitably recalls the Pathétique sonata, but it is equally clear that something more is at stake. Barenboim’s vehemence was not only audible, but clearly visible. He did not try to conceal the enormous physical effort Beethoven requires, which perhaps bonded performer and audience still more closely. The fugato was clearly and powerfully projected. This counterpoint is not neat, and Barenboim did not present it as such; it is, rather, superhuman, which is how it sounded. Inner parts were not only heard but sang, whilst the composer’s C minor daemon drove onwards, the counterpoint working – and worked out – as much through blood and sweat as through intellectual rigour. (Note ‘as much’: I have no desire to elevate the ‘emotional’ over the ‘intellectual’, an irredeemably false distinction. However, I do wish to deny any notion of the hermetic to late Beethoven.) The subdominant colouring of the coda was wonderfully tender, leading with inexorable sadness to the non-triumphant C major of the final bars, and thus preparing the way for the Arietta. ‘Sublime’ may be a word over-used, but is entirely apt for both score and performance. Beethoven’s marking Adagio molto semplice e cantabile informed and infused the spirit of Barenboim’s reading. One was left in no doubt that the harmony, which is often very simple indeed, could not be other than it was, that Beethoven could now speak, or sing, with such noble, powerful simplicity, that we stood on the verge of something noumenal, both ineffably human and yet unutterably divine. The rhythms of the extraordinary ‘boogie-woogie’ variation were precise without any loss of warmth, never losing sight of the humanism that pervades this movement even at its most celestial. And ‘celestial’ is certainly the word to characterise the closing pages, with their awe-inspiring trills, insistent yet as far from hectoring as could be conceived. The swelling counterpoint above and beneath sounded perfectly in harmony – in every sense – with the magic of the arpeggiated accompaniment. No wonder that, for once, the conclusion met with true silence, followed by the inevitable rapturous standing ovation.
Friday, 15 February 2008
Daniel Barenboim, Beethoven sonatas, 15 February 2008
Royal Festival Hall
Beethoven – Piano Sonata no.16 in G major, Op.31 no.1
Beethoven – Piano Sonata no.14 in C sharp major, Op.27 no.2
Beethoven – Piano Sonata no.6 in F major, Op.10 no.2
Beethoven – Piano Sonata no.31 in A flat major, Op.110
Daniel Barenboim (piano)
It has been interesting to note the response of the press since the previous concert I attended from this cycle. If there has been an unenthusiastic voice, I have missed it. Daniel Barenboim has even appeared on Newsnight to be interviewed by Jeremy Paxman: what a welcome exchange for the usual dissembling politicians! (The sight this evening of a disgraced former Conservative Cabinet minister, far too self-important to engage in the plebeian business of applause, ostentatiously departing from the hall the moment both halves of the recital had finished, did not edify.) Yet in these reviews, I think it proper to concentrate upon the music – as Barenboim has constantly bade us do – rather than to discuss those activities which, to any person of sanity, would unreservedly commend him for a Nobel Peace Prize. I happen to think that politics and music are more awkwardly connected than Barenboim would have us believe, but this is a debate for another occasion.
That the press reaction has been so uniform is interesting in itself, for I should wager that a cycle of the Beethoven symphonies from him would have been more controversial. This has little or nothing to do with a difference in approach from Barenboim, and more or less everything to do with an unimaginative, doctrinaire attitude from more ‘authentically’ inclined critics when it comes to orchestral music. There will doubtless somewhere have been some sectarian gut-and-metronome obsessive fulminating against the use of a modern piano and issuing fatwas concerning Werktreue and the Urtext. For once, however, no one else cares.
Barenboim truly had the measure of Op.31 no.1. An understandable temptation in this sonata would be to underline the almost neo-classical exaggerations in the work, what William Kinderman in his excellent programme notes referred to as ‘a hint of sophisticated mockery’. Barenboim showed, however, that this playing with expectations, for instance in the excessively operatic roulades of the Adagio grazioso, needs to be balanced by a strong sense of the tradition on which such exaggeration is based. This is emphatically not Stravinsky; it may, however, have something in common with the Mahler of, say, the Fourth and Seventh Symphonies. Structural command becomes all the more crucial, not in the sense of imposing a formal straitjacket upon the work, although its form was commendably projected, but through allowing thematic development to inform the recounting of all other aspects of the work’s progress, not least the performer’s finely judged tempo fluctuations. This should not be taken to imply that there was a lack of attention to detail: syncopations were spot on; dynamic contrasts were carefully though never pedantically drawn, and the filigree, almost Chopinesque decoration was spun like gossamer. The pianissimo chords at the end of the finale were breathtaking, but this was as much on account of their placing within the whole as for themselves, which is as it should be.
The C sharp minor sonata was just as much a revelation. We are clearly stuck with the epithet Moonlight, whose saving grace that it is so absurdly inappropriate that it does little harm. Liszt’s description, quoted in the programme, of the second movement as ‘a flower between two abysses’ is far more apposite, and certainly was to this reading. I have often heard performances in which each movement simply appears to present a different mood, but here there was a clear progression from the all-too-celebrated arpeggios of the first movement to their raging equivalent in the Presto agitato. The harmonic direction of the opening Adagio sostenuto was never in doubt, and the biting right-hand minor ninth dissonances (bb. 52, 54) told as so rarely they do. This was owed in equal part to that sense of direction and to the careful balance between legato tone for the upper part and the disturbing implacability below. The phrasing in the Allegretto was a joy to hear: a master-class in true Classical style, and a true ‘flower between two abysses’. (Sadly, all too many members of the audience reacted angrily to Barenboim following Beethoven’s marking attacca subito il seguente, retorting with a barrage of bronchial commentary.) The final movement was duly Presto and duly agitato, but never ran away with itself. Barenboim’s pedalling – not at all easy to get right in this movement – was here every bit as impressive as his fingerwork. Everything moved inexorably towards a truly tragic conclusion.
The performance of the F major sonata, Op.10 no.2, was perhaps not on quite so exalted a level. For one thing was what sounded suspiciously like a brief memory lapse, albeit well covered up, during the F minor second movement. Its cross-rhythm sforzandi were splendidly presented, however, as was its unassuming lyricism. Whilst it was always clear where the outer movements were heading, I sensed – or imagined – a slight impatience, as if Barenboim were understandably anxious to reach the more rarefied world of the final work to be performed. The phrasing and articulation of the final Presto was nevertheless deeply impressive, and there was never any doubt about Beethoven’s slightly gruff humour during this work.
The sublimity – and let us not be shy about this word, for Beethoven’s music practically defines it – of Op.110 was projected for all to hear: both public and confidential. Tovey wrote of the opening dynamic marking: ‘The word sanft (added to the MS. by another hand, probably at Beethoven’s dictation) is intended to translate con amabilità. It does not mean “soft” but, as nearly as may be, “gentle” in the most ethical sense of the word.’ This ethical sense was present throughout: a product of Beethoven’s and Barenboim’s humanity and a rare beauty of touch and sustenance of melodic line. A couple of unfortunate smudgings slightly took the edge off what Tovey aptly described as ‘externally the clearest and most euphonious [movement] in all the last sonatas’. The closing bars, however, were truly magical, the final crescendo and diminuendo perfectly judged so as to portray without exaggeration the swelling and subsidence towards and from the dissonant F flat, duly resolved. Rhythmic definition was the key to the Allegro molto, whose secret Barenboim therefore unlocked. The syncopations of the coda, which can sometimes be lost, were wonderfully present here. No one could have been in any doubt, as Barenboim spun the recitative of the following Adagio ma non troppo, that here was a great opera conductor. Yet he proved himself – as if proof were needed – equally a great pianist, through the surety and beauty of his melodic tone. The transition to the Klagender Gesang opened out the chord of A flat minor like the German Romantics’ proverbial blue flower against the backdrop of a wintry landscape. (If ever anyone doubted a modern instrument’s ability in this respect, this performance ought to have led him forever to hold his peace.) Yet the flower’s arioso lamentation ultimately gave us hope not desolation; there was no attempt to turn this into late Schubert. This was partly, of course, owed to the consolation of the fugue, at first unable to prevail, yet persistent enough to attempt to return – and to succeed. Its stealthy una corda return was breathtakingly handled, with both mystery and certainty. Thereafter, the sheer obstinacy of Beethoven’s counterpoint was powerfully presented. With Barenboim’s performance, it clearly registered that the secret of the fugal victory, to quote Kinderman, ‘arise not naturally through traditional fugal procedures, but only through an exertion of will that strains those processes to their limits’. We may question whether such a musico-ethical victory does not partake in the highest sense of the political, but that question, as I said earlier, may await another day.
Beethoven – Piano Sonata no.16 in G major, Op.31 no.1
Beethoven – Piano Sonata no.14 in C sharp major, Op.27 no.2
Beethoven – Piano Sonata no.6 in F major, Op.10 no.2
Beethoven – Piano Sonata no.31 in A flat major, Op.110
Daniel Barenboim (piano)
It has been interesting to note the response of the press since the previous concert I attended from this cycle. If there has been an unenthusiastic voice, I have missed it. Daniel Barenboim has even appeared on Newsnight to be interviewed by Jeremy Paxman: what a welcome exchange for the usual dissembling politicians! (The sight this evening of a disgraced former Conservative Cabinet minister, far too self-important to engage in the plebeian business of applause, ostentatiously departing from the hall the moment both halves of the recital had finished, did not edify.) Yet in these reviews, I think it proper to concentrate upon the music – as Barenboim has constantly bade us do – rather than to discuss those activities which, to any person of sanity, would unreservedly commend him for a Nobel Peace Prize. I happen to think that politics and music are more awkwardly connected than Barenboim would have us believe, but this is a debate for another occasion.
That the press reaction has been so uniform is interesting in itself, for I should wager that a cycle of the Beethoven symphonies from him would have been more controversial. This has little or nothing to do with a difference in approach from Barenboim, and more or less everything to do with an unimaginative, doctrinaire attitude from more ‘authentically’ inclined critics when it comes to orchestral music. There will doubtless somewhere have been some sectarian gut-and-metronome obsessive fulminating against the use of a modern piano and issuing fatwas concerning Werktreue and the Urtext. For once, however, no one else cares.
Barenboim truly had the measure of Op.31 no.1. An understandable temptation in this sonata would be to underline the almost neo-classical exaggerations in the work, what William Kinderman in his excellent programme notes referred to as ‘a hint of sophisticated mockery’. Barenboim showed, however, that this playing with expectations, for instance in the excessively operatic roulades of the Adagio grazioso, needs to be balanced by a strong sense of the tradition on which such exaggeration is based. This is emphatically not Stravinsky; it may, however, have something in common with the Mahler of, say, the Fourth and Seventh Symphonies. Structural command becomes all the more crucial, not in the sense of imposing a formal straitjacket upon the work, although its form was commendably projected, but through allowing thematic development to inform the recounting of all other aspects of the work’s progress, not least the performer’s finely judged tempo fluctuations. This should not be taken to imply that there was a lack of attention to detail: syncopations were spot on; dynamic contrasts were carefully though never pedantically drawn, and the filigree, almost Chopinesque decoration was spun like gossamer. The pianissimo chords at the end of the finale were breathtaking, but this was as much on account of their placing within the whole as for themselves, which is as it should be.
The C sharp minor sonata was just as much a revelation. We are clearly stuck with the epithet Moonlight, whose saving grace that it is so absurdly inappropriate that it does little harm. Liszt’s description, quoted in the programme, of the second movement as ‘a flower between two abysses’ is far more apposite, and certainly was to this reading. I have often heard performances in which each movement simply appears to present a different mood, but here there was a clear progression from the all-too-celebrated arpeggios of the first movement to their raging equivalent in the Presto agitato. The harmonic direction of the opening Adagio sostenuto was never in doubt, and the biting right-hand minor ninth dissonances (bb. 52, 54) told as so rarely they do. This was owed in equal part to that sense of direction and to the careful balance between legato tone for the upper part and the disturbing implacability below. The phrasing in the Allegretto was a joy to hear: a master-class in true Classical style, and a true ‘flower between two abysses’. (Sadly, all too many members of the audience reacted angrily to Barenboim following Beethoven’s marking attacca subito il seguente, retorting with a barrage of bronchial commentary.) The final movement was duly Presto and duly agitato, but never ran away with itself. Barenboim’s pedalling – not at all easy to get right in this movement – was here every bit as impressive as his fingerwork. Everything moved inexorably towards a truly tragic conclusion.
The performance of the F major sonata, Op.10 no.2, was perhaps not on quite so exalted a level. For one thing was what sounded suspiciously like a brief memory lapse, albeit well covered up, during the F minor second movement. Its cross-rhythm sforzandi were splendidly presented, however, as was its unassuming lyricism. Whilst it was always clear where the outer movements were heading, I sensed – or imagined – a slight impatience, as if Barenboim were understandably anxious to reach the more rarefied world of the final work to be performed. The phrasing and articulation of the final Presto was nevertheless deeply impressive, and there was never any doubt about Beethoven’s slightly gruff humour during this work.
The sublimity – and let us not be shy about this word, for Beethoven’s music practically defines it – of Op.110 was projected for all to hear: both public and confidential. Tovey wrote of the opening dynamic marking: ‘The word sanft (added to the MS. by another hand, probably at Beethoven’s dictation) is intended to translate con amabilità. It does not mean “soft” but, as nearly as may be, “gentle” in the most ethical sense of the word.’ This ethical sense was present throughout: a product of Beethoven’s and Barenboim’s humanity and a rare beauty of touch and sustenance of melodic line. A couple of unfortunate smudgings slightly took the edge off what Tovey aptly described as ‘externally the clearest and most euphonious [movement] in all the last sonatas’. The closing bars, however, were truly magical, the final crescendo and diminuendo perfectly judged so as to portray without exaggeration the swelling and subsidence towards and from the dissonant F flat, duly resolved. Rhythmic definition was the key to the Allegro molto, whose secret Barenboim therefore unlocked. The syncopations of the coda, which can sometimes be lost, were wonderfully present here. No one could have been in any doubt, as Barenboim spun the recitative of the following Adagio ma non troppo, that here was a great opera conductor. Yet he proved himself – as if proof were needed – equally a great pianist, through the surety and beauty of his melodic tone. The transition to the Klagender Gesang opened out the chord of A flat minor like the German Romantics’ proverbial blue flower against the backdrop of a wintry landscape. (If ever anyone doubted a modern instrument’s ability in this respect, this performance ought to have led him forever to hold his peace.) Yet the flower’s arioso lamentation ultimately gave us hope not desolation; there was no attempt to turn this into late Schubert. This was partly, of course, owed to the consolation of the fugue, at first unable to prevail, yet persistent enough to attempt to return – and to succeed. Its stealthy una corda return was breathtakingly handled, with both mystery and certainty. Thereafter, the sheer obstinacy of Beethoven’s counterpoint was powerfully presented. With Barenboim’s performance, it clearly registered that the secret of the fugal victory, to quote Kinderman, ‘arise not naturally through traditional fugal procedures, but only through an exertion of will that strains those processes to their limits’. We may question whether such a musico-ethical victory does not partake in the highest sense of the political, but that question, as I said earlier, may await another day.
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