Yefim Bronfman, piano recital

It’s kind of unfair to go to a concert—like last night’s piano recital by Yefim Bronfman—with a lot of preconceptions. Sometimes, those preconceptions are served up so powerfully that it is hard to shake them: just try to get the following passage by Philip Roth out of your head:

Then Bronfman appears. Bronfman the brontosaur! Mr. Fortissimo. Enter Bronfman to play Prokofiev at such a pace and with such bravado as to knock my morbidity clear out of the ring. He is conspicuously massive through the upper torso, a force of nature camouflaged in a sweatshirt, somebody who has strolled into the Music Shed out of a circus where is the strongman and who takes on the piano as a ridiculous challenge to the gargantuan strength he revels in. Yefim Bronfman looks less like the person who is going to play the piano than like the guy who should be moving it. I had never before seen anybody go at a piano like this sturdy little barrel of an unshaven Russian Jew. When he's finished, I thought, they'll have to throw the thing out. He crushes it. He doesn't let that piano conceal a thing. Whatever's in there is going to come out, and come out with its hands in the air. And when it does, everything there out in the open, the last of the last pulsation, he himself gets up and goes, leaving behind him our redemption. With a jaunty wave, he is suddenly gone, and though he takes all his fire off with him like no less a force than Prometheus, our own lives now seem inextinguishable. Nobody is dying, nobody - not if Bronfman has anything to say about it.

So, even though I’ve heard plenty of recordings of Bronfman as a sensitive chamber musician and playing delicate miniatures by Tchaikovsky, I still had this image of him as a piano-crushing force of nature. Well, Mr. Bronfman is a piano-crushing force of nature and a refined, romantically tinged miniaturist. That is to say, he’s a really good, well-rounded pianist.

The concert started almost abruptly with one of the late Haydn sonatas: Bronfman strode out, sat down and played, pretty much as one brusque motion. His Haydn was elegant, and certainly more romantically colored than Paul Lewis’ view of the classics. The playing was elegantly relaxed but not indulgent. This was followed by more Germanic jest, Schumann’s lumpy, amorphous Humoresque. This is written as a single ½ hour piece, but it jumps distractedly from thought to thought. Sometimes Schumann makes this work, as in the Papillons, but it’s hard to make the Humoresque sound like a unified whole. Bronfman presented the fragments eloquently, vividly illustrating humor and fancy and romance bubbling out of the depths of Schumann’s subconscious. Schumann’s fancy allowed Bronfman to alternate between lyrical poet and piano-crusher (and there were a few points where I really was worried about the piano: he’s a big, barrel-chested guy, needing a special riser for his bench, and he actually makes a Steinway D look kind of small.) However, whether it is Bronfman’s or Schumann’s fault, the piece as a whole didn’t quite add up.

The second half of the program was the Chopin Etudes Op. 10, one of the cornerstones of the piano repertoire. These give the pianist endless variety, and again gave Bronfman the opportunity for poetry and pyrotechnics. His poetry was of an interesting sort. He seemed to have a certain detachment, as if he was presenting the music with as little of his personal intervention as possible. In most cases (for example, Op. 10 No. 2 and 5), there is enough poetry built in that his approach pays off handsomely. I was left feeling that I’d heard a pretty pure distillate of Chopin. This approach also worked in the first two movements of the Haydn, most of the Schumann, and in one his encores, a perfect rendition of Schumann’s Arabesque.

However, there were occasions that left me wishing that Bronfman would put more of himself into the music. It would be less pure, yes, but more personal. His restraint from injecting himself into the music was noticeable in the last movement of the Haydn, in which he seemed to be reading Haydn’s jokes rather than telling them. A strong infusion of personality may have also served to unify the scattered elements of the Schumann Humoresque. It must be noted that this is a minor fault in an approach that is generally sound.

Bronfman’s pyrotechnics are of the highest order. The dazzlers in the Chopin set dazzled, just as they should, with Bronfman’s technique steamrolling these peaks of the repertoire into a level highway. He played the final “Revolutionary” Etude faster and more powerfully than I’ve ever heard it, and it sounded like he was showing some restraint. Restraint was discarded for the last encore: Bronfman finally engaged his top gears in a Liszt transcription of one of the Paganini caprices. Most of the Paganini caprices are pretty much void of musical depth: they are pure showing-off, a single catchy “hook” presented with lots of 10ths and double-stops and ricochets. Liszt was perfectly capable of doing the same thing on the piano, and when he transcribed Paganini, the result was a synergy of musical vacuity and pyrotechnics. Taken as such, it was enjoyably brainless fun that left me with an earworm that lasted the rest of the evening.

So, Bronfman the brontosaur? Life-affirming force of nature? Well, yes, but—a very poetic, sensitive brontosaur, capable of the greatest restraint and delicacy. I’ll leave Philip Roth to figure out how to put that into a nice image.

Monday (no, Tuesday) Musical Offering (no, review)

We didn’t go to Berkeley just to look at amusing restaurant signage; we went to see the young British pianist Paul Lewis in a recital.

The way it seems to happen is like this: a young pianist emerges, bursting with promise. He or she wins a competition or two, or attracts the mentorship of a universally respected elder, or releases a breathlessly-reviewed CD. Then, there’s a year or so of making concert appearances. A very few go on to super-stardom (whether earned—like Leif Ove Andsnes—or not—like Lang Lang). Most don’t quite live up to the breathless hype, but do establish themselves as very respectable figures. Some, you just wonder whatever happened to them (Dmitri Sgouros, anyone?). So I always wonder what I’m going to get when I go to such a recital.

Paul Lewis is youngish, and has released a critically-loved complete set of the Beethoven Piano Sonatas. He’s studied with no less than Alfred Brendel, who famously doesn’t take many students. And now, he’s on tour, and (based on an impressive recording of Beethoven I heard on the radio, and a nice recording of some Schubert Sonatas) I wanted to see if he was all that. He is—as far as I can tell, which is not very far.

The program on Sunday included two Schubert Sonatas (a minor and D major) and the three piano pieces, from just before Schubert’s death. There is no doubt that this is well within Lewis’ comfort zone, and he played everything beautifully. Schubert is sometimes portrayed as an heir to Beethoven’s tradition, but the spirit behind the Schubert piano sonatas is (to me, at least) fundamentally different from the spirit behind the Beethoven sonatas. Beethoven’s works (with the exception of the “Hammerklavier”) strike me as being intensely personal chamber music—very much solo piano pieces, unimaginable recast as quartets or symphonies. Schubert, however, was writing symphonic works that happened to be playable on a piano. The music is no less touching or profound, but it is less personal. That sounds bad, but I could just as honestly say that it is “more pure”.

Lewis handles the technical and aesthetic demands of this music very well. He presented the orchestral effects convincingly: with too much clarity, they become annoying detail, and with too much distance, they lose their form. I was impressed by his ability to minutely control the volume of his accompaniments; the ability to shape these informed every phrase. I could readily hear these pieces in their symphonic form. It is easy for these pieces to sound much too long (for example, when I play them), but Lewis’ command of the architecture of these pieces made them seem all-to brief.

I am most familiar with the Three Piano Pieces, having played them myself. These are aptly named; they are less symphonic, more personal than the Sonatas. Knowing that a piece was among the last things that a composer wrote invariably makes you think differently about it—it must be especially poignant and elegiac. However, the Piano Pieces are especially poignant and elegiac because Schubert was on form when he wrote them. Lewis played them with personality (though perhaps slightly less than is possible, within the bounds of good taste).

Overall, I was rather liked Lewis’ playing. His subtlety of shading was very pleasing. Although the nature of the Sonatas is symphonic, he played with a pleasing elasticity of tempo that would be impossible but for the best orchestras. He did not have a hugely powerful sound, but it was certainly good for Hertz Hall. There was some imprecision in the release of the damper pedal, but this was probably more the fault of the technician than the pianist. The lasting memory is of Schubert, played with consummate musicianship.

Note that the memory is not of brilliant pianism, nor is it of a forceful personality. The program—and all I know of Lewis—is narrowly constrained to Vienna, between 1785 and 1830. Though there is absorbing depth enough in this repertoire, there is much more to pianism than the Viennese classics. Can he play Scarlatti? Bach? Schumann? Chopin? Rachmaninoff? Shostakovich? Lewis has recorded a disc of Liszt, and in this, he may be following his teacher Brendel. So, I don’t know if Paul Lewis is the next great pianist, or even the next Alfred Brendel (whose repertoire went from Bach to Schoenberg, though he’s most famous for those Viennese classics and Liszt). He sure can play Schubert, though.

(I did get his autograph, and an admonition.)

A fun way to spend Halloween. Well, more fun than handing out candy at any rate.

The Real Doctor and I went to see a lecture/demonstration by Alfred Brendel on the last night of October. Brendel no longer gives concerts; his fingers no longer have the agility or stamina needed to live up to his standards. However, his mind is still sharp and overflowing with wit and scholarship, so he gives lectures punctuated by short musical excerpts. The subject of this lecture was humor in music.

It’s good practice in argument, as in war, to dictate the field of action to suit your own strengths. Brendel did this. Although he has an extensive recorded repertoire, from Bach to Schoenberg and beyond, he has made his name as a cerebral master of the Viennese classics, Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, and Schubert. So, he chose to define humor in such a way that it can only really be found in the high Classical style (and perhaps Ligeti).

Humor can be found in music where we see foiled harmonic expectations, pratfalls where expertise fails, the simulation of laughter, inappropriate or contradictory expressions, and the like. The bottom line is that, by his definition, humor basically requires expectations—expectations that can be created by the relatively structured nature of the Classical style. (Though I’m not sure Brendel would approve, this is exactly what PDQ Bach and Victor Borge take advantage of.) Having set up his argument, Brendel easily carried it off, dismissing any opposition. When Schumann writes a piece with the marking “mit humor,” the piece itself is not funny, it’s pervaded by a humorous mood. When Bartok lampoons Shostakovich in the Concerto for Orchestra, it’s not humorous, it’s grotesque. Scherzos—“jokes”—from Chopin to Rachmaninoff? Not really funny funny, again, more grotesque. Bach? Not funny at all.

You might imagine that an evening watching an elderly German guy dissect and analyze humor would be deadly. It was actually quite entertaining. Though he’s not as strong at the piano as he used to be, Brendel illustrated his rather narrow argument with excellent examples. The humor in a Haydn sonata was intensified when Brendel played the same piece drained of all humor by hewing to expectations. A riotous Beethoven Bagatelle that incongruously juxtaposes a jaunty mood with a minor key was made funnier when Brendel played it in the major, turning it into an icky puddle of sap. Beethoven (who is for my money the funniest composer out there) received the most attention, especially the Diabelli variations. Interestingly, for Brendel, Mozart and Schubert are pretty much without humor. Their music is so concerned with beauty and singing that humor just didn’t seem to interest them.

There was an element of gentle polemic to the evening as well. Brendel is intellectual, but he is also a vigorous advocate of humor. Why, he wondered, is coughing permitted in concert halls, but laughing banned? Why do some players do their best to suppress humor? He concluded, somewhat sadly, that some people just don’t get it. It’s like being color blind. It’s not their fault.

In his role as humor advocate, Brendel does come across differently from Brendel as concert artist. He satirized the humorless Haydn player by sitting at the piano and charging right into a witty sonata movement—then playing it as it should be played: sitting at the piano, pausing to arch one eyebrow above his glasses at the audience, and then launching into the joke. On the whole, he was much more facially involved than I had ever seen him, emphasizing jokes and contrasts with a degree of mugging that I found surprising. So, although he had a sound intellectual argument as the foundation of the evening, Brendel left me with another question.

Music is about communication by sound, and the role of the performer is to communicate the sounds the composer specified (plus some of his or her own interpretation) to the listener. There definitely is humor in music; I can listen to a recording of the Diabelli Variations or Bagatelles in a dark room and still get a laugh. But when we are dealing with humor—or pathos, or whatever emotion is needed—how much of the performer’s job is visual? And, did Brendel’s face answer this question in a way that his intellect would approve of?

Jeremy Denk recital

After a couple of years’ worth of anticipation, I finally got to see Jeremy Denk in a solo recital last weekend. The Real Doctor and I have seen him a couple of times in his capacity as accompanist to Joshua Bell, and both times I was really impressed. The star of the show was the violinist, of course. But going to a Joshua Bell recital and being impressed by the pianist is like being dazzled by the moon on a sunny day. From the first, Denk’s playing made me want to see him solo. Reading his excellent blog only made me want to see him the more.

Finally, Denk has made a recital appearance in Berkeley. Unfortunately, the Real Doctor couldn’t make it—she was in Michigan—so I went with my piano technician, who is a pretty brilliant pianist and a composer to boot. The advertised program was intimidating: the Ligeti Etudes (nearly an hour of avant-garde puzzles and brain-games, conveyed through finger-breaking keyboard pyrotechnics) and the Bach “Goldberg Variations” (same, only read “Baroque” for “avant-garde”). It was almost a relief that there was an announced program change. Book two of the Etudes would be replaced by the meaty (but less mental) “Dante Sonata” by Liszt.

The Ligeti Etudes are avant-garde music that you can love. They are not easy listening, minimalism or neoromanticism; these are mid-century Mitteleuropean modernism. Nonetheless, they give even the first-time listener enough to hold onto that one can follow through each piece—in some places, there are even things reminiscent of melodies. Most of the etudes are clearly about one thing—relentless upward scales, an overall downward motion, a constant, pushing eccentric rhythm. They tend not to be massively written, and in some the texture becomes transparent to the point of nothingness. However, these are not “pink bonbons stuffed with snow” (as Debussy described the music of Grieg). These etudes are precise, spiky, but strangely elegant blooming cactuses. Denk delivered these bristling packages cleanly, highlighting the hooks that rescue the first-time listener. His touch was sure, and he found an astonishing number of shades of “piano” in the quietest passages. I came away from the performance hoping that at least half of what we heard become standards in the repertoire.

Announcing the Liszt from the stage, Denk highlighted the parallels between the diabolical theme in the “Dante” sonata and the descending motif in the last etude; this was perhaps a stretch, but no matter. Despite the title (“Fantasy-Sonata after a Reading of Dante”) it’s not the deepest stuff that Liszt ever wrote. It’s programmatic to the point that it requires little imagination, and chockablock with Lisztian pianism. After the rigors of Ligeti, listening to the Liszt was like reading a satisfyingly pulpy piece of genre fiction after plowing through imagist poetry. However, it was not really Denk’s strong suit. It was not badly played, but nor was it especially memorable. For example, things could get muddy in the sections of greatest turmoil. However, it must be said that the quieter sections of “Heaven” showed some absolutely lovely playing and tone.

It’s audacious to program the Goldberg Variations in a recital. According to legend, the piece was designed to put its insomniac dedicatee to sleep. It’s a very long piece, and also a substantial mental challenge. Every third variation is a canon, each on a different interval. Sometimes the canons are inverted, sometimes they are dilated, or augmented—Bach plays every trick he can. The ending is a double quodlibet, in which two different tunes are superimposed over the ground of the theme. The paths of least resistance are to turn the piece into a dry exercise, or treat it with so much solemnity that it really does work as a soporific. Given Denk’s intellectual bent, I almost expected this.

However, Denk also has a wickedly sharp sense of humor. His was a very fleet Goldberg Variations. Some of the spaces between contrasting variations were pressed a little, as if to keep the listener off-balance; sometimes repeats were omitted to keep proceedings moving right along. The playing was always transparent and articulated, and when solemnity was called for, it was delivered. On the whole, though, the Bach who wrote Denk’s version of the Goldberg Variations was a keen wit who was not above pointing out that he was a keen wit—when the quodlibet rolled around, the two rather earthy folksongs were really punched out. Denk’s Goldberg Variations will stay in my memory as one of my favorite perfomances of this piece, but reflecting on it the next day, I felt almost as though I had heard the Goldberg Variations written by the smart, sardonically funny Beethoven who wrote the Diabelli Variations.

It’s nice when things live up to the anticipation. This wasn’t the greatest concert ever, and Denk’s mannerisms can be a bit distracting. But, as expected, the recital was stimulating and rewarding. So, now I am anticipating the next time this pianist comes out west. And, I am hoping he plays some Beethoven, maybe the Diabelli Variations.

Hints of Greatness?

I went to see a recital by Jeremy Denk on Sunday, about which more later (in brief--it was very good). Denk has an excellent, if infrequently updated, blog. It is here that I saw the common thread that unites the pianism of Denk, Glenn Gould, and...me:
Denk:

Gould:

Yours truly:

New record set for faintness of praise

From a NY Times article describing a documentary about one of my favorite love/hate pianists, Glenn Gould.

The filmmakers also interviewed...Gould’s...teenage sweetheart. She provides one of the film’s more amusing moments: asked if Gould was romantic, she responds with a long pause before answering, “sort of.”

Remarkable markets

I decided to learn Beethoven's "Andante Favori," which he intended to be the middle movement of his "Waldstein" Sonata. He (wisely) decided not to include it in that sonata, but it was too good to throw out--so it exists as a stand-alone piece of music. It's easy to get good editions of all the Beethoven Sonatas, but it can be hard to get good editions of the many "miscellaneous" non-Sonata pieces he wrote for the piano such as the Andante Favori. My local shop has the music for the "Andante Favori." However it's 10 pages in a huge book that is imported from Germany and costs big bucks. I could download the music for free from IMSLP, but the quality of the scores there can vary, and this one was not so good. My piano teacher has the Vienna Urtext edition, which is excellent--for the first time I can remember, he told me to go and buy this particular score.

So, I was a consumer with a need. No local brick-and-mortar store has any Vienna Urtext editions; if I wanted to buy a copy of this score, I could order one from the publisher, in Vienna, and pay an arm and a leg for it--and without an arm and a leg, I couldn't very well play it.

So here's the miracle of the internet. Somewhere in deepest darkest England, there is a used book merchant who had a used copy of the score for cheap. Amazon connected me, the consumer with a need, and the bookseller with some goods, eight time zones away. Five days later, the book is in my hot little hands. That is incredible market efficiency. Given the microscopic niche size of the market and the distances and times involved, it practically does merit the word "miracle." Essentially, in this economy, neither distance nor market size count for anything. Such a thing couldn't have happened ten years ago. Given the inexorable rise in fuel prices (and thus transport), it may not be possible in another ten or twenty years. But I'll enjoy it while I can, and hopefully sometime soon the Monday Musical Offering will be the Andante Favori.