Mannes College for Music.
NYC. July 14, 2014. While Korean
pianist Khowoon Kim plays very well indeed, I found her music mechanical and
devoid of interpretation, perhaps the result of too many piano competitions
which emphasize the athletic and
flawless.
In contrast, Ilya Yakushev is what great pianism is all about: having
something to say about a piece and a towering technique enabling the pianist to
execute his creative ideas. Yakushev’s program
was particularly challenging because the major works on his program are played
and over-played throughout the world leading one to ask: can anyone say
anything more about them? Answer: yes, if you are as good as Yakushev. In Yakushev’s hands, Beethoven’s “Pathetique”
was both sensitive and strong, and sounded fresh. I don’t particularly like Liszt’s Mephisto
Waltz, but here again, I don’t think I’ve ever heard it in quite the same way as
I did as played by Yakushev. As for
Pictures, I once promised myself that I would never go to another performance
of this now hackneyed work, but I’m glad that I’m not good at keeping my own promises. In Yakushev’s hands, every nuance and color
was explored and he achieved something one only rarely hears: a flawless melding of robust, exciting
playing that also produces beautiful music.
I was as overwhelmed as was the rest of the audience, which rose to express
prolonged, boisterous cheering and applause.
Mannes College for Music. NYC. July 16, 2014 How sad that
this unique and wonderful piano festival won’t be held next year, and perhaps
never again. Tonight’s marvelous
performances by Alexander Schimpf and Alon Goldstein reinforce how tragic it
will be not to have the opportunity to hear artists like these in a friendly
and collegiate setting as part of a piano institute which each summer attracts
many young students, mostly from Asia these days, as well as a large and
appreciative audience of piano lovers like me.
I had a very nice conversation with the very personable superb young
German pianist Alexander Schimpf (photo) after his impressive performance of
the monumentally difficult “Hammerklavier” sonata. About tonight’sperformances, I can’t say it
any better (or as well) as did NYT’s critic Anthony Tommasini in his published
review, which follows:
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Young German pianist Alexander Schimpf has
every reason to smile after his magnificent performance of Beethoven’s “Hammerklavier”
sonata. |
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Israeli
pianist Alon Goldstein had the extraordinary ability to sound like two different
pianists while playing Beethoven and Liszt.
|
Recitals That Linger, a Festival That May Not
Alexander Schimpf and Alon Goldstein at Mannes Festival
By ANTHONY TOMMASINI
On most days of the two-week International Keyboard
Institute and Festival, a popular annual venture sponsored by Mannes College
the New School for Music, there are two piano recitals each evening. So it was
on Wednesday, the third full day of the festival. For the early-evening
Prestige series, which mostly presents exceptional younger artists, the
award-winning 32-year-old German pianist Alexander Schimpf played a varied
program culminating with Beethoven’s mighty “Hammerklavier” Sonata. Later that
evening, the Israeli pianist Alon Goldstein, admired for the refinement and
imaginativeness of his performances, played a formidable program on the Masters
series. The recitals were presented at the intimate concert hall of the Mannes
College building on the Upper West Side, which seats just 275.
The institute draws student pianists who participate in
workshops and master classes and, naturally, attend almost every recital. But
this festival, now in its 16th season, has long attracted lots of concertgoers
who love piano music and piano playing. I was not the only person who took in
Wednesday night’s doubleheader.
As it happens, this could be the last festival. Mannes’s
longtime building has been sold, and the college is relocating, starting in the
fall of 2015, to a newly renovated space in Arnhold Hall at the New School in
Greenwich Village. Next summer, the institution will be in the process of
moving, so the keyboard festival will not take place, and its future is
uncertain. This would be a loss to audiences in New York.
The recitals on Wednesday were fascinating. Mr. Schimpf,
who won first prize in the prestigious Cleveland International Piano
Competition in 2011, began his program with a vibrant, articulate account of
Bach’s Toccata in E minor. He followed with the American premiere of
“Augenblicke — eine Sammlung,” a 2008 work by the German composer Adrian
Sieber. This rhapsodic, restless eight-minute piece veers between outbursts of
hurtling, thick, dissonant chords and contrasting passages of somberly
reflective, more lyrical music. In a swirling, seductive account of Debussy’s
“L’Isle Joyeuse,” Mr. Schimpf conveyed exactly what kind of joy the visitors to
the island of the work’s title were indulging in.
Beethoven’s late Sonata No. 29 in B flat (Op. 106),
“Hammerklavier,” is the longest, most audacious and difficult of his sonatas.
It is always an event to hear it performed, and there was much to admire in Mr.
Schimpf’s account. He brought a light touch, bright sound and bracing energy to
the monumental first movement. Still, he took a quick tempo that he had trouble
controlling, which led to some rushed and jumbled passages. The same problem
affected the scherzo. He was at his best, though, in the searching slow
movement, played with magisterial elegance and sensitivity. And he reined in
the tempo of the daunting final fugue just enough to let the tangle of crazed
counterpoint come through and sound, well, excitingly crazy.
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Seating
only 275 concert goers, the Mannes hall gives the performer the choice of three
excellent concert grands, two Steinways and a Yamaha. Most of the performers choose the
Yamaha.
|
Mr. Goldstein, who is enjoying an international career,
began his recital with a curiously cool, even careless, at times, performance
of Beethoven’s “Tempest” Sonata, though he brought rippling allure to the
work’s mesmerizing finale. He seemed a different pianist, though, in the next
work, Beethoven’s “Les Adieux” Sonata. Here was a beautifully balanced approach
to the score, refined yet impetuous, noble yet spirited.
After intermission, he excelled in two pieces by Liszt,
the seldom-heard Paraphrase on Themes From Verdi’s “Aida” and the better-known
Concert Paraphrase After Verdi’s “Rigoletto.” Liszt’s fantasies on operas are
not just clever showpieces. Here is a great composer reveling in excerpts from
two Verdi operas while also exploring the potential lying within the music. Mr.
Goldstein played both works with brilliance and imagination, qualities he
brought to Ravel’s “Une Barque sur l’Océan” from “Miroirs.”
He also played Three Études (2012) by the Israeli-born
composer Avner Dorman, inventive and aptly demanding works. In the first,
“Snakes and Ladders,” a rush of passagework in spiraling triplets is punctuated
with stabbing, staggered chords. During the performance, the pages of Mr.
Goldstein’s score on the piano’s music stand kept turning ahead on their own:
The culprit seemed to be an overhead air-conditioner duct. Mr. Goldstein had to
start over. When he finished, the audience broke into applause, and he took the
occasion to comment on the work’s intriguing title. He said that he could
detect lots of snakes in the music but no ladders. He also said that he had asked
the composer whether these three pieces were études “for the piano or against
the piano,” referring to their difficulty.
His comments were charming and helpful. He should speak
more when he next plays in New York. This being perhaps the last Mannes summer
festival, that future appearance will probably not be at this valuable event.
