Beethoven via Nakagawa

Goethe Institute. Bangkok, Thailand. June 14, 2011. Pianist Eri Nakagawa can always be counted on to play a difficult program, and I mean really difficult, She thinks nothing of playing through all the Chopin Etudes in one evening, and last night’s all-Beethoven recital at the Goethe was no exception: Beethoven’s last three piano sonatas. These sonatas have achieved such a near-mystical status in the Western classical icon that playing them is more akin to an act of worship than it is to mere performance. They demand a lot of both the pianist and the audience.

While the challenge to the performer is obvious, the listener bears a lot of responsibility for a successful evening. A classical music performance is the only public event that I know of which requires a commitment from the audience. Go to a sports event and do whatever you want; same for a rock concert, a political rally, even a Broadway musical. But at a classical performance, at minimum, the audience commits to both the performer and to itself to sit quietly, electronic devices off, program reading terminated, talking and whispering verboten. The audience must be engaged and failing that, no pianist, no matter how great the playing, can pierce the conscience mind of his or her listeners. This engagement, agreement and concentration on the part of the audience, are especially difficult when the pianist chooses to confront his or her public with an unbroken stream of high art. Fortunately, last night’s audience at the Goethe was the most attentive I’ve encountered in Thailand. It went beyond simple courtesy, to reach out to Ajarn Nakagawa as if to say: Okay, we’re ready; we’re prepared; we’ve done our homework (many in the audience were piano students and teachers), we accept your challenge, you’ve got us for 90 minutes, and now it’s up to you.

One would think that what followed was all about playing only, that is to say, about what one hears, but it would be a mistake to ignore the visual. In my lifetime, I thought that Rubinstein, whom I saw many times in person, had the best visual stature. The way he walked on to the stage, sat at the keyboard, and prepared himself to play, made such a visual statement that he won his audience over before playing a note. I’ve recently watched a DVD of his historic 1964 Moscow recital, which brought back to me how commanding his presence was. I thought that Gillels, whom I also heard in person many times, and recently viewed a DVD of an old performance of his in Moscow, had much the same stage presence. Richter, on the other hand, whom I also saw in person many times, “…never came on stage looking anything other than miserable and conveying the impression that he didn’t want to be there.” (International Piano, March/April 2011, pg 14). Of today’s performers, Evengy Kissin has captured the Rubinstein/Gillels aura better than any other artist I know.

Eri Nakagawa quite clearly understands how important the visual elements of a recital are. Her stately demeanor, her self-evident concentration, her unmannered keyboard style, and her quiet and extended manner of sitting with her hands on the keyboard after the conclusion of each sonata, before signaling that the audience could applause, had a visual impact that was in support of her fine playing.

After reaching technical proficiency of a very high level, such as Ajarn Nakagawa has achieved, it’s all a matter of interpretation and sound. Beethoven is the greatest musical architect that ever lived and what makes his work enduring is that it sustains interpretation, and like all music that endures, it must have enough internal substance to be interpreted. That’s why we listen to the same pieces played time and time again, or why we buy multiple renditions of the same work---we are seeking interpretation that is meaningful and goes beyond mere entertainment or the frisson of yet another athletic acrobatic performance of some unimaginably difficult work. We do not go to admire; rather, we go to hear beautiful sound that conveys the artist’s inner sense of what meaning he or she finds in the umpteenth playing of some well-known work. At its highest and rarest, it is an aesthetic experience that transports us into a world of pure bliss, which momentarily co-opts our temporal existence. No one can say when or if that moment will arrive, but when the magic occurs, it makes all the waiting worthwhile. (Note: “bliss” is a word favored by Vladimir Nabokov and Joseph Campbell, but is a little too intense for me. But, right now I can’t think of a better noun).

Ajarn Nakagawa’s recital was an honest and successful attempt to interpret Beethoven and to reveal the meaning that she uncovered. It was a personal journey; I don’t think she was aware that she was playing for an audience. Having accepted her invitation to travel with her, we, too, were privileged to experience many moments of interpretive nuances that were rooted in Beethoven, but that blossomed via this fine pianist.