Charismatic Brahms with Hélène Grimaud, Vernal Schumann with Nézet-Séguin

Hélène Grimaud, an artist who generates excitement wherever she goes, brought her unique talent and charisma to Philadelphia March 3 through 4, 2016, in a performance of the towering Brahms’ Second Piano Concerto in B flat with the Philadelphia Orchestra led by Yannick Nézet-Séguin.

There’s no doubt that the French pianist’s mastery is known and appreciated in the Philadelphia area. Every seat in Verizon Hall was taken, and listeners edged forward in their seats as the minutes ticked past the 2 p.m. matinee start time on March 4. Clad in a shiny grey shirt and black pants, shoulder-length brown hair tousled and free, Grimaud strode briskly onto the stage before the conductor, and accepted applause reaching the ovation level before she played a note. Grimaud is also renowned as an environmental and human rights activist and author.

But once seated and eased into the Brahms by some of the best-known horn phrases in classical literature, Grimaud's playing merged with Neget-Seguin’s lively direction. Grimaud has an unusual ability to walk a tightrope between classical purity and romantic emotionalism. It’s as though there’s this tiny pathway between the two that she unerringly navigates. As a result, the Brahms’ Second emerges in a more passionate voice that we may be accustomed to, but always reverent to the majestic architecture of this complex and inexhaustible work.

I say “complex” as we would refer to a gourmet dish that balances subtle, often contrasting flavors and textures in new and refreshing ways. This is opposed to “complicated,” an approach in which the player becomes bogged down in the sheer weight of notes, introduction of new phrases that would shout out, “I’m here now, pay attention to me!” and massive chordal progressions. 

There was no feeling of being trapped in a dense fishnet of musical ideas here, rather it seemed as though Grimaud had liberated the music from its form, allowing it to escape from the artists to the audience. And a gleeful escape it was.

Grimaud’s technique and expressive genius drove this lengthy work in four movements (classical concertos typically have three) without faltering during the work’s 50 minutes. Brahms is one of the pillars of Grimaud’s repertoire, and one can hear the difference it makes when a pianist truly loves the work that he or she is playing. Noteworthy to me was the thoughtfully constricted dynamic range, no extreme softness, no sudden burst of fortissimo as we would expect in Beethoven, but rather a consistent balance between piano and forte in which her sensitive, insightful, and expressive interpretation could unfold. 

Nézet-Séguin and the orchestra kept their part of the musical bargain, supporting, parrying, lobbing phrases back and forth, even erupting in a bit of musical frenzy worthy of Tchaikovsky about halfway through the first movement. Noteworthy moments included some beautiful horn passages throughout and a haunting cello solo in the third movement.

During one of several enthusiastic curtain calls, Yannick cupped his hands around Grimaud’s and lifted them like a chalice or a precious treasure, which they are. 

After intermission, the orchestra performed Schumann’s Symphony No. 1, also in B-flat major, Op. 38, the “Spring.” This was the first major symphonic work by the German master, composed shortly after his marriage to the pianist and composer, Clara Wieck, and was debuted under the baton of Felix Mendelssohn in 1841.

Composed between the great symphonies of Beethoven and Brahms, the four Schumann works may seem like foothills below the Matterhorn, but they have their own charm and inventiveness. The First is noteworthy for its energy, lightness, harmonic originality, and memorable melodies, a work Schumann outlined in a burst of activity over a four-day period in the winter of 1841, perhaps one of the happiest times of his life (Schumann succumbed to mental illness and died at the age of 46).

Nézet-Séguin emphasized the musical variety in this symphony, the effective use of orchestral colors, highlighting its lively themes and drive from the first to final allegros.  Every time I hear the final movement, though, I am transported back to my early teens when I sawed that tune on a cheap fiddle, adding the words, “I hate playing/the vi-o-lin!” Schumann clearly has a message for everyone.

(photo of Grimaud by Carolyn Cole, Los Angeles Times, below)

Igor Levit in Princeton: A brilliant pianist opens pathways to musical understanding

I was expecting great things from Igor Levit’s recital in Princeton on Feb. 4, 2016, but my expectations were not nearly high enough.

The young German pianist stepped far beyond technical virtuosity and intelligent interpretation, though he certainly possessed both. To this listener, in a program whose works spanned three centuries, Levit expanded the musical horizons of his listeners and took us on a pathway to understanding that is uniquely his own. 

The pianist brought with him to a remarkable, perhaps unprecedented reputation. While still in his twenties, Levit has recorded the last five Beethoven piano sonatas and received rave reviews from critics around the world for the maturity and originality of his conceptions.  

To a full house in Richardson Auditorium, Levit performed these four works: Bach’s Partita No 4 BWV 828, Schubert’s Moments Musicaux D780, Beethoven’s Sonata #17 Op. 31 No. 2, “Tempest,” and Prokofiev’s Sonata No 7 Op. 83. He played a Shostakovich waltz as an encore.

A tall, thin young man of 28, Levit walked briskly onto the stage, wearing a black suit but no tie. Tellingly, his demeanor was confident and relaxed, but with no discernable touch of arrogance.

The Bach was a revelation. This was big Bach, obviously not Bach for original instruments, yet it was entirely without hype, not romanticized or inflated, but clear, steady, and above all, flowing and well paced. There is a tendency for Bach to sound clunky in the piano, but this was never the case with Levit’s playing. 

One thing that leapt out at me immediately was the respect he showed to the Baroque ornamentations. These devices—grace notes, trills, and so forth—were in part introduced in the Baroque era because harpsichords and other keyboards then in use could not sustain notes for any significant length of time. Obviously, this isn’t a concern with a modern piano. 

To Levit, though, ornaments are not frills to be slighted, but actual notes to be treated as part of the musical conception. A trill became a series of notes in a musical thought, forcing us to listen to the work perhaps as we never had before. The vivid impressions left with me were Levit’s sustained energy, his focus on the unique character of each of the seven movements, and his unerring ear for consolidating the separate sections into one seamless whole. The final Gigue was breathtaking in drive and feeling, drawing shouts of approval from the rapt audience.

As the Bach taught us a few lessons about trills, the six Schubert miniatures known as the Moments Musicaux (musical moments) brought out the notion of conversation in music. These brief Moments have a haunting tenderness, a veiled yearning about them. I’ve heard performances in which the bass and treble were fully integrated, and it seemed satisfying at the time. But no more. Levit’s treatment involved the bass and treble lines sometimes dividing into different personalities, speaking with and commenting on each other. In one of the sections, the bass took on a very different tone and phrasing than the treble, as though the two lines were indeed the voices of two remarkable, if dissimilar, characters. These works flicker between sunshine and shadows, sometimes within the same musical phrase, and Levit’s performance caught their dappling flawlessly.

After intermission, Levit offered the Beethoven 17^th piano sonata. This is an astonishing work, whose effects accrue with careful study rather than casual listening. Right from the beginning, it is all Beethoven: five tempo changes in the opening eight measures! As Levit told me in an interview last month, the first movement is one long 8-1/2-minute improvisation. And there was never a greater improviser than Beethoven. 

What I remember most about Levit’s performance was the diaphanous halo of pedal overtones surrounding two unaccompanied treble passages in the first movement. In the midst of an agitated tempest, a vision of calm, but troubled calm, calm with consequences. This music is very disturbing, yet just about as beautiful as music can be, and never more effectively rendered (in my experience) than in this performance. 

The formal program ended with Prokofiev’s Sonata No. 7, a big, “let’s smash the keyboard” show-stopper that again came with a lesson. The lesson was: there is more to this sonata than a huge percussive sound, and it’s about a lyricism you may not have realized is there.

Levit can pounce on the keyboard with the best of them, but who can unleash the loveliness hidden in the second section and playing hide and seek with the relentlessly drumming chords in the first and third movements? 

And what a way to end a concert of tempests, Sturm und Drang than that thunderous last movement. I scribbled one positive word at the bottom of the printed program: “Insane!!!” I later scoured YouTube seeking to recapture some of that magic, but none of the well known pianists I encountered came close to this performance paradigm.

The Princeton visit was the first in an 18-day tour of the United States and Canada for the young artist. You may read more about him in my interview in the Princeton Packet which appears below. Please note that the final concert will not be in New York City but rather in Minneapolis. If you missed him in Princeton, you missed him on the East Coast, at least for this concert season. Igor Levit is someone to watch for, and not miss, in the future!                        --Linda Holt

http://tinyurl.com/gsubx6q

 

Dawn Upshaw and Jing Jing Luo Expand Our Musical Universe at Princeton Symphony Concert

One of the most distinctive voices of our time filled the small, acoustically perfect space of Princeton University’s Richardson Auditorium on January 31. It was a controlled voice that murmured a Spanish lullaby, then rose to greet “a colorless moon” in a surrealistic love poem, and finally, modulated between whispers and shining tones against a harp ostinato in two stanzas by Emily Dickinson.

These are the Three Songs, settings of verses by three women poets, that title the Princeton Symphony Orchestra’s concert in a season dedicated to creative women. The singer is Dawn Upshaw, the work an appealing blend of South American and Eastern European influences, with a touch of minimalism, by the Argentinian composer, Gustavo Golijov.

The work, which came second on the program after Kodaly’s Dances of Galanta, is tonally elusive. There are places where it seems that an instrument—one of the strings, perhaps a woodwind—may have briefly wandered from the path, but it is all by design, a design which creates a sense of wondering as well as wandering, a sense of freedom lightly controlled. Under the direction of the PSO’s music director, Rossen Milanov, the orchestra at times supported the soprano soloist, sometimes floated beneath her like a cloud. Small dissonances faded as Ms. Upshaw caressed the words, a liquid clarinet solo gently tugged at our attention, and then the singer’s glorious voice swelled with a large, satiating sound. Sublime.

Impressive though a visit by Ms. Upshaw may be, the other three works on the program were each in their own way masterpieces of balance and feeling. The Kodaly, which opened the program, kept a moderate pace for its first expression, perhaps a tad too slow for my taste, but not for that of others. However, the variety of dynamics and tempi that followed made me realize this was a sensible, deliberate choice: passionate, heart-racing stuff!

The final work on the program, the Mozart Symphony #38, the Prague, painted the Viennese master in a robust and hearty mood. This is full, modern orchestra Mozart, and it is a memorable experience to see and hear.

Just before the Mozart, the nearly full-house audience was treated to a work by a contemporary, Jing Jing Luo, who has been composer in residence in Princeton for nearly two weeks. Ms. Luo’s work, Tsao Shu, refers to a form of Chinese calligraphy in which hundreds of characters are drawn with a single brush stroke. The piece was of modest proportions, about 10 minutes in length, and featured some tangy percussion sounds as well as the rarely seen technique of violins playing individually, little snips of glissandi, with some occasional bowing on the bridge. I liked the use of the bass drum, staggering dissonance in small doses, and what sounded to my ears like a toy piano (out of view). At times, the flutes fluttered like shakuhachi. A bright, spritely, well balanced composition, for which the composer took a well deserved bow.

My interviews with Ms. Upshaw and Ms. Luo appear in the Princeton Packet here: http://tiny.cc/o6qs8x

The PSO’s programs are just about ideal, combining intelligent, heart-felt interpretations of classical stalwarts with new music by living composers. The next concert in the series will feature Caroline Shaw, violinist-composer, and works by Sibelius, Shaw, and Brahms, at 4 p.m. Sunday, March 13. http://tiny.cc/vkrs8x There is abundant parking throughout Princeton, N.J., and metered parking is free on Sundays. Photo below of Dawn Upshaw with the Princeton Symphony Orchestra by Carolyn Dwyer.

                                                                                                                                                                --Linda Holt