Thursday, March 14, 2024

Artist at Work

What a joy it is to hear the piano being played so lovingly, and so achingly beautifully, as it was last evening with Rafal Blechacz, his fourth recital appearance in Vancouver under the auspices of the Vancouver Chopin Society.

 

I had the privilege of hearing Mr. Blechacz on various occasions, and had always enjoyed his performances. This time, I was utterly and completely moved, indeed overwhelmed, by his artistry and musicality, as well as the palpable spirituality of his interpretations. 

 

The way he played the piano transcended the instrument, and what one hears are sounds of music, heavenly music.

 

With the first simple notes of the Nocturne in F minor, Op. 55, No. 1, the audience was drawn into his very intimate and personal sound world. Indeed, throughout the evening, I felt that we were invited by the artistry to share in the communion of music-making, and that is a great gift indeed. Blechacz had an acute sense of balancing the horizontal and vertical aspects of the music; the music was never driven, but rather floated forward.

 

Chopin’s early Mazurkas, Op. 6, presents some daunting technical and musical challenges for any pianists; needless to say, Blechacz towered above any technical difficulties inherent in the score. In these works, Blechacz conveyed and celebrated the joy of the young composer, almost reveling in the fecundity of his creative genius. 

 

The first half of the recital ended with four large works. In the Polonaise-Fantasie, Op. 61, he so skillfully delineated the complex contrapuntal web so inherent in the composer’s late works, resulting in a truly masterful interpretation of this, arguably Chopin’s greatest work, a work that, because of its seemingly fragmentary nature, can sometimes come out sounding disjointed and meaningless. Not so with Blechacz’s performance, where every note, every chord, every inflection, every pregnant pause (and there were many of them), and every phrase were charged with emotion and meaning. More importantly, he conveyed, more than many pianists I have heard in a long time, the utter tragedy and heartbreak, combined with a feeling of a final defiance, of the drama unfolding.

 

He continued with a spirited but incredibly musical reading of the famous Polonaise in A Major, Op. 40, No. 1, and a suitably dark and brooding performance of the lesser-known Polonaise in C minor, Op. 40, No. 2. The first half ended with a performance of the Polonaise in A-flat Major, Op. 53, that made one wanted to shout, “Viva Poland!” That said, these performances of Chopin’s rousing polonaises were not merely exciting, but tremendously moving and hauntingly beautiful. 

 

The second half of the recital began with a performance of Debussy’s Suite Bergamasque that made me think of the composer’s statement that he wished for a piano without hammers. Blechacz’s playing of these four pieces were simply magical. His timing in the Prelude gave it an almost improvisatory quality, and in the Menuet and Passepied, there was a quickness, delicacy and lightness that simply took my breath away. The justly famous Clair de Lune was played with infinite shades of pianissimos. Words cannot describe the truly mesmerizing beauty of the performance was.

 

In Mozart’s Sonata in A Major, K. 331, Blechacz presented the work with highly expressive playing and, while always maintaining the structural integrity of the work, he was not afraid to take time with certain phrases, or inject slight pauses to emphasize a point. Perhaps some might find his interpretation too “romantic”, but I found it completely valid and convincing. It was also the most “bubbly”, and infectiously joyful, playing of the Rondo all Turca I have heard in a long time.

 

It is difficult to pinpoint the style of Karol Szymanowski’s music. While there is an indebtedness to Chopin, he has very much his own unique voice in his creations. Blachacz gave a truly splendid and totally committed reading of the composer’s Variations in B-flat minor, Op. 3, bringing out both the lyrical aspects of the composer’s writing, but also the late-romantic harmonic colours of the early 20th century. Blechacz highlighted the characteristic of each variation, but also managed to inject a real sense of cohesion and logic throughout the entire opus.

 

After a well-deserved ovation from the nearly sold-out house, Blechacz graciously granted two encores – Chopin’s pensive Mazurka in A minor, Op. 17, No. 4, and his charming miniature masterpiece, the Prelude in A Major, Op. 28, No. 7, confirming my belief that while there are many great pianists today, there are really far fewer who can really capture the spirit of Chopin. Blechacz is of course one of today’s great pianists, but he is, without a doubt, a musician that gets into the heart and soul of the composer, and we were witnesses to a performance that was truly a testament to his commitment to conveying the absolutely unique genius of Chopin.

 

How privileged we were last evening, to be given a glimpse into the continuing artistic evolution of this most gifted young artist. I certainly look forward to his next visit to Vancouver, where he would no doubt move us once more with his musicality and unique insights into whatever he chooses to play.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Monday, February 26, 2024

Symphony at the Chan

Pianist Eric Lu made his concerto debut with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra and conductor Earl Lee this past Saturday. Lu, a laureate of the 2015 International Chopin Competition (at age18) and gold medalist of the 2018 Leeds International Piano Competition (at age 20), had already made a highly successful recital debut in Vancouver under the auspices of The Vancouver Chopin Society. So it was with eager anticipation that I attended the weekend’s concerto featuring Robert Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A minor. The venue was not the orchestra’s home in the Orpheum Theatre, but (thankfully) the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts.

 

From the pensive opening chords of the 1st movement, and throughout the performance, I constantly thought how Lu’s playing harkens us back to pianists of the past – figures like Lipatti, Cortot, and Edwin Fischer – not that his playing resembles any of them stylistically, but in the individuality of his style and musicality of his playing as well as the sense that he was putting musical concerns far above the work’s formidable technical challenges. 

 

In the same aforementioned opening chords, he struck a perfect balance between the vertical and the horizontal, making each chord floats, but at the same time propelling the music forward. In the orchestral exposition, he managed to subsume the piano figuration within the orchestral texture. His tone was always beautiful, never forced, even in the more bravura passages. In the A-flat Major Andante espressivo section, when the piano plays with as well as “accompanies” the clarinet, Lu played this theme with melting tenderness that was palpably moving. In Schumann’s written-out cadenza, Lu played with a combination of musicality and bravura. 

 

The gracefully and intimately played Intermezzo served as the perfect bridge between the 1st and 3rd movements. In final movement, Lu really threw caution to the wind, and the result was a performance that was overwhelmingly joyful, even exultant. For such a young man to play with such depth of feeling as well as maturity that is far beyond his years, is truly a remarkable feat. 

 

Under Earl Lee, the orchestra sounded fabulous, with a warmth of sound that one does not always hear in the Orpheum. This is a notoriously difficult concerto to conduct, and the young conductor was at one with Lu from beginning to end.

 

After intermission, Earl Lee led the orchestra in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 in F Major, the composer’s paean to the glories of nature. It was a performance that was impeccably paced and played, with a cohesiveness and a uniformity in structure rather than a series of charming episodes.

 

I appreciated how Lee brought out the colours of the woodwinds throughout the work, not only in the solos but within the orchestral texture, somewhat like a meticulously tinged watercolour. I thought that Julia Lockhart’s bassoon playing was especially outstanding on Saturday evening. In the second movement, Lee managed to maintain the flow (pun intended) of the Szene am Bach, without getting bogged down by every detail of the melody; the oft-repeated main theme was also given an infinite variety of colours, and a feeling of renewal every time it returns. 

 

Lee took the Lustiges Zusammensein der Landleute at a perfectly energetic pace, and the liveliness of this country dance – with the horn player who kept coming in at the “wrong” place – was very much kept alive from start to finish. The transition from the third movement to the fourth and then the final movement was expertly handled indeed. 

 

In the Hirtengesang, there was a palpable sense of thanksgiving, of wonder, as well as a feeling of benediction. After the performance, Lee was all-too-ready to acknowledge the members of the orchestra for their outstanding contribution in the performance.

 

We have Earl Lee and Eric Lu to thank for this evening of beauty. 

 

Let’s hope these wonderful artists return to Vancouver soon and share their artistry with our audience.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Friday, February 9, 2024

Mourning Seiji Ozawa

In the wake of the turmoil and terror of the 1960’s, the British-Hong Kong government launched the 1st Hong Kong Arts Festival in 1973 to improve the cultural life of the city. This was when I first encountered Seiji Ozawa, one of the featured performers, conducting the New Japan Philharmonic. No, I did not attend any of his concerts, but somehow, I saw his picture on the festival brochure. My first reaction was, “This doesn’t look like a symphony conductor.”

 

It was only much later, that I realized that underneath the cool and “hip” image – the designer shirts he always wore, and the hippy beads that were part of his wardrobe at one time - he always conveyed, was a deeply serious musician and thinker, and one of the truly great conductors of the 20th century. 


I try to imagine the courage it took for young Ozawa to board the freighter bound for Europe, taking the first steps of a musical journey that, with his talent and determination, eventually took him to every musical capital of the world. 

 

To my eternal regret, I have never attended a live performance by Seiji Ozawa. But thanks to those glory days of PBS, I was able to watch many of Ozawa’s Boston performances in the series aptly titled, “Evening at Symphony”. There are, of course, his extensive discography, performances with the Toronto Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, Boston Symphony, Vienna Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic and, in his later years, the Saito Kinen Orchestra, which he founded – a truly glistening list of great orchestras.

 

Ozawa’s close friend, composer and conductor John Williams says, “From a composer’s point of view, there are two types of conductors: the first will offer less than what your ‘inner ear’ imagined the music to be, and the second will infuse the music with a beauty that is beyond what you have imagined. Clearly, Seiji belongs to the much smaller second group.”

 

However, the talent of Ozawa did not preclude the malice of the critics’ pen. There has been a singular narrative in critical circles that refuses to admit Ozawa into the first rank of “great musicians”. Perhaps because of his Asian heritage, there had been comments about whether he really “felt” the music. In Boston, his musical home base for 29 seasons, reviews by critics like Richard Dyer had invariably been scathing. Towards the end of his tenure in Boston, even a few of his fellow orchestra musicians had their knives out for his departure. A musician who, thankfully, would remain unnamed, makes this insulting statement, “[Seiji] can memorize a menu, a telephone book, perhaps even King Lear, but he wouldn’t understand the poetry of the composition” – a statement the betrays the prejudice he had had to face in his years as a musician.

 

No, it is the opinions of his fellow musicians that I tend to trust, his friends and close colleagues – Peter Serkin, Rudolf Serkin, Kent Nagano, Jessye Norman, Yo-Yo Ma, Isaac Stern, Evgeny Kissin, Krystian Zimerman, Itzhak Perlman, Leonard Bernstein, Andre Previn, to really name just a few – loves to play and collaborate with him, and counted him as their close friend. 

 

His closest musical friend and comrade-in-arms was perhaps the late, great cellist and conductor Mstislav Rostropovich, who had met his share of great musicians and composers, writes after their initial encounter, “When I came back to Moscow, I said to Shostakovich, ‘Remember that name – Seiji Ozawa. For certain you will hear again about him.” The great cellist continues, “You are one of the best soldiers of music I have ever met in my life. I embrace you and I bow down before you, my dear, irreplaceable friend.”

 

Pianist and teacher Peter Serkin, whom Ozawa had known and mentored since his youth, movingly writes, “Rather than using music to project and further himself, Seiji takes a more humble route; he works to make himself a worthy vessel for the music and the composer.”

 

To talk about Ozawa’s great recordings would require a book-length article. One can think of his ground-breaking and still astounding recording of Messiaen’s Turangalila Symphony with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, a disc that really put the Canadian orchestra on the musical map. Then there is his electrifying Le Sacre du printemps with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. His very moving performance of Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, which some think of as his best recording with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Of course, the long list of recordings with his beloved Boston orchestra include some truly fine performances – a beautiful Faure disc, his Mahler cycle, Respighi’s Ancient Airs and Dances, Tchaikovsky’s NutcrackerSwan Lake and Sleeping Beauty, and Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet. His many fine recordings with the Saito Kinen Orchestra – also deserve much greater critical acknowledgment. 

 

During his tenure at the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Ozawa commissioned a total of 44 compositions. From his earliest days as conductor, he has been a dream conductor for contemporary composers. He was Messiaen’s own choice as conductor for his massive opera St. Francis of Assisi, which he rehearsed and conducted without a score. When he was reviewing a new work by composer Peter Lieberson, the young composer was impressed about how well he had studied the new score; it was as if the conductor is guiding the creator through his own composition.


To get a sense of Ozawa as a human being, one must be grateful to author Haruki Murakami for his recent volume, Absolutely on Music - Conversations with Seiji Ozawa. What comes across in reading these extended conversations is a humble man utterly devoted to his art, and without a trace of vanity or self-glorification. 

 

No talent, no matter how great, cannot be immune to old age and illness. Seiji Ozawa had suffered from cancer and various health challenges in his later years. Most recently, a wheelchair-bound and extremely frail-looking Ozawa conducted the Saito Kinen Orchestra in Beethoven’s Egmont Overture. At the end of the performance, the great conductor was overwhelmed and moved to tears by the greatness of the music. 

 

Today’s classical musicians seem to focus much on career and image. Music has, unfortunately, become a commodity to be exploited by managers and record companies. Ozawa himself was often surprised at the excitement he generates when he walks into a room. For him, it was the music, and nothing else, that really mattered. 

 

I will miss Seiji Ozawa very much. May he Rest in Peace.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunday, December 3, 2023

Two Expressions of Love in Seattle

This past Thursday’s Seattle Symphony Orchestra concert featured two very different expressions of love – David Robertson’s Light Forming a Piano Concerto, a “love letter” written for his wife Orli Shaham, the piano soloist of the evening, and Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 in C-sharp minor, who’s ethereal Adagietto movement is, according to conductor Willem Mengelberg, an ardent love letter for the composer’s wife Alma. 

 

It is difficult to judge a complex new work without the score or any prior knowledge about the work of the composer. David Robertson, who was also conductor of the evening’s performance, wrote in the programme notes that he composed the work with his wife’s formidable pianistic and musical abilities in mind. Certainly, the concerto poses incredible technical hurdles for any pianist who attempts it. The three movements of the work, played without pause, takes the audience through a gamut of moods and emotions. From the restless opening movement (“the uncertain music of their voices”), to the slow movement (“amphorae of the heart”) that obviously forms the emotional core of the entire work, and to the joyous final movement (“Resounding to joy”), Shaham was in complete technical and musical command of the Olympian challenges her husband laid down in this work. The soloist was also very aware of the many interplays between piano and the instruments of the orchestra, especially the horns and bassoon. The middle movement, given a deeply felt performance by Shaham, was indeed a sort of chamber music, with much dialogue between pianist and the orchestral musicians. In spite of the large orchestra the work calls for, Robertson managed to always maintain a clarity of texture, both for the hardworking soloist and in the orchestra texture.

 

It is difficult for us to imagine that there was a time when the music of Gustav Mahler was found to be strange, vulgar, and downright incomprehensible. Mahler’s time indeed has come, and this enthusiasm does not seem to be going away, as any performance of a Mahler symphony would form the highlight of any orchestra’s season. Last evening, Robertson and the musicians of the orchestra offered us the composer’s Symphony No. 5 in C-sharp minor, in a performance that left me emotionally overwhelmed. 

 

In the funeral march of the opening movement, Robertson kept up the pace of the march, which resulted in a frightening stillness in the music. Even with the massiveness of the sound, there was always a transparency of texture, and the entire movement was wonderfully paced, with the sound carefully gauged such that the listener felt that there is still something in reserve. The seating arrangement of the string section, with the first and second violins seated on opposite sides of the stage, also gave a different perspective to the texture of the polyphony. There was truly stellar trumpet playing last evening, especially from principal trumpet David Gordon, whose sound really formed the palette of the sonic landscape throughout the symphony.

 

My only reservation is that the final two triplet figures, played by muted trumpets, did not have more of a far-away, almost disappearing quality to them; as well, the final pizzicato C-sharp by the violas, celli and basses, could have had much more vehemence. 

 

The gigantic rondo which forms the second movement – Mit grosser Vehemenz – was indeed that. There was some truly spectacular playing from all the members of the orchestra. In the long cello recitative based on the main March theme, the orchestra’s cellists played with a palpable depth of feeling that was deeply touching. 

 

In the Scherzo, I have some reservations about the lightness of the sound, a lack of a sense of weight, a pesante as well as dunkel quality in the sound and a little lacking in the cohesion of the logic. Perhaps the conductor’s desire for transparency of texture carried over into this movement? That said, the movement was splendidly played by members of the orchestra, with truly virtuosic playing by principal horn Jeffrey Fair. The pacing of the second Trio, the dialogue between the obligato horn and the celli, leading to a hushed passage by a magically played pizzicato strings, and then a nostalgic waltz, was well paced indeed.

 

The Seattle Symphony strings played the justly famous Adagietto with a great beauty of sound and sensitivity. Even though the composer marked this movement Sehr langsam, conductors have taken this movement in a range of tempi. Robertson took the music in a somewhat moderate tempo, and paced the movement well, not pushing it to its emotional edge, but letting the music unfolds naturally, and always taking care to maintain the flow of the music. 

 

From the almost rustic opening of the Rondo-Finale to the triumphal brass chorale that ends the movement, Robertson inspired the orchestra to a totally committed, rousing performance, bringing us in the emotional journey from utter tragedy in the beginning to its life-affirming, joyous conclusion. It was not the heart-on-sleeve, hyper-emotional Mahler advocated by Leonard Bernstein, but one that presents the masterful architecture of the composer’s design, as well as a performance that touches our emotions with its sonic splendor and depth of feeling. The end result is a performance that I found deeply moving. The sounds of this majestic symphony resounded in my mind during the long trip back to Vancouver.

 

Robertson is a thoughtful conductor with deep insights into the music, who invites (often with a smile) rather than commands the musicians to contribute in the collective act of music-making. There was obviously wonderful chemistry between orchestra and conductor. I am quite aware that the orchestra is going through a search for a new music director. Judging from last evening’s performance, I do not think they could do any better than David Robertson.

 

 

Saturday, September 9, 2023

Vancouver Symphony Season Opener with Yo Yo Ma

Cellist Yo Yo Ma made a flying visit to Vancouver to open the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra’s 105thconcert season. 

 

The orchestra wisely placed Ma’s performance at the second half of the concert, so there was a great feeling of anticipation when Ma finally stepped onto the stage of the Orpheum Theatre for a performance of the Dvorak’s Cello Concerto in B minor, Op. 104. 

 

In a sleepless night after the concert where the sounds of Ma’s cello kept playing in my mind, I pondered what it is that makes Ma such a compelling artist. 

 

Unlike cellists such as Rostropovich and Maisky, Ma doesn’t produce a big bold sound from his instrument. What drew listeners, and members of the orchestra that played with him last evening, is a high personal, emotion-filled, intimate, even confiding tone that he produces on the cello. He has reached a point in his music-making that it isn’t even sounds that he makes on his instrument, but an endless range of emotions, with Dvorak’s notes as the medium. It was a highly personal approach to this very familiar concerto that would sound disjointed and illogical under the wrong hands, but somehow, Ma was able to infuse his performance into an organic whole.

 

I believe that Yo Yo Ma belongs to that very select group of artists who, in spite of the fame and adulation, never lost the sense of wonder about music, or the sense of privilege in making music. During the performance, he was evidently listening to members of the orchestra, making eye contact with them, almost cajoling them to join him in this act recreating something incredibly beautiful. I am certain that Ma has played this work countless times, but he was somehow able to make it sound fresh and spontaneous. 

 

In the second movement, a lament to the death of Dvorak’s sister-in-law and the true love of his life, Ma certainly bared his soul, and invited rather than commanded his listeners to enter his innermost thoughts. 

 

I have been attending performances of Mr. Ma since he was a very young artist, and it really has been a privilege to witness his artistic growth, through his performances and many recordings. At this time, one can only hope for many more years of his performing life, so that he can continue to share with us such indelible moments of beauty. 

Monday, August 21, 2023

Seattle Opera's 60th Anniversary Das Rheingold

Beginning with its production of Die Walküre in 1975, Seattle Opera has since put the city on the map as the Wagner capital of North America. This season, the 60-year-old company celebrated its anniversary with a presentation of Das Rheingold, directed by Brian Staufenbiel, and with former Seattle Symphony music director Ludovic Morlot directing the musical forces.

 

Vocally it was truly an impregnable performance – the voices were uniformly outstanding, from the commanding vocal and dramatic presence of Greer Grimsley, to the smaller role like Froh (Viktor Antipenko) and Donner (Michael Chioldi), singing actors all carried off their role with vocal beauty and dramatic conviction. Peixin Chen and Kenneth Kellogg were memorable and suitably menacing in their portrayal and singing of Fasolt and Fafner. Melody Wilson as Fricka and Katie Van Kooten as Freia, both sang with palpable musicality and a convincing degree of humanity - as well as all-too-human frailties as the all-too-human gods. 

 

Most memorable were Martin Bakari’s masterful portrayal of a crafty and slippery Loge, and Michael Mayes as a menacing and power-hungry – though not really all that lustful - Alberich. The vocal prowess of these singers was well-matched by a dramatic presence they brought to their roles. They truly became the characters they were singing.

 

Production designer David Murakami and Lighting Designer Mextly Couzin made effective use of projections and lasers to create visual effects that would otherwise have been near impossible – the rainbow bridge to Valhalla in Scene Four, for instance. For me, the drawback of the production design lay in the use of the stage as well as the orchestral pit. The production team placed the entire Seattle Symphony on the stage, with the singers singing either in front of the orchestra or above it on a metal bridge that supposedly signifies the “open space on a mountain, a castle glimmering in the distance”. 

 

To be sure, such placement of voices and orchestra gave the vocal lines much more prominence than we are used to. Unfortunately, from my vantage point, the all-important orchestral sounds did not match the presence of the voices. Rather than having the sound of the orchestra envelope the vocal lines, the sounds of the instruments seemed receded in the background. 

 

The musicians of the Seattle Symphony played with great sensitivity and beauty of sound for Ludovic Morlot. Perhaps it was because of the placement of the orchestra, I did find myself wishing for a greater richness as well as weightiness in the sound, especially in the strings.

 

The orchestra pit was put to use dramatically, doubling as the Rhine River in Scene One as well as the subterranean Nibelheim in Scene Three. Although the use of projected “water” on a scrim made the image of the Rhine quite effective, it was much less visually convincing as Alberich’s labour camp for Mime and the Nibelungs.

 

The presence of the orchestra on stage somehow diminished the “magic” of the drama, giving it the feel of a semi-staged production. The absolute mystery of the beginning of the opera was missing, as we clearly saw the conductor giving the downbeat for the music. The low E-flat that begins the opera did not “come from nothing”, as I believe Wagner intended it to.


Of course, Wagner’s dramatic demands of these operas would challenge the most intrepid and ingenious director, and no one production could really claim to overcome all the problems posed by what the composer had in mind. It is when the director strayed too far afield from Wagner’s direction that lessened the impact of the drama.

 

That said, yesterday’s performance of Das Rheingold did make an indelible impression on me, at least musically. Let’s hope that the new general director of Seattle Opera would see to it that the other three operas of the Ring would soon be presented in the Emerald City.

 

 

 

Friday, August 11, 2023

A Magnificent Recital in the Summer

The drought of piano recitals in the summer was broken on Tuesday, August 8th, with pianist Sergei Babayan’s magnificent recital at Vancouver’s Christ Church Cathedral. In spite of the sounds of the Steinway competing with the occasional traffic noise, Babayan’s performance confirmed my previous impression that he truly is one of the Elect.

 

The concert commenced with Franz Liszt formidable and masterful Ballade No. 2 in B minor (S. 171), one of his finest solo piano works. I can see why this piece is rarely performed, as it takes not only a musician with transcendental technique, but also the ability, and vision, to hold all the disparate elements of the score together. Under the wrong hands, this work could sound like a series of beautiful episodes. In Babayan’s performance, there was a sense of unity, an organic cohesiveness to the score. The artist understands what Alfred Brendel calls Liszt’s nobility of spirit, and he underscored the ecstatic quality of the music, as well as the dark brooding colours found in so much of the work. He exploited – in the best sense of the word – and brought out the full resources of the piano. It was with this masterful performance that Babayan began his recital. 

 

With his performance of Franz Liszt’s transcriptions of Schubert’s Lieder, the piano was suddenly transformed into a songful instrument. In spite of the very high standards of piano playing today, few pianists could produce a true legato on the instrument. Under Babayan’s hands, the piano took on a palpable liquid, flowing quality. From the starkness of Die Stadt (D. 957) to the yearning of Der Muller und der Bach (D. 795) to the utter despair of Gretchen am Spinnrade (D. 118) and to the beautiful flowing melody of Auf dem Wasser zu singen(D. 774), Babayan gave the piano an absolute vocal beauty and a complete identification with and affinity for the Schubertian idiom that would be the envy of a Fischer-Dieskau or Ameling. 

 

I have long admired Babayan’s Rachmaninoff interpretations, so beautifully highlighted in his solo album for Deutsche Grammophon. At the risk of running out of superlatives, his performances of the composer’s Etudes-Tableaux (Op. 39) and Moment musicaux (Op. 16) highlighted all the beauty and inventiveness of his music. In his playing of the Etudes-Tableaux in E-flat minor (No. 5), Babayan brought absolute clarity to the dense texture as well as the passionate and tumultuous quality inherent in the score. The artist’s performance also highlighted the intricacies and forward-looking aspects of Rachmaninoff’s later works, as was evident in how he masterfully negotiated the complexities of the Etude-Tableaux in C minor (No. 1). At the same time, in his performance of the two earlier Moment musicaux, Babayan brought out the beauty of the composer’s harmonic and melodic inventions that so attracted musicians and music lovers to his earlier works. 

 

After intermission, the artist took the audience back to the 18th century with his performances of Mozart and Haydn. In many ways, the music-making in the second half was even more incredible, as the virtuosity required was even more subtle. The playing throughout was enthralling and moving. I was astounded by Babayan’s interpretation of Mozart’s early Sonata in B-flat Major (K. 281). There was great souplesse in his playing and breathing room for the music, but without disturbing the structural integrity of the work. Under his hands, the music seemed to have taken a three-dimensional quality, with a perfect balance between vertical and horizontal elements. His tempo choice in the second movement (Andante amoroso) reminded me of Horowitz’s admonition about this movement, “This was Mozart in love!” Babayan’s playing of the third movement brought out all the joy and humour of this jaunty movement, still so steeped in the aesthetics of the rococo. 

 

Haydn’s Sonata in E minor (Hob XVI: 47bis) is, for me, one of the most original works in his vast output of sonatas. A combination of sturm und drang as well as great humour, and a juxtaposition of joy and melancholy. Babayan’s playing of the first movement was, to my ears, like a beautifully shot black and white film, with infinite shades of light and darkness. His performance of the Larghetto was perfectly placed; he did not make it bigger than it is meant to be, but allowing the music to serve as an intermezzo between the two outer movements, and his romp through the third movement was simply breathtaking. 

 

Babayan brought out the elegance and humour in the first movement of the same composer’s Sonata in E-flat Major (Hob XVI:49). For me, the emotional core of the work lies in the magnificent slow movement - Babayan underscored the great depth and beauty of the outer sections and the gentle anguish, not to mention the darker colours, of the middle section. He took the gently rocking minuet of the third movement at a slightly slower tempo than I hear in my mind, which somehow made the humour inherent in this music even more pronounced. Somehow, Babayan managed to give the left hand a quality of a ticking clock. 

 

The artist gave an utterly charming performance of Mozart’s utterly charming Twelve Variations on “Ah vous dirai-je, Maman” (K. 265). With the first notes of the music, the audience heaved a pleasant sigh of recognition of the famous tune. Babayan’s performance of this enchanting work with great panache, ending the evening’s performance with a palpable sense of joy and great good humour. It was, indeed, akin to a perfectly made dessert following a gourmet meal. 

 

Throughout this second half of the recital, I felt that the music-making had a sense of fantasy to it, a spontaneity and freedom, a feeling of discovery, and always full of surprises.

 

After a well-deserved ovation from the capacity audience, Babayan generously granted a single encore – although I am certain that the audience would have happily listened to many more – the Aria from Bach’sGoldberg Variations, a performance filled with all the grace and beauty it calls for, and one infused with a spiritual quality, as well as the quality of a benediction. 

 

Even in today’s crowded field of outstanding pianists, Sergei Babayan remains in a class of his own. Last Tuesday’s programme – indeed a traversal through a vast segment of the piano literature - amply demonstrated the artist’s generosity of spirit. The performance was a perfect synthesis of the intellect and the soul, the mind and the heart, and a reminder of how the greatness of music can make the world a better place. 


Patrick May