First Lady of the Piano

Even with the large number of excellent pianists in today’s musical world, the number of artists who are true Chopin players constitutes a far smaller number. After her performance in Vancouver last Friday, I am happy to report that Ewa Poblocka is a true artist as well as a true Chopin player.

Madame Poblocka opened her performance with Mozart’s Fatansie in D Minor, K. 397, a curious work that the composer left unfinished. Within a mere 107 measures, Mozart manages to lead us through a myriad of moods and colours. Poblocka led us through this brief musical journey with great technical ease and musicality. The final Allegretto section was played with delectable lightness.

The recital continued with Franz Schubert’s Four Impromptus, D. 899 (Op. 90), written in the final annus mirabilis. Poblocka is not a pianist with a big sound, but everything she plays she does so with consummate taste and musicality, as was the case with these four Schubert works. It makes sense to play these pieces as a set, because as a whole they convey the feeling of a larger work, in the sense of the key relations between pieces as well as the contrasts in mood between them.

I always find it interesting to hear how different pianists observe Schubert’s staccato (m. 5) marking at the beginning of the Impromptu in C minor. Poblocka pedaled these chords, but gave them a short attack and much lightness, confirming for me that staccato addresses the articulation of the note as much as the duration. As in the Mozart, this Impromptu conveys the feeling of a journey, especially with the “walking tempo” (Allergo molto moderato) maintained throughout the work. Poblocka handled the journey beautifully, and I felt that she played especially effectively the tricky transition from triplets to groups of four 16^th-notes (m. 125), with the offbeat left hand notes in the bass. The second Impromptu was played with a great sense of joy and zest, and wonderful finger work. In the heavenly third Impromptu, Poblokca conveyed the necessary sense of peace and repose. I personally would have liked to hear the broken chords in the middle layer a little more clearly, rather than having it as a blend of sound colours. I loved the sound she drew from the instrument in the fourth Impromptu, especially in the descending rippling chords in the opening of the A section. The transition into the C-sharp minor Trio section was also magically achieved.

Ms. Poblocka announced from the stage that she was adding two more pieces before the interval – two miniatures by Ignacy Jan Paderewski, a Nocturne in B major and the Minuet in G. She did not try to make these pieces greater than what they are, but played them with great charm, and with much beauty of sound.

Poblocka devoted the second half of her recital to the music of Chopin, and opened her second half with the two Nocturnes, Op. 55. Both Nocturnes were beautifully played, but I especially appreciated the way she approached the Nocturne in F minor, Op. 55, No. 1. Under the wrong hands, the opening melody could easily sink into lugubriousness. Poblocka successfully maintained the impetus of the music, and kept my interest from first note to last. In the Nocturne in E-flat major, Op. 55, No. 2, her expert pedaling really underscored the exquisite beauty of the harmony in this work.

She continued her programme with the justly famous Ballade No. 1 in G minor, Op. 23. From first note to last she very successfully conveyed a sense of totality, as opposed to a meandering through a series of lovely episodes. Her playing of the composer’s Impromptu No. 1 in A-flat major, Op. 29 was beautiful, with the beguiling lightness in the rapid finger work of the opening section. In the F minor middle section, she did not get bogged down by the attractive melody, but kept a sense of forward motion in the music. In the A section, she shaped each small phrase exquisitely, but amazingly made those small phrases part of the larger phrase structure.

The recital continued with a set of six of Chopin’s Waltzes, beginning with a charming interpretation the very rarely played or recorded Waltz in A-flat major, Oeuvre posthume, a work not published until 1902. The rest of the Waltzes were much more familiar. I wasn’t sure which version of the Waltz in B minor (Op. 69, No. 2) she played, since it has elements of the Oxford edition of the work. In the version she played, there is an “exotic” element in the melodic writing. In the “Minute Waltz”, Poblocka did not fall into the speed trap that so many pianists succumb to, but managed to bring out the beauty of the writing, especially in the middle section. I think I heard one of the most satisfying Waltz in C-sharp minor, Op. 64, No. 2 under Poblocka’s hands. She managed to discover for me something fresh into the return of every section. Her playing of the Waltz in F minor (Op. 70, No. 2) and Waltz in F major (Op. 34, No. 3) gave us a glimpse into how Chopin could infuse an infinite number of ideas into the smallest musical canvas.

Madame Poblocka’s recital ended with Chopin’s Scherzo No. 1 in B minor, Op. 20, a work that, in the words of Vladimir Horowitz, shows both the demonic and angelic sides of the composer. I could not help but think how absolutely original, even strange, this music must have seemed to 19^th century audiences. The opening of the work already foreshadows the much later Scherzo No. 3 in C-sharp minor, Op. 39, with its hallucinatory outbursts. Her playing of this challenging work was technically impregnable, and she effectively conveyed the meltingly beauty of middle section, where Chopin borrowed from the Polish Christmas song Lulajże Jezuniu.

After much urging from the enthusiastic audience, the artist graced us with a performance of Chopin’s Mazurka in C-sharp minor, Op. 6, No. 2, one of the composer’s earliest published works. Her interpretation of the work was pitch perfect, and highlighted the exotic beauty of the Chopin’s mazurkas.

There is a beautiful true story about a man who was about to commit suicide, and heard one of Ewa Poblicka’s Bach recordings. The beauty and power of her playing were such that it changed the man’s idea about taking his own life.

It is a strange phenomenon in the music “business” that an artist and musician like Ewa Poblocka is not more of a household name, at least in North America, when far inferior artists are receiving so much of our attention. Her performance left me with the impression that she is not a flashy player, but a musician that practices her art with integrity and solid musicianship. Let us hope that she will grace our stage with more of her musicianship in future years.

Teatro Colon

A journey to South America affords even the most seasoned traveler new and different experiences. For the last few weeks, I have had the pleasure of traveling through many cities in that incredible continent. And of all the memorable experiences I had these past weeks, none came close to the two performances I had attended at Buenos Aires’ famed Teatro Colón.

On Saturday, August 20^th, the Teatro Colón presented a production of Puccini’s Tosca, based on a concept by Roberto Oswald, the late opera director and set designer, and conducted by Carlos Vieu. The great buzz of the production was that Argentinian tenor Marcelo Álvarez, was returning to sing the title role of Cavaradossi for a hometown crowd. Eva-Maria Westbroek sang the role of Floria Tosca, and Carlos Álvarez - no relation to the tenor - played a thoroughly and suitably evil Barón Scarpia.

The production itself was a traditional one. This was no “concept” production to show off the cleverness of the director. The set designer strived to recreate the locations of the three acts. At the end of the first act, when the Te Deum was being sung (with real incense!), the chorus of the Teatro Colón was truly magnificent. This was opera with a capital “O”.

I was therefore able to focus my attention entirely on the music, and I was not disappointed.

There is perhaps nothing more difficult than performing for those who know you best. Marcelo Álvarez, I thought, was most impressive from first note to last, and the audience roared its approval both during and after the performance. I felt that Eva-Maria Westbroek gave a very good portrayal of Tosca. I did think that her voice did not really blossom until the third act, where she gave an intensely theatrical as well as musical performance. I had a little trouble with her pacing in the famous Vissi d’arte, as I did not think that she builds the aria towards a real climax. Even though the vocal demands for the role of Scarpia are considerable, I believe the real challenge to the part is more theatrical than musical. Carlos Álvarez outdid himself as Scarpia, both musically and in his portrayal of this thoroughly evil character. His singing of the famous line from Act One, “Tosca, you make me forget God,” in the middle of the Te Deum, was most memorable.

Conductor Carlos Vieu was sensitive and supportive in his guidance of the orchestra. I thought that principal clarinetist Carlos Céspedes’ playing of the introduction to E lucevan le stelle was particularly memorable in both beauty of sound as well as in pacing. The “pit” orchestra was excellent, and I would rank it just slightly below the orchestras of Vienna and Covent Garden.

I was thankful to have experienced the fabled acoustics of the Teatro Colón, which was truly incredible. Every detail in both the singing and the orchestral playing was audible. Even though I had seats quite far up on the side, the sound was immediate and vibrant. This was an experience I would not soon forget.

I returned to the theatre the subsequent evening for a performance by the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, whose visit to South America, as I discovered with joy months ago, coincided with our stay in Buenos Aires.

Going to the same theatre two nights in a row, I was able to compare the acoustics of the venue for an operatic as well as a symphonic concert. Although the sound was just as vivid on both evenings, the acoustics of the Teatro Colón were even more immediate when the orchestra is on stage.

The concert began with Antonin Dvórak’s Carnaval Overture, Op. 92. I had heard Mehta conduct this very piece with the New York Philharmonic on August 28, 1980, at the Lucerne Festival. If memory serves, the New York orchestra had a brighter sound, and the Israel Philharmonic had a mellower, more Central European sound. At the beginning of the performance, I felt that the musicians were still getting used to the acoustics of the Teatro Colón, but the music gained much more vibrancy and lightness as the performance went along.

Mehta and the orchestra continued with Maurice Ravel’s Suite No. 2 from Daphnis et Chloé. Although being brought up musically in Vienna, Mehta has always been a convincing and idiomatic interpreter of the French repertoire, something he credited his father for. It was a great reading of the Ravel’s work, both in terms of how Mehta enabled the music to unfold naturally as well as in the beauty of the Israel Philharmonic’s sound. In the opening evocation of sunrise, I was bowed over by the beauty of orchestra’s strings. A work such as Daphnis et Chloé also allows the wind soloists to shine, which they did.

After the interval, the orchestra played Richard Strauss’ huge tone poem, Ein Heldenleben. Mehta is perhaps one of the great conductors of Richard Strauss today, and he had performed and recorded this work on numerous occasions. This intimate knowledge of the score was obvious from the first note to last, since he guided the musicians (and the audience) through this complex score with the sure hand of a master storyteller. As much as the many musical climaxes were overwhelming, it was the many intimate moments in the long work that was, for me, memorable, like the oboe solo in Des Helden Gefährtin, which was especially movingly played. The concertmaster’s playing of the work’s many solos was stunning. In Des Helden Weltflucht und Vollendung), Mehta managed to hold our interest in the extended ending, until the sublime ending of the work, which the orchestra played with a special sonic glow. Mehta’s total absorption of the score was borne out by the fact that there seemed to have been a connection between first note to last. There was a barely perceptible moment of silence before the tumultuous applause began, growing into the rhythmic applause that brought Mehta back for two encores.

Appropriately, Mehta and the Israel Philharmonic gave the audience Dvórak’s Slavonic Dance, Op. 46, No. 8, another work that the conductor has conducted often. In this short work, I sensed the chemistry between conductor and orchestra, since Mehta seemed to be hardly “conducting” at all, but allowed the orchestra to let itself go with only an occasional prompting. With the urging of the audience, Mehta ended the concert with an overture, one to Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro, which the orchestra played with all the lightness and zest that the music calls for.

Comparing the two evenings’ performances, one thing was apparent – the work of a very good conductor and that of a great one. And Mehta is one of the great ones. Although only a spry 80-year old, the conductor is now very different from the fiery and energetic musician of his youth, I felt that in Ein Heldenleben, it was almost as if he was telling his story of his own storied life.

Looking at the calendar of the theatre, it appears that the venue is extremely well used, both by local companies as well as by major orchestras and musicians. It is nice to know that Buenos Aires remains one of the world’s great musical capitals. What a privilege it had been to experience one of the great theatres of the world, and to hear a great conductor and orchestra at work.

An Unexpected Debut

It is easy to forget that musicians, like the rest of us, labour under vicissitudes of life such as illness or fatigue. When pianist Nelson Friere cancelled his North American tour on the advice of his physician, the Vancouver Chopin Society scrambled to find a suitable replacement for him. They, and we, the concert audience, were extremely fortunate to have been able to secure the services of Georgijs Osokins, a young Latvian pianist who created quite a stir at the 2015 International Chopin Competition in Warsaw.

In my thirty plus years of concert attendance in the wilds of Vancouver, I could count perhaps a handful of concerts where a young artist created an overwhelming first impression. After last evening’s performance, I am happy to add Mr. Osokins to that list.

Osokins began his performance with the very intimate Sonata in D minor, L. 108, by Domenico Scarlatti. With the first notes, I was immediately captivated by his crystalline sound, the range of colours, and the spaciousness of his playing. This young artist dared to take the time to allow the music to emerge, never was there a sense of anything forced or artificial. While his playing was filled with personality, there was always a feeling of naturalness in his music making. The audience must have felt it too, because there was no applause at the end to break the spell of the music, allowing him to launch immediately into his next piece.

It is perhaps a curious coincidence that Beethoven’s Sonata in A-flat major, Op. 110, had been part of at least half a dozen recitals in the last couple of seasons. Osokins’ interpretation was noteworthy, and could be counted as one of the most memorable. With the quiet opening chords of this great work, he immediately conjured up a reverential atmosphere that set the tone for the entire performance. His playing of that opening, with the sublime melody that emerges at m. 5, was richly detailed and intensely musical. I liked the clarity he achieved with his lightly pedaled and fleet fingered playing of the broken chord passage (m. 12 to 19). His tempo relationship between the first and second movement was, to me, most logical. He voiced the chords beautifully in the beginning of the second movement, and his timing of the left hand off beat notes in the middle section (m. 40 to 95) was impeccable, highlighting the quirky humour of the composer’s late works.

Osokins really got into and brought out the emotional core of the Adagio ma non troppo movement, no small achievement for a young artist. Once again, the reverential atmosphere returned with even greater intensity. Beethoven must have thought a great deal about this movement since, within a mere 26 measures, he lavished the music with more than a dozen tempo and interpretative markings. Osokins really conveyed through his playing the unbearable inner sorrow of the Arioso dolente theme (m. 9). In the concluding fuga, this artist seemed to be able to allow the music to emerge in layers, as if he was peeling off one layer of sound to reveal another. The clarity of lines he was able to achieve within this complex fugue reminded me of the playing of Glenn Gould. In this age when every young deemed himself or herself worthy of playing late Beethoven, it is not easy to find an interpretation that gives new meaning to this music, but he did on Thursday evening. Osokins made me feel that he was guiding us through an incredible journey of sound, and succeeded in letting us hear this familiar music with freshness and incredible musicality.

The intimacy of the recital’s first half continued with Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in G major, Op. 32, No. 5. In conversation with Mr. Osokins the day after his recital, I discovered that Rachmaninoff is this young man’s pianistic hero. His playing of this prelude certainly showed the extent of his affection for the composer’s music as well. He played the melody with a gorgeous liquid sound, and he somehow made the music float into our ears. The timing of the return to the main theme at m. 28 was impeccable, and he infused this return of the opening theme with even greater beauty and meaning.

Before the interval, Osokins concluded with Alexander Scriabin’s Sonata No. 9, Op. 68, “Black Mass”. Once again, it was a masterful performance of this complex score, and he brought out the kaleidoscopic range of sound colours called for by the composer, as well as the sinister atmosphere that pervades throughout.

From the little bit that I read about Georgijs Osokins, he was deemed too much of a revolutionary to have won the top prizes at the Chopin competition. Yet, throughout the evening, I never once felt that his interpretations were in any way idiosyncratic. Original and full of personality, to be sure, but never did I feel that he was trying to play differently for the sake of being different. His playing of the Chopin’s magnificent Barcarolle, Op. 60, is a case in point. It was a performance that was richly varied in terms of texture and articulation. And the rower of this boat allowed himself to be carried by the waves of the water, and the music ebbed and flowed along with it. In his Chopin playing, Osokins highlighted for me the beauty of his writing for the left hand. I noticed this particularly in the brief passage beginning at m. 78 that leads up to the double trill at m. 84, as well as the left hand chords leading up to the end of the work at m. 113 to 114. Overall, it was an interpretation that was spacious, yet with a keen sense of direction as well as a strong sense of the rhythm.

With Chopin’s music, it is all too easy to be reveling in the beautiful sound world, and losing track of the structural integrity of the work’s design. In Osokins’ Chopin playing last night, I felt that in spite of the beauty of the music, the sense of architecture, of logic, was never lost.

This was especially apparent in Osokins’ masterful interpretation of Chopin’s Sonata No. 3 in B minor, Op. 58. In his playing of the sprawling first movement, there was clarity of texture and a palpable sense of an awareness of the structure of the music. As I said earlier, he never allowed the beauty of the music to overshadow its logic. His playing of the scherzo was truly breathtaking, with a beguiling lightness of touch, and a clear display of his awesome pianistic ability. The largo movement was infused with a quiet dignity and a mesmerizing beauty of sound. I felt that the E major section (m. 29) had a special glow to it, almost as if a bright light was shining upon a beautiful diamond. Osokins’ stunning playing of the final movement had a relentless quality to the music, partly achieved by his sense of rhythm in the left hand. From the opening octaves to the build-up toward the triumphant ending, there was never any doubt in my mind that I was witnessing an amazing musical mind at work here.

Under the enthusiastic urging of the audience, Osokins launched into one of two encores, the work that most people associate with Chopin – the Polonaise in A-flat major, Op. 53. There was a real sense of drive in his interpretation of this justifiably famous work, but balanced by a lightness and a real feeling for the spirit of the dance. In the famous octave B section, Osokins did not, like many other young keyboard demons, get carried away with excessive speed, but managed to convey a real sense of mounting excitement. It is not how I think of the work, but his viewpoint of this iconic work was both valid and interesting.

The artist once again demonstrated his understanding of and affinity for the Rachmaninoff idiom in his second encore, the Prelude in G-sharp minor, Op. 32, No. 12. Right from the shimmering right hand broken chords at the beginning, Osokins revealed to us the subtle beauty of this oft-played work. In the return of the theme, now in open chords, at m. 35, there was an even greater feeling of bleakness in his playing. With the ascending right hand notes, where the music floats away into nothingness, we came to the end of an unforgettable musical journey.

In conversation with Mr. Osokins, I find him to be a young man with definite ideas about music as well as what it is to be a musician, and artist. He has a deep knowledge of the piano literature as well as our heritage of great pianists from the past. He hails from a family of pianists, and told me that he literally grew up “under the piano”, listening to his father’s playing. His brother is also a pianist who has distinguished himself in international competitions, and is currently living in London. We also spoke of his experiences in the 2015 Chopin Competition in Warsaw, and the challenges and intense pressure he faced during those weeks. During that time, he developed a rapport and friendship with Canadian pianist Charles Richard-Hamelin, silver medalist in the competition, who will be playing in Vancouver this coming November.

I asked him if he sometimes feel lonely when he is touring. He said that he loves to travel and to visit new places, and does not mind being alone, since it gives him time to think. The distinguished pianist and teacher Gary Graffman said that he found it strange when someone tells him that he or she wants to become a concert pianist. He said that one can study to become a pianist, or a musician, but to be a concert pianist entails being asked to give concerts. If Thursday night’s concert was any indication, he should be well on his way to becoming a “concert pianist”.

As much as I would have loved to have heard Mr. Freire, we can now claimed that we were at the Canadian debut of Georgijs Osokins. On top of his limitless pianistic ability, Mr. Osokins has a fertile musical mind that lets him make anything he plays at least interesting and worth hearing. I think we have not heard the last of Mr. Osokins, and I will be watching his continuing musical development with intense interest.

Symphonic Masterworks

The Vancouver Symphony Orchestra welcomed back Maestro Kazuyoshi Akiyama, its Conductor Laureate, in a concert celebrating our Central European roots in music.

The evening began with the Overture to Mozart’s Don Giovanni, K. 527. I had the good fortune last summer to attend a performance of Don Giovanni at Prague’s Estates Theatre, where the opera premiered. It was amazing that the orchestra for that performance was made up of only about 50 to 60 musicians, but in that acoustically ideal hall in Prague, Mozart’s music never sounded bigger or more dramatic.

That said, Akiyama’s reading of the famous overture had much to offer, from its dark and somber opening to the brisk and charming ending. Wanting to watch the Maestro working from close up, I had asked for seats on Row 3 of the hall. Under Akiyama’s hands, the music took on a three-dimensional quality, and orchestra played with great subtlety, elan and style.

Violinist Isabelle Faust joined the orchestra in a scintillating performance of Bartok’s Violin Concert No. 2. I had heard Ms. Faust before in a recital of Beethoven violin sonatas, and it was good to have had an opportunity to hear her as a concerto soloist. In this concerto, Bartok really exploited (in the best sense of the word) every facet of the violin’s possibility, from the almost savagely wild, to the most gentle and cantabile playing. Faust is a master violinist, in control of every aspect of her playing, from the rhapsodic opening of the first movement, to the lyrical middle movement, to the fireworks of the final movement. What was equally satisfying was Akiyama’s reading of the score, conjuring a lush orchestral fabric through which the solo violin was able to weave and made the performance complete. It was truly a collaborative effort between soloist, orchestra and conductor.

Although not as immediately accessible as the famous New World Symphony, or as charming and tuneful as the eighth symphony, Antonín Dvořák’s Symphony No. 7 in D minor, Op. 70 is, from a standpoint of musical craftsmanship, a superior work to its better-known siblings. According to Zubin Mehta, it is one of the more difficult works in the orchestral repertoire. Akiyama’s reading of this symphony was astonishing, and had a sense of totality and complete control from first note to last. In the rather Brahmsian 1^st movement, I had rarely heard the VSO strings sound so lush and rich. The orchestral playing was especially beautiful in the solemn and tranquil second movement. The rhythmically tricky third movement was handled with panache by the orchestra, and in the dramatic final movement, with its blazingly triumphant ending, the orchestra truly sounded like the great ensemble that it is.

Attending a concert by Maestro Akiyama is like witnessing a lesson in pure musicianship.

In the last decade or more, every visit by this remarkable musician in has resulted in memorable performances. I was saddened to read that we won’t have him in our midst next season. I hope that the management of the orchestra would get their act together and book him for many appearances in the orchestra’s coming seasons.