Rafal Blechacz is a 25-year-old pianist from Poland with a long list of awards, and he is particularly known for his Chopin. His recital this afternoon at Herbst Theater, sponsored by Chamber Music San Francisco, had lots of Chopin but started out with the "9 Variations in C Major on Lison dormait" by Mozart, "L'isle joyeuse" by Debussy, and the Sonata No. 1 in C minor, Op. 8, by Karol Szymanowski. The Mozart is a 20-minute work, pretty, but surprisingly lightweight for the 22-year-old Mozart, well into his maturity. Blechascz' playing was crystal clear; if anything, he made it sound too simple for a recital. It reminded me of the time I heard heard Arkdai Volodos play a Schubert piece, a strange choice for someone with keyboard-crushing technique and repertoire.
The Debussy was brilliant, perhaps a tad fast, but a pleasure to hear. The Szymanowski was the major work on the first half. Written when he, too, was 22, the 30-minute work sounded less to me like Chopin (an influence on much of Szymanowsky's music) and more like Godowsky: richly harmonic, and pianistically grand-scale. The opening movement ends with such a flourish that some members of the audience started applauding; Blechacz even acknowledged it by standing and taking a bow, which was unusual. The piece is in C minor; the second movement is in A-flat major, but there are ominous low C's near the end, reminding us of where we came from, and where we will return in the final movement. The cheery third movement alternates between E-flat major and B major, but the fourth movement has us back in C minor, and with a grand, exciting fugue. Near the very end, there's a full-keyboard glissando, leading to a bright conclusion in C major, which is where this recital began. The last few bars are a little odd: trills in both hands slow down the action, when the scale of the piece would seem to demand something simpler, bigger, and louder. But Blechacz did a wonderful job with this unfamiliar piece, and was richly applauded.
The second half began and ended with two of Chopin's four Ballades, in G minor and F Major. In between there were two Polonaises, Op. 26, and four Mazurkas, Op. 41. (The 4th, in A-flat Major, was incorrectly listed as A-flat minor.) I know the Ballades well, but the Polonaises and Mazurkas were new to me. However, they sounded rock-solid, old-hat here, and one understands why this pianist has done so well with Chopin: it's in his blood, of course, but it's also in his head, his hands, and his heart. I actually found the F Major Ballade a little rushed and pedal-heavy for my tastes, and I've seen lesser pianists crack under the strain of this piece. Perhaps Blechacz will approach it differently in ten years' time, when there's less pressure to dazzle with sheer technique and more time to savor the richness of all one zillion notes.
Blechacz played two encores, one by Chopin (I should know which one it was -- it has themes that also appear in one of the Piano Concertos), and one probably not by Chopin (Haydn?). The pianist, who's young, tall, and handsome, was very popular with many of the younger members of the audience, who had to be reminded by the series director not to take photos, to film the entire concert (I've seen that done in Herbst), to send text messages, to watch the Simpsons, "et cetera." From my seat upstairs, I'm also noticing that the ubiquitous smartphones, with their brightly lit little screens, are now joined by iPads, with their brightly lit large screens. Fortunately they were dark during the performance. Unfortunately, there were a couple of ringing phones and a lot of coughing, but the pianist played bravely on.
I look forward to hearing Blechacz again.
4 comments:
I am glad I waited until I had completed my own account before reading this. It reminds me of just how subjective the listening experience can be! I certainly enjoyed reading it, even if (or perhaps because) it disagreed with just about every assertion I made in my Examiner.com account (including the description of the Mozart variations as "surprisingly lightweight")!
This is a quick appendix, just because I forgot to request electronic mail notification of follow-up comments; if this starts a conversation, I want to be in on it!
Perhaps I should have called the Mozart a deceptively lightweight piece. I just didn't hear the sort of complexity that I expected from the Mozart who had written 30 symphonies by then, and I did hear some, um, unusual harmonic progressions (OK, musical clunkers) that also made me think this was very young Mozart. But I don't know this music, and first impressions are often off the mark. Some day it would be fun dig through this piece in detail.
I agree with your comment about the crazy cross-rhythms in the 8th variation. Things did seem to have gotten out of hand, and I just assumed Blechacz was applying some sort of rubato, which in itself was pretty odd for Mozart, but might have been a pinch of Chopin added for extra flavor. But maybe it was just bad playing.
By the way, I'm always happy to have a conversation with opposing views. I have the easier job: while you are writing an actual review, and are (and must be) well informed about the details of the program and the performance, I'm just writing a blog, recording my personal impressions. As a blogger, I get to say "I never heard this piece before," or even "lightweight Mozart," without eliciting [too many] gasps.
I think that most people who attend concerts like what they hear. Many of the replies to your review of Ms. Lee are from people who thought her recital was an unalloyed pleasure and perhaps didn't want that memory to be spoiled. I sometimes feel that way, too, leaving a performance with a happy glow, rating it a 1 on a scale from 0 (didn't like it) to 1 (liked it), and not really interested in complicating my memory of the performance with the details one would find in a review. Then there are the concerts that I rated 0, and no glowing review is going to change an unhappy experience into a happy one.
In other words, reviews aren't for everybody, and they're not for all occasions. A review, or even a blog-posting, is essentially an intellectual exercise, and rating something on a more elaborate scale than 0 to 1 can be a rich, rewarding experience.
Of course, a review can also be a mere publicity piece. I've seen local "reviews," even opera reviews, that did little more than list the performers and the works, with general praise all 'round. Then, too, some people read reviews to help them decide whether to shell out the $30 -- or $300 -- to see a performance. Things get really complicated for people who have already spent the money, have not yet seen the performance, and are faced with a critical review.
Indeed, this is why I often avoid reading reviews, particularly of opera performances that I'm about to see. While the review may well praise some detail that I will then enjoy more, it might also criticize some aspect that I will then focus on, even when it's something I would not have noticed on my own. The more expensive the ticket, the greater the risk of dissonance.
First of all I suppose I should make clear that I am used to having a "minority opinion;" and, having now read the San Francisco Classical Voice piece on this recital, I suspect that I am definitely in the minority on this occasion!
Regarding Mozart, I have to confess that my own perceptions were heavily influenced by that all-Mozart program at Davies. That is why I included the hyperlink to it, because that whole program was "about" Mozart's "wilder side." Basically, this reinforces my own belief that opposing points of view are often necessary in considering performances (and probably recordings) of music. Each of us brings a different context to the listening experience. Being up front about that context may encourage others to explore it.
My "reaction to the reaction" over Lee was to write a blog post entitled "Listeners and Enthusiasts." This was my take on your proposition that "reviews aren't for everybody." I suspect we both agree that enthusiasts are the life-blood of the whole concert scene. Were it not for them, we would all probably have to resign ourselves to getting our music through recordings. However, that blog post addressed some observations about listening that I first encountered in a talk given by Igor Stravinsky (who, in his personal style, was far less polite about the issue than I have tried to be). It would be foolish to expect that an audience would consist entirely of the sorts of serious listeners that Stravinsky had in mind; so I suppose what I try to do is advertise the virtues of such a practice, usually by teasing out aspects of a performance that might have been missed in the flood of enthusiasm. Those are my "mud pies," as Alfred North Whitehead liked to put it; and they are there for the delectation of those willing to pause to consider them.
To some extent I try to engage the same strategy when I write a preview piece. After all, these are the articles that matter more among those who are careful about how they spend their concert budget. Whenever possible, I try to avoid the usual publicity boiler-plate material and draw upon personal experience in what I am describing. Obviously, I cannot do this for everything that I preview; but I feel it is important that my readers know that I am not just doing copy-and-paste on a press release.
Finally, I feel it is important for me to read what others have to say, but only after I have completed my own document. This is one reason why I try to be the first one out of the gate, particularly in this age of Internet speed. As a result, by the time I get to my desk, I already know which references I need to consult before I actually begin writing; and I probably have the overall architecture of the document in my head. (I believe seriously that writing distracts from listening. The only notes I take consistently involve the selection of encores. When the piece is not announced, if it is unfamiliar, I scribble an incipit and a few "search clues.")
In conclusion I would like to observe that I have used the Label "description" in 40 of my blog posts. Filling a database with the attributes of an object is usually a relatively straightforward proposition, but writing descriptive text is a real challenge for myriad reasons. Describing a time-dependent phenomenon is even more challenging, because you cannot "hold it in front of you" while trying to write your description. I suspect that most people who read (and complain about) reviews do not appreciate the magnitude of this challenge!
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