In the recent period, we heard a slew of pianists, including
Alicia de Larrocha—whom we will not be hearing again, at
least not on these shores. This Spanish titan bade farewell
to the U.S. in appearances with the New York Philharmonic.
But we will get to those in a moment. First consider another
great pianist, the Hungarian Zoltán Kocsis. He appeared
twice in New York, first in a series with the Philharmonic,
then in solo recital at the 92nd Street Y. Kocsis is a man
of prodigious technique and solid musicianship. He is
sometimes compared to Sviatoslav Richter, and, in fact, the
late Soviet pianist invited Kocsis to play four-hand music
with him—a considerable honor.
Kocsis is gaining increasing renown as a conductor, but
luckily he is not neglecting his instrument. With the
Philharmonic, he played Bartók’s Concerto No. 3, the last
work that composer ever wrote. Kocsis is a Bartók
specialist, as he may be expected to be, given his
nationality. But he also “specializes” in Debussy and many
other composers, being a pianist of versatility. The Bartók
Third is a gentle, lyrical, quasi-Mozartean work—or at
least it can be. Kocsis, in partnership with the conductor Lorin
Maazel, took a different approach. He was aggressive,
propulsive—classically Bartókian, in a word. The final
movement was quite fast and extraordinarily precise. Kocsis
is the same phenom he always was, even if his mass of hair
has turned gray.
His recital consisted of Beethoven, Schubert, and Liszt. It
began with Beethoven’s Sonata in E minor, Op. 90, a seldom
performed work. Kocsis gave it a strong reading, so typical
of this pianist. It was bold, virile, and straight-ahead.
But it was also overly blunt in spots, and included some
pounding. Among the Liszt pieces was the intricate and
popular “Jeux d’eau à la Villa d’Este.” For all Kocsis’s
glory in Impressionistic music, this was not a terribly
Impressionistic account—not an especially delicate, or
limpid, or nuanced one. The villa’s waters were a little
heavy-running and undancing. But the technique, of course,
was unquestionable, and Kocsis knows his own mind, playing
with extreme assurance.
Good as Kocsis’s first half was—and much of it was very
good—nothing could have prepared the listener for the
second half of the recital. It was devoted to a single work,
Schubert’s late sonata in B flat, D. 960. As it happened,
New Yorkers would hear this work twice more in the space of
two weeks, from major pianists. But I am coming to that. The
traversal of Zoltán Kocsis was nothing less than great. He
played with intelligence and soul. There was freedom of
interpretation, but also an awareness of Schubertian
restraints. The opening movement was poetic and transfixing.
The Andante was blessedly not slow—and also transfixing.
The Scherzo was unusually fast, but not so fast that it did
not contain its lilt and pleasure. The concluding Allegro—a
hard movement to get right—was splendidly judged. We all
knew that Kocsis was a great pianist, but this was awesome
confirmation. As the audience applauded, I turned to the
critic sitting behind me and said, “Frankly, that’s some of
the best piano playing I have ever heard.” He said, “Same
with me.”
Another pianist rumbling through town was András
Schiff—another Hungarian (and when Hungary runs out of
pianists, the Eskimos will have run out of ice). He appeared
in recital at Carnegie Hall, playing three Bach suites,
interspersed with a late, great Beethoven sonata and a suite
from his, and Kocsis’s, great countryman, Bartók. Schiff had
a strangely uneven outing. The first of the Bach works was
the French Suite No. 4 in E-flat major. Schiff was deficient
in clarity and lyricism. Moreover, his hands and arms were
tight (as they often are), which affected his sound. (This
tightness is not merely a matter of technical hindrance,
although it is that.) Bach’s Sarabande was rather punched
at. But the pianist did some things well, bringing out the
inner voices, and, in the Gigue, taking obvious delight in
the composer’s unusual rhythms.
That Beethoven sonata was the one in A flat, Op. 110. In the
first movement, Schiff emitted a cold, metallic sound.
Furthermore, he tended to hit notes—more punching—where
more of a caress would have been appropriate. Odd as it may
sound, Schiff committed some downright ugly playing in this
profound and beautiful score—and he is one of the most
celebrated pianists in the world. Even the intelligence with
which he combated the thorny fugue that ends the sonata
could not rescue this performance from its depredations.
Schiff did not get much better in Bach’s Partita No. 2, in
C minor. In the (opening) Sinfonia, he did some rushing,
and his execution was wanting. And the Capriccio (which
concludes the suite) was a complete mess—a complete
technical mess. It was actually amateurish, which, again, is
a shocking thing to say about a pianist of Schiff’s stature.
But the Bartók suite—Out of Doors
—was magnificent. Here
the pianist fully justified his large reputation. The
movements of this suite were duly percussive, lulling,
painterly, or dazzling, according to the music’s demands.
The printed program ended with the final Bach work, the
English Suite No. 6 in D minor. Schiff treated it better
than he had the previous Bach suites, but not as well as he
treated Bartók’s.
Encores? The first was Chopin’s Nocturne in F-sharp major,
and it was truly superb. Shiveringly beautiful. The second
was some more Bach, some music from the Partita No. 1 in
B flat, including the delightful Gigue, which was
clod-hoppingly heavy and offensive. And then Schubert’s
iconic Impromptu in G-flat major, which Schiff rendered
adequately. Such a strange, strange night.
At Alice Tully Hall, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln
Center offered an excellent concert of Brahms, Edgar Meyer
(a young American), and Schubert (the familiar “Trout”
Quintet). The pianist in this program was André Watts, who
participated in the Brahms Trio in A minor for clarinet,
cello, and piano, plus the “Trout.” Watts—whose mother was
Hungarian, incidentally—is known as a whiz-bang virtuoso.
But, by the evidence of this particular afternoon, he
deserves more of a reputation as a chamber musician than, to
my knowledge, he has thus far enjoyed. His work in the
Brahms was sensitive and wise, and he fulfilled his role in
the “Trout” with both lyricism and panache. Man cannot live
by Liszt concertos alone.
A few days later, the French pianist Jean-Yves
Thibaudet—about whom I have rhapsodized in these
pages—played Saint-Saëns’s Concerto No. 2 with the
Orchestre de la Suisse Romande (under its newish music
director Pinchas Steinberg). This is a somewhat bombastic
work, and Thibaudet is skilled at taming bombast: I have
noted this in, for example, an account of Richard Strauss’s
Burleske. Certainly, Thibaudet began his go at the
Saint-Saëns very well: playing richly, applying his palette
of colors. Normally, this is about the most fluid pianist
alive. But, midway through the first movement, some
tightness set in, noticeable particularly in the right-hand
passagework. The dancing, much-loved Scherzo lacked
fleetness and grace. Also, Thibaudet missed a ton of notes,
which is unusual for him. The final movement had its due
fury, and the pianist executed some terrific trills (this is
a trill-laden movement). But the playing could have been
much more stylish, and Thibaudet could have avoided such
errors as rushing and pounding. A curious outing from one of
the finest pianists before the public today.
The Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, and Thibaudet, had
performed in Avery Fisher Hall. Not long after, the
Norwegian Leif Ove Andsnes gave a recital in this same hall,
proving that Avery Fisher’s acoustics are not so bad that a
good pianist cannot overcome them. Andsnes had no trouble
making himself heard, with his various colors and voices.
Opening the program were the three Romances of Schumann,
surgingly Romantic, and also ruminative and discursive.
Andsnes tends to play with great seriousness. I think of
this as a kind of aural
furrowed brow. Such earnestness can
be endearing, but, every now and then, it would be nice to
have more of a smile (musically speaking, of course). I
should note, too—talking of taming—that Andsnes has a way
of reining in Romantic music, injecting it with discipline,
not letting it get away from him. This is an invaluable
quality.
Following the Romances was more Schumann, his
Faschingsschwank aus Wien (Carnival Jest from Vienna), a
splendid test of a pianist’s mettle. You need virtuosity and
musicality, and Andsnes had plenty of both. He played
exceptionally clearly, not permitting the work to be heard
as so much Schumann piano noise. After intermission, Andsnes
offered that Schubert sonata: the B-flat sonata, D. 960. His
performance may not have had the transcendence of Zoltán
Kocsis’s, but it was first-rate and memorable. Andsnes did
not try to make the work profound; he knows that it is
profound, already. He simply let it be itself.
Leon Fleisher? His story is well known, but I will retell it
briefly. He was a widely acclaimed young pianist of the
1950s and 1960s. At the zenith of his career, he lost the
use of his right arm, owing to a neurological disorder. He
turned to teaching, conducting, and music for the left hand
alone. Slowly, slowly, he has returned to some two-handed
repertory. Now seventy-five, he played with both hands at
Carnegie Hall for the first time since 1947. (The program
was a mixture of two-handed music and left-hand music.) This
was a great night, certainly emotionally, and often
musically.
Fleisher began his recital the way pianists often used to,
but seldom do now: with a transcription of a Bach piece. He
played Egon Petri’s version of Sheep May Safely Graze, and
he did so with a startling purity. He missed a number of
notes, and his right hand did not want to cooperate. But he
worked the inner voices, and Bach’s music had the divine
peace that it should.
The pianist later returned to Bach, but he first traversed the
work of four American composers: Dina Koston, George Perle,
Leon Kirchner, and Roger Sessions. Many composers have
written left-hand-alone music for him, just as many wrote
such music for Paul Wittgenstein, the famous pianist
(brother of the philosopher) who lost his right arm in World
War I. In fact, Kirchner said, describing the origin of his
For the Left Hand, “Leon Fleisher is an old friend. He
needed music for the left hand. I stopped whatever I was
doing at the time to write a piece for him.”
When Fleisher played with the left hand alone, at Carnegie
Hall, he had a special authority and confidence. Obviously,
he has developed tremendous facility with his left hand
alone, knowing, for example, how to follow and bring out the
melody (and not merely with the thumb). In the second Bach
work—a transcription of the famous D–
minor Chaconne for
violin, fashioned by no less a personage than Johannes
Brahms—Fleisher delivered a left-hand tour de force. He
accorded this work, this transcription, a certain modesty,
to go with masterliness and finally majesty (albeit a
spiritual majesty, not a pomp-filled one). The Chaconne was
exquisitely calibrated, with each phrase and section given
the proper weight. Like so many other people, I have heard
Bach’s Chaconne a thousand times, from violinists (including
great ones), orchestras, etc. Never have I heard a more
moving performance.
And then, after intermission, Fleisher played … that
touchstone sonata by Schubert. He did some impressive
playing in it, but the limitations of his right hand were
apparent. In the last movement, especially, he seemed tired,
with the right-hand octaves defeating him, or at least
vexing him. But his musicianship—and all that accumulated
wisdom—was more important than his technical wherewithal.
The audience roared and roared for him, and not just for his
playing, of course. Let’s not kid ourselves: A terrible,
tragic thing happened to him, all those years ago, stealing
so much of his career. Fleisher will not want tears or pity.
But that should not stop us from recognizing a strength in
this man that is more than artistic.
Now to a pianist at the beginning of his career: Lang Lang.
He is twenty-one years old, and made his Carnegie Hall
recital debut shortly after Leon Fleisher returned. Lang is
the pianistic phenom of this hour, replacing Evgeny Kissin
in this capacity. He is also one of the most hyped musicians
in the world. But does this exuberant Chinese pup deserve
the hoopla surrounding him? By the evidence of his Carnegie
recital, yes. I have criticized him severely in the past,
but he seemed to me to reveal a growing musical maturity.
Sure, the fingers are still there, and what stupendous
fingers they are. The showmanship is still there too, a
showmanship that would make an opera star blush. But Lang
evinced a genuine musicianship, particularly in works of
Schumann, Haydn, Chopin, and the contemporary Chinese
composer Tan Dun. Take the Haydn, which was the Sonata in
C major, Hob. XVI:50. Lang did any number of things that
grated. But I could not help thinking of Horowitz: You
complained about the old Russian, and you did not want
others to emulate him (much of the time)—but you stayed
glued to him, alternately convinced, entertained, appalled,
or awed. Lang’s Haydn was exceedingly Romantic, and somewhat
mannered, but it was graceful, and musical.
The work by Tan Dun was Eight Memories in Watercolor, an
Impressionistic suite. Here the young man proved himself to
be a deft colorist, someone you would want to experience in
Debussy or Ravel. He ended his printed program with Liszt’s
Reminiscences of Don Juan—a piece in which a monster
technique can be showed off. Rest assured, it was. The
crowd screamed for Lang as for a rock star (or, better, as
for Liszt himself). And the phenom had earned the delirium.
Our friend Alicia de Larrocha ended a bit more quietly than
Lang Lang began. Now eighty, she has been a giant among us
for nearly fifty years. When she gave her farewell to
Carnegie Hall last season (in a program with the Tokyo
String Quartet), I composed a little rhapsody about her in
these pages, which I do not intend to repeat now. Suffice it
to say that she is a consummate pianist, who has set a high
example for everyone. Her final U.S. appearances, as I
remarked at the outset, were with the New York Philharmonic,
and she played Haydn’s Concerto in D major and Falla’s
Nights in the Gardens of Spain. These were apt choices:
De Larrocha has always been splendid in music of the
Classical period, and she has been the world’s foremost
exponent of the Spanish repertory throughout her career. As
to how she played—she is not necessarily wrong to be
withdrawing from the stage. But she provided glimpses of her
glorious self. Moreover, she has built one of the largest
discographies of any pianist: and, God and the record
companies willing, we will always have those.