San Francisco Classical Voice

RECITAL

Mighty Manny

11/09/03

Emanuel Ax

By Jerry Kuderna

Pianists don't need critics to tell them that they, or their playing, are “maturing”. This either comes or it doesn't and it is the only thing that makes playing pieces of music over a lifetime interesting. I first heard Emanuel Ax when we were both in high school. He was wonderful then, and he is more wonderful now. His recital at Zellerbach on Sunday showed how much an artist can develop when natural gift and intelligence are in harmony.

The first half of the recital was devoted to Debussy and Ravel with three pieces by Rameau in the middle. It was daring to place pieces written for the harpsichord in the midst of music so specifically pianistic as Debussy's but revealing as well. Those who have wondered what might have inspired Debussy's Hommage à Rameau had a chance to hear in a fascinating piece called l'Enharmonique. Ax highlighted the subtle harmonic shifts that would have surely delighted Debussy a couple of centuries later. The other two movements silenced any qualms I might have had about harpsichord music sounding badly on the piano. The dancing Égyptienne of Rameau was still alive in Debussy's whirring and machine-like, yet still dancing Mouvement.

In the second set of Images Debussy begins with a simple whole-tone scale in the middle register of the piano moving to multiple layers of delicate figuration spanning the whole keyboard simultaneously. Written on three staves, the music looks and sounds as if three hands would be required to play it. Not a problem for the two miraculous mains of Emanuel Ax. He achieved a combination of exquisite control and discrete accentuation and articulation which evoked the falling leaves, bells, darting fish, and moonlit ruins of Debussy's fanciful titles, even as these images faded before the wondrous sounds that were being produced.

Fully realized

Ravel's Valses nobles et sentimentales was not recognized by the composer's colleagues as being written by him when it was first played, unidentified, at a private concert in 1913. It may be his most intimate and personal work for piano. It requires a masterful technique, but does not exhibit a dazzling surface in the way his earlier pieces such as Gaspard or Miroirs do. Although the Valses may have been written for a pianist of Ax' stature, the size of Zellerbach Auditorium did not seem promising for the triple pianissimo that ends the work. Once again, the pianist came through with a memorable performance that had it all: intimacy, fire, sentiment, and there was not one bar that didn't dance.

The Four Chopin Scherzi which made up second half of the recital seemed like it might be too much of a good thing. Playing the whole set in sequence in concert requires a somewhat artificial shift to the record listening mode — where you might pause between pieces that were never intended to be played as a set. The scherzi, at least for first three of them, are battles fought by the titanic forces of Chopin's imagination, embodying great heroism in the face of impossible odds. Richter was the only other pianist I can recall attempting it in public. For most common mortals, the first scherzo, a virtuoso war horse, would normally be played at the end of a concert, and would certainly provide the dramatic climax of a concert.

Emanuel Ax can be placed alongside the Russian titan in his technical prowess and his daring programming. He performed as if relishing the opportunity to pit himself against greater and greater challenges and seemed transformed from a mild-mannered colorist into super-Manny, able to surmount all technical difficulties in a single bound. Indeed, aside from a few deep breaths before and following each piece, he seemed never to tire of the brilliant passages and quieter meditations that constitute the song-like trio sections, the only respites from the high drama of these works.

The fourth scherzo in E major is the least warlike of the set and the only one in a major key. It afforded Ax the opportunity escape the world of battle briefly for the sunlit spaces which occur in some of Chopin's later works such as the Barcarolle. Its middle section is in c#-minor and of a melancholy cast that only turns hopeful as the prospect of struggle and further heroism approaches. This was achieved brilliantly and, for the return to contemplation, Debussy's Pagodes was the fitting encore.