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RECITAL REVIEW
March 26, 2005
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By Alexander Kahn
Two-piano reductions of works written for the orchestra can sometimes
seem like paintings by Renoir or Matisse with the color stripped away.
Although there are still recognizable shapes and forms, most of what
draws us into the work has disappeared. At a two-piano performance by
Emanuel Ax and Yefim Bronfman on Saturday, however, my ears
were opened to the pleasures of hearing in black and white.
Ax and Bronfman appeared on-stage together at Zellerbach Hall, in a
program of works by Schumann, Debussy, Ravel and Stravinsky. They made
up for the lack of timbral color with an extremely colorful on-stage
demeanor, good-naturedly telling jokes and chatting with the audience.
More color came through the contrast in musical personality: Ax has a
light, gentle touch, compared to the sharper and more vigorous approach
of Bronfman. While this occasionally caused problems when more of a
blend of voices seemed appropriate, for the most part the pianists were
able to use their differences to advantage, avoiding the muddy textures
that can easily emerge from this curious combination of near-identical
timbres.
The highlight of the concert was a performance of the two-piano version
of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. Although the piece is of course
better known in its orchestral version, the two-piano version was
actually published before the orchestral score, appearing shortly before
the ballet's premiere in May of 1913 (the orchestral version remained
unpublished until 1921). As the conductor Pierre Monteux (who premiered
the work) aptly observed, “heard this way, without the color of the
orchestra, the crudity of the rhythm was emphasized, its stark
primitiveness underlined.” Bronfman and Ax brought out the
rhythmic ferocity of this music with impeccable virtuosity, pounding
away at the “Glorification of the Chosen One” and the “Sacrificial
Dance.” Equally impressive were their interpretations of the moments of
quiet intensity in this score. In the Introduction to “Part Two: The
Sacrifice,” for example, the duo drew my attention to passages of hushed
and haunted beauty that are often slighted in orchestral performances.
Debussy's piano duo En blanc et noir, performed on the first half of the program, was an appropriate juxtaposition with the Stravinsky. Written in 1915, the piece betrays the influence of the young Russian composer on Debussy, who had played through Stravinsky's piano reduction along with the composer in 1912. En blanc et noir finds Debussy abandoning the delicate textures and floating rhythms of his earlier works, giving way to a more neo-classical approach and a strong rhythmic drive. The first half ended with Ravel's La Valse, which was also premiered as a piano duo before being orchestrated. Unlike the Stravinsky, however, La Valse seems to lose a great deal more than it gains in this version, as the work depends so heavily on its evocation of the lush sound world of the Strauss waltz. Ax and Bronfman opened the concert with Robert Schumann's Six Etudes in the Form of a Canon, Op. 56, originally written in 1845 for pedal piano (a curious instrument, essentially a piano equipped with a pedal-board like an organ, enabling the player to play pitches with feet as well as fingers). The Schumann seemed an inappropriate choice to open a concert otherwise consisting entirely of landmarks of early modernism (although the transcription for two pianos was the work of Debussy). The performers themselves seemed uncomfortable with the piece. Some tempo problems emerged at the opening, as if neither of them was quite sure how to interpret Schumann's enigmatic marking of “pas trop vite.” Balance was also often a problem here, as it is frequently also in solo piano performances of Schumann's music, with its dense figuration.
(Alexander Kahn is a graduate student in music history and literature at UC
Berkeley, where he also serves as assistant conductor of the University Symphony.)
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Emanuel Ax
Yefim Bronfman