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RECITAL REVIEW
March 18, 2007
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Poet at the Piano By Jerry Kuderna
Alfred Brendel made two appearances while in town last week. First he gave a reading of his poetry (sponsored by the Townsend Center), to a forum-size gathering, and then two days later he played the piano for a much larger audience at Zellerbach Hall, both under the aegis of Cal Performances. I was glad I caught both. Each performance revealed an artist who, at 76, is full of fresh insight into the process of creativity — his own, as well as that in the music he plays.
His poems reveal a musician's ear for sound, and, like Beethoven in some of his bagatelles, he embraces the absurd so as to render any form of posturing vapid and ridiculous. As a pianist, Brendel is arguably the leading exponent of the Viennese classical tradition. On Sunday he demonstrated, once again, the care for detail that is necessary if these works are to open out into the limitless vistas of beauty and meaning they contain.
Haydn's Sonata in C Minor begins with a phrase that Brahms borrowed for the slow movement of his Second Piano Concerto. He later used this theme for one of his last songs, "Immer leiser wird mein Schlummer." No one could doze off to Brendel's dreamy, yet taut, delivery of the phrase. At every turn of the piece the listener was awakened to that music's sublime beauty, so little appreciated even today.
This was brought about largely through natural phrasing in which each melodic strand was given a life of its own, each singing (or speaking) with an individual voice. Brendel's sense of timing at the fermatas was like the pauses in his poetry reading. They seemed to give you a quizzical look and ask, "Do you follow?" And, of course, we always nodded, "Yes, please continue."
On the surface, though the technical demands of the Beethoven Sonata, Op. 110, are modest (except for the treacherous trio in the second so-called movement), it is one of the hardest pieces to play convincingly. Actually, the work contains no separate movements, so all must unfold as a single narrative. The first phrase was telling; in its benign simplicity it encompasses the two pleading ariosos (the second one worn out with despair) that lie ahead, and also the final fugues that ultimately prevail. Brendel invited you in with a gentleness that few pianists can achieve.
His performance underplayed the drama of this, perhaps too obvious, scenario in favor of one that stressed its lively and continuous unfolding. I would have preferred a bit more heart on his sleeve in the second arioso, where Beethoven asks for perdendo la forza (losing force), which finally leads to a chilling silence. I wished that Brendel had allowed his voice to choke and falter somewhat. Instead, it seemed to grow even stronger, and the muted chords before the fugue didn't seem sepulchral enough , which otherwise would have made the return to life all the more convincing. Beethoven said, "Sentiment is for ladies; music should strike fire," but the motto might well be Brendel's own. His performance of the sonata's conclusion bore this out. Two Schubert impromptus followed after intermission. In both, Brendel seemed more attuned to his instrument and found precisely the right balance of sound to make these intimate works project in the large hall. The F-Minor Impromptu (Op. 90, No. 1) ranged from a whisper to real fortissimos that never sounded forced. And while Brendel's playing never strikes me as being spontaneous, it gives a wonderful sense of freedom, especially in the slow movements. This is surely the result of the awesome rhythmic and dynamic control the pianist has over every voice. The B-flat Impromptu (Op. 90, No. 3) is a set of variations that is much more than an elaboration of the pretty theme in the right hand. Each variation took on a different character, and the one lighthearted piece on the program was truly danced and sung, right up to its wistful coda. Brendel imbued his entire program with a current of deep feeling, which built subliminally throughout the recital until it broke out fully in Mozart's C-Minor Sonata (K. 457), a far more personal work than most of his sonatas. Despite its tragic character, hearing Alfred Brendel play it was like looking directly at the sun. The slow movement in the major key was serious and serene, impartially giving life, warming us even in our darkest moments.
(Jerry Kuderna is a pianist who teaches at Diablo Valley College.)
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