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RECITAL REVIEW
A Laying On March 9, 1999
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By Paul Hersh
San Francisco Performances presented Pianist Yefim Bronfman at Herbst Theater Tuesday in a program that was novel, even daring in its choices. Yet, despite a program biased in favor of light, entertaining works, the playing was too stolid and self-absorbed to fully convey their charms. He offered the Beethoven Sonata No. 8 in C minor, Opus 13, the Pathetique, and a less familiar piece from the standard repertoire, the playful Faschingsschwank aus Wien, Opus 26 of Schumann. These were followed, after intermission, by the work of two Russian composers: a selection of 9 pieces from the Tchaikovsky,The Seasons, Opus 37b, and finally, Islamey by Balakirev.
The Tchaikovsky received the most careful and thoughtful reading of the concert. The twelve musical sketches, one each for the twelve months of the year, 1876, when they were composed, are based on twelve variously authored Russian poems, each of which is keyed to the month, or "season" it represents. These are simple, lyrical pieces, easy and uncomplicated
for the listener, if somewhat limited in the satisfaction they bring. Bronfman played them with a respectful devotion, which was at the same time understated in its range of musical expressivity. The piece for October, "Autumn Song" particularly stood out. Inspired by this poem of A. Tolstoy: The performance was infused with an appropriately haunting, bittersweet melancholia. Nevertheless, its final impression was as gray and cheerless as a damp day in Fall. Beginning just as he was seated at the piano, and certainly before he had the full attention of the listener, Bronfman tackled the fiery Islamey with a carefully measured passion. The performance was somewhat marred by blurred passagework that gave it a murky texture, but gradually it built in intensity to the bravura of the final Presto furioso, which elicited an audible chuckle from the audience. The first half of the program was less successful. A crucial element in the uniqueness of a live performance, the communication between artist and audience, was missing. The Schumann Faschingsschwank was a wooden affair, played with a detachment from its emotional, melodic core, and flawed by muddled passagework that gave it a turgid texture. Bronfman seemed completely immersed in the keyboard, and, oblivious to his audience, he gave few indications in his playing of how he wanted the music to be perceived. Even the Marseillaise, Schumann's teasing gesture of defiance against its public banning, was flat-footed and unamusing. The Beethoven sonata was troubled from the opening Grave. The rhythmic relationship between the initial forte/piano chord, and the subsequent short-long, short-long figure lacked sufficient traction in each of its multiple presentations, to create dramatic intensity. In the second movement, the Adagio Cantabile, the treble voice was presented in a vertical fashion, note by note, which made it difficult to enjoy the sweeping arc of the melodic line. And in the final Rondo, the sforzando/piano chords were dynamically overplayed, countermanding the structure of the descending bass line. Yefim Bronfman is an excellent pianist. His music-making however, leaves something to be desired. Despite a program biased in favor of light works, the playing was too stolid and self-absorbed to fully convey their charms. Admirably, he leads his audience to interesting vistas, but he does not always show them clearly or convincingly. His landscape is too often flat and two-dimensional, lacking sufficient shadow or nuance of color to enliven and define it. (Paul Hersh is a pianist and violist, and, since 1972, the James D. Robertson Professor of Piano at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.) ©1999 Paul Hersh, all rights reserved |
Yefim Bronfman