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RECITAL REVIEW Dazzling Piano November 6, 2002
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By Jerry Kuderna
Conductors who keep up their piano-playing chops are not uncommon. Those who continue to play publicly works demanding top-flight virtuosity can be counted without the aid of a calculator. Jeffrey Kahane is one of those versatile musicians. His recital at Herbst Theater on Wednesday demonstrated his prowess as a solo pianist, even if at times it seemed as if he might have been a little uncomfortable in that role.
The major work on the first half of the program was the first set of Isaac Albéniz' Iberia. The performance emphasized the regional characteristics of the music and the sultry rhythms of the first piece, "Evocacion," were captivating. The brilliant sonority of the final one, a depiction of a festival day in Seville, verged on the riotous. Drawing an almost orchestral range of dynamics from the piano, Kahane seemed not quite satisfied with the sounds that could be called forth with a mere two hands, even his.
Then came another knuckle buster, "Los requiebros" from Goyescas by Enrique Granados. Rarely heard in concert, it surpasses even the Albéniz in pyrotechnics. In the tradition of virtuoso paraphrases which used to conclude piano concerts during the early 20th century, it substitutes the jota for the waltz, a kind of Blue Danube from Aragon in northern Spain. Although its placement after the Iberia suite undercut its effectiveness somewhat, it was wonderful to hear it played with such élan.
After such a strenuous first half, I hoped that Kahane would return to the lovely, quiet playing he did in the Fauré 6th Nocturne which opened the program. For a moment it seemed as though the he had found the perfect work to balance the extroversion of the hot-blooded Spaniards. Fred Hersch's 24 Variations on a Bach Chorale was, at least up through the theme, exactly what I needed to hear. It brought to mind a favorite recording of the Bach Inventions made some years back by Kahane. The sober simplicity of his way with the Chorale was affecting, but as the work progressed I remembered Max Reger's Variations on a Bach Chorale, which winds up subjecting its pious theme to some pretty worldly razzle-dazzle. I confess to looking forward to the fugue at the end. The 24 Variations managed to skirt the worlds of serious music and more popular idioms without sounding like a pastiche. It has some bluesy bits (my favorites among the pieces), and, of course, Hersch could not resist the temptation to show off Kahane's technical prowess. Some curious devices such as double thirds in both hands separately (but not in combination) and a variation which even more dramatically segregated the hands were brilliantly executed. Despite much idiomatic writing for the piano, the work lacked an overall sense of structure and reached no final apotheosis, fugal or otherwise. After so much brilliant playing, the etudes that concluded the recital might have sounded a bit superfluous. Kahane did choose pieces with more than usual musical interest, and even made a modest disclaimer for the fun he was about to have wowing his audience. And wow us he did with Gyorgy Ligeti's Sorcerer's Apprentice! Aptly titled for the bit of ersatz magic it provides, Kahane's fingers seemed to keep multiplying as they ran the length of the keyboard, spilling buckets of notes as they went. The others did not fare so well. Debussy's "5-Finger" study, one of his take-offs on piano practice, was fleet and brilliant but missed some of the sweetness of the piece by neglecting dynamic contrasts. The Chopin studies, substituted for the announced ones by Bolcom, came off sounding like the token 19th-century pieces on the program. I wondered why Kahane felt it necessary to bring out every note of the "Aeolian Harp," but not the all-important bass line of the E-flat minor study Op. 10. An appealing arrangement for four hands (with Fred Hersch ) of “If I were a bell” concluded the evening.
(Jerry Kuderna is a pianist who teaches at Diablo Valley College.)
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Jeffrey Kahane