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RECITAL REVIEW
April 27, 2003
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By Anatole Leikin
Goethe once said that his style underwent four stages of development. At first, his writing was simple and bad. Then it became complicated and bad. Then it grew into complicated and good. And then, finally, it was simple and good. The piano recital by Krystian Zimerman in Zellerbach Hall on April 27 was exactly that, simple and good. Zimerman had to overcome two obstacles. One was the cavernous Zellerbach Hall, with its spotty acoustics and squeaky seats — definitely not the best venue for a solo piano concert. The other hurdle was of a different nature. A pitfall lurks in the quest for simplicity of expression, when such simplicity may turn into plainness or, worse, nondescript blandness.
I am afraid that some of the pieces from the beginning of the program, Brahms's set of six Klavierstücke, Op. 118, were adversely affected by Zimerman's tangible striving for uncomplicated renditions. Brahms's freely breathing and gently pulsating phrases require a supreme mastery of time. In the A-major Intermezzo, however, the tempo was uncomfortably stiff. This did not approach, of course, the rigid mechanicalness of, say, Andras Shiff, but it came dangerously close. In the indispensable give and take of Brahms's timing, this Intermezzo did not have enough give and hardly had any take. In another rather disappointing number, the Romance, the lack of tempo flexibility was compounded by a heavy-footed, plodding approach to the dense texture of the piece.
A similarly lamentable inflexibility marked the opener of the second half of the concert, Chopin's Impromptu No. 2, Op. 36. On the other hand, the rest of pieces from Brahms's Op. 118 were sheer poetry and charm. The last Intermezzo of the set, in E-flat minor, was particularly remarkable for its spontaneity, exquisite tone control, and a deeply felt transfiguration from a melancholy mystery to a heart-rending tragedy. Another example of Zimerman's consummate performance freedom (which was so needed in some numbers from Op. 118 and in the Impromptu) was the encore, Karol Szymanowski's early B-minor Prelude from Op. 1. Zimerman was so at ease with the material and with himself, that I wished he would replay the Brahms with the same unconstraint and verve.
Zimerman also kept things relatively simple in Beethoven's Op. 110, which was played before the intermission. Here, a simplicity of his reading led to a sincerely engaging and highly poetic result. Zimerman's remarkable tone and pedal control produced wonderful sound effects; his incomparable cantabile was not only deeply moving in the opening and the both arioso movements, but it also made the both fugues eminently singing, almost vocal. The beginning of the second (and final) fugue was, actually, fast enough to make me worry for a while that the pianist just painted himself into a corner, since the last two pages of the finale were supposed to be played increasingly faster and faster. It turned out that Zimerman had it all precisely calibrated for his formidable technique: the Sonata ended in a breathtaking, dizzying whirl. The precipitously fast tempo chosen by Zimerman in the finale of the concluding piece of the program, Chopin's Sonata in B minor, Op. 58, was nothing short of a technical miracle, but, musically speaking, it sounded not as convincing as the exhilarating conclusion of Op. 110. There was a reason why Chopin added non tanto (not much) to Presto in every edition but the English first edition (apparently based on a earlier-prepared manuscript). An excessively fast tempo takes an innate sorrow out of this movement and turns it into a jolly lighthearted, somewhat Mendelssohnian affair. The preceding three movements were pianistically just as spectacular, but conceptually much more rewarding. The first movement, despite its utter thematic complexity, came out tightly cogent and unyieldingly intense. Whether the audience was too electrified by the performance or was not entirely familiar with the modern highbrow convention of not applauding between the movements, is difficult to say, but the first few notes of the Scherzo were drowned by the applause. After finishing the lacework of the Scherzo with an elegant flourish, Zimerman stopped and, jokingly, looked at the audience, as if saying, "Are you going to clap now, or what?" He got a hearty laugh, a thunderous applause, and proceeded to play the Largo at the height of his poetic charm. The audience was conspicuously silent between this and the next movements.
(Anatole Leikin's articles have appeared in various musicological journals and essay collections; he has also recorded piano music of Chopin and Scriabin. Professor Leikin currently serves as an editor for The Complete Chopin - A New Critical Edition (Peters Edition London) and chairs the Music Department at University of California, Santa Cruz.)
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Krystian Zimerman