Wonders at the RCM today with the legendary Mikhail Voskresensky. At 88 he played with more vigour and artistry than those a quarter of his venerable age.
After an exhilarating Haydn Sonata in E minor followed by a Kreisleriana the like of which I have only ever heard from Nikolaeva Tagliaferro or Perlemuter
The grand school and great line played with weight .
There must be personality and character quoting Anton Rubinstein who said that music must be created .
And he proceeded to show two young pianists exactly what he meant with a very fine but pallid Liszt Sonata in need of an injection of vitality and passion !
And beautifully played Medtner needing the Angels to fly even higher to find their celestial song.
Thanks to Dmitri Alexeev and Dina Parakhina for bringing such a Colossus to the RCM .
Who could have imagined that at 10 am one of the legendary pianists of our time would appear on stage in London and proceed to give performances of such power and personality that one began to question the date of birth printed in the programme .In this age of I pad aide memoire for senior citizens still in career,it was a lesson to see this very distinguished artist impeccably dressed sit at the piano without any fuss and give performances of orchestral proportions.This was on a Fazioli piano which I doubt has ever been asked to dig deep into its body to find sounds that most pianists of today do not know exist.
One of the last of a great school of pianists who were true ‘Kapellmeisters’ ,recreating music with a freshness and directness as though the ink was still wet on the page. Of course no pages were to be seen because like Nikolaeva who was this artists great friend,as she was mine, music had been digested and lived with and was deep within the very soul of a musician where music was their life’s blood. As he was to say to students who played for him after his recital :”but where is the passion ,the drive ,the theatre that lives within your soul with which you can transmit an infinite range of emotions via this black box full of hammers and strings’.You must be an illusionist but above all you must be an artist with a passionate desire to comunicate.And so it was to just a hand full of early risers that this great artist played as though to an audience of thousands. At 88 ,like Rubinstein, there is a vitality and energy that is generated by a passionate desire to comunicate.I have seen this same passion from Eliso Virsaladze ,Alexei Lubimov,Eduardo del Peyo and of course my teachers Perlemuter and Agosti .
More recently Oxana Yablonskaya who at 85 after being on the jury of a competition all day in Sicily had time for a cup of tea before giving a recital where numbers had no meaning as she was rejuvenated by the music exactly as we were to witness today.
Wilhelm Kempff would arrive at the recording studio asking what they would like to hear! A great school of dedicated artists and one wonders why the hall was not full to the rafters for students who have chosen to make music their career.But for real artists music is not just a career but an essential way of a life of dedication and sacrifice because they cannot do less.
What a lesson and a reminder of how many ‘bank clerks’ we have on the concert platform these days where real dedicated artists are few and far between.
There was an unusual grandiosity and nobility to the Haydn Sonata in E minor played with bold tone and dynamic rhythmic drive.Crystal clear with phrases shaped like a singer but always scrupulously in style with the times.There were great contrasts too in the development .Robust orchestral ‘forte’ , old school one might say but only because we are used to a more polite Haydn of pallid authenticy! Here there was a rhythmic drive where even the ornaments were like springs unwinding with sparkling brilliance but always within the musical line and conversation that we were overhearing.The music ‘spoke’ with a directness and one phrase answered the other.Even Haydn’s surprise ending was indeed a surprise but revealed a control of sound as the last three notes had different inflections on each. Art that conceals Art indeed . There was an operatic unfolding of the Adagio but perfectly proportioned where the music was played with nobility but also the simplicity and originality of Haydn’s genial invention.’Vivace molto’ the last movement certainly was and as Haydn asks an innocent tongue in cheek sense of humour of charm ,grace and wit. A wonderful sense of balance too where the melodic line had a purity and sense of projection without any exaggeration.The teasing embellishements were played without ever disturbing the relentless forward movement but were with a scintillating style that brought a smile to our faces so teasingly charmed at 10 in the morning by an 88 year old veteran .The 20 year old students were probably still in bed !
The main work was ‘Kreisleriana’ the eight episodes by Schumann dedicated to Chopin .This received a truly monumental performance and I was reminded of Magda Tagliaferro who I had heard at the Wigmore Hall many years ago when she was in her nineties .A tiny lady came floating on stage with bright orange hair and proceeded to turn the piano into a complete orchestra.Similar to today where they great line was the guiding light of an architectural shape where fussy details and personal charms were in second order to the overall message that was being put across with overwhelming drive and power.I have never forgotten that performance and the energy that allowed this wisp of a lady in a cloud of gossamer white chiffon to play five encores ending with Chopin’s Tarantelle!
There was an enormous amount of pedal as Mikhail Voskresensky threw himself into the fray with fearless abandon ,creating an orchestral sound of Philadelphian proportions .This contrasted with the gossamer lightness ,almost without pedal, of the beautiful lyrical central episode where the music was allowed to speak for itself. Helped of course by a very discreet artistic underlining of certain poignant harmonic moments before the return of the burning hot cauldron that was just waiting to erupt again. Beautiful long lines of string quartet richness in the second episode always allowing the music to flow and unwind with such unfettered simplicity .There was a spiky brilliance to the first Intermezzo and a driving sweep to the second.Knotty contrapuntal meanderings were played with a clarity and sense of line that at last made sense of Schumann’s searching of a way back to the opening mellifluous outpouring.
The third episode was more orchestral than the usual note picking precision we are used to. Great clusters of moving harmonies with the triplet figurations merely an accompaniment but that are so often played the other way around and given a musically unjust prominence. He gave a glorious sweep to the central episode with the sumptuous melodic outpouring of expansive long lines and the deep bass notes just opening up the sound and creating a luxuriant wave of sound on which the melodic line emerges with searing romantic intensity.The ‘noch schneller ‘ opened the door for a mighty accelerando of emotional intensity bursting into flames with enormous sonorities and a wild abandon that even in a pianist half the age of our noble pianist would have been breathtaking . There was a simplicity to the string quartet sound of the ‘sehr langsam’ and a simple innocuous purity to the ‘bewegter’.
The fifth episode showed a clarity and rhythmic drive with a passionate outpouring of melody surrounded by pointed counterpoints .There was nobility to the central episode with its driving forward movement and passionate climax only to gradually disappear to a measured whisper. Simplicity and clarity of the melodic line of the ‘sehr langsam’ with its great rhetorical outburst was to dissolve to a heart rending ‘berceuse’ of ravishing whispered beauty. Breathtaking was the only word one could use for the seventh as we were plunged into a wild frenzy of exhilarating declarations and a tour de force of fast moving figurations played at breakneck speed of daring virtuosity.There was an unusual architectural shape to the illusive eighth episode with the deep whispered sonorous left hand and the whimsical playfulness of the right .A romantic sweep to the first episode and an explosion of passionate cries with the second ‘mit aller Kraft’ where the enormous sonorities that Mikhail found were without any hardness but filled with a glorious sumptuous richness and was the true climax of these eight pictures that he had painted with such loving intensity.The syncopated bass contrasted with the whimsical playfulness of the right as it disappeared into the bass of the piano never to re emerge .
Returning fresh and invigorated from this early morning preamble he offered as an encore the Gluck /Sgambati Orfeo that was played with the same great line and sumptuous sounds that we had been treated to all morning by this great artist
Still bursting with energy Mikhail Voskresensky was able with a few well chosen words and theatrical demonstrations to show that music must be created and given character and meaning.’Words without thought no more to heaven go’ Boulanger would quote to us at her masterclasses at the RAM many years ago .It was the same message from this great musician where in just a few words he could illuminate the Liszt Sonata to a very fine Hungarian student Marcell Vadja.
Taking music from being earthbound and giving it a magical life of its own.The opening pages of the Liszt Sonata rather than talking about notes and notation he demonstrated the fearsome cries of Mephistopheles and the gasps that on the page seem merely like scales and accents.He showed what it means to turn black and white into multi colours and how to turn them into drama. How to make Margherita fall passionately in love and to turn music on the printed page into a magic world of dreams.’ Je sens .je joue,je trasmets ‘
A passionate plea for Medtner too pointing out that he was German spending most of his life in England but always with Russia in his heart . Every one of his works is a masterpiece of construction and he showed Lan Hu ,a very fine student of Dina Parakhina, how to differentiate between the melodic line and the myriad of notes that are mere accompaniment. Gilels was the first major figure to play Medtner in 1952 just a year after his death in England ,when he was one of the first to perform the sonata in G minor . I have often described Medtner as being Rachmaninov without the melodies but how wrong I was as the melody is there for those with the artistic sensibility and technical mastery to find it and to allow the celestial angels to sing unimpeded.
A remarkable lesson from a Master who in a few well chosen words with humility and humanity could ignite and inspire these well trained young musicians and show them the beauty that lies in the world of fantasy and artistry that lies beyond the printed page and awaits with a kiss to be awakened.
Here is some information about the theatre in Rome that became a cultural haven for some of the greatest musicians of our time
https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2024/03/20/christopher-axworthy-dip-ram-aram/
ChristopherAxworthy-MusicCommentary 