Murray Perahia received a warm welcome from the audience as he appeared on the stage. The afternoon begun with nicely produced Toccata – an opening of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Partita No. 6 in E minor BWV 830 – followed by competent performance of the whole work. It was a bit old-fashioned aesthetic, but the playing was confident and some details were very interesting. The tempi were too fast though, especially in Tempo di Gavotta.
The next item of programme was Ludwig van Beethoven’s Sonata in E major Op. 109. It is complicated work, with many interesting formal nuances, with great intellectual aspect dominating over spontaneity. The pianist dealt successfully with all difficulties of the work, and was able to uncover many of charms this Sonata has to offer. Perahia had it all under control: the text, the music and the audience. No one was willing to destroy meaningful silence that followed the last chord of the sonata with banal clapping. Eventually, the artist gave sign that Sonata had ended. The first part of the recital certainly raised some expectations.
The second part, consisting of rather random selection of Chopin’s works, begun with Ballade in A flat major Op. 47. There was a good sense of form and structure evident from the performance as well as the narrative skill of the pianist. But then strange things had begun to happen. Was it because of fatigue or because of the stresses being broadcasted in TV (the artist was literally surrounded by cameras)? It is impossible to determine. It all begun with the purely accidental finger slip in Etude in E minor Op. 25 No. 5 and then the number of imperfections grew with every work played until the forgettable performance of Scherzo in E major Op. 54. In the meantime there were some Mazurkas offered, among other pieces. Despite the encouraging cheers from the balcony, our opinion is that the distinctive element of this dance was not touched upon.
The audience decided to appreciate the whole picture and to forgive the uneven struggle with passages of the Scherzo. Warm applause resulted in two encores: the first one was Chopin’s Nocturne while the last piece played was generally considered to be some Latin-American folk song arrangement. Piano gurus swear, however, that the piece was actually an Intermezzo by Brahms.
Perrahia’s Chopin is already forgotten, but his interpretation of Sonata in E major by Beethoven shall be remembered for a long time.
Krzysztof Komarnicki
