Argerich and Barenboim - a golden duo

Ludwig van Beethoven: Piano Concerto No.1
Richard Strauss: Ein Heldenleben

Staatskapelle Berlin 
Daniel Barenboim conductor 
Martha Argerich piano

20 April 2015, Royal Festival Hall, London
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A concert featuring Martha Argerich and Daniel Barenboim?  Who could resist?  And with Stephen Kovacevich in the audience there were at least three master pianists at the Royal Festival Hall on the night.  This concert was burdened with the highest expectations, but for those who had travelled from far and wide to attend there was to be no disappointment.

The Beethoven First Piano Concerto commenced with the most hushed of openings from the excellent Berlin Staatskapelle, before blooming into a wonderful tutti.  The golden string section rippling attractively without over-romanticisation.  This classical approach was taken up by Argerich and a totally engaging performance developed.  Martha Argerich is probably incapable of being dull.  The subtle variation and weighting of passages, the crystalline attack on notes and chords, were sublime.
 
And the musicianship needed to be of a top level. The interpretation was daringly broad, at times almost static, but saved by the massive artistic command of the musicians and the sheer delight of the musicality of the performance.  How exquisite to hear such interplay, the free flowing meeting of musical minds.
 
That the performance was met with an ovation was perhaps to be expected.  What followed was not.  Out came an extra piano stool and Barenboim and Argerich proceeded to give a thoroughly leisurely account of Schubert’s Rondo for piano 4 hands.  The two pianists sat close together at the piano across almost 10 minutes of golden melody.  Unforgettable.
 
The Berlin Staatskapelle rounded off the evening with a very fine account of Strauss’ Ein Heldenleben.  The concertmaster was the most relaxed of violin soloists depicting the Hero’s wife, and Barenboim coaxed a satisfying shape and sonority to the quasi-Wagnerian conclusion.

The Borodin at Wigmore Hall

Dmitri Shostakovich

String Quartet No. 10 in A flat major Op. 118

String Quartet No. 8 in C minor Op. 110

Ludwig van Beethoven 

String Quartet No. 14 in C sharp minor Op. 131

Borodin Quartet

19 April 2015, Wigmore Hall, London
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It bears repeating.  Dmitri Shostakovich wrote his Eighth String Quartet in 3 days.  While it is based around his musical signature - his initials D S C H written into the score - the quartet treats this material in a wide variety of ways.  Its directness of utterance and sombre, strongly personal character make it one of the real impact quartets in the repertoire.

With the Borodin Quartet we were in the safest of hands.  This is a group with a historical connection to the composer.  The Eighth can get others over-excited.  Crucially the Borodin Quartet did not exaggerate the emotion.  This very fine quartet's evenness of tone and sound was again evident, as with their appearance in Wimbledon last year.   This had a wonderful effect in the rich major harmony of the String Quartet Number 10.

The inexhaustible Beethoven C# Minor Quartet formed the second half.  What a pinnacle of quartet writing it is.  Almost a meta-quartet, seemingly searching through the possibilities of the four instruments individually and collectively, before coming into focus in the last two of the seven movements.  On this night the detached, philosophical approach of the Borodin, together with its harmonious, blended sound made for a richly satisfying conclusion to the evening.

Buniatishvili destroys Liszt

Modest Mussorgsky Pictures at an Exhibition 
Franz Liszt
Liebestraume No. 3
Mephisto waltz No. 1
La leggierezza 
Feux follets
La campanella
Grand galop chromatique S219 
Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 in C sharp minor (arr. Vladimir Horowitz)

Khatia Buniatishvili, piano

1 April 2015, Wigmore Hall, London
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A most frustrating recital.   The Georgian pianist Khatia Buniatishvili possesses a super technique, interpretative originality and intensity.  While these qualities remained focused, this resulted in a very memorable performance of Pictures at an Exhibition, mesmirising from the strikingly ruminative Promenade at the opening.

While there was some tendency to treat something like the Ballet of Unhatched Chicks as a finger exercise, each picture was strongly articulated and the performance climaxed with a genuinely hair-raising portrait of the witch Baba Yaga and an impressive Great Gate of Kiev.  Splendid.

The second half was all Liszt, much of it famously difficult.  What was the piece most concerning Buniatishvili?  Of course Feux follets - she was practising it all through the interval.  In the end this work was the high point of a dismal set of performances.

The Liebestraume started well enough but as Buniatishivili launched into the First Mephisto Waltz she became increasingly ill-disciplined. On a pure note playing level, many notes were bashed in a very short space of time indeed.   But faster and louder does not mean better, or even more exciting.  The piece lost all shape in a blur of notes, the musical impact was negligible. 

This lack of discipline contined. Liszt's favourite encore, the Grand Gallop was given a particularly ridiculous pulverising.  Despite an extraordinary velocity and volume, in this pianist's hands it had neither wit nor thrills.  The nadir was reached as the Hungarian Rhapsody Number 2 descended into a shapeless mash of notes and chords that were virtual sonic booms such was the exaggeration.

What can be said in conclusion?  Perhaps the less the better.  Much of the playing after the interval was borderline disrespectful to the compositions.  Liszt reduced to empty display.  Those that are hoping Khatia Buniatishvili's obvious talent will mature into great artistry must be harboring substantial doubts.

Noble Liszt - not at Wigmore Hall