Thursday
1st July 2004 Victoria Concert Hall
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Singapore International
Piano Festival |
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J.S. BACH-Wilhelm KEMPFF Siliciano (From Flute Sonata in E. BWV 1031) J.S. BACH-Wilhelm KEMPFF Chorale Jesu, bleibet meine Freude J.S. BACH-Wilhelm KEMPFF Chorale Preludes: Es ist gewisslich an der Zeit (BWV307) Nun freut euch, liebe Christen g'mein (BWV 734) Frederic
CHOPIN Four Impromptus
Sergei RACHMANINOFF Six Etude-Tableaux, from Op. 33 & 39 Gyorgy Sandor LIGETI Three Etudes Igor STRAVINSKY The Firebird (Selections) Idil BIRET piano
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OVERALL NOISE RATING: 3
(Phone ringing in the second subject of the Ballade. ARGH)
The Noise Rating Index is a partially-objective measurement of pager and handphone blasts, 9pm and 10pm watch beeps, coughing-during-the-pianissimo-bits, intra-audience conversation and other mind-bogglingly inept noises emitted in the concert hall during actual performance of music. It is measured on a scale of 0 to 5, in increasing annoyance.
This review has been kindly sponsored by the
Singapore International Piano
Festival
Read reviews for all 4 nights!
First Night Second Night Third Night Fourth Night
by Derek Lim
It seems that Turkish pianist Idil Biret (Bee-RIT) will always be controversial. I mean this in the best possible way. Pianists who know how to play "correctly" are legion; those who shed new light on the music they play are far fewer. When I first encountered some of Ms Biret's recordings I thought her interpretation wrong-headed. Further listening convinced me that it was I who needed my ears washed out.
Ms Biret has a very wide discography indeed and has previously recorded the complete cycles of solo piano music of Brahms and Chopin. Tonight's programme was nothing less than a tour de force of piano playing, offering snippets of her vast repertoire, and if in some spots her playing was technically not up to the standards of the rest of the concert at least it was never boring.
Biret was a prominent student of Kempff, so her playing Kempff's own transcription of Bach must have had particular authority, but I found the first two out of the three rather unsatisfactory, as if she was warming up to the keyboard. Her sparing use of pedal in the famous Jesu, bleibet meine Freude left me thinking of craggy mountain tops, the sound of her chords not round but rather exposed. Here and everywhere else in the concert was her frequent use of rubato, which worked less well here than in other pieces, the “islands” so to speak disrupting the continuous gentle “river” of notes
accompanying it too much. The piano also didn't start to “sing” until the Es ist gewisslich . It was only in Nun freut euch that Biret's playing suddenly and dramatically came to life, sparkling and Gould-like in the sheer joy of the fast Baroque.
The four impromptus by Chopin were what followed and despite reservations, having heard some of Biret's Chopin previously, all were put aside by what was a distinctly persuasive performance. Her playing is about as feminine as Martha Argerich's. This wasn't the charming salon-music type of Chopin, but the Chopin of the polonaises, robust and muscular. It was splendid, bringing out the imagistic quality that populates Chopin's music with that improvisatory feel, in turns feverish and tender, tone and temperament happy to co-exist and only sometimes was tone sacrificed to temperament.
That Biret managed to make the Ballade sound fresh again was a testament to her musical experience. Her approach, though not Romantic, was still well away from being didactic. Again there was the feel of something improvisatory though the long line was always there. The bravura passages satisfied immensely still and the total effect was, if not overwhelming, still marvelous, as the audience's appreciative applause showed.
The music after the interval was much more out of the usual repertoire we hear. Surprisingly, out of the three sets of music, the Rachmaninov was the most arbitrarily played, wrong notes and all, although the big picture was there again, with the general moods of the pieces brought out quite well. Interesting touches were the fourth selection, Op.33 No.6, which was quite hair-raising. Her playing was impulsive and the last selection, Op. 39 No.9 in particular was quite the barnstorming performance.
The three Ligeti Etudes selected (No.10, 2 and 6) were an eye-opener into the fascinating style of Ligeti. Here was the excitement of sheer virtuosity, the first selection a rhythmic moto perpetuo humorous and stirring, the second a seemingly calm soundscape that quickly turns agitated and then calm again (a little like Liszt's own Harmonies du Soir though clearly of a different idiom) and the third (ostensibly) a fugue. Biret played these with conviction, and the sheer virtuosity was what came through.
It was the last selection of the concert, selections from Stravinsky's ballet The Firebird, that was by far the most impressive, and it was a sheer tour de force . Colours, imagination and technique had to come together to bring the music to life, and Biret did so admirably, not at all smoothing out the spikiness in Stravinsky's music but making them part of the music. The selections played were the introduction, the Dance of the Firebird, the Rondo of the Princesses, The Infernal Dance, The Berceuse and the Finale. In each one, Biret managed to sustain interest and colour. It was the Finale, richly full-blooded Russian music, which was the crowning glory of the selection, bringing this thoroughly exhausting selection of music to an end. The arrangement cannot hope to conjure the colours and texture of the orchestra, perhaps, but it was still very satisfying, and I am sure that those who have never heard the Firebird will be inspired to discover it.
In spite of the long programme, Ms Biret gave an encore of Wilhelm Kempff's transcription of Handel's G-minor minuet, a crystalline performance that had none of the flaws of the Bach and which was a pleasure to listen to.
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2.7.2004 ©Derek Lim
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