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Rating: Unmissable evening at the Milan Conservatory. The occasion is the penultimate concert in Italian lands of Maestro Alfred Brendel, the great elder of world pianism, now nearing retirement. Brendel, who has announced his retirement for next December, will hold a final Italian concert at La Scala in November 2008, but given his long tradition of performances at the Milan Conservatory, last night's concert was presented as an event full of significance.
In front of a packed house like never before, the Maestro enters the stage with Teutonic punctuality at 8:30, and after a brief bow, is immediately ready to tackle the dense, challenging, and fascinating program: the 4 Viennese, Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, and Mozart are all represented through some of their most sublime compositions for solo piano.
In total silence, the crystal-clear first bars of the allegro moderato rise, the first part of the sonata in C minor Hob.XVI.20 by Franz Joseph Haydn. As expected, Brendel's interpretation is astonishing in its clarity; the continuous falls of the first movement give way to the melodic flow of the andante, then closing with the sparks of the very lively concluding allegro.
The evening's first thunderous applause frames the Maestro's performance, extraordinary in rendering the different moods, rhythmic pulses, pauses, and accelerations of a sonata fundamental to the development of the Viennese piano repertoire.
After an exit and consequent acclaim, old Alfred sits back at the instrument and immediately attacks Beethoven's sonata No. 31 in A-flat major op.110. And now, let emotion reign. Because if Haydn was tackled with absolute perfection, already from Beethoven's "moderato cantabile molto," Brendel silences the audience with his well-known class. The passion, the intensity of the performance is overwhelming; the Pianist plays each note with a gentle aggressiveness, gliding over the keys in the slower parts, then jumping on the stool, despite arthritis, and carving granite chords in the livelier moments. It is the touch that makes a great pianist an absolute genius, and this elderly Austrian's mastery has very few rivals. The audience is enthusiastic and pays the Maestro a respectful ovation.
With the masterpiece of Ludovico Van (in Kubrick's words), the first part of the concert concludes in a crescendo. The intermission arrives providentially to allow a quick run to the foyer bar. With the increase in musical pathos, the temperature in the hall has also skyrocketed, and like me, many spectators take advantage of the pause to quench their fierce thirst.
Adequately refreshed, everyone returns to the hall at the sound of the bell. The program now features a composer particularly dear to Brendel, Schubert. Pieces chosen for the evening are 2 impromptus—improvisations—a kind of airy incomplete sonatas. Of Schubert, Alfred Brendel is undoubtedly one of the best interpreters ever: his recordings, both studio and live, of the various sonatas and indeed the "impromptus" are legendary. The first, of the four present in the corpus of Schubert's works, is the one in F minor. The attack is lively, cheerful, and decisive; the repeated tritones are tackled by the concert pianist with an unsuspected strength for his no longer tender age (76!). Sweetly though, the piece fades to reach more relaxed, nostalgic, and almost melancholic atmospheres; the image of an evening in a Viennese salon seems to appear, friends gathered and Franz playing the piano, the evening progresses, fatigue comes, it is the moment of memories. Always with grace, the piece concludes, fading into the following, melancholic and twilight-like the dying embers in the fireplace. The applause following the conclusion of the impromptu in B-flat major expresses the audience's gratitude towards Brendel, an incomparable dispenser of sensations.
The concert approaches its end with the grand finale, the celebrated sonata in C minor K 457 by W. A. Mozart. The ineffability of Dantean memory is the only expressible sensation. It seems impossible to render in words the sublime and poignant completeness of the work, the lively and graceful lightness, the assured flow of notes, never so corporeally ethereal. The conclusion of the piece is grandiose: a masterful break and the Maestro stands to receive the affection of those present. The ovation bestowed upon him is the summa of all the gratitude for a memorable evening. But it is not over yet.
Brendel, moved by the audience's gratitude and genuinely happy, sits back at the piano for one last piece. The farewell can only be drawn from a composer particularly dear to him; from the pianist's vast repertoire, it's again Schubert, a third impromptu.
Now everything has truly concluded, the standing hall rewards Alfred Brendel for the last, excellent concert in this venue, which has hosted and honored him many times. Standing, we all applaud Alfred Brendel, a distinguished elderly gentleman who, seated at the instrument, always transforms into the Genius capable, with his interpretations, of making countless Works of the Greats of the past shine.
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