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Rating: Kissin: Growing Little Prodigies
May 30. Parco della Musica in Rome, Eugenij Kissin closes the season dedicated to pianists. A concert among the most anticipated after the success achieved by the young Russian pianist in 2004 with the complete performance of Beethoven's concertos.
Anticipated by the Roman audience.
Anticipated by me.
The program is undoubtedly fascinating, but I take a first, fleeting glance and it seems to be that of any young pianist fresh from graduation, if it weren't for the opening piece, still rarely performed today: the Sonata in Eb Major op. 568 composed by a twenty-year-old Schubert, in which the characteristic features of his mature pianism already clearly emerge, despite being in a form that is far from balanced: a richness of melodic lines never fully characterized into true themes that proceed spirally from one another, chasing each other until expanding a form that still attempts to maintain classical schemes while adhering to an absolutely informal internal articulation, already romantic, in some respects Brahmsian.
And it is the Brahms of the Ineffable, that of op.118, and which has been enclosed, like a pearl, at the center of the program, preceded by Beethoven’s 32 variations in C minor, followed by Chopin's Grande Polonaise brillante op.22 in Eb Major.
Eb again, not a coincidence then.
Observing Kissin, he is 35 years old, but in manner and appearance, he still seems like the prodigy child he once was, now, however, with his baggage made of remarkable digital capacities and a vast repertoire already tackled, with his touch, open, clear, in some ways sparkling, even if not dense or perhaps not yet varied and differentiated in timbre, he composes a program based on a key, Eb Major, open, at times heroic, daring with a youthful ardor, and brilliant yet with an opalescent luminosity. A key that, however, can quickly shift to the dark and gloomy tones of its relative minor, the C of Beethoven’s Variations.
A tonal path not coincidental, then. Everything seems to be related to everything, as, after all, often happens in Schubert. The Eb, floating, smooths out contrasts, polishes the still necessary roughness.
Softens.
This is Kissin's way of playing, between two sharply opposed but internally uniform blocks where, on one hand, the Lyrical and the Poetic sometimes blur into the Effeminate and the Sentimental, highlighted by often discontinuous and fragmented phrasing; ‘good things of poor taste’, so beloved by the gozzanian Miss Felicita, found their ultimate expression in the Andante Spianato and in the II intermezzo of op. 118, as if Poetry and Depth, not only of Brahms, could reside only in Exteriority and visible Exteriorizing, rather than in simple but rigorous authenticity.
And opposed, on the other hand, the rhythmic pulse, vital and lively underlying his virtuosity that mainly animated the 32 Variations: an original and interesting reading of a composition, intellectualistic, lacking an opus number, thus a more Musikant than Musician Beethoven. Kissin, from the first variation, aligns himself with those who see the Theme and Variations as a form of free experimentation in which, intentionally highlighting in a play of contrasts, the clear opposition between baroque or neo-baroque with characteristics of improvisational lightness and musical contents of a new romantic intensity and density.
And from the Eb of authentic dancing Viennese nature of the initial Schubert, through that C minor, Kissin reached the final Eb of the Andante Spianato and grand Polonaise brillante, the quintessential Biedermeier piece, understood as the anonymous Mr. Mario Rossi, a Viennese nature... diluted, created and recreated by him to be easily appealing to the public.
Interesting concert and pianist, more than emotionally engaging. Kissin, if he involves and moves, is still mainly due to his undeniable technical prowess, and not even as much as his almost peer Volodos, with whom he seems to have deliberately put himself in competition given the presence in his encores of transcriptions of literally transcendental difficulty intended to enthrall an audience that, more and more recently, seems to love seeing, and only THEN hearing, fingers flying over the keyboard regardless of what such a sometimes frenetic race transmits and communicates.
It’s not yet the case for Kissin. Not completely, at least.
The Romance and the final Intermezzo of op.118 reflect a pianist capable not only of impressing but also of capturing the soul and spirit of a composer and ‘returning them’ to the audience, a pianist who is thus on the path of authentic interpretation, made of depth, simple expressivity, and also searching for the most suitable sound means to express it.
Even child prodigies have to grow up, and perhaps, in Eugenij Kissin, the amazing and astonishing child begins to finally give way to the Musician.
Vera Mazzotta
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