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Music Review

Romantics Meet (Composer and Pianist), and Sparks Fly

Evgeny Kissin: The pianist performing a Liszt program at Carnegie Hall on Wednesday in commemoration of that composer’s 200th birthday.Credit...Marcus Yam for The New York Times

There was a fleeting moment during Evgeny Kissin’s astonishing Liszt program at Carnegie Hall on Wednesday night when the prodigious command and utter naturalness of his pianism came through in an endearingly human way.

He was playing an encore, “Soirées de Vienne,” Liszt’s dazzling and decorative arrangement of some Schubert dances. At one point in the piece an undulant oom-pah-pah pattern in the left hand drops out, leaving the right hand to veer off into a descending cascade of spiraling passagework. Mr. Kissin dispatched the filigreed figurations with delicate, milky textures and uncanny clarity: a wondrous rush of notes. Yet while his right hand was occupied, he wiped his brow and rubbed his eyelids with his left. Obviously, executing this flight was no problem. But a drop of perspiration, or an itch in his eye, or whatever it was, well, that required some attention.

Mr. Kissin’s program was a contribution to the commemorations honoring Liszt’s 200th birthday this year. At the center, ending the first half, was a magnificent account of the seminal Sonata in B minor. Though he did not explore the harmonically radical late-period Liszt, Mr. Kissin played three other major works from the mid-19th century that fully demonstrated Liszt’s searching, exploratory side. And he ended with a coolly virtuosic account of “Venezia e Napoli,” a pastiche of Italian gondola songs and a whirling tarantella, all played with exhilarating brilliance and style.

It is in matters of style that Mr. Kissin has encountered the only criticism of his artistry. Without question he is a phenomenal pianist, a deeply intuitive and sensitive musician. Still, he comes from a Russian Romantic heritage, and his penchant for playing with generous rubato and interpretive freedom is not to all tastes.

Liszt, of course, is the ultimate in rhapsodic Romanticism. He and Mr. Kissin are well matched. What was surprising here was how this music prodded Mr. Kissin to play with exceptional directness and rhythmic integrity, though some of the affecting simplicity of his music making may come from increasing maturity. It is hard to believe that Mr. Kissin is 39. He still looks like a gangly, bushy-haired young man, who takes bows stiffly and does not know what to do with his arms when he is not playing the piano.

His performance of “Ricordanza” (the “Transcendental” Étude No. 9) was a miraculous balancing act of lyrical refinement and technical flash. His gravely beautiful account of the amazing “Funérailles” from “Harmonies Poétiques et Religieuses” (in its second version) was for me the highlight. The piece opens with tolling funereal bells in the low register of the piano, which Mr. Kissin played with steely sound and incisive attack.

He maintained the relentless rhythmic tread as the music broke into a demonic march with pummeling left-hand figurations and octaves. And he gave a stunning performance of “Vallée d’Obermann” from the “Années de Pèlerinage,” an episodic 13-minute work often likened to a symphonic poem for piano. Here Mr. Kissin deftly shifted from mystical reverie to crazed spasms of arm-blurring repeated chords and octaves.

He met the challenges of the Sonata in B minor, playing fearlessly and with uncanny ease. But he impressed me even more for the grandeur of his conception and the nuances in his execution. I loved the crisp bite of his sound when the piece broke into a fugal treatment of the theme.

For a 2007 recital at Carnegie Hall the tireless and generous Mr. Kissin played 12 encores, ending the evening at 11:45. Here he played three, including Liszt’s popular “Liebestraum” and his arrangement of Schumann’s song “Widmung” before the adoring audience, which included four rows of people sitting onstage, finally let him leave.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section C, Page 3 of the New York edition with the headline: Romantics Meet (Composer and Pianist), and Sparks Fly. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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