Making a fool of myself

HOW CAN YOU TELL?
Part four.

Judging a pianist’s performance. Not like this! Let me repeat: self-embarrassment is the sternest tutor.

Cleaning the Neff oven involved dismantlement; re-assembly was a nightmare. Covered in black grease, knees aching, whimpering at the mystery, I cleaned myself up, changed my clothes and we drove to Malvern to hear Paul Lewis do Schubert.

Lewis is one of our heroes but my mind lingered on the ratchet holding the heating element to the oven roof. The programme started with a group of sixteen German dances which I didn’t know or like. They must have been very short. Lewis stopped but remained seated at the Yamaha. Some latecomers shuttled in, bent like crabs. For a foolish moment I thought he’d interrupted the dances to let in the latecomers.

He resumed and I still imagined I was listening to the rest of the dances. But when he stopped this time it was the interval. What I’d thought were dances included a shortish allegretto and (unforgivably) piano sonata 14 which, in my own defence, I didn’t know. Mrs LdP was sympathetic and gave me a Minto.

We remained seated as I contemplated my inadequacies with ovens and Schubert. I wondered gloomily whether I knew the forthcoming (latish) sonata 16. But after three notes I knew I knew it. A huge, wide ranging piece ending with a trio and a rondo. Finally, I could listen to some music. Lewis’s especial virtue is clarity which may seem strange. Isn’t all piano-playing “clear”? No, if notes overlap it ceases to be a piano, just a piano-type sound. He is expert at shaping passages, giving them individuality – phrasing in fact. The Neff became mere theory.

Back home we drank a burgundy from under the stairs.

Is music for nerds? Yes or No?

Last week, staying a couple of nights with friends in London, we heard a recital by Jonathan Biss, an unsmiling American pianist who acknowledged applause with his hand over his heart – as if pledging allegiance to the flag. He played two Beethoven sonatas, opus 10 no. 1 and opus 81a (Les Adieux), plus a Janacek sonata (From the Street).

I sort of know most Beethoven piano sonatas but beforehand I let Alfred Brendel refresh opus 10 for me. Les Adieux is famous and I tasted several versions on YouTube. The sonata’s opening bars consist of well separated notes and chords which must be made to hang together as a slow melody. Guiomar Novaes and Solomon managed this, Wilhelm Backhaus did not.

In further preparation I listened to Elias-Axel Pettersson play the Janacek in his final doctoral recital last year at Montreal University. I didn’t know the piece but he played with authority, especially the slow stuff. I emailed to see whether he got his doctorate. He said yes and I was glad.

Forward to Biss. Technically no problems but the opus 10 sounded too loud given its comparative simplicity. I’d have preferred a fortepiano. Facing those initial fragments in Les Adieux Biss avoided the problems by playing faster; legitimate but not as breathtaking. Biss’s Janacek was harsher than Pettersson’s but did it proud. Our friends also hearing the J for the first time liked it and that was good news.

But I was left feeling nerdish. Isn’t such preparation overdoing it? Like boning up on the dictionary before tackling Aldous Huxley. It’s only music. Elsewhere in the world people are really suffering – being denied sub-titled French movies.