A few nights ago we had the pleasure of seeing the celebrated pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim, in recital at the Chatelet Theatre. I’d be lying to you if i said that we weren’t looking forward to this recital. When we were taking out our subscriptions last year for this coming year, we had to choose between Barenboim, Maurizio Pollini, Ivan Moravec, Nelson Freire, Yundi Li, Alfred Brendel, and Murray Perrahia.
The problem with Paris (if one could fall it a problem) is that there is simply WAY TOO MUCH to do. There are far too many concerts that are wonderful for us to afford to go to all of them, so one has to make the choices. We decided that we would limit ourselves to three (in these series of recitals). The other problem is the price. The cheapest of these tickets (we were in the 4th or 5th balcony) were about 20 euros. The most expensive around 90.
In the end we chose, Barenboim, Pollini and Yundi Li. Barenboim, because, well it’s Barenboim. Pollini, because one does not know how longer he will be giving recitals, and though he is no longer the fiery head-turning artist that he used to be, it’s still an honour to get to see him live. And finally, Yundi Li, because all the news around him was making him to be the greatest thing since Pollini. In fact we got to see Yundi Li earlier in the year performing the Chopin Piano concerto, and i have to say that it sounded rather lifeless and ordinary. So the opinion is still out on him. The media has made an Apollonian/Dionysian battle between Lang Lang (which we actually met in person last year!).
As to why the others weren’t chosen, well, we already have tickets for two other Nelson Freire performance; Brendel is wonderful as an artist and completely uninteresting as a person, and Moravec, well, depsite the fact that he is a legend also, i just don’t know enough to choose him over the likes of Pollini and Barenboim. Ok, back to the concert .
The program for this concert, was the entire Book II of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier. And when he said the entire Book II, he meant the entire Book II. The concert started at 8PM and finished at 11PM. That is astounding by any standard. I cannot imagine many pianist who would physically be able to handle something like that.
How was the concert itself. Well, I have to say that, perhaps I am a bit spoiled; by Glenn Gould that is. I cannot imagine ever hearing anyone playing Bach more perfectly than the great Canadian. Anne-laure has told me that he once heard Andreas Staier play the Goldberg Variations on the harpsichord, and she said it was fantastic also. But then again, that’s Staier.
As for Barenboim, he was very good, but in a very local way. Unfortunately to me, it didn’t sound like proper Bach; and not like proper Baroque in fact. It got far far better as the recital progressed, however i wouldn’t say that it was very cannonical baroque. The main problem was that there was far too much pedal, and worse yet, there were too many tempo changes, notably at the start. For me, Baroque like classical, has to be very precise with respect to the tempo.
Now, i feel a bit bad or rather stupid criticising such an absolutely fantastic pianist, however, in the end one will either like the performance of a piece, or one will not. I look forward to the next time I have a chance to see Barenboim in performace.
What was quite impressive was the endurance factor. He started playing at 8 PM, finished almost at 11, with one intermission. Can you imagine sitting down in front of thousands people for three hours? Unfortunately (but not surprisingly) towards the end, there were many whose heads were beginning to roll forward. Considering the average age at most of these concerts, a little bit of mid-concert nap is not too surprising. We had the second cheapest class of tickets and we were way up, on the 4th balcony. Barenboim looked like a tiny speck directly beneath us. However all in all, a fantastic experience.
As for the next concert, well, it’s tonite! We get to see my beloved Boris Berezovsky play the 2nd piano concerto of Prokofiev. I LOVE BORIS BEREZOVSKY (not the billionaire tycoon). If you will remember from Nov 2003, I heard of this guy for the first time when he performed the 3rd piano concerto of Rachmaninoff at Toronto, and blew me away in the process. Since that time i have found out more about him and listened to many of his recordings, and truly discovered his genius. It is impressive how much better known he is in Europe than in North Ameria. I will have some posts dedicated to this genius of the piano soon. (Yesterday he was playing the Godowsky studies of the Chopin Etudes at the Louvre, live!)
