When Great Pianists
Irritate The Rest Of Us
OK, I’ve got to say it:
Sometimes the “Great Pianists” disappoint me. I guess I’m thinking of some of their older
recordings, when they were young and quite sure of themselves. Take Rubinstein, for example, a great master if there ever was one; yet what a difference between some of his earlier
recordings and the ones he made towards the end of his career. I cringe when I hear some of his recordings
from the early years; yet among his best recordings are the Brahms B-flat
Concerto, with Ormandy—I love the cover art of the two older gentlemen—and his
last recording playing the Brahms D-minor in Israel with Zubin Mehta
conducting.
Maybe it’s youthful ardor versus wiser maturity, a road all
or most of us must take. Or maybe it’s something else, something more inherent
in the artist himself.
Take Vladimir Horowitz.
With Horowitz there’s a hyper nervous energy that drives him like a
whip. He just can’t play fast enough or simply enough notes at once. Many of his recordings reflect musical vision
that surpasses that of practically any pianist after him and probably
before. His Schumann Fantasy from the
Return To Carnegie Hall concert soars with eagles and lulls you with the most achingly
intimate finale one could possibly imagine.
Yet on his recording with Ormandy of the Rachmaninov 3rd,
(there are actually two, if I’m not mistaken, one from 1951 and the other from
1978) all I was hearing was acrobatics.
He might as well have been an Olympic athlete, except you could hear the
wrong notes and almost visualize the errors he made on the mat, er, keyboard.
The tone is dry and harsh; the concept more overdone baroque
than underplayed romantic.
On the recording I heard (judging by the sound, I’m guessing
it was the 1951 version), Horowitz made the orchestra disappear, which I guess
was a result of the way the engineers miked the recording. When you can actually hear the orchestra,
they sound like a bunch of mice scurrying about. My guess is Ormandy would never let anyone
other than Horowitz get away with making HIS orchestra play like that. The closing octaves sound as though he can’t
wait to get this whole experience over with—and truthfully, that’s how I felt
too.
Of course I may just be mentally comparing this recording
with the one by Emil Gilels and Andre Cluytens, a fantastic performance in
which the orchestra and the piano are perfectly matched in passion, sound and
concept.
So maybe it isn’t a question of age. At least not all of the time. I’m sure that age brings about maturity (with
most of us), and with that comes richer musicality. That was definitely the case with Rubinstein. But with Horowitz, there’s just no
accounting. His Scarlatti sparkles; his
Schumann soars. But his Rach Third just
runs away, and that’s a shame.
(c) 2016 by Boaz D. Heilman
(c) 2016 by Boaz D. Heilman
