Mesmerizing Maurizio Pollini recital in Tivoli, Copenhagen

Maurizio Pollini, piano. Tivoli Gardens, Copenhagen. September 14th 2008.

I may as well make my position clear from the start: Maurizio Pollini is quite simply the greatest pianist alive.

Last year I was lucky enough to get a free ticket to his all-Chopin recital in Salzburg. This year I missed his Salzburg recital by one day, chosing to attend the Bayreuth Parsifal instead. Which, of course, was a mistake. In the Copenhagen Tivoli Gardens Pollini played Beethoven and Liszt (programme below). Maurizio Pollini has a reputation for turning out performances of widely varying quality, though when everything clicks, as it did here, it is a truly revelatory experience.

It has repeatedly been brought forward, also in the Tivoli programme notes, that Maurizio Pollini shares his concert fees 50-50 with his piano tuner. Really? 50-50? That must be one billionaire piano tuner..

From the start it was clear thatPollini was top-motivated. And the handful of wrong right-hand notes in The Tempest strangely enough only underscored how superb he was. The Appassionata was staggering. I have never heard such powerful Beethoven, on CD or live. That is, powerful without ever loosing grip of the underlying structure of the music, emphasizing the contrapunctual structures. It is simply grandiose. I was rather suprised, though, at how much he uses the pedal, especially in The tempest to make almost atonal harmonies.

There is nothing cold about Pollini´s interpretations. Luckily, there is nothing sentimental about him either. He simply swipes away all the dust from whatever pieces he is playing so only the core remains. I´ve always discarded Chopin as a sentimental composer. Until I one day stumbled upon Maurizio Pollini´s recording of some of the Ballades. In Copenhagen, he only played Chopin in the encores, with a shattering performance of The Revolutionary Study, an encore he also played last year in Salzburg.

Maurizio Pollini simply has a piano technique to die for. In a way it´s rather encouraging that this 65-year old is still able to play all the 20-something piano miracles under the table. Not only because he is a superior interpreter. But his core qualifications - i.e. the technique - is better as well. I´ve never heard so perfectly smooth runs as the ones he made in the Appassionata. Though technical virtuosity has never been a goal for him, just a necessary means to convey the deeper meaning of the music. It´s one of his most distinctive qualities, that he just seems to know how a piano works. If Pollini would ever performe the complete Beethoven sonatas in 1-2 weeks it would be worth travelling across the world to hear (unfortunately he won´t do that ).

I would think someone who plays the piano like this would be a superb conductor. Perhaps he is ultimately not extrovert enough to conduct. But then, Carlos Kleiber, not exactly famous for his informative interviews, seemed to do just fine...

Rather unusual for Danish audiences, he was greeted with immediate standing ovations after the Liszt sonata.

Absolutely mesmerizing. One of the handful of best performances I have ever attended. I even forgot to take photographs...

Programme:

Beethoven: Sonata opus 31 no 2, "The tempest"
Beethoven: Sonate opus 57, f-minor, “Appassionata”
Liszt: Nuages gris
Liszt: Unstern
Liszt: La lugubre gondola – 1st version
Liszt: R.W. – Venezia
Liszt: Sonate, b-minor

Extras:
Chopin: Prelude (forgot which)
Chopin: Revolutionary Study
Liszt: Trandenscental study no. 10

Overall impression (scale of 1-5, 3=average):

6

2007 mostly opera awards: The best, the worst, the funniest, the most boring......

Top 5 operatic performances of 2007:

1. Tristan and Isolde, La Scala, Milano (review here)
2. Tristan and Isolde, Munich (review here)
3. Parsifal, Berlin State Opera (review here)
4. Don Giovanni, Berlin State Opera (review here)
5. Meistersinger, Bayreuth (review here)

Top 3 non-operatic performances of 2007:

1. Wagner Gala in Munich (review here)
2. Renée Fleming in Thaïs (review here)
3. Pollini recital in Salzburg (review here)

Worst performance: Hans Neuenfels´ staging of the Magic Flute at Komische Oper in Berlin. I´ve tried to forget it, but at times like this, it just pops up (review will follow soon).

Best opera on CD: Testaments release of the complete 1956 Keilberth Ring from Bayreuth. It beats every other version out there, even Solti. Link here.

Best opera on DVD: The complete Kupfer/Barenboim Bayreuth Ring. It´s also top of my Ring DVD list now. Link here.

Best recital disc: Karita Mattila´s Helsinki recital. More here.

Best singer: This will have to be split between René Pape and Waltraud Meier. René Pape for: Filip, Boris Godunov, Gurnemanz, Marke, Hunding and Don G. (link here) Waltraud Meier for these Isoldes. And Ortrud as well. And Sieglinde (link here).

Best conductor: Daniel Barenboim. For the unparallelled intensity he generates conducting Wagner live. And Mozart as well. For: Parsifal, Tristan and Don Giovanni (link here). With Christian Thielemann a close runner-up for that magnificent Bayreuth-Ring.

Best director: Patrice Chéreau. For this. With Dmitri Tcherniakov as a runner-up. For this and this.

Best opera seen on TV/in cinema: Eugene Onegin from the MET. More here. Searing. Unbelievably moving. (Chéreau´s Tristan has moved to the "live opera" category or would otherwise probably have won this category).

Biggest disappointment: To have to close my ears to the awful singing in Siegfried Act III in Wagner´s own theater in Bayreuth, while at the same time listening to Thielemann´s magnificent conducting. More here.

Biggest surprise: To suddenly find myself on stage in Carl Nielsen´s opera Maskarade at the Royal Danish Opera. More here.

Most misunderstood: Katharina Wagner´s staging of Meistersinger in Bayreuth. Claiming that she is an exceptionally radical stage director is simply far off the mark, and is due to the fact that almost nobody has actually seen her work, which lies plainly within the ”modern” German staging tradition and not the slightest radical. More here.

Most ridiculous: The whole game of succession regarding the leadership of the Bayreuth Festival. More here.

Strangest and most amazing: Being in Bayreuth and attending the performances in the Festival House. More here.

Worst behaviour: Bryn Terfel canceling the ROH Ring at almost no notice. More here.

Best behaviour: Reading here about how Plácido Domingo took time to go backstage between acts and meet his fans at the Royal Opera Walküre and apparently was very pleasant as well.

Most generous: When a stranger gave me a free first-rate ticket to the Pollini recital in Salzburg immediately before the performance. More here.

Most irritating: Sitting almost in front of Daniel Barenboim at a Pierre Boulez concert in Berlin, where he was continuously shuffling some papers very noisily around for the entire concert..only to find out that the day after we were sitting right beside him at another Pierre Boulez concert (with the same paper shuffling going on…) .

Most boring: Regardless of excellent productions, and performances of the highest musical quality, baroque operas just are very long…. (no link, since it´s really not the performers fault that baroque opera doesn´t appeal to me)

Most funny: Attending Hoffmann´s tales ath the Royal Opera in Copenhagen an evening where both the tenor lead and substitute were ill and were substituted by….the conductor! More here.

Most disappointing statement: That René Pape has canceled Hans Sachs in Berlin 2008. More here.

Most exciting statement: That he will sing Wotan at La Scala 2010. And Waltraud Meier will be Brünnhilde. More here.

Salzburg Festival 2008: The programme is out and tickets are now available..

UPDATE July 2008: Detailed information on the 2008 Salzburg Festival opera programme including radio transmissions here.


The programme for the 2008 Salzburg Festival is now available online (as well as tickets..).

Highlights include:

Otello - new production by Langridge, cond. Riccardo Muti, singers a.o. Antonenko (O), Poplavaskaya (D) and Àlvarez (I)

Romeo & Juliette - w/Netrebko&Villazon

Don Giovanni - new production by Claus Guth, cond: Billy, Don G: Christopher Maltman

Duke Bluebeard´s Castle - new production by Simons, cond. Eötvos, w/Struckmann, De Young

Rusalka - new production by Wieler/Morabito with Camilla Nylund and Piotr Beczala

The Magic Flute - Repremiere of Audi´s staging

As usual various concerts and recitals with a.o. Vienna & Berlin Philharmonics, Daniel Barenboim, Pierre Boulez, Kryzstian Zimmermann, Maurizio Pollini, Vesselina Kasarova, Elina Garanca a.o. - more info on the Festival website here

Muti will conduct "A german requiem" and Esa-Pekka Salonen will conduct Mahlers 3rd Symphony, both with the Vienna Philharmonics.

Simon Ratttle will conduct Messiaen´s Turangalila Symphony with the Berlin Philharmonics.

Gustavo Dudamel and the Símon Bolívar Youth Orchestra will be orchestra in residence.

Magnificent Pollini recital in Salzburg

Arriving at Salzburg train station 30 minutes before performance start and rushing to the Festival Hall arriving there exactly 5 minutes before the start of this sold-out performance – without a ticket - things didn’t really look that good. Then something amazing happened: While desperately looking around for tickets, I was suddenly approached by a young man asking me if I wanted a ticket, which he would then give me for free due to illness in his family – so that’s how I had a prime 13th row in the middle 90 Euro seat for this sold-out recital for free!

There are very few artists who have changed my way of viewing the works of a composer, with Maurizio Pollini playing Chopin being one (and Pierre Boulez/Debussy another). Not previously interested in Chopin’s music, which I have always found sentimental, I picked up this recording a couple of years ago by chance. And was immediately blown away by the playing, which shows a completely different Chopin than I had previously been acquainted with - magisterial, commanding, not without emotions, but never sentimental. To date I have never found interpretations as convincing as his in this repertoire.

First half of the recital with Schumann (see program below) started out well, but it was the Chopin program in the second half that blow the audience away. It was everything this music should be – magnificent, dynamic, commanding, with plenty of emotion but never sentimental. Deservedly greeted with standing ovations by the audience and three encores (all Chopin). I was later told that Pollini´s recitals may be of very fluctuating quality – and that this was an exceptionally good evening for him. It was definitely an exceptionally good evening for us lucky people in the audience.


Recital program below:

Robert Schumann Allegro op. 8
Robert Schumann Kreisleriana op. 16
Frédéric Chopin Prélude cis-Moll op. 45
Frédéric Chopin Ballade Nr. 2 F-Dur op. 38
Frédéric Chopin Deux Nocturnes cis-Moll und Des-Dur op. 27
Frédéric Chopin Scherzo Nr. 3 cis-Moll op. 39
Frédéric Chopin Polonaise As-Dur op. 53 – "Héroïque"