SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

Wagner, Chopin, Rachmaninoff: Evgeny Kissin (piano) Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Peter Oundjian (conductor) Roy Thomson Hall, Toronto 4.10.2009 (PPLL)

Wagner: Lohengrin - Prelude to Act III
Chopin: Piano Concerto No.2 in F Minor,Op.21
Rachmaninoff: Symphony No.2


Within a mere 5 days, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (TSO) invited two of the foremost grand masters of the piano as their guests. This past Wednesday saw the formidable Leon Fleisher in Toronto as part of his concert tour in Eastern Canada whose insightful reading of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.12 is reviewed today.  Then, on the following Sunday afternoon, Maestro Peter Oundjian introduced by saying, ‘Today is October 4^th and it seems to be a special day. At 18 years old, Evgeny Kissin made his recital début in Toronto on October 4^th, and just one year ago, the TSO was at Carnegie Hall, also on October 4^th.” To supplement Maestro Oundjian’s remark, one add that it was four years ago during this very first week of October, when the TSO musicians engaged in a special ‘Beethoven marathon’ with the same pianist. Those present could vividly recall the Olympian feat that Kissin delivered when on two weekdays he performed all ofthe Beethoven concertos, under the direction of Sir Andrew Davis. On this Oct 4^th afternoon, pianophiles and Kissin fans flocked to hear the composition that once made Kissin famous worldwide at the tender age of twelve: Chopin’s Piano Concerto No.2.

TSO began the concert with the Prelude to Act IIIof Wagner’s Lohengrin. The quality of the TSO strings was excellent, not just in terms of precision or rhythmic pulse, but Maestro Oundjian’s effort to bring out colours and timbres would have reflected the drama on stage ideally, as Elsa and Lohengrin lead up into their love duet in Act III. The brass playing was equally superb, because not only was it technically note-perfect (which often is a major challenge for the horns), but again, Maestro Oundjian had rehearsed his musicians with vast imagination and contrast. The woodwinds, seldom a disappointment either at TSO concerts, were again impressive as ever, and the overall orchestral balance was as good as it gets.

Mention the name Evgeny Kissin to most classical music lovers and they would probably think of Chopin. The works of the Polish composer have always been a specialty of the Russian wunderkind; it was as early as 1984 when Kissin made hisimpressive recordings of Chopin’s Two Piano Concerti for the Melodiya label which in part launched his career. The Chopin F Minor Concerto Op.22 was once deceivingly known as the composer’s second, as it was published after the E Minor Concerto Op.11, although in fact, was the first of the two composed between 1829-1830. The opening Maestoso movement highlighted an orchestral accompaniment which, in simplistic terms, matched the commitments of the pianist phrase by phrase beautifully. The dialogue of melodic lines between Kissin and the orchestra struck the perfect balance needed to portray the “stately, dignified and majestic quality” instructed by Chopin in this epic section. But, arguably, the symbiosis between them reached its peak in the following Larghetto . With Larghetto’s haunting theme we have a musical love letter to a young woman Chopin greatly admired from afar. Here, Kissin essentially personified this music with melodic playing and delicate figurations so tender that it resembled an opera singer’s bel canto voice. Equally gently, the TSO strings added the necessary shimmer like vocal echoes, greatly intensifying the intimate setting during the movement’s first half. The combined sounds melted together in beauty and harmony, and contributed in many ways to establishing the gradual build-up of tension that leads to the angst-ridden brass interjections of the movement’s latter half. The Allegro vivace movement proved to be a fountain of vitality, portrayed through an expanded Polish Mazurka. For the pianist, it calls upon an amalgamation of technical facicilty and poetic lyricism to illustrate the brilliance of this dance. Once again, Kissin provided the necessary sparkle and youthful zest in a way achieved by only a few very special musicians. The woodwind’s dialogues with the rest of the Orchestra were brought out especially well under Maestro Oundjian’s meticulous direction and the musical outcome of this Finale alonecould have brought the entire audience to cheer, let alone the successes derived from the former movements. Kissin rewarded several rounds of heated applause with an encore that once was on of Vladimir Horowitz’s very own champion pieces: Schubert-Liszt’s Soirée de Vienne No.6 – a fancy waltz transcription that further displayed Kissin’s signature sweet ringing tone.

Following the earlier rather unimpressive reading of the Rachmaninoff Second Symphony on September 30^th by the TSO and Maestro Oundjian, this repeat proved itself to be a joyous rebirth that would have greatly buffered Rachmaninoff against further psychological depression had he been alive to witness it. The opening bars simmered with great expectations – unlike the performance from the previous Wednesday, the second attempt revealed the work’s drama with immense theatrical splendour and aural excitement. Could a performance of this work during an evening rather than in the afternoon really conjure up such great differences? Perhaps not but regardless of the real reasons, this time the famous theme of the Adagio movement sang with monumental sadness. Some might think it sounded overblown or even excessively sentimental, I dare say but the freedom of expression that Rachmaninoff idealized in this movement offers no reason for musicians to restrain themelves at all, to my mind. At the end of this hour-long musical journey filled with love and death, joy and sadness, the audience once more cheered enthusiastically for Oundjian and his TSO musicians. The whistles and excited applause were certainly well-deserved, for the musicians had given 110% of their efforts to express the epic nature of Russian tragedy that pervades this music.

Let’s only hope that Oct. 4^th concerts in forthcoming years will provide more great Evgeny Kissin performances, and pair them with other great e Russian orchestral masterpieces. Any of the three symphonies by Tikhon Khrennikov, which happen to be one of Kissin’s (and the writer’s) favorite pieces would be particularly good choices.

Patrick P.L. Lam