Critic’s Notebook: Daniil Trifonov in Recital

Also reviewed for Die Presse: Wie Daniil Trifonov den Mount Beethoven erklomm

Daniil Trifonov - Shtick but Shtupendous!"

Rachmaninov for Two S.Babayan/D.Trifonov DG

L.v.Beethoven, Hammerklaviersonate Maurizio 'The God' Pollini DG

Sit down, play away. Chop-chop, no dilly-dallying. First thoughts on Trifonov racing away with op.106 in the Konzerthaus’ Great Hall: “He can’t possibly keep this tempo up without cracking.” Well, not for lack of pushing the envelope, he didn’t. His way out was a flighty into extreme rubatos, extremes in general, within a movement, within a phrase. As if the sonata wasn’t enough of a high wire act, Trifonov played it without a safety net, almost coming to a halt a few times, then racing away wildly. A bit the cliché of a tempestuous Beethoven, unbridled and famously on perennial bad terms with the comb. There were unwitting elements of George Antheil in this performance and while it was never outright off, there were several occasions where you had to flinch. The slow movement was of ineffable ardency. Again, really going to the limits, seeking, striving, experimenting, putting together an emotional puzzle in the moment. First charming then probing existential questions. Finally the resurrection. In the end, only notes were left, and hardly any Beethoven. Ivo Pogorelich would have been proud. Very nearly absurd? Yes. But also much less annoying that it sounds reading about it. In the Allegro risoluto Trifonov appeared to be in search of time lost in the slow movement, doubling the tempo or making it seem that way, anyway, which underlined the eccentricity of op.106 without actually giving it the needed cohesion.

The flippant, jazzy encore after this (his riff on Art Tatum/Johnny Green’s “I cover the waterfront”), the Chopin-esque bit of Scriabin, or the Chopin-Variations of Mompou’s were very odd and rather out of place, after this titanic struggle.

Speaking of “Pogorelich would have been proud”: The evening started with the Great Hall dimmed well below the usual levels. In this twilight, Daniil Trifonov emerged, all shaggy-bearded and unkempt, in a battered old black suit, walked briskly to the Bösendorfer, sat down, and began before most of the applause arose and before that which had arisen died down. Happily, he doesn’t do any interpretative piano-bench dances, but plays unfazed, fully composed. Yes, it’s still an act, staged and calculated for effect, down to the look, something that’s crept from between some seedier Tolstoi-pages or, half Revenant, half Joaquin-Phoenix-on-Letterman; the sense of a high mass being celebrated; the “don’t disturb the maestro – he is decomposing” air. But happily Trifonov doesn’t just act the ‘great artist’, he is a great artist. Even in the carefully cultivated neglect with which he played the Jean-Philippe Rameau Suite in A minor, all in an introvert shade of pianissimo, forcing the hall into silence. Splendid when it works, although one phone in two-thousand is always on and someone in the audience is always half-way dying of pneumonia. An intermediate mezzo-forted jolted people out of their seats. The introspective, technically astonishing, detail-intense playing lulled one in a sense of safety. And then: Woof! The martial, “too-many-notes” Finale, so not at all French and dainty.

Off stage, back on stage, sit down, on we go. Applause? I don’t think so: Mozart. Sonata in F-Major K.332. Mannerisms galore, showing and trying to show that it’s supposed to be all about the music. Bent over the keys, this was nuanced, very fast, never sloppy, Mozart. A wondrous mix, self-possessed, very personal. How the Mendelssohn Variations sérieuses op.54 have been more often performed at the Konzerthaus than the preceding Mozart can only be explained by K.332 being one of many brilliant Mozart-sonatas, but the Variations one of only a few larger single-work Mendelssohn piano pieces. Not even Trifonov was able to bring forth a different argument for that little factoid.


Follow @ClassicalCritic