Critic’s Notebook: Incomprehension and Poulenc at a Kirill Gerstein Recital

Also reviewed for Die Presse: Konzerthaus: Chopin, ganz unschmeichelhaft

Chopin, torn, pensive, cerebral

F.Busoni, Piano Concerto K.Gerstein, S.Oramo, Boston Symphony Orchestra myrios

G.Fauré, Nocturnes Daniel Grimwood Peter Edition

Kirill Gerstein is a pianist I like greatly. Hard to believe it had been ten years since I last heard him in two astonishing Strauss-evenings, one with Enoch Arden [Best Recordings of 2020] and another with the Burleske. At a recent recital at the Vienna Konzerthaus’ Mozart Hall (February 24th), I didn’t understand what he was getting at, though. Faced with reasonably popular fare, as opposed to the challenges that are the above Strauss or his masterful account of the beast of a Busoni piano concerto, he introduced a pensive, cerebral, and very fragmented element to Chopin, whether the late Polonaise-Fantaisie op.61, the (very “Grave” and desensualized) Fantaisie op.49 in F minor, or the Grande Valse brilliante op.42, which was so heavy on the rubato that it gave up its waltz-character voluntarily. As the music dissolved into its individual parts, it demanded a concentration to stick with Gerstein and what he might have meant. A task beyond my abilities, that evening.

The last Nocturne of Fauré (No.13, op.119) fared better. Usually, the Fauré and Chopin meet somewhere on a common plane of romantic solo piano music, as Fauré is usually performed with an eye to his seductive, charming side. Here the pointillist Nocturne was closer to Alban Berg than to Satie or Debussy: Dark, threatening, chromatically charged, and very much true to its 1921 year of creation. Whatever Schumann wanted to say with his Faschingsschwank wasn’t clear here. Yes, this hymn of disappointment to Vienna isn’t funny to begin with. But did it need to be so hard-driven, so purposefully avoiding natural agogics, so decidedly undermining any expectation? Like so much this evening, it felt hard fought for, pensive, and wildly introspective. Animated on the outside, hollow on the inside. Ditto Liszt’s Polonaise 223/2, Rachmaninov/Kreisler’s Liebesleid (notably, fittingly no Liebesfreud), and the two funereal Armenian “Dances” by Komitas of the encore – which reminded of the terrible second anniversary that day.

The only silver lining was Poulenc. Not only for being on the program in the first place, which is rare enough. The Three Intermezzi managed to do what Poulenc does so well: Fuse seriousness and humor. They even elicited a few heartening giggles from the audience. Still, I don’t think I’ve ever understood or ‘gotten’ so little at a recital.


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