Intermezzo

the beard is back

Krystian Zimerman - Royal Festival Hall, 22 February 2010

Chopin: Nocturne in F sharp minor, Op.15 No.2,  Piano Sonata No.2 in B flat minor, Op.35,  Scherzo No.2 in B flat minor, Op.31,  Piano Sonata No.3 in B minor, Op.58,  Barcarolle in F sharp, Op.60
Encore: Waltz, Op. 64, No. 2 in C-Sharp Minor

Nowadays, the fashionably bearded Krystian Zimerman apparently 'only' performs around 50 times a year (which still sounds pretty industrious to me). The fact that so few of these appearances are in the UK is perhaps not surprising when you consider he carts his own piano around with him like some travelling minstrel, tinkering with its innards to accommodate his own needs and whatever programme he's performing.

Its sound is crystalline, a perfect vehicle for Zimerman's neat articulation. The tight, pinging notes at the top end especially enable the higher notes to emerge in revelatory clarity compared with the Steinway's usual veiled, chalky timbre. When Zimerman wants a softer sound, he creates it with some impressively adept pedalling. For Chopin, that most pianistic of keyboard composers, this extensive spectrum is vital, yet it's something few pianists have the equipment (let alone the ability) to play with.

Like a brilliant singer who polishes every syllable yet never loses sight of the line, or indeed the whole song, Zimerman makes every note count without getting lost in the detail. Indeed the way he drew out the architecture of each piece in distinct timbral blocks was just as impressive as his virtuosic finger work. Though there could be something rather analytical about his measured tempos and immaculately spun-out contrapuntal lines, other moments (particularly in the opening F# minor Nocturne) invoked the quasi-improvisatory inspiration that once had Chopin's own audiences gasping in adoration.

Only once did his focus seem to desert him, and that was in the challenging largo of the B minor Sonata. Unable to evoke the reflective serenity it requires, Zimerman reduced it to a dogged plod. As I later discovered via Jessica Duchen, a none-too-sneaky rogue recording device may have diverted him.

The audience had been trigger-happy with their applause all evening (between movements even!) so the instant standing ovation wasn't that unexpected - but the rare treat of a Zimerman encore, a beautifully detailed C# minor Waltz, was.

*****   more photos on next page   *****

before they were famous

Competitions are no guide to success, but the Frederic Chopin International Piano Competition, held only every five years (2010 is the next) has uncovered more genuine and durable artists than most. Here are a few.

Maurizio Pollini fits in a snatch of Prelude no 24 between fag breaks at the Winners' Concert of the 1960 Competition:

Beehive alert! The 1965 winner Martha Argerich plays Scherzo No 3:

A pre-Issey Mitsuko Uchida plays Etude Op.10 No.2 after the 1970 competition, in which she was runner-up:

Mazurka Op.24, No.1 played by Krystian Zimerman at the 1975 Competition, which he won:

Krystian Zimerman - one keyboard is not enough

Krystian Zimerman - Royal Festival Hall, 27 May 2008

Bach Partita No.2 in C minor
Beethoven Piano Sonata in C minor, Op.111
Brahms 4 Pieces for piano, Op.119
Szymanowski Variations on a Polish folk theme in B minor, Op.10

A piano is a machine. Sounds are produced when the hammers hit the strings, not when the fingers hit the keyboard, a fundamental fact often ignored when we talk about a particular pianist's 'tone'. If I strike a key, it sounds the same as if any other pianist had struck it. It's quite different from instruments like the violin, where you'd spot instantly whether it was me or Joshua Bell drawing the bow across a string. With the piano, it's only in a sequence of notes, their relative duration, volume, pressure, that the characteristics of the individual emerge.

Most pianists, if they address the inevitability of tone quality at all, do so in generalised ways like selecting a particular piano. Krystian Zimerman's approach is far more interventionist. A recent FT interview reports that he "impregnates the hammers that strike the strings with specific chemicals, works on his piano's voicing and sound, has devised his own method of transportation, and permits no other technician to touch his instrument."

Unfortunately I missed his discussion with Jessica Duchen prior to this evening's concert, so I'm not sure exactly what his special preparations were. But from the bright, pinging tone, almost clavichord-like, of the opening Bach Partita it was obvious that his adjustments had been radical.

I've never heard a piano sound quite like this. The notes popped out hard and round like pearls, each perfectly self-contained. Combined with Zimerman's immaculate technique, each note evenly articulated, his lilting romantic gloss, and idiosyncratic tempos it was quite unlike any Bach I've ever heard. (Unlike any Bach that Bach himself would have heard, too, so not for the purists.)  Zimerman invited us to inspect the brushstrokes rather than look at the whole painting, and I was happy to absorb the sound on a purely sensory level. It was all over far too soon - with Zimerman's Eddie Van Halen arm-swinging flourish hinting there might be a surprising hint of showbiz tart lurking beneath the fearsomely brainy exterior.

Next came the clever bit. Zimerman sloped off for a couple of minutes (no more), and a technician sped on stage, whipped the keyboard out of the piano, and replaced it with another one (see photo right). A quick screw into place, and that was it.

I'm not sure exactly what the swap achieved from a technical perspective, but the sound changed dramatically to a far more conventional tone, the notes velvety and diffused at the edges.

Zimerman's fantastic, near effortless technical control seemed in some ways a hindrance in the final Beethoven sonata, which only truly comes alive when it's stood up to and wrestled down. A pianist like Barenboim who finds it at the limits of his technical capacities can bring a more vivid sense of struggle. From Zimerman, it all sounded just a bit too easy, a mountain that was soared over rather than scaled.

If the piano was tinkered with again during the interval, I didn't notice. Zimerman seemed more in tune with the Brahms, extrovert but intimate, and the luridly spectacular Szymanowski than he had with the Beethoven. He exuded a simple and engaging joy in performing and a ravishingly supple technique, every note precisely at his command. It wasn't quite heart-stopping stuff, but then that's not really the nature of these particular pieces anyway. And it didn't stop him receiving a thunderous reception, possibly as much for who he is and the simple fact that he chose to perform here as for the performance itself. No encore though.

A lengthy and interesting interview here.