Today's Fredlines: June 6, 2009 Archive

Finals Day Three: Disappointments

Posted at 11:03 AM on June 6, 2009 by Greg Allen (7 Comments)

This Cliburn Festival entry written by Gregory Allen, Professor of Piano, University of Texas at Austin, exclusively for Performance Today's Fredlines.

"Con onor muore chi non può serbar vita con onore." This line from the end of Madama Butterfly came to mind during the most profoundly quiet moment of the Beethoven 4th tonight. (It's the inscription on the blade that she reads just before doing the deed.) Why on earth would I think of that? Because, if I had a cell phone (which I don't!), and I forgot to silence it, and it went off at such a moment, shattering the spell for countless thousands of music-lovers worldwide, I think there would be no choice for me but to commit hara-kiri. Do you read me, thoughtless perpetrator??

What made it so infinitely annoying was that it happened during one of the few really inspired moments of Mariangela Vacatello's performance. Sorry to say, she seemed out of sorts - again - and mostly fell short of conveying the uniquely spiritual character of the work. Were the extravagant swirls and waves of the first movement magically ethereal? Not really; as in a lot of performances I hear, they sounded like scales and arpeggios dressed in their Sunday best - sort of like looking at Seurat's Grande Jatte up too close. Did the slow movement have the choked-off, suffering quality we associate with the lamenting Orpheus? Well, no, in part because she played it without soft pedal, which Beethoven asks for. And does her score indicate presto for the last movement? Mine says only vivace... I couldn't help feeling that her stoic manner got in the way of experiencing the full magnificence of this piece; as in some of her other performances, I wished she would unmask her artistic vision more candidly. (I also think she would do well to treat her conductor with more respect...)

Speaking of respect, Yeol Eum Son continues to earn mine: she has consistently been reliable, secure, and serenely unflappable. That's not to say that her Chopin F minor Concerto was the performance of my dreams, but she's a pro, no question about it. Here and there she was able to plug into the special sense of communicative long-term thinking that I've noticed before; when she gets in that mode I find her playing irresistibly involving. (I was looking for it in the 2nd movement of Op. 111 last night, but didn't find it.) It does bother me that she doesn't seem to have the imaginative, discriminating ear for sound that has distinguished so much of the playing in this competition; I keep thinking it's the instrument that sounds so tired and tarnished, but even her earlier performances (e.g. Schumann's Fantasiestücke, the Debussy Preludes) were kind of monochrome. In sum, then, this was a minor, if not unexpected, disappointment.

But the award for outstanding achievement in the category Most Majorly Distressing Disappointment goes to - ta-daah! - Evgeni Bozhanov. Remember the first round, when I wrote "a fresh, direct approach without affectation?" Well, I think he's decided he should maybe invest heavily in affectation. In the semifinals his "extraordinary clarity" has now been traded for cryptic obfuscation; the "stupefying intensity" has become shocking perversity; and no previous notice has been made of the glaring chinks in his technical armor that were brazenly on display in this recital. (Come to think of it, they were fairly obvious in the Chopin Concerto, but it went by in such a blur that we didn't notice.) No, I'm afraid I wrote, "he's on track to win this competition, so he can do what he likes!" At this point I would suggest that we collectively rescind that invitation; Mr. Bozhanov has revealed a creepy megalomania that should not be condoned...
GA

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