SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL  CONCERT  REVIEW
 

Beethoven: Till Fellner (Pianot) Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, 15.10.2010 (GG)

 

Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 30 in E Major, Op. 109, Piano Sonata No. 31 in A-flat Major, Op. 110, Piano Sonata No. 32 in C Minor, Op. 111

 

Till Fellner ended his performance series of the complete Beethoven Sonatas with, appropriately, the last three, which were not only a culmination of the concerts but of Beethoven’s thoughts on and expression of the form. Taking on such a project places Fellner in comparison to a daunting set of peers, including Artur Schnabel, Yves Nat, Wilhelm Kempff, Friedrich Gulda, Alfred Brendel, Richard Goode and Paul Lewis. His musical achievement in the cycle ensures that not only does he fully belong in that company, but that he may be favored amongst the others.

Fellner’s Beethoven is exceptional, played with tremendous technical skill as a matter of course, but more importantly played with profound and refreshing musical insight. He has clearly thought a great deal about this music, about what it means to him, about what the notes and structures mean to each other, about how it should sound, and everything he plays has an idea, a purpose behind it. It is deliberate, intentional, and the music flows with great suppleness towards a particular emotional, intellectual or abstract point.

His touch at the keyboard is pleasantly dry, his dramatic sense is organic. He emphasizes gestures less than most pianists I’ve heard in Beethoven, and does so with an objective sense, drawing attention to what is happening in the music rather than what is happening with his hands. The opening of the Op. 109 sonata sounded like Haydn; crisp, witty, with a light but firm touch. He played the ostentatious, cascading modulations with a classical charm, uncovering Beethoven’s sense of humor and irony about himself, the composer who is thought to not modulate properly, and who does so not only with skill but with a casual amusement, mocking the conventions and himself for caring about them.

In this sonata, like in so much Beethoven, the changes of key, mood and even type of music from one section to the next within each movement are asserted rather than developed, and Fellner’s way with the music makes the transitions sound logical, graceful and inevitable. This is the triumph of his musical thinking, that what is often noticeable enough as to be jarring sounds so natural and, in the moment, unremarkable. As the moment has passed, and the mind and memory grasp at the running-away-of-time of experience, what he has done becomes quiet remarkable, but then the music continues its forward progress. The pianist is often intense in faster, agitated music, and he was in the Prestissimo movement, while the concluding Andante was lovely; slow and wistful, echt-Viennese in its charm yet still unsentimental.

The performance of the Sonata No. 31 was joyous. Fellner’s combination of technical assurance and intellectual depth makes the music sound spontaneous, especially in the probing final movement, with it’s slow ruminations giving way to fugue. The pianist seemed to both follow the music where it took him and lead it along the same path, as if it was he, not Beethoven, improvising the fugue in front of us.

The C Minor Sonata is a dazzling work to hear and a difficult one to approach. It seems to offer so many ideas to a musician, but ideas that are essentially unfathomable. It’s music in which form and style are irrelevant and philosophy is what matters. The structural material is truly minimal, and Beethoven develops it obsessively and organically. In the right hands it sounds like the most modern music, a piece that offers possibilities still only occasionally explored, say in Jeux or the works of Scelsi. This is music about finding oneself, late in life, in a dark, mysterious and inviting forest. Fellner’s performance, that is his ideas about what to do with the notes, was unforgettable. His opening Maestoso was a little slow, the eliding Allegro con brio fairly fast and full of weight and power. In fast, intense music, the pianist conveys a sense not of speed but of velocity, of something substantial being carried forward and gaining mass but never losing tempo. It’s extremely exciting and truly intense. His playing of the Arietta theme was extraordinarily dignified and subdued, which made it all the more moving, and he was fully taken over by the singing of the composer’s own soul which comes through in the extended trills, embracing all the things that make Beethoven the pinnacle of human culture that he was, and is.

George Grella