If the
musical trajectory of this recital faithfully
traced three distinct, but evolutionary, composers
in their individual approaches to writing
for the piano it is also arguable that the
recital was given back to front. Simon Trpceski’s
performance of Rachmaninov’s B flat minor
Sonata was simply astonishing, one of such
power that everything else that followed it
seemed understated in comparison.
On paper
this was a powerhouse recital and so it proved
to be in performance. Mr Trpceski has lost
none of his ability to control the widest
possible dynamic range. Where many pianists
in this small hall would have been unable
to tame the power of Rachmaninov’s transcendent
writing – even when the pianist is negotiating
three staves as against the usual two – Mr
Trpceski brought formidable control to the
sound he generated. He truly made this music
blossom in a way you rarely hear it done.
The heavy bass lines, the some times dense
textures, the surging chromaticism all emerged
with innate turbulence and diamond like clarity.
Superb pedalling in the Rachmaninov widened
the sound just enough to allow even thickets
of notes to have separate values. But, if
the technique impressed so did the interpretation.
Restless one moment, passionate the next (for
example in the second subject of the Allegro
agitato), heroic in the gripping bell-like
scales of the first movement but capable of
dissolved serenity in the Lento it was a performance
that fired the imagination. The coda to the
Allegro molto just tumbled from the keyboard
in a blaze of sound. Oh how this performance
should have closed the recital!
Skyrabin’s
F sharp, Sonata no.5 followed immediately
afterwards and if there was any disappointment
in the performance it was that it just didn’t
project effortlessly enough this music’s essential
non-Russianness. Prokofiev detected a French
influence in this work and it is clearly there
to be heard - in the opening Allegro, with
its dark, falling chords or even in the key
in which the sonata is written. Taken in a
single, sweeping arc the sonata’s thirteen
disjunctive sections seemed less sweeping
in Mr Trpceski’s fingers than a Gilels brought
to this work. Yet, whilst the Gallic allure
of the work may have been missing there was
no shortage of voltage with the grandest chords
majestically controlled, and nor was there
any shortage of brilliant finger-work in the
pieces more feverish moments.
Prokofiev’s
Sixth Sonata is a regular Trpceski work on
his programmes (and is on his first disc released
by EMI last year). His performance here was
exceptional, slightly broader than I have
heard him take it previously but more powerful
because of that. Some pianists – Evgeny Kissin,
for example – seem to find much more violence
in this work than Mr Trpceski does. Those
opening bars, for example, seem to inhabit
a very different psyche to those of Kissin
and Pogorelich; Mr Trpceski is keener to emphasise
the sardonic elements Prokofiev instils in
them (I have, in fact, never heard this opening
sound so close to the Scherzo of Shostakovich’s
10th Symphony) but that is not
to say he understates the aggression. The
clench-fisted treble is enormously powerful,
as is his clear view of overplaying the dissonance
at key moments – especially in the development,
with its acidic chords. Beautiful control
– allied with a fabulous use of keyboard colour
– brings out the contrasts in this work most
effectively. The clarity he gave to Prokofiev’s
col pugno marking, for example, was
exemplary. And if there were Gallic elements
missing from his Skryabin, that was certainly
not the case with his freshly spontaneous
reading of the Ravelian lentissimo third movement.
Mr Trpceski doesn’t quite see the final movement
– an astonishingly violent Vivace – in the
same way as Kissin. Mr Trpceski is more velvet-fisted
than iron-hammered, an equally valid interpretation
of it.
A superb
recital then, confirming yet again that Simon
Trpceski is an artist of exceptional quality.
Marc Bridle
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