Bach, Mozart, Brahms:
Maxim Vengerov (vln), Fazil Say (pf)
Bach, Brahms, Beethoven:
Maxim Vengerov (vln), Fazil Say (pf) Barbican
Hall, February 2004
What
a joy to experience two successive and, as
usual, forever memorable recitals by Maxim
Vengerov (the only danger being that we take
this God given violin genius too much for
granted). It was on the platform of the Barbican
Hall that his first triumph in the West took
place by winning the Carl Flesh International
Violin Competition. This once famous competition
died some years ago, principally because of
lack of money. C.F. Flesch, the son of the
Hungarian born Jewish virtuoso, whose treatises
on the technique of playing the violin are
still very much in use, lives in London and
despite being well into his 90th year - and
still active and in astonishingly good health
- tried everything to revive this competition
in honour of his father. He did not succeed.
I firmly believe it is Vengerov’s duty to
use both his prominence and influence to give
the competition a new lease of life. As he
is planning to buy a place in London it would
seem logical that he could also be the artistic
director of a competition, which has done
London proud in the past and - connected with
the name Maxim Vengerov - would do so in the
future.
But,
back to the recitals. I am afraid that, to
a certain degree, I may not longer be that
objective towards Vengerov. He has always
exceeded my expectations and these by now
countless experiences have shown that even
if Vengerov goes slightly over the top he
still keeps within the limits of the music.
His musicianship and taste, the sheer beauty
of his playing and his phenomenal technique,
allied with his charming, as well as intense
and simultaneously relaxed stage presence,
are reasons enough to call him the unsurpassable
violinist of our time.
He started
the first evening by playing Bach’s Partita
No.2 in D minor for solo violin, BWV 1005.
One has to accept his decision to interpret
Bach historically, which means tuning down
the instrument and playing without any vibrato,
and hardy any rubato. On this occasion, he
finally convinced me that this is genuinely
right as long as a violinist masters his technique
in the way Vengerov does. With eyes closed,
the purity of his sound seemed to have travelled
for centuries originating somewhere in a basilica.
Only, this violinist needs also to be watched;
his body language and the way he corresponds
with his instrument, in this case the `Kreutzer´
Stradivarius and not his usual baroque violin
(it had an ‘accident’, I had been told), are
never artificial, but deeply honest and rooted
in the music. The speed, with which he tackled
the Gigue or the passion of the Ciaconna are
the result of the unity between body and instrument.
Mozart
and Brahms were to follow after the interval.
In his already thirteen year long recording
career Vengerov has only once played a Mozart
sonata on disc and none of his concertos;
even in public, other Mozart rarely features.
Once, a young Andrei Gavrilov, being frightened
of playing Mozart, said to me: "Each note
Mozart wrote is like a pearl and there are
endless strings of pearls. That is why he
is the most difficult composer for me." Vengerov
may think similarly; but with the Sonata no.32
in B flat major, K.454, one of Mozart’s
last
violin sonatas, and the first of this genre
to have an equal partnership between piano
and violin, it seemed transparently clear
that the time has come for Vengerov to confront
us with the greatest composer of absolute
music. The soulful Largo introduction leading
into the Allegro, the expressive central Andante
and the rhythmically – but unusually virtuosic
- Rondo were played with such lightness, maturity,
structural understanding and pearl like radiance
that it was like hearing the work for the
first time. That sadly counted for the violin
alone for with this piece Vengerov introduced
his newest accompanist, the Turkish pianist
Fazil Say. His constant pianissimo, with a
slightly romantic colouring, was difficult
to digest.
Worse
was to come with the Violin Sonata No.3 in
D minor, op.108 by Johannes Brahms, a work
dear to Vengerov’s heart and which he has
already recorded with Daniel Barenboim (October
1998). The musical and technical demands are
no challenge for Vengerov - he interpreted
the work with his usual brilliant vitality
culminating in a full-blooded coda, while
Fazil Say took to successfully bathing in
extremes and, albeit with quite bad taste,
outshone Vengerov as the centre of attention.
This pianist makes a cult out of mannerism;
from time to time his body disappears completely,
while his feet jump all over the floor; his
mouth seems to sing and when he only needs
his left hand, he conducts Vengerov. The whole
looked more like a monologue by Mime directed
towards Siegfried from the first act of Wagner’s
"Siegfried" facing Vengerov constantly and
asking him as devotedly and diabolically as
possible, as if he is his `little son´.
In Itamar
Golan Vengerov used to have a quite temperamental,
but well suited and outgoing pianist, who
understood his needs and helped the performance
to become even more exciting. As this relationship
seems to have come to an end, Vengerov would
be well advised to choose a partner who does
not try in the worst and most unprofessional
manner possible,to dominate - and to overshadow
- Vengerov’s aesthetic
stage presence. He plays quite fluidly, as
far as I could Judge, except that he does
not seem to know that there are more dynamics
than pp and ff, and despite
all his fussing he does not breath
in unison with the violinist.
The
second evening has been well documented by
Marc
Bridle's review,
except for once I found myself in disagreement
with some of what Vengerov did. For the opening
work, Bach’s Sonata No 1 in B minor for violin
and keyboard, BWV 1014, he should have chosen
a harpsichord instead of a modern grand as
accompaniment. As the piano could, of course,
not be tuned down, Vengerov had to surrender
to modern day tuning, albeit still in the
historical style without vibrato. The reverberation
of the piano and the delicately balanced baroque
sound were at odds with each other. Otherwise,
the highlight was again Vengerov’s supreme
command and his musical understanding, be
it in Brahms´ Violin Sonata No.2 in A major,
op.100 (recorded in May 1991), the rarely
played Scherzo in C minor, a youthful movement
by Brahms composed in 1853, and Vengerov’s
breathtaking account of Beethoven’s virtuoso
`Kreutzer´ Sonata op.47, dedicated to the
French violinist Rodolphe Kreutzer. He, of
course, never played the work declaring it
as "outrageously unintelligible" ; instead
Maxim Vengerov played it posthumously on Kreutzer’s
famous Stradivarius.
I could
have done without the kitschy, and sometimes
preposterous, piano accompaniment but maybe
Fazil Say, also a jazz pianist and a composer,
thought that by knocking the floor with his
feet and jumping up from his chair he would
give this work an even stronger Beethovenian
touch. Sadly, the audience loved it, but they
also adored one of the Hungarian Dances by
Brahms Vengerov played as an encore in Joachim’s
transcription full of the magic and the pyrotechnics
only he is capable of.
Hans-Theodor Wohlfahrt
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