We have arrived at volume six in Mordecai Shehori’s New
York concert recital series. There are three recitals, or at
least part of three recitals, given over a two decade period
at Merkin Concert Hall, Weill Recital Hall and Alice Tully Hall.
The programme is pleasingly wide-ranging, both chronologically
and stylistically.
A few of the pieces bear the stamp of Vladimir Horowitz. Czerny’s
La Ricordanza was something that the Russian pianist
played frequently and Shehori, who was strongly in Horowitz’s
orbit, plays it with considerable poise and bravura. He evinces
real refinement and delicacy in its opening paragraphs, revealing
real tonal variegation, deft control of dynamics and above all
a sure sense of character and communicative projection. In the
faster, more decorative passages his pearly and even treble
are delightful, and his poised left hand accentuates the rhythmic
brio of the music-making. This accentuation detonates delightfully
as well when the music becomes more exciting. Shehori ends very
beautifully and this captivating performance is graced by sensitivity,
technical accomplishment and wit.
He plays three Mendelssohn Songs without Words, and has
chosen well, since there’s plenty of contrast between
them. The first example in C minor is finely shaped, whereas
the G Minor, Op. 53 is dramatically projected. The F-sharp Minor
ends the trio playfully. The late Four Klavierstücke,
Op. 119 of Brahms offer darker, more malleable pleasures, teakier
in tone, more volatile and ambiguous in meaning. It sounds as
if this set was recorded in-concert - a hand held cassette,
maybe? Shehori essays Debussy’s Valse Romantique
in F Minor and continues his French exploration with a much
different work, Ravel’s immense, cataclysmic La Valse,
which he performs with virtuosic panache sufficient to engender
rich applause.
In between there is the rare opportunity to hear three pieces
by Vladimir Horowitz and, like the Mendelssohn, these offer
plenty of diverting opportunities for contrast and colour. The
Etude-Caprice Les Vagues is a dramatic affair, the Waltz
in F Minor rather more harmonically questing, whilst the saucy
badinage of Dance Excentrique in C Major would make a
great quiz question: who wrote this?
As encores we are offered a meditative and slow Bach-Siloti
Sicilienne from the Flute Sonata No.2, a deftly singing
Daquin Cuckoo, a confident Prokofiev prelude and, finally,
Zez Confrey’s naughty homage to Dvořák by
way of the Swanee River, Humourlessness.
Roll on volume seven.
Jonathan Woolf
Track Listing
Carl CZERNY (1791-1857)
“La Ricordanza” Variations in E-flat Major, Op.
33 (1851-52) [11:51]
Felix MENDELSSOHN (1809-1847)
Three Songs without Words: C Minor, Op. 38, No. 2 (1836) [2:29];
G Minor, Op. 53, No. 3 (1839) [2:50]; F-sharp Minor, Op. 67,
No. 2 (1839) [2:36]
Johannes BRAHMS (1833-1897)
Four Klavierstücke, Op. 119 (1892): Intermezzo in B minor
[3:26]; Intermezzo in E minor [4:55]; Intermezzo in C major
[1:25]; Rhapsody in E flat major [5:05]
Claude DEBUSSY (1862-1918)
Valse Romantique in F Minor [3:56]
Vladimir HOROWITZ (1903-1989)
Etude-Caprice “Les Vagues” [2:24]
Waltz in F Minor (1921) [2:00]
Dance Excentrique in C Major [2:53]
Maurice RAVEL (1875-1937)
La Valse (1921) [11:17]
Johann Sebastian BACH (1685-1750)
Sicilienne in G Minor (arr. Shehori) (1720) [2:46]
Louis-Claude DAQUIN
(1694-1772)
Le Coucou (c.1735) [1:35]
Sergei PROKOFIEV (1891-1953)
Prelude in C Major, Op. 12, No. 7 [1:57]
Zez CONFREY (1895-1971)
Humourlessness (After Dvořák) (1925) [2:34]
Mordecai Shehori (piano) 