murray perahia is awesome. his playing is really lucid so you can hear the inner voices very clearly. my piano enthusiast friends remarked that they have never heard so many inner voices in chopin's ballades!
his contrapuntal playing is rather brilliant, the way (as kwan rui describes) he keeps the melody at a steady volume but changes the counterpoint tone, usually in the left hand, to create contrasts of loud and soft.
that made me think, mainstream music's like that too! haha. the lead singer's volume on the track is always the same but the instrumentation behind and its volume change for different parts of the song. interesting.
the pedalling was just about right to create blend and form especially in the flow of notes. though i thought it could be just slightly less murky for bach. just slightly. maybe the acoustics was already quite 'wet' to begin with.
and the beethoven! the sharpness of the contour in the appassionata was all apparent: the quick, flighty ascensions up the register with broken chords followed by a loud block chord in the lower register.
the tone was, however, downplayed to good effect. usually pianists cook up a big storm with clangouring upon every forte or fortessimo written in the score, to the extent that ugly sounds are heard, capturing the high strung-ness and furiousity of the piece. but, no! perahia's rendition was meliflous and less emotionally charged than the usual interpretation of the piece.
this interpretation somehow - i don't know why but it just struck me like that! - displayed a seemly ironic sense of simplicity, of being enlightened about the worldly complex matters and maelstrom of personal turmoil that beethoven experienced during the time he composed the appassionata.
with the 'simplicity' of expression (by simplicity i mean not being overtly emotional and charge at every note with equal density) it allowed fresh air to breathe into the inner parts of the voicing (again, the voicing!) which would not have been heard clearly if everything were played double-f.
the contrapuntal textures and demarcation of the different lines in a largely homophonic texture reflects the complexity and confusion of the composer's mind: they weave in and out of each other and so many lines run simultaneously against each other.
mind blowing!
and the chopin - lovely short pieces, those marzukas, nocturnes and etudes. the lyricsim in the melody is constantly achieved, be it in the right or left hand. i mean, the tone is so constantly good. again, the renditions show how contrast can be generated through the accompaniment rather than the melody. and i was reminded of the different touches to be used especially for the left hand that i learnt while practising a john field nocturne (learning how to create interest out of repetition is very tough, i tell you).
liked the way he choreographed his body and arm movements in certain areas, for example, the wave like parts played by both hands in the high register - sorry guys, i don't know which opus that is!
the encore pieces were splendid, too. this time the pieces chosen were even more showy and were like 'ta-da'!
lol. ran out of words to describe the concert. fantastic! no wonder, that perahia received a standing ovation at the end.
ok, will elaborate more about yesterday in a while... gotta go swim with friends, then tuition, then nights out hahaha. byebye.
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