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A LIQUID LUNCH
A recital by Evelyne Berezovsky,
heard by JULIAN JACOBSON
Whether by nature or nurture, the young pianist Evelyne Berezovsky is already the master, at college undergraduate entry age, of a fluid and refined pianism that cannot fail to give pleasure. Her sonority, containing both depth and spaciousness, is astonishingly mature: more than once the word 'burnished' occurred to me.
That is not to say that the Evelyne Berezovsky of, let's say, Martha Argerich's age will be the same Evelyne Berezovsky that we heard at Regent Hall. [Her lunchtime concert in London UK on Wednesday 29 July 2009 formed part of the BPSE Regent Hall Summer Festival, in memory of the BPSE's co-founder Carola Grindea, who died on 10 July 2009.] Some things worked better than others, and there was sometimes a sense of interpretations hovering uncertainly between an intellectual approach and a more visceral, 'pianistic' approach. The Moonlight Sonata didn't quite settle, with some imprecise detail and a lightweight and unfocussed Allegretto, yet the finale had terrific vitality. In the somewhat obscure Variations on a Theme of Schumann by Brahms (Op 9), there was some lovely, precisely imagined voicing but also a sense that a firmer line needed to be drawn, with a clearer 'orchestration' of each variation: the performance lost at least this listener's attention as the piece went on (and on).
Evelyne Berezovsky
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Liszt's Vallée d'Obermann brought some wonderful playing, with a tone one can only describe as aristocratic. Perhaps Berezovsky was more successful in projecting the long line than, as it were, its absence -- those passages of Lisztian rhetoric whose whole point is their discontinuity and illogicality. Perhaps it is easier for a young pianist to keep going than break down, or stop (in the good sense!) No such disjointedness is called for in Debussy's L'Isle Joyeuse, the final piece in the programme -- perhaps the most perfect short piano piece ever composed. This brought forth some gorgeous playing, of a high level of technical and musical polish. Only in the central, slower 3/8 section did I miss that sense of luxe, calme et volupté that the very greatest Debussy players, singers and conductors can convey. But so much to enjoy.
Copyright © 12 August 2009 Julian Jacobson,
London UK
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