Fleshing out our sound picture of Leon Fleisher

RAVEL: Sonatine
i. Modéré
ii. Mouvement de menuet
iii. Animé

Leon Fleisher, piano. Epic-Sony, recorded July 14-16, 1958

by Ken

In Friday night's "Leon Fleisher postscript" -- a "postscript," that is, to the previous week's post on "Schubert's mighty Wanderer Fantasy," in which Fleisher had been featured -- we heard a bit of perhaps unexpected repertory from Fleisher, Debussy's "Clair de lune," from a 1958 Debussy-Ravel LP. I suggested we might hear the complete Suite bergamasque, from which "Clair de lune" derives, but I thought instead we'd hear Ravel's Sonatine.


FLEISHER 2.0: THE ONE-HANDED PIANIST

In April 2012 I wrote about a pleasant evening at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center at which Fleisher had shared the bill with a very different sort of pianist but a longtime colleague, Gilbert Kalish, who had served with him as faculty chairman during Fleisher's long stint as artistic director of one of the country's prestigious music-education programs, the summer Tanglewood Music Center.

How a "second-tier" Mozart piano concerto can command top-tier attention

Eduard Zilberkant: The New York Concert Artists' Evenings of Piano Concerti veteran conducted two of the four EPC IV concerts and was the unquestioned star.

by Ken

We're still talking about New York Concert Artists' latest "Evenings of Piano Concerti" series, EPC IV, which as I noted in Friday night's preview gave me an unexpected measure of sheer musical pleasure, with the largest dose coming thanks to the spirit of the playing conductor Eduard Zilberkant drew from the little pickup orchestra in the two concerts he conducted, the first and third.

But for today I thought we'd scale back and just focus on one of the two concertos I mentioned had particularly delighted me in the performance offered by 22-year-old Shiran Wang and Zilberkant in the third concert, Mozart's K. 414. We already heard the slow movement, with that beautiful main theme the composer borrowed as a form of tribute to the recently deceased J. C. Bach.

Before we turn to the complete concerto, I just wanted to highlight a little Mozartean surprise that occurs in the concluding rondo, in the form of what I will call the "countertheme." I don't know if it will have the same effect it does on me, but it's the kind of thing that has a way of seizing control of my brain and not letting go. (Some readers may recall the October 2009 Sunday Classics post called "Surprise! With wizards like Bach and Mozart, you never know what you may hear next," in which the Mozart surprise was a wonderful little figuration that bursts out of nowhere in the cello in the final variation of the theme-and-variations slow movement of the A major String Quartet, K. 464, and then works its way up through all the instruments.)

Countertheme of the Rondo of Mozart's K. 414 Concerto

This is nuts, I know, but I've extracted the portions of the Rondo that are based on this countertheme, starting with its first statement, from Murray Perahia's recording, which we'll hear complete immediately afterward. In this clip we hear ripped-out chunks that representing the following bits of the 6:19 whole: (1) 0:12-0:31, (2) 0:58-2:15, (3) 2:39-2:46, (4) 3:36-4:13, (5) 4:19-4:51 (including the start of the cadenza at 4:40 -- or 0:20 of our clip).



Now here's the whole movement.

MOZART: Piano Concerto No. 12 in A, K. 414:
iii. Allegretto

English Chamber Orchestra, Murray Perahia, piano and cond. CBS/Sony, recorded June 16-18, 1979



New York Concert Artists put together this promotional video for last year's Evenings of Piano Concerti (EPC III).


NOW LET'S HEAR THE WHOLE OF OUR CONCERTO

In the piano concertos, we hear Beethoven in hard-fought sort-of-harmony with the universe

No less than Van Cliburn introduces the piano-playing Serkins, Rudolf (1903-1991) and Peter (born 1947), playing Schubert's four-hand Military March in G, D. 733, No. 2, on the occasion of Serkin père's 85th birthday in 1988, from a 1988 concert featuring 26 pianists, issued by VAI.

"Rudolf Serkin was once asked, jokingly of course, if Beethoven had composed the Choral Fantasy for Marlboro. The piece has everything Marlboro could have wanted for its final concert: an orchestra in which everyone could play; solos within the orchestra; ensemble playing among various instruments; piano solo; and a chorus for everyone else in the Marlboro community. Rudolf Serkin responded, with his characteristic smile, 'No, Beethoven didn't compose it for Marlboro.... But he approves.'"

-- from a 2000 Amazon.com comment by Christopher Serkin
on a two-CD Marlboro Festival 50th-anniversary release

by Ken

What Christopher Serkin, a distinguished law professor, discreetly doesn't mention here -- though his last name is certainly suggestive -- is that Rudolf Serkin, a co-founder of the Marlboro Music Festival who was for decades its presiding artistic spirit -- was his grandfather, and Peter Serkin, whom he later mentions conducts the Choral Fantasy performance included in this Marlboro anniversary issue, is his uncle. (Peter Serkin, while a dramatically different sort of musician from his father, established himself at an early age as one of the leading pianists of his generation. It's kind of weird, for me at least, to think that young Peter is now in his 60s.)


NOT MANY PEOPLE TAKE THE CHORAL FANTASY SERIOUSLY