×
Subscribe

Subscribe Today

Save almost 50% off the newsstand price!

In addition to receiving 26 issues of The Independent Kansas City’s Journal of Society, your subscription will include our annual publication, the Charitable Events Calendar and a subscription to our e-newsletter, The Insider.

Questions about your current subscription? Contact Laura Gabriel at 816-471-2800.

IN REVIEW: Pianist delivers warmth, elegance in generous Harriman program 

Through his invaluable contributions to musical research, as well as his exceedingly mindful approach to performance, Murray Perahia has become one of the most sought-after gentlemen-scholars of the piano in recent years. His considerable gifts include a rarely matched degree of sincerity stemming from a fundamental empathy with the composer’s intent; a consistently warm, mellow, mahogany tone; and the ability to establish an immediate rapport with his audience. All three of these strengths, and many more, displayed themselves prominently and unequivocally during his March 14th Folly Theater recital. Although Perahia chose a program brimming with familiarity for the night’s appearance, there remained an innovative, lively quality to his style that charmed even the most jaded of ears.

Opening the evening with J.S. Bach’s French Suite No. 5 in G Major, Perahia presented an unlikely yet effective juxtaposition of fastidious, cathedral-like construction with breathtakingly fluid improvisation.

Opening the evening with J.S. Bach’s French Suite No. 5 in G Major, Perahia presented an unlikely yet effective juxtaposition of fastidious, cathedral-like construction with breathtakingly fluid improvisation. Perahia employed a flowing tempo for many of the dance movements, only diverging from this pattern for the final celebarted Gigue, which reveled in polyphonic bliss and exhibited none of the bouncing hysteria that so often characterizes modern interpretations.

Perahia continued to demonstrate his mastery of form and function in Beethoven’s Sonata No. 27 in E minor. Although Beethoven purposefully stretched the sonata form to its breaking point in many of the later sonatas, Perahia was somehow able to gather the scattered pieces together and unify the form in a convincing and understandable manner. The second movement exhibited compelling constrasts in tone quality, although at times the dynamic constrasts indicated in the text could have been brought closer to the forefront. Perahia then transitioned smoothly into Brahms’ Klavierstücke, Op. 119highlighting their myriad contrapuntal qualities and cross-rhythms with admirable clarity of intention. The three Intermezzi within evoked the spirited synergy of a string quartet, showcasing each individual voice and varying each iteration of the theme in a semi-expository fashion, while the concluding Rhapsody in E-flat Major benefitted from astounding continuity of the melodic line despite differences in register.

Perahia returned to the stage and gracefully eased into Schubert’s Sonata in A Major, despite the setback of a sudden mobile phone shattering the silence. Although portrayed as youthful, evocative and heartbreakingly tender, the first movement never escaped from the presence of unsettling undercurrents in the left hand: such apprehension gave way to an impossibly peaceful, pious chorale in the second movement that brought Bach’s organ works to mind. The recitative quality with which the third movement was presented gave it the sense of an elaborate improvisation, complete with effortless transitions and a veritable cornucopia of variations in tone color.

Rounding out the program with a sonata-like cycle of works by Chopin, Perahia recalled the “dreamy poignancy” with which Chopin himself was said to have performed – feet rarely leaving the pedals; fortissimi always rendered nobly; exquisite attention paid to harmony as well as melody. Although Perahia chose an ambitiously fast tempo for the concluding Scherzo No. 3 in C-sharp minor, the eighth-note passages in the middle section remained as clear and well-defined as a string of pearls. Racing headlong into the final chords, yet never losing control, Perahia brought most of Wednesday night’s full house enthusiastically to its feet, cheering and calling him back onto the stage four times. Perahia chose to grace the audience with Schubert’s Impromptu No. 2 in E-flat Major, bringing its unusual harmonic changes into sharp relief and striding unavoidably toward its tragic E-flat minor ending as if he were unraveling an elaborate tapestry.

Erin Hales is a graduate student of 2001 Van Cliburn Piano Competition gold medalist Stanislav Ioudenitch at the International Center for Music at Park University. She announced for Radio Bach (formerly KXTR) between 2009-10 and is active in the Kansas City musical community.

Paul Horsley, Performing Arts Editor 

Paul studied piano and musicology at WSU and Cornell University. He also earned a degree in journalism, because writing about the arts in order to inspire others to partake in them was always his first love. After earning a PhD from Cornell, he became Program Annotator for the Philadelphia Orchestra, where he learned firsthand the challenges that non profits face. He moved to KC to join the then-thriving Arts Desk at The Kansas City Star, but in 2008 he happily accepted a post at The Independent. Paul contributes to national publications, including Dance Magazine, Symphony, Musical America, and The New York Times, and has conducted scholarly research in Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic (the latter on a Fulbright Fellowship). He also taught musicology at Cornell, LSU and Park University.

Ad

Features

IN REVIEW: MARRY ME: New concerto inspired by wedding but not bound to it

By Paul Horsley David Ludwig knows better than to attach a “back-story” to a piece irrevocably, although he has openly stated that his new Violin Concerto was inspired by his…

IN REVIEW: KC Ballet’s new ‘Nutcracker’ is boisterous, busy, dazzling fun

By Paul Horsley Each production of The Nutcracker is to some extent a balancing act between spectacle and dance. At best it seamlessly integrates the colors and stagecraft that keep…

IN REVIEW: Lyric’s ‘Rusalka’ explores beauties of ‘Little Mermaid’ tale

By Paul Horsley The Lyric Opera of Kansas City deserves applause for taking on an opera in Czech for the first time in its history, but the opening performance of…

IN REVIEW: KC Ballet’s spring production shows off its contemporary chops

By Paul Horsley Balanchine’s The Four Temperaments is a work of such startling visual clarity, musicality and modernity that it’s astonishing to contemplate that it predates not just most of…