Evgeny Kissin Brings Down the House
The lesson learned at the Kennedy Center on Wednesday night was that, if you just keep clapping and cheering, Evgeny Kissin will keep playing the piano. At the end of a marvelous recital sponsored by Washington Performing Arts Society, Kissin returned to the stage for countless ovations. The wild yelling from the orchestra level and the balconies was enough to induce him to play eight encores. After about 45 minutes of nightcaps — from Liszt (Liebestraüme, S.541), to Mendelssohn (the Spinning Song from Lieder ohne Worte), to a truly tacky and yet astounding arrangement of the gypsy dance from the Carmen Fantasy, to Chopin (the waltz C-sharp minor, op. 64, no. 2, as well as no. 1 from the same opus, the "Minute Waltz"), to Brahms (another waltz, op. 39, no. 15, in A-flat major), back to Chopin again (a breathtaking C-sharp minor Fantasy-Impromptu, op. 66, recorded on his new Verbier Festival recital CD), and one of the Beethoven écossaises (WoO 83, no. 1) — the audience finally gave up and went home. If you think we should be proud of earning eight encores, when Kissin appeared with the same program in Milan last November, he played twelve during an hour and a half of ovations. Washington, you let me down!
The actual recital began with a Schubert sonata (E-flat major, D. 568), performed by Kissin with consummate restraint. With the entire dynamic range of the piece circumscribed within a tiny area, most of the melodies seemed like distant memories of a happier time. Kissin bobs around less at the keyboard now, although his face was often contorted with emotion and he hummed sometimes during the Schubert slow movement. The game of control that he played in the Schubert was no less fine in detail for being restricted in scope like a Dürer engraving. All of the energy repressed during the sonata was released in the set of 32 variations (C minor, WoO 80) by Beethoven. By not giving the piece an opus number (WoO = Werk ohne Opuszahl), Beethoven indicated that it did not belong somehow with the rest of his compositions. Indeed, at just eight measures in length, the original theme is little more than a repeating bass line and chord pattern, recalling the Folia melody so popular in the Baroque period for variation sets — only superficially, since some of the chords are different. From the first couple variations, Kissin produced remarkable variations of color and articulation, with explosive strength bottled up from the Schubert.
The high point of the program in terms of intensity was the set of six Brahms pieces by op. 118. Although Kissin has recorded none of the pieces on this new program, he recorded another set of Brahms pieces, op. 116, when he was still in his teens. Once again, Kissin demonstrated that he and Brahms are suited to one another by temperament. The first intermezzo in the set was overwhelming in sound, played by Kissin with dominating power, while the second intermezzo was rendered with gossamer delicacy. The trick in Brahms is in capturing the overwrought Romantic emotion encoded within vast intellectual structures, all interior and sometimes self-suffocating. Brahms is not for everyone, but Kissin will likely become the best possible representative of his sometimes off-putting music. Before the sixth op. 118 piece, the intermezzo in E-flat minor, Kissin took a long pause before delivering an enigmatic reading, part sphinx's questions and part mortar shell, of this dark movement.
The Brahms felt like the end of the recital, and the actual final selection, Chopin's Andante spinato et Grande Polonaise, like the first encore. No one would want to hear a recital by Evgeny Kissin and not hear him play Chopin, as his performances of these supremely Romantic works are in many ways the gold standard among living pianists. Kissin did not disappoint with this substantial piece, combining a silken and moony slow movement with a famous and technically awe-inspiring polonaise. As Kissin launched into his series of encores, one had the impression that the man loved playing the piano, that through it alone he was able to speak in his native language. (Maurizio Pollini gave the same impression at his last recital in Washington, when he played four encores, some of them more substantial than the pieces on his actual program.) After Kissin had maintained a serious demeanor throughout the evening, always bowing formally and with equal respect to all quarters of the hall, something like a smile finally glimmered on Kissin's face after the Chopin, like a heavy hitter who has socked another one out of the park.
WPAS has announced to its subscribers the lineup of its 2007-08 season, and it looks very good. The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra will be back (February 3, 2008), as will Yo-Yo Ma (November 12, 2007), Dmitri Hvorostovsky (November 20, 2007), and Alfred Brendel (March 17, 2008), all of whom we reviewed last season. There are some names we have not reviewed recently, too, especially in the piano recital department: Murray Perahia (October 28, 2007), Yundi Li (March 12, 2008), and Leif Ove Andsnes (April 22, 2008), and Gabriela Montero (December 15, 2007).