Babushka Brahms
It is easy to impress with pyrotechnics where and when speed is the main criterion by which many judge a performance and thus superficial technique supersedes and sacrifices taste and temperament.
One is of course guilty of this too, an example coming to mind that of a warhorse of the piano concerto canon where a recording by the composer as soloist is available (and a very respectable performance too, need it be said). However, in the face of "competition" and comparison with newer readings, this reference performance is relegated to the shadows. Blighted by the fancy frills of the upstarts.
This evening at the SSO highlighted this discrepancy and it was a wake-up call to really open our eyes and hear the music (as ironic as that may be).
So there we have the husband-and-wife team of Gennady Rozhdestvensky at the dais and Viktoria Postnikova at the keyboard in Brahms' monumental Piano Concerto No 2. This work is a personal favourite so expectations were rather high and not intended to be exceeded since the definitive performance by Emil Gilels plays on loop in the mind.
Before the concert, snippets of the music were heard from the orchestra as members warmed up. Call it a spoiler, but one just had to pick up the strains of the melancholic horn call at the open and the plaintive cello refrain of the third movement.
When the show got underfoot, it was a little underwhelming to be honest. The ears may be biased but the performance seemed an amateur orchestra in rehearsal going through its paces. Postnikova, in a fuchsia blouse and a multicolour skirt, looked more the part of village piano teacher than international pianist. And was that a score at the piano?!
But as we know not to judge books by covers, doubting Thomases were soon put in their place and dissenters thrown to the lions. While hers wasn't a barnstorming reading you'd get with a Bronfman or a Hough (both of whom I've caught in the same work), it was one that spoke volumes of the experience and artistry of the doyenne.
It was an expansive and spacious take on the work, and the leisurely yet taut performance lent well to the music. Postnikova was uncrushed and unhurried as she traversed the material, casually turning the pages of the score and continuing unfazed. Any stolen time only added to the interpretation. And that was not to say that she lacked the fire and brimstone when called for. Thunderous and imposing in chordal and running passages, I could very well picture her tackling that other monster.
In the cello concerto that Brahms never composed, Ng Pei Sian threw himself into the yearning melody, his physical investment in the performance all too telling at the sharp intakes of breath.
An encore in Schumann's Traumerei was given, with half the orchestra members closing their eyes and lost in the reverie. Postnikova is my new favourite pianist!
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