{"id":65716,"date":"2013-01-30T03:18:41","date_gmt":"2013-01-30T01:18:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gbopera.it\/?p=65716"},"modified":"2013-12-27T03:22:51","modified_gmt":"2013-12-27T01:22:51","slug":"sokolov-at-the-salieri","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.studioroldo.it\/gbopera\/sokolov-at-the-salieri\/","title":{"rendered":"Sokolov at the Salieri"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><em>Legnago, Teatro Salieri, 2012\/2013 Season<\/em><strong><br \/>\n<\/strong><strong>Grigory Sokolov <\/strong>piano<strong><br \/>\n<\/strong><em>Franz Schubert<\/em>: 4 Improvvisi op. D 899;\u00a0 Drei Klavierst\u00fccke D 946<br \/>\n<em>Ludwig van Beethoven\u00a0 <\/em>Sonata n.29 in B flat major op.106 \u201cHammerklavier&#8221;<br \/>\n<em>Legnago, 23rd January \u00a02013<br \/>\n<\/em><br \/>\nIt does credit to the great pianist <strong><em>Grigory Sokolov<\/em><\/strong> that, at the height of his career, \u00a0he graces the stage of a charming theatre, for a recital in a country town in the plains 40 chilometres south of Verona , just as he would \u00a0the major concert halls of\u00a0 the world\u2019s capital cities. And it is a credit to the theatre management of the Teatro Salieri to have brought him to Legnago, offering such a wonderful opportunity to the local audience to experience great music-making by a formidable artist. \u00a0The 2 hour programme he offered was both technically and musically daunting, heightening the expectations of the knowledgeable in the audience.\u00a0 The first half of the programme was devoted to <strong><em>Schubert: 4 Improvvisi op. 90 D 899<\/em><\/strong><em>,<\/em>\u00a0 \u00a04 of the 8 pieces composed for solo piano in 1827, and <strong><em>Drei Klavierst\u00fccke D946<\/em><\/strong>, composed in May of 1828, 6 months before his death. These works belong to Schubert\u2019s mature final period which produced such masterpieces as his <em>Winterreise<\/em> song-cycle(D 911), the String Quintet in C (D956).\u00a0 The second half of the programme was devoted to <strong>Beethoven\u2019<\/strong>s immense <strong><em>Sonata n.29 in B flat major op.106 \u201cGrosse Sonate f\u00fcr das Hammerklavier,\u201d <\/em><\/strong>written between 1817 and 1819, his longest and one of his most technically and harmonically complex sonatas, as well as being one of the most challenging works in the piano repertoire.<br \/>\nAfter a quick bow, in the dim atmospheric half-shadow of a lone overhead spot-light, Sokolov, with great simplicity and exquisite taste, offered first the <strong><em>4 Schubert Improvvisi op.90<\/em><\/strong> followed by the often neglected<em> <strong>Drei Klavierst\u00fccke<\/strong>,<\/em> exalting the distinctive elements of each individual piece. Every phrase, every accent, \u00a0was calibrated\u00a0 in weight , dynamics, timbre, and colour, underpinned\u00a0 by a consummate technique. The firm base lines, the rippling accompanying lines, crystalline but unobtrusive under the beautiful \u00a0languid or \u00a0lyrical themes; each voice as distinctive as three different instruments. \u00a0With levity and evenness of touch, Solokov extracted the intrinsic significance of each note; the profundity of a bass line, the lilt of a Viennese lied.<br \/>\nBut it was in the magnificent, monumental and revered<em> <strong>Hammerklavier Sonata<\/strong> <\/em>which even Beethoven predicted would be a source of great difficulty for pianists, that Sokolov reached unbelievable heights, both in his expressivity and his technical mastery. In this unconventional and revolutionary work, Sokolov demonstrated his undisputed perfectionism, maintaining the musical tension within his overall conception and sense of structure from the initial fanfare with his resounding chords, the energetic and dramatic first movement often interspersed with its reflective moments, in the lighter second movement, \u00a0to the stillness of the deepest and most profound description of pain and despair of the third movement, and in \u00a0the resurrection of the fourth movement with its complex three part fugue, breathtaking in its simultaneous jumps of tenths back and forward. He dominated the fugue, highlighting the different counterpoint voices, its inversions, augmentations, diminuition, in all its spiralling turns and shifts, with great sensitivity and firmness, never forsaking clarity or the directional thrust. \u00a0His pianissimi were intense, his fortissimi\u00a0 full-bodied and vibrant, his trills thrilling, his phrasing eloquent and meaningful and\u00a0 the technical difficulties faced with ease and confidence. He plays in a trance-like state mouthing silently, in complete fusion with his instrument and music.<br \/>\nNot one for indulging in audience adulation, after each piece, his customary cursory bow, a sober, reserved stage presence, and off.\u00a0 This did not prevent him from conceding 5 encores after repeated calls from the audience: \u00a02 by <strong>Chopin,<\/strong> (the pathos created in Prelude 28. n\u00b0 4 left the audience spellbound), 2 by <strong>Rameau<\/strong> and 1 by <strong>Bach\/Ziloti<\/strong> .<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Legnago, Teatro Salieri, 2012\/2013 Season Grigory Sokolov piano Franz Schubert: 4 Improvvisi op. D 899;\u00a0 Drei Klavierst\u00fccke D [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":105,"featured_media":47154,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[14678,2426,7063,3645,1017],"class_list":["post-65716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-senza-categoria","tag-concerti","tag-franz-schubert","tag-grigory-sokolov","tag-ludwig-van-beethoven","tag-teatro-salieri-di-legnago"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.studioroldo.it\/gbopera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.studioroldo.it\/gbopera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.studioroldo.it\/gbopera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.studioroldo.it\/gbopera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/105"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.studioroldo.it\/gbopera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.studioroldo.it\/gbopera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65716\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.studioroldo.it\/gbopera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.studioroldo.it\/gbopera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.studioroldo.it\/gbopera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.studioroldo.it\/gbopera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}