"Hello, Guinness Book of Records, I think we have a new speed record for a performance of classical piano music, maybe even faster than Volodos." This event took place on Saturday, January 6, at Sunset Center in Carmel, and was a piano recital by perennial Carmel Bach Festival favorite, Janina Fialkowska.
Celebrating the first concert event on the Monterey Peninsula of the new millennium (the true one, not the much heralded fizzle that gave us all a Y2K scare a year ago), this concert was a part of the Bach Festival's off-season series called
Bravissima that has been providing an interesting group of concerts at Sunset Center in Carmel.
Navigating her way through a challenging program, Ms. Fialkowska began with the Bach Partita No. 1 in B-flat Major, and to this well-known work she brought her own robust, high velocity style of piano playing. The slower sections of the Partita, the
Sarabande and the
Menuet II were especially lovely, but so much of the rest of the work suffered from overly fast tempos, a nervous rushing and a consistently hard, ugly tone. Ms. Fialkowska was generous with repeats for each section and usually adopted the scheme of the first statement being forte and the repeat being much softer. It was in the softer repetitions that we were able to hear what a lovely sound she can really produce when she wants to.
Following the Bach, we heard the great Mozart Sonata in A Minor, K.310, one of the more difficult of the Mozart Sonatas. Her logical mind managed to project the emotional
Sturm und Drang of the first movement quite nicely although a tendency to speed up at climaxes marred the true majesty of the movement. Her slow movement developed considerable tension in its middle section, and her
Presto rushed along somewhat nervously to its powerful conclusion.
A comparative novelty on the program was the rarely heard Beethoven Sonata in F Major, Op. 10, No. 2, which has often been neglected in favor of its companion work, the Sonata in D Major, Op. 10, No. 3. In Ms. Fialkowska's hands the work exhibited occasional charm, but the perpetual motion last movement again projected a nervous fluctuation of tempos that ultimately robbed of it the power it is capable of achieving.
To end the first half of the program, Ms. Fialkowska raced her way through the great Chopin Ballade in G Minor. This was a "knock 'em dead, take no prisoners" kind of performance, and the precipitous speeds heard in Ms. Fialkowska's performance of this work were mind boggling. I felt like a passenger on a French TGV express train hurtling along at over 200 miles an hour, thinking, "slow down, we want to enjoy the view."
After intermission, we heard Schumann's
Faschingsschwank aus Wien (Carnival Jest from Vienna). Once again, there was some very beautiful playing, especially in the slower sections
Romance, Scherzino and the
Intermezzo where we heard the big, gorgeous tone, the long line and lovely shaping of dynamics that is characteristic of all the great pianists. These movements were sandwiched in between some of the fastest, most rushed piano playing I have ever heard. The great comedian/actor Danny Kaye was famous for singing a rapid patter song that incorporated the names of over a hundred Russian composers, whose tongue twister names were pronounced with an impeccable Russian accent so rapidly you couldn't understand how his brain could function that fast. Her performance of the
Finale of the Schumann was faster.
The concluding work on the program was the Fantasy on Mendelssohn's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" in a paraphrase by Liszt. Here, if anywhere on the program, was a legitimate opportunity for some high velocity playing, but it was mostly fast and loud without being clear.
So, we might well ask, what is going on here? Janina Fialkowska has all the equipment necessary to produce music on the highest level. Her musical sensitivity, emotional intensity and technical virtuosity are equal to those of any pianist alive today. She has made many distinguished recordings in the past, and her recorded performance of the Liszt B Minor Sonata is one of the great recordings of the 20th century.
I cannot believe that she would play this way in New York City at Carnegie Hall with Bernard Holland or Anthony Tomasini of the
New York Times reviewing. I suspect that she regards our audience on the Monterey Peninsula as a social audience more likely to be impressed by empty virtuosity rather than music that plumbs more subtle and emotional depths.
To reward her loyal fans who gave her a rousing standing ovation, Ms. Fialkowska played a single encore, Schumann's
Widmung arranged by Franz Liszt.
An interesting footnote to the persona of Ms. Fialkowska was revealed the following morning when she presided over a master class at California State University Monterey Bay featuring talented young students from the Monterey Peninsula between the ages of 14 and 17 playing a wide variety of works from a Mozart Sonata to the 3rd Movement of the Rachmaninoff Second Concerto.
During this master class, Ms. Fialkowska showed that she is an impressive musician and teacher. Ironically, the message she sent more than once during her master class was the admonition to go for the long musical line, listen to your playing to make sure it is clear, and "never to get an ugly sound."
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