Volodos, the 28-year-old Russian virtuoso pianist who made a remarkable Carnegie Hall debut in 1998 and subsequently was featured on several extraordinary CDs, has been one of the most eagerly anticipated musical artists of the 2000-2001 season. Well, he finally arrived last night at Sunset Center in Carmel in a concert presented by the Carmel Music Society. Initially a disappointing event, it was redeemed at its conclusion by startling and brilliant playing, so dazzling that you have to hear it yourself to believe how stunning it really was.
The first two thirds of the concert was heavy going. Imagine yourself being invited to a private dinner given by a world-renowned pastry chef. On arriving you find you can't sample the pastries until you have consumed a boring, multi-course dinner that almost destroys your appetite for dessert. That was more or less what happened as Volodos presented us with a performance representing some very unfortunate program selections.
The opening work, the Theme and Variations in D minor by Brahms, based on the lovely theme from his Sextet for two violins, two violas and two cellos, is a problem work since, unfortunately, the theme is more beautiful than the subsequent variations. On this occasion Volodos banged out the theme, emphasizing inner notes that were totally unimportant along the way, and totally failed to reveal its haunting beauty. He continued this harsh treatment in the variations that followed, until finally, in the fourth variation in D major, Volodos found his voice and quite unexpectedly, after the unpleasant banging, treated us to some soft lovely playing that showed quite another side of Volodos. It was a beautiful moment of lovely playing that was regrettably brief.
The Schumann
Kreisleriana that followed the Brahms was another miscalculation. The opening section was so fast and over pedaled it became a meaningless unrecognizable blur. This tended to be Volodos' style during the faster sections, while the slower ones once again revealed him to be a thoughtful and sensitive musician. Kreisleriana has never been one of Schumann's most successful cycles and Volodos did little to convince us otherwise.
After intermission we observed another unfortunate program choice, the unfinished Schubert Sonata in E major, D.157. This is Schubert's first attempt in the piano sonata genre, and while it has some lovely passages in its
Andante movement, it is still a weak, youthful composition. Did Volodos reveal new beauties in the score? No, he did not. What we did hear was some very nicely controlled playing (although sometimes over pedaled in the first movement) and many expressive moments in the slow movement. But, ultimately this work tends to sink like a stone leaving no fond memories or an inclination to hear it again.
By this point in the evening, I was wondering why this program was chosen in the first place to perform in over a dozen consecutive venues on a tour culminating in a Carnegie Hall appearance on November 15. Is it that Volodos is becoming tired of being typecast as a kind of virtuoso circus freak whose astonishing concert transcriptions routinely blow people away at the end of his recital programs? Is he trying to establish his credentials as a thoughtful, serious musicianly performer who has more to offer than virtuosity?
If so, then I can think of many more sensible program choices other than what he was serving us on this occasion. The first composer coming to mind is Nikolai Medtner, a contemporary of Rachmaninoff, and one of the last more or less undiscovered great Russian Romantics. Although more artists today are discovering this remarkable composer's works, we are still waiting for a pianistic messiah to truly awaken these works and bring them into the mainstream of the piano repertoire. And, is Volodos the artist who can breath new life in to such neglected works as the Tchaikowsky Grand Sonata in G Major? I hope someday that we will have the opportunity to learn the answer to these questions.
Until that happens, we still, thank God, have the happy pleasure of hearing Volodos play Liszt for us as he did on this occasion. If you want to hear sensitivity and extraordinary musicianship, then you have to hear what Volodos achieved in his magnificent performance of three unpretentious Schubert-Liszt song transcriptions such as we had the good fortune to hear during this concert. His lovely cantabile song-like playing in the
Der Müller und der Bach was so simply stated with no teasing of the melody, but just beautiful shaping of every phrase, that you never wanted it to end. The rich and satisfying rendition of
Aufenthalt that followed was beautifully controlled with every effect magnificently calculated to underscore the meaning of the text, and the ending song of the group
Der Doppelgänger created and sustained a magical mood that brought a few sighs from the audience at its conclusion.
Now it was time for the anticipated fireworks as the concert ended with the Liszt Ballade No. 2 in B Minor and the Hungarian Rhapsody No. 13. The Ballade is a curious work, rather mystical at times and with some lovely melodies, one of which sounds amazingly like
Liebestod (except that it was written four years before
Tristan und Isolde). The opening measures of the Ballade, a series of chromatic scales in the bass accompanying a portentous melody were so over pedaled that their effect was somewhat diminished, and the work lost some of its effectiveness through Mr. Volodos's tendency to linger at the ends of phrase and pauses.
Thus, it was the Hungarian Rhapsody No. 13, heavily edited and supplied with supplementary figuration and elaborate cadenzas by Volodos that stole the show. Here were the legendary dazzling tricks that we all were waiting for, and we were appropriately bowled over by them. What we witnessed was an effortless virtuosity of the most astonishing kind. It is obvious that there is nothing that he cannot do at the keyboard. Do his additions to the score melt into the original fabric of the work, or do they seemed tacked on for gratuitous display? Well, to my mind they seem tacked on and quite unlike the ingeniously interwoven figuration that Horowitz created in his legendary version of Liszt's Rakoczy March (Hungarian Rhapsody No. 15). But, they
were really dazzling, and as I watched this performance unfold I just could hardly believe the things I was seeing and hearing. He is that kind of virtuoso.
The two encores that followed were
Etincelles (Sparks) by Moszkowski and the "The Polka of W.R." by Rachmaninoff. Both of these encores were completely transformed by Volodos into vehicles for virtuoso display. But, were they ever impressive!
We always have to keep in mind that Volodos is only 28 years old. Who knows what direction his future career will take, but I suspect that he is a sensitive musician trying to break out of the mold he has created for himself. And, you know what? I think he will succeed.
End
