If during a music festival a featured tenor canceled a scheduled performance of the Schubert song cycle
Die Winterreise,there might be only be a handful of tenors worldwide who could substitute at a moment's notice. However, if a featured pianist scheduled to play the Rachmaninoff Third Concerto were to cancel, there are hundreds of pianists who could substitute, and I can even think of five or six right here in California within a three hundred mile radius. Such is the nature of the concert scene today. Tenors are in demand while there is an oversupply of pianists.
Why is there an oversupply? More young people today study piano seriously than any other instrument. And if, during a concert, the featured artist asked from the stage for a show of hands as to whom in the audience had studied piano, a lot of hands would go up. Since piano study is so prevalent you might think that that there would be a tremendous audience for piano recitals. And, in a way there is, for if you examine any symphony orchestra's scheduled season, pianists predominate as soloists. But the solo piano recital has declined in recent years so that a majority of solo piano recitals are presented at universities and colleges.
Most observers point the finger of guilt at twentieth-century composers who have failed to write music that is attractive to pianists and their audiences. Few contemporary composers love the piano or have any skill in writing music idiomatically for it. And additionally, many twentieth-century works for the piano are so difficult that they are beyond the reach of the average pianist. Many can manage the easier Beethoven Sonatas and some of the Nocturnes and Waltzes by Chopin, but they would be hard pressed or show little enthusiasm to play works by Karl-Heinz Stockhausen, Crumb or Xenakis. Because of this lack of replenishment, the piano repertoire has stagnated and modern audiences have become jaded from listening to the same standard repertoire year after year.
Which brings us to pianist Barbara Nissman who appeared in a solo recital on Wednesday evening, October 11, in the Music Center Recital Hall at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Ms. Nissman has developed a viable career as a pianist by performing contemporary music, not the more extreme contemporary music, but good solid twentieth-century fare by such composers as Bartók, Prokofiev and Ginastera, all of whom were pianists themselves and knew well how to write effectively for the piano.
Early in her program, Ms. Nissman treated us to a stunning performance of Bartók's
Improvisations, Op. 20. Here was a pianist in command of all the tonal resources of the piano, and she used them to excellent effect as she created shimmering textures and lovely pedal effects punctuated with moments of technical brilliance.
Her program ended with one of the great twentieth-century masterpieces, Prokofiev's Sonata No. 6. This was a brutally effective performance. It exploited the ugly violence of the first movement while allowing us occasional glimpses of its contrasting tonal beauty. The two inner movements were the highlight of the performance and, as always, showed Ms. Nissman to be totally in command. Even in moments with the most difficult textures and thorny virtuoso passages, she was always focussed and controlled. It was magnificent piano playing.
The other selections on the program were somewhat problematic. The opening work on the program, Chopin's
Polonaise-Fantasie, Op. 61, had moments of beauty, but its inner struggle and ultimate resolution failed to unfold in a logical satisfying manner. The Beethoven
Waldstein Sonata was a masterful and brilliant performance, yet the link between the movements,
Introduzione: Adagio molto, didn't develop the sustained tension of which it is capable, and the outer movements were overplayed.
The other major work on the program was Debussy's
Estampes. In the
Pagodes Ms. Nissman displayed a shimmering palette of lovely sound and her beautifully calculated long
diminuendo at the end was gorgeous. In
La Soirée dans Grenade there were moments of beauty, but the slow sustained quality of many of the sections eluded her. The concluding
Jardins sous la Pluie was in her hands, not a gentle rain, but an aggressive one, and it came off sounding more like Lisztian frenzy than Debussy tone painting.
The capacity audience gave Ms. Nissman a standing ovation and were rewarded with a curious performance of Chopin's
Nocturne in D-flat Major, Op. 27, No. 2. Here phrases were teased and push-pulled in many strange directions, and the dynamics were forced to the point where the work began to sound like a fifth Ballade rather than a Nocturne.
So, the bottom line is that Ms. Nissman is an attractive, accomplished and brilliant pianist. Her appearance on stage is lovely, and her confidence and preparation are never in question. You instantly like Ms. Nissman before she plays a note. Her skills in presenting contemporary music have been demonstrated in the past and were certainly on view in this recital, which was a very good recital. But it could have been a great recital had she adhered more closely to the composers' intentions in the more standard repertoire. What we have observed from the great pianists of the past is their skill in shaping a phrase and developing the longer line, and it was this aspect of her playing that disappointed. Artur Schnabel once said something to the effect that as performers, we are tour guides and must never get in the way of the view. Ms. Nissman's virtuosity is so compelling that it occasionally gets in the way of the music.
Special mention should be made of the generosity of Bud Kretschmar, who not only made a generous contribution to help bring Ms. Nissman to the UCSC campus, but also made it possible to bring the excellent Steinway D from the Mello Center to the Recital hall.
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