A Pollini from "standing ovations" at La Scala
During the recital that Maurizio Pollini held last Monday at La Scala, the great pianist seventy-six presented to the public a fascinating program that pointed on the combination of two complementary personalities as were those of Schumann and Chopin. Admired the layout of the program and ascertained that the darling of the Milanese audience, when it entered the hall, was in excellent physical condition, some preliminary considerations came to mind while waiting to start listening. Chopin, who held Bach and Mozart in the highest regard and did not like Beethoven, did not usually make judgments about his contemporaries: Robert Schumann was certainly esteemed by him, but beyond the turn of the famous mutual dedications (Second Ballata, Kreisleriana) did not go much further. For his part Schumann certainly could not aspire to the absolute perfection of his colleague's piano writing, to his creation of new and fascinating sound worlds that were almost miraculously born, as well as an extraordinary fantasy, even from a perfect union between hand and keyboard. Tombs bien sous le doigts has always been said of chopinistic piano writing, while Schumann's was a problem that was not unimportant. Yet even Schumann has some stylistically remarkable records, and this is demonstrated for example in Allegro op.8resurrected to the concert practice by Pollini thirty years ago. A complex page, difficult to memorize and of iron architecture, the Allegro opens with an impetuous piano gesture that falls on the exposition of an extremely concise theme, which perhaps presents a vague kinship with the theme of the first of the Gesänge der Frühe , another moment extraordinary, this time of the extreme maturity of the composer, from Pollini held in high esteem and proposed several times also to the Scala audience.
The program, however, opened with one of the essays best known by the public of all time. "The Arabesque of Schumann", as it was once said, has always been in Pollini's repertoire, but the other night a miracle was performed, that is the transformation of an execution that we knew well for its beauty in another even more fascinating that irrefutably recalled a piano style derived from that of Alfred Cortot, an artist much loved by Pollini. Of Cortot we do not have a recording of Arabeske , but we can well imagine how he could perform it, and how he could perform in particular that last wonderful page that closes the composition, zum Schluss , a sort of farewell in which Schumann's writing becomes speaking:
This was perhaps the only moment in which Pollini - who here evoked Cortot as if it were a seance - has shown a complete abandonment to pure poetry, leaving behind the very lucid formal control: an attitude that makes hope for the next, we hope numerous opportunities for listening. Crossed with superb technical-stylistic mastery the obstacle of the Allegroop.8, Pollini has thrown himself headlong into the third Schumann sonata, or rather in that "Concerto sans orchestra" which turned out to be the first printed edition of a project born in reality in five movements (ie the three published, with the addition of two Jokes). Without prejudice to our preference for the version restored in five movements, as is proposed in our day by Sokolov, or the more common in four, one can not deny a certain immediacy of this edition which had been imposed by Haslinger in the 1834 going dramatically against the author's choices. Also in this case there has been a noticeable change of perspective on the part of the pianist, who, even though proposing again the version he considered most indicative of his aesthetic choices, today he has gained an even more meditated vision of that miraculous theme with variations that encompass some of Schumann's most vertiginous musical ideas. At this juncture Pollini succumbed to the uncontrollable emotion especially in the closing of the movement, with that crying repetition of the three chords of F minor which then constitute an unmistakable acronym of all the op.14, since they are found at the end of the first half and ( more so) at the conclusion of the sonata. The variations on the theme of Clara are set in the Haslinger version between two giants of fearsome execution, which in the vision of Pollini have never completely convinced: a reading so burning but so hasty as to be lacking in details and in the articulation of the piano game.
In the transition to the Chopin part of the program the two Nocturnes of Op.55 were listened, unfortunately separated by the applauses of an audience that was not able to respect theatrical conveniences. In this case too Pollini proved to be completely free from formal concern and aimed only to direct his attention to the pure beauty of these pages, as if they naturally flowed from his hands. Problems of control have not undermined the execution of the Sonata op.58 (especially in the first movement, where little space was given to the natural enlargement of the scan in view of the declamation of the second theme, and in the Scherzo, until very recently of the most important places of Pollini virtuoso). On the other hand, a poignant poem - almost a look at the end of things - was the interpretation of theLargo , an element that is inextricably linked to that ideal of Bellini's chantability that is also present in the stylistic cipher of the Polish musician. What Pollini still manages to impress the audience also through a technical inspection, however extraordinary the keyboard it is still understood through the first encore, Chopin's Scherzo op.39, made with the same searing immediacy of ancient times. Perhaps they were really right those who spoke in particular of the tomber sous the doigts of this impetuous and lyrical page together: in this same room, the eighty-seven year old Artur Rubinstein, in June 1974, gave a legendary proof of the theorem:
With the subsequent, dramatic performance of Studio op.25 n.11, another milestone of the Milanese pianist, the evening ended with an uncontrollable succession of applauses and calls on stage.
