Only two days after hearing Fleisher dispense his unfathomable wisdom to young chamber players, I was at Alice Tully Hall for my first CMS of Lincoln Center concert since I arrived in New York, an inexplicably distressing circumstance: how can I have missed so much marvelous music making in my own backyard and in my favorite genre? I must be losing it seriously. Well, at age 342, I’m entitled to have my senior moments.
I went for Fleisher, of course, but was so pleasantly surprised by his partners, again, very silly of me. Of course, Fleisher would only surround himself with musicians of the highest caliber. In this case, he outdid himself. This was one helluva group. What surprised me even more was that not only was I transported by the musicians, but I was also thrilled by the music, and this I truly did not expect. Yes Schubert and Bach have nothing to prove, but Harbison and Korngold (of Hollywood fame)? I wasn’t so sure. Big mistake.
Anyway, we are not there yet. The evening started out with a very amiable collaboration between Fleisher and Kalish, the very lovely Schubert Fantasie in F minor for 4-hands. Considering how long Fleisher has been distressingly (for his adorers) confined to one, this was a treat indeed. The rendition was sensitive and lovely, maybe a tad too prim, if you can forgive this crime of lèse-majesté. As you will see later, there was nothing prim about their participation in the rest of the program.
Mr. Kalish would be the first to manifest this in the Harbison piano quintet.
John Harbison, b. 1938. I was prepared to be bored stiff. I was absolutely enchanted. As I only heard it once, I cannot presume to tell you much about the piece. What I can tell you is that I found it extremely interesting, I listened with much pleasure, I did not succumb to the necessity of comparing it to anything else, and I was absolutely thrilled by the musicians, all of the highest caliber. I was especially taken by the second violin, Yura Lee, an extraordinarily skilled and expressive young violinist, as she would confirm in the Korngold, as too cellist Nicolas Altstaedt, whom I had a feeling I had heard somehere before and yes, indeed, I had! He was a candidate at the Feuermann Competition 2006 in Berlin, an encounter of the highest caliber where the grand prize winner, Giorgi Kharadze, did tower above them all, but wheremost contestants deserved the highest degree of consideration. So, in the Harbison, Mr. Kalish, surrounded by his fabulous colleagues, was far from tame. The music invites daring and much lyricism, and they certainly delivered that.
In the Korngold suite, Fleisher was back into his forced nook, music written for the left hand. As most of the pieces in the genre, the Suite owes its existence to Paul Wittgenstein, of Ravel and Prokofiev fame. The peculiar formation, piano left hand, two violins and cello, reminds me of another piece I used to play with my wonderful Spanish friends, a sinfonietta for piano 4 hands, two violins and cello, a pathetically uninteresting but humorous little piece by one Carl Bohm (no relation whatsoever to Karl Böhm, the great conductor)which we invariably lapsed into after generous servings of tortilla and several glasses of Rioja wine, just to unwind before heading home. But in the analogy of ensembles ends the similarity. Bohm is a joke, while Korngold commands my full respect. Again, I would need to hear the quintet again, but I can say that I was as riveted as I was by the Harbison, in awe of all the performers and , as usual, stunned by the expressive capacity Fleisher has developed in his left hand which winds up sounding not like one or two, but like at least four hands. A pianistic Vishnu. Just as many hands and just as divine