Pianist Paul Lewis performs Schubert's Klavierstücke in E Flat Major, D. 946 No. 2 in a previous recording. On Friday, Oct. 26, he performed the powerful finale to his Schubert cycle.
Last Friday night Paul Lewis performed to a packed concert hall in the Kevin P. Mahaney ’84 Center for the Arts. In 2011 Lewis began a two-year project to perform the mature piano works of Franz Schubert (1797-1828). Friday night was the fifth and final concert of the cycle, and the College was one of the few venues to host the cycle in its entirety.
Considering Lewis’ recognition as one of the best Schubert interpreters in recent memory, Friday evening’s performance was quite a treat.
Lewis performed Schubert’s final three sonatas, which were written down in the final weeks of his life and published posthumously. In these sonatas we see Schubert’s vast imagination at work. For instance, in the second movement of the C minor Sonata, d. 958, Schubert introduces a tender, reflective theme in the first few measures. At this point the adagio is very balanced and diatonic. However, Schubert hints at the ensuing complexity of the movement with a subtle chromatic chord at a cadence. Not surprisingly, the listener is soon thrust into a minor passage that drudges up the musical equivalent of night to the opening’s day. Listening to Schubert’s attempt to reconcile these contrasting ideas before the end of the movement was by itself worth the price of admission.
I could hear distinct elements of the second movement of d.958 in the allegro of the Sonata in A major, d.959—particularly the lyrical theme, which reappeared in an altered form and showed up transformed yet again in the fourth movement. As the concert progressed, one could sense the intricate connections between the sonatas, and Lewis seemed privy to their secrets as no one in the audience could be. The way in which he inhabited each sonata made the concert itself seem like one fluid process from start to finish, as Lewis played each note and passage with such conviction and heightened sense of expression as to convince the audience that no other interpretation would have been appropriate. Perhaps another way of stating the same phenomenon is that he made everything look easy.
If ever there was a lapse in the collective attention of the audience, it might have been due to Lewis’s physical playing style. As many pianists tend to do, Lewis played accented chords with his entire body, as if he were using the keyboard to push himself up from the piano bench at one point. Also, during especially demanding passages, one could see the intensity in Lewis’ facial expressions — his furrowed brow and slight frown — and hear the occasional grunting sound emanating from the stage and throughout the concert hall. If I’ve portrayed Lewis in a Jekyll and Hyde kind of way — composed pianist as he enters the concert hall and wild man at the piano — then let me clarify.
Although this intensity of expression might be disorienting to some, it merely demonstrates my earlier point that Lewis immerses himself in each piece. Although much less idiosyncratic, Lewis’s playing style reminds me of the late Glenn Gould’s if only because both pianists become fully absorbed in the music when they play, this state then manifesting itself in the body as accented gestures. No one can fault a pianist for this type of expression.
Although Lewis didn’t sing while he played, as Gould did, there was perhaps one other important parallel between the two, specifically in their relationship with the music they play. Schubert, for Lewis, is what Bach was to Gould and perhaps what Chopin was to Rubenstein: an individual composer whose work speaks most clearly and naturally to the performer, who is then able to channel the music in a unique and refreshing way. Friday evening’s performance suggested Lewis understands Schubert’s works as few others do.
Comments
