Veteran pianist visits MCFA

Author: Andrew Throdahl

Ivan Moravec, one of the great pianists of the 20th century, settled on the concert hall stage last Sunday, April 19, like a grandfather about to tell a story to his grandchildren. His program was dominated by children's pieces and pieces with a folkloristic yearning for childhood. There was nothing flashy about his demeanor: he sported a comfortable blue blazer, gave clipped half-bows and never left the stage between works.

The second half of the program opened with Debussy's "Children's Corner" suite, and his performance of this particular piece will probably become one of my favorite concert hall memories. It seemed perfectly appropriate for a 79-year-old man to be playing this piece, and he brought out the character of each movement with a distinct poignancy. In his interpretation of "Golliwog's Cakewalk" - a piece which I have always thought was about a frog and not a blackface minstrel character, and will therefore attempt to continue believing is about a frog - the title character seemed to strut shyly, perhaps surrounded by disapproving adult frogs. I had always known Golliwog as a gregarious amphibian, but the way Moravec played him seemed better. "Jimbo's Lullaby" and "The Little Shepherd" were equally demure and adorable.

Moravec toned down most of the works on the program, and it seemed as much because of the resignation in his disposition as for structural purposes. Chopin's Ballades, of which Moravec played the first and fourth, are tapestries of recondite textures and characters, and are therefore difficult to shape. In both works Moravec seemed to gradually build to the finale, perhaps compromising interior climaxes. It may have been a surprise to audience members familiar with the G-minor Ballade when he arrived at its resplendent central section and played at most mezzo-forte. Only his coda, played with a barbed edge, reached an undeniable forte. Likewise, in the difficult F-minor Ballade he kept things serene and unturbulent until the "blank" major chords that preface the stretto. In both ballades, the catastrophic endings were more powerfully realized because they were more steadily achieved.

I don't believe he was only playing quietly because of his frail age. Throughout the program he displayed a remarkably dynamic palette, articulating various shades of quiet. This was apparent from the start of his concert in two Janacek works, "Along an Overgrown Path" and "In the Mists." He also displayed notable control of pedaling that helped to clarify some of his compatriot's stranger harmonies.

Two days before his Middlebury engagement, Moravec gave a recital in Kansas City, Mo. and spent the following day stuck on a plane. He was understandably exhausted for his Sunday concert, and as a result had a few memory lapses. In the first half of the program he was supposed to play the Debussy Prelude "Les sons et les parfums tournent dans l'air du soir" before the suite "Pour le Piano," but forgot. After playing the prelude of an entirely different character that opens the latter work, the audience applauded and he apologized. Then he proceeded to play the forgotten prelude and treated the audience to a declarative encore of the "Pour le Piano" prelude. He became slightly disoriented the second time around, as he did later on in the G-minor Ballade. It is perhaps a greater sign of his talent that he was able to extract himself from these minor mistakes as if they had never happened than if he had made none at all.

At the end of the program, he started to play a Chopin waltz as an encore, but stopped after a few phrases. He then proceeded to execute flawlessly the finale of a Haydn sonata. The Middlebury audience was appreciative and stood up repeatedly.

One of the first things I learned when starting piano lessons was never to take my hands off the keyboard before my feet left the pedal. This is a performance faux-pas that I have ever since tenaciously avoided and shuddered at. Seeing Ivan Moravec - who studied with one of the all time greats, Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli; who has released "definitive" recordings of Beethoven's fourth concerto, and Chopin's Nocturnes; and who has done a variety of other impressive things - break my rule, and at the end of every piece rest his hands in his lap with his feet still sustaining the final chord, was deeply humbling. And yet it, like his memory lapses, also made him more human, more relatable.