Wigmore Hall (live stream), 04/10/2021

Prokofiev : Piano Sonata No. 6

Ravel : Valses nobles et sentimentales

Schumann : Carnaval

Ravel : La Valse

Boris Giltburg, piano

Prokofiev commenced his so-called "War" Sonatas - the 6th, 7th and 8th - simultaneously, at the turn of 1939-1940, but finished each one progressively later.  The 6th, therefore, was completed before Russia was actually engaged in WWII.  However, it seems unlikely that any informed Russian could have believed that Stalin's pact with Hitler would hold for any length of time, and the sonata begins with a fierce march that lays its aggression out clearly for all to see.  This was not, however, the only issue on Prokofiev's mind; his friend the director Meyerhold had recently been arrested - within six months he would be executed - and roughly a month after his imprisonment, Meyerhold's actress wife was savagely murdered in their flat by "unknown" assailants.  

Prokofiev's relations with the state were always difficult; he had returned to the Soviet Union in the early 1930s, after years spent in the West, which made the Soviet regime view him with suspicion, while at the same time wanting to benefit from his prestige as one of the best known, internationally, Russian composers of the time.  Prokofiev was very good at toeing the line, sometimes a little too good, musically speaking, but his solo piano music was usually more personal writing than his orchestral scores, and you get a clearer picture of his state of mind from them than from the orchestral or stage works which were often constrained by pragmatic considerations of getting them past the censors, not to mention meeting the requirements of official commissions.  

I don't usually associate Prokofiev's orchestral music with his solo piano music, in the sense that I find their soundscapes (aside from the obvious) quite disparate; he does not usually write the same way for the piano as he does for the orchestra.  The 6th Sonata, however, is possibly his most orchestral, you can hear just how it would be in orchestral guise at every turn, and particularly in the rich, heavy volutes of the slow waltz of the 3rd movement.  The crisp, steely precision required at every moment was firmly conveyed by Boris Giltburg's playing, sharply accentuated, rhythmically caustic, and the lyricism of that slow movement pulled from a place of deep pain, a damaged, treasured memory momentarily brought to light.

Ravel's Valses nobles et sentimentales were ostensibly inspired by Schubert's piano works of the same name, his D. 779 and D. 969 sets of waltzes, which are rarely heard even now.  The name, however, is about as close as it gets to Schubert, the music, elegant and wistful, is pure Ravel.  After the keenly percussive sound of the Prokofiev, it was good to hear that the Fazioli piano Giltburg had selected was capable of a warmer, more seductive timbre, while Giltburg's reading was vaporous and dreamy, as if these waltzes were being heard from the outside, coming in and out of focus as, perhaps, windows opened and closed on the ballroom, but never really present and tangible.

Carnaval, on the other hand, was right there in the ball-room, observing Schumann's vivid and evocative parade of characters.  You sat at the edge of the floor, a glass of wine in hand, as Giltburg danced the myriad revellers past you in all their motley, the commedia dell'arte characters bright, with that hint of darkness beneath, the others - Schumann's alter egos of Florestan and Eusebius, his loves of Chiarina (Clara) and Estrella (Ernestina), the fiery Paganini framed in a nonchalant little Valse allemande, the lyrically poetic Chopin - all of it beautifully handled, with a wonderful range of colour and texture.

It was towards the end of the Schumann, in the slightly manic conclusion (admittedly, entirely appropriate for the shenanigans of a Carnival), that I got the picture of the overall arc of the recital.  I don't know if Giltburg intended it this way, but to me, we were looking at a story in flashback.  The Prokofiev was the inevitable culmination, the net result of the previous events.  The first Ravel was the view from outside, idealised, almost sentimentalised.  The Schumann was the view from the inside, with a real sense of individuals, almost hyper-realist, as if they were conscious of something waiting in the darkness.  And La Valse, of course, was the cataclysm, the last, desperate grasp at a too-fragile construct about to be dashed to smithereens, and from which would emerge the cold, hard world of Prokofiev's 6th Sonata, in which the waltz was a regret and a farewell, before it turns to face yet another devastating crisis.

Ravel regularly orchestrated his solo piano pieces, but he did not often work in the other direction.  On the other hand, given that La Valse was intended as a ballet score, it was only natural that he should prepare a solo piano version for use in rehearsal. He also prepared a two-piano version; it was this, with Marcelle Meyer as his partner, that was played for Diaghilev's approval, which was not given, much to Ravel's displeasure.  It has had a life as a ballet, in fact, with choreographies by Nijinska, Ashton and, perhaps most memorably, Georges Balanchine.  However 'normal' it might have been to create a rehearsal transcription, though, the end result is of such immense difficulty it's rarely heard even from concert pianists - Ravel himself probably could not do it justice, he was not the most proficient of pianists.  

Something of the steel fingers and tone of the Prokofiev returned to Giltburg's playing for La Valse, and his pedalling here was exceptional.  It's too easy to blur the lines, which is the last thing you want where there are no different instruments to help highlight this or that line of melody or accompaniment.  Like the great Strauss waltzes on which it is modelled, the first part is a suite of waltzes, seamlessly blended together, but when they seem to restart, they are compressed and subtly deformed, which is what casts that terrible shadow over the whole.  Giltburg built the piece up with calm certainty - not with ease, one need only watch the hands on the keyboard to know there is nothing easy in this piece, and no way to conceal it, but surety, yes, that is possible, and was delivered.  The hardest thing, to my mind, is to keep the waltz pulse in place even as everything is crumbling around it, in the final sections, and this, while yet allowing for some flexibility, Giltburg managed splendidly.  

He gave us two encores, generously.  The Brahms seemed a little misplaced to me, not in keeping with the rest of the programme, but that's perhaps me and my attitude towards encores which should, to my mind, at least complement what has been heard before.  The Rachmaninoff Prelude, on the other hand, fitted right in, with its shimmering texture, disappearing delicately off the upper end of the piano.    A poetic conclusion to an excellent recital.

[Next : 7th October x 2]