Saturday, October 02, 1999
CONCERT REVIEW
Ivo Pogorelich phones it in - from Mars
BY JANELLE GELFAND
The Cincinnati Enquirer
There was an enigma at the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra Friday night — and it was not Elgar's.
Ivo Pogorelich, 40, began earning a reputation as a bad boy of the piano in 1980, when he became famous for losing the Chopin Competition in Warsaw and a jury member walked out. What the jury may have seen as unorthodox but provocative has since degenerated. On Friday, the Belgrade-born pianist managed to mutilate almost beyond recognition most of Rachmaninoff's famous Piano Concerto No. 2.
Forget any thoughts of sweeping lyricism. This was merely an exercise in self-indulgence.
From the first notes, his touch and tempos were erratic. The lyrical sections were so abnormally slow as to sound as if he was learning the music. He frequently took rubatos in odd places, stretched the beat and slowed maddeningly until he completely destroyed the pulse.
His touch sounded ill-judged and he favored pounding out bass notes. The wonderful second theme of the first movement meandered like cocktail music. Because he favored his left hand, right hand melodies were often inaudible.
Rarely, one saw a glimmer of Mr. Pogorelich's gift for sonority or his brilliant technique. In the orchestral tutti sections, maestro Jesus Lopez-Cobos gamely tried to pick up the tempo. But the soloist would then dissolve into a bizarre fog, ignoring all dynamic markings and halting at the ends of phrases.
He seemed lost in himself. In the adagio, his voicing was uneven; his melodies faded in and out as if playing with the volume on a stereo system. Technical feats, although impressive, were harsh. Every phrase was distorted; even trills were erratic.
The finale was more of the same — although he rushed the fugal passage so the orchestra had to scramble to keep up. The CSO might as well been playing in another room, or another city. It was to Mr. Lopez-Cobos' credit that he managed to stay with the soloist at all.
Miraculously, they ended together. The Music Hall crowd of 1,326 gave the performance a standing ovation.
Perhaps this program looked good on paper, but Elgar and Rachmaninoff were not the optimum match. The CSO gave the first performance of Anthony Payne's 1997 realization of Elgar's unfinished Symphony No. 3.
When he died in 1934, Elgar left 130 pages of his symphony in sketches — some of the sketches not more than fragments. Mr. Payne, a British composer, writer and broad caster, constructed the four-movement work, largely through “educated guesswork.”
The opening theme, played by the brass in parallel fifths, was a haunting motive that eventually became monotonous. (One can't help but wonder whether the composer might have embellished this had he lived.)
The expansive first movement borrows music from Elgar's oratorio The Last Judgement, and it is opulently orchestrated (by Payne). The scherzo uses incidental music from Lord Binyon's drama Arthur.
The adagio has some of the bleakest music Elgar ever wrote, ending with a plaintive viola solo (Marna Street). Only in the finale did Mr. Payne largely have to guess, after the initial bars, what Elgar might have written.
Mr. Lopez-Cobos led with conviction, and the musicians responded with an involving performance.
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