Friday, June 23, 2023
Southbank Centre, London – Royal Festival Hall
Guest Reviewer, Peter Reed
Maurizio Pollini was back in London – following a year of ill-health and cancellations. His programme was of familiar repertoire, and there was a large audience to welcome the eighty-one-year-old, one of the very great pianists who still plays a huge role in forming the taste of three generations of music-lovers – particularly Chopin, Debussy, Schubert and Schumann. Playing his Fabbrini Steinway, with its lovely, ambiguous lower register, he opened with Schumann’s Arabeske, with Pollini’s direct line into the music’s face-off between sweet romance and pensive anxiety: that rare gift of reflecting content back to listeners in a way that flatters us and deepens our perceptions seemed undimmed.
Then things went badly awry. He just couldn’t find his way into Schumann’s Fantasie, and after two attempts he went off-stage to get his score. There followed a muddle with a technician trying to fix up the piano’s copy holder, with Pollini then trying to keep the show on the road, but fumbled page-turns, losing his way, long silences, going off-stage again, applause in the wrong places, all took their toll. And inevitably the vital, secure link between performer and audience was broken. Spectators were supportive and affectionate, but you wondered how he would recover.
There was a page-turner for the second half, yet there was something too dogged and unyielding about the way Pollini negotiated the technical demands and big gestures of Scherzo No.1. Growth, attack, tone and definition stayed stubbornly at the same level, and the way Chopin transfigures the progress of the Barcarolle from a brief journey in a gondola into an emblem of life’s passage struggled to register. Clouds of pedal and missed notes didn’t help. The short recital ended around nine o’clock, and despite a rapturous reception and heartfelt standing ovation, there were no encores. I was standing near the stage when Pollini emerged through the door and briefly stood there for his fourth curtain call. He looked like a ghost.
Schumann
Arabeske in C, Op.18; Fantasie in C, Op.17
Chopin
Mazurka in C-minor, Op.56/3; Barcarolle in F-sharp, Op.60; Scherzo No.1 in B-minor, Op.20
This review will also appear on The Classical Source
This sounds like a catastrophe and I am sorry to read this account of a great pianist struggling with what?
Loss of memory? Loss of confidence?
Hard to tell really.
I also was at the recital. It was a disaster from the beginning to the end
Is Mrs Waterhouse a famous unknown pianist? She seems to be a very strict critic, with no will to respect one of the great performers in recent memory.
Now, that is sad!
Is John Ress a superior critic to which we should bow and cede any form of self-review?
Respect is earned, and he did not earn any with this performance. He was a great, but he needs to retire. And you need to know your place.
You could at least have got his surname right!
I was there too – an extraordinarily compassionate audience who applauded despite the disastrous performance. A farewell homage perhaps to a pianist who was great, but who now needs protection.
Yes I was at the recital in the front stalls. I had not attended a Pollini recital since 2019 since before the first lockdown, and I am now 87 years old. I always enjoyed his performances, evidenced over the years with the hall being packed full. I felt very sorry for Pollini as things seemed to go wrong after a few bars of the Schumann Fantasie, when it seemed he had lost his memory, he tried to play again,but then stopped a second time, after which he walked off, and returned with a bundle of papers, the score. He seemed to recover his playing a little, and I enjoyed as always the wonder phrase the motif of the piece. He came on in the second half with the music for the 3 Chopin pieces, with someone to turn over the pages. As already mentioned. I felt very sorry for him; he surely must have felt dreadful, poor man. I was willing him to succeed as best he could. He looked like a much older man, quite frail. A sad day, but I was pleased that I was there. His swan song?
I was there and have attended many of Pollini’s recitals since the 1980s. All was well to begin with, but it seemed he was overcome by the warmth of applause as he came back after playing the first piece – and as I think he had played Schoenberg in Geneva a few days before, he seemed to start something that was certainly more Schoenberg than Schumann. The attempt to work from the score and with out a page turner was clearly not planned and give a workshop performance. The second and third movements were a bit better, and the second half, with a page turner, went a lot better, although why at 81 one would programme the Chopin op 20 is a mystery. Like most in the audience I felt sorrow and concern and so hope Pollini is able to recover and retire in good spirits. We have so much to thank him for.
I have fond memories of hearing Pollini play many times at the Festival Hall, amongst the most outstanding, a performance of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring about fifteen years ago. It was stupendous: a physical and musical tour de force.
I had a premonition that things wouldn’t go well following the long postponement of his scheduled, concert, and as we know they didn’t. Sadly it is no longer springtime for Maurizio, with hindsight it would have been far better if he had played with music and a page turner. A night to forget.
Peter Reed must be thanked complimented for reporting the occasion so sensitively. “I was standing near the stage when Pollini emerged through the door and briefly stood there for his fourth curtain call. He looked like a ghost.” Sad beyond words.
Seconded.
I attended this recital. Pollini played with great musicality and his playing produced the most magical sound.
A page turner should have been arranged before the concert with the score intact in case of any difficulty. However, Pollini played the Schumann Arabesque beautifully from memory. The Schumann Fantasie is never an easy work for any pianist and Pollini was able to play all the technical difficulties like the notorious leaps in the second movement.
His Chopin performances were magical and his playing of the First Scherzo reminded me of Horowitz who also played the work in his eighties. Pollini is still the greatest Chopin pianist.
Perhaps if he needs a page turner in future performances, his son Daniele ( who is a brilliant pianist) could do this and then join his father in a duet performance. They have recorded Debussy En blanc et noir together. Two Pollinis in one concert.
What have you, Peter Reed, done musicaly, that compares with a music career like the pianist? 10% of that? How easy is to talk badly safely seated at home
Were you in the hall Fernando? I was and Mr Reed’s review is a perfect write up of what happened and what I heard on this unfortunate evening.
Reed’s account is accurate, and I too was there, witnessing that almost tragic recital. “Arabeske” was not bad, but “Fantasie” proved to be a heart-wrenching nightmare for the audience (and the pianist, too, I guess). One could easily feel his struggle, desperation, and helplessness, particularly when he had to pause for seconds to find the right page from a disordered pile of sheets (which, in my opinion, could have been avoided to prevent further exacerbation of the already terrible scene).
I’m not a big fan of Pollini, it was genuinely poignant to see a frail elderly person, if not one of the greatest pianists, trapped in such an undignified situation for over an hour. The lasting ovation delivered a clear message of consolation and gratitude from the audience, although I doubt it alleviated the pianist’s own state of mind. No blame, just an overwhelming sense of sadness.
I attended this concert. In truth a rather sad occasion. And I agree with most of the other comments here. For this was not the Pollini of old. I’ve seen a fair few of his recitals at the festival hall though not in recent years. I remember one in particular where he played the op 28 Chopin Preludes, which was simply awesome, truly magisterial. Had he had a page turner from the start last Friday would have been a different occasion than it turned out. But I imagine the disaster of the first half set the scene for a somewhat rushed second half. I felt he just wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible and who can blame him. The brilliance and technique of old brought back to earth by age and frailty perhaps. He remains one of the greats in my view.