Kenneth Woods- A View From the Podium

So far, all of our 2009 Repertoire Reports have been on either conductors or orchestras, and I thought it would be very interesting to look at a report for a leading non-conductor. Pianist Stephen Hough is certainly by every measure one of the top artists in the world these days- he was practically the house band for the Proms this summer, playing all the Tchaikovsky works for piano and orchestra. He’s had a busy year, but he seems to have been careful to not commit to too much- only 15 works on his list, essentially one recital program (which got tweaked a couple of times through the year) and 7 concerti, including 4 by Tchaikovsky.  There’s no Beethoven, no Brahms and very little German music at all. Chopin figures highly, but Debussy and Ravel are absent. Stephen is a composer in his own right, but there are no works by living composers on his list for this year.

I wonder if he was a little extra cautious with repertoire this year because he was doing some of the Tchaik’s for the first time. The pressure of doing such a huge project under the spotlight of televised concerts at the Albert Hall must have been extraordinary. I’m sure he’s hoping that he continues to get opportunities to re-visit pieces like the Concert Fantasy, which must have taken a lot of work to prepare even for him and is almost never played- it’s not going to be an easy sell to presenters. Still, whether he’s succeeded in bringing more of Tchaikovsky’s output into the mainstream (I’ve always loved the 2^nd concerto), it was a wonderful project and one that deserved the attention and profile of an artist of his stature.

 We’ll look forward to a 2010 repertoire report to see if the number of works and range of projects is typical. Will there be other cycles like the Tchaik? New recordings? You can see a preview of next year here.

Of course, Stephen writes one of the most interesting blogs out there- do check it out.

1-       Bach/Cortot/Hough: Toccata & Fugue in D minor

2-       Fauré: Nocturne No. 6, Op. 63

3-       Fauré: Impromptu No. 5, Op. 102

4-       Fauré: Barcarolle No. 5, Op. 66

5-       Franck: Prelude, Chorale and Fugue

6-       Copland: Piano Variations

7-       Chopin: Nocturne in B Major, Op. 62, No. 1

8-       Chopin: Sonata in B minor, Op. 58

9-       Mendelssohn: Piano Concerto No.1

10-    Mozart: Piano Concerto K. 467

11-    Rachmaninov: Paganini Rhapsody

12-    Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto no. 1

13-    Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto no. 2

14-    Tchaikovsky: Concert Fantasy

15-    Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto no. 3

Repertoire Reports stephen hough, Tchaikovsky

One piece on my desk this month is Brahms’ Piano Concerto no. 1 in D minor.

I fell in love with the piece as a young teenager when my parents bought an LP of Krystian Zimerman’s recording with the Vienna Philharmonic and Leonard Bernstein. The purchase of the record coincided roughly with that of a new, very awesome stereo system, and I played that record so many times at such high volume that I not only actually wore out the record, but probably did permanent structural damage to the walls of my parents’ living room.

I’ve had a fair bit of contact with the piece over the years, having played it many times in orchestra, and rehearsed it for other conductors as an assistant. It’s fun but difficult to conduct. Most recently, I taught it at last summer’s conducting workshop in Portland, where the astounding Rick Rowley played the solo part.

Still, in all those years and many wonderful recordings, nothing has ever quite equaled the impact of that feeling of electric discovery I felt with that Bernstein/Zimerman disc so long ago. I replaced the LP (which I stole from the folks- sorry, guys) with a CD when it wore out, which taught me a tragic lesson. One cannot comfortably play a CD as loudly as an LP- the PCM waveforms have a jagged characteristic which means the sound becomes hard edged and tiring at high volume. SACD is much better than CD if you really want to upset the neighbors with your Brahms, but LPs are still the best.

A few months back, I saw that DG had released the performances on that LP on DVD. Of course, I ran out and bought it.

It’s still wonderful, but not at all what I pictured- somehow, even in the Musikverein, it’s not as glamorous as I expected. Bernstein, it turns out, did not stand 50 feet tall and was not wearing a yak skin loincloth in the performance, and Zimmerman has only two arms, is not bathed in grizzly bear blood and at no point actually eats the piano. I was also disappointed that the orchestra were not wearing any of the traditional Amazonian make associated with “the hunt.”

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A view from the podium, Nuts and bolts bernstein, concerto, krystian zimerman, stephen hough