日本でもたいへん考えた programming とその知性的な演奏で知られるPeter Serkin が，そのNew York reicital （at the 92nd Street Y)について，非常に高い評価を得ていましたのでご紹介しておきます．
プログラムは，
Ｄｔｅｐｈａｎ Wolpe’s pointillistic Toccata in Three Parts
Toru Takemitsu’s “For Away”
a new Adagio Mr. Wuorinen composed for him
Beethoven’s “Diabelli” Variations
だったようです．
一見何の脈絡もないこれらの曲が，知的に解釈すると，繋がり合っていることが分かったというのです．ここでも譜めくりさんを置いた演奏だったことが下の写真から分かりますが，ちゃんと深く内容を読み込んだ上での選曲だったということです．
You might not expect works by Stefan Wolpe, Toru Takemitsu and Charles Wuorinen to share much common ground with Beethoven’s “Diabelli” Variations, and few pianists would be able to persuade you that they do. But then few pianists would assemble a program that would even raise the question. Peter Serkin would.
Mr. Serkin’s interpretive style is so thoughtful and distinctive that disparate works seem to have similarities in his hands, which might not be apparent otherwise. The light, almost feathery touch he uses in gentle passages, for example, yields a smooth, strikingly transparent texture and conveys a sense of patient exploration, whether the material is couched in Takemitsu’s gauzy harmonies or Beethoven’s expansions on Classical language. At the other end of the spectrum Mr. Serkin’s tightly focused and bright-hued approach to more assertive passages is suited to both new and old styles.
Mr. Serkin also found links among the contemporary works, though their composers wrote in very different languages. In the Wolpe he had little choice but to bring out the sharp edges of the outer fast movements and to play the closing fugue with exacting clarity. But Wolpe’s slow movement — an adagio subtitled “Too Much Suffering in the World” — allowed for a more introspective approach that found resonance in the Takemitsu and the Wuorinen pieces, both slow and rich in delicate tracery.
Mr. Serkin also found links among the contemporary works, though their composers wrote in very different languages. In the Wolpe he had little choice but to bring out the sharp edges of the outer fast movements and to play the closing fugue with exacting clarity. But Wolpe’s slow movement — an adagio subtitled “Too Much Suffering in the World” — allowed for a more introspective approach that found resonance in the Takemitsu and the Wuorinen pieces, both slow and rich in delicate tracery.
Mr. Serkin’s balance and control of contrasting elements were impressive, and in some ways they prefigured the task at hand in the Beethoven, a startling display of what a master composer could do with even the most commonplace theme. Mr. Serkin took an outgoing, celebratory approach to the Diabelli waltz that is the subject of these variations, letting its mundane qualities speak for themselves without stressing them.
Beethoven’s responses — from the regal Alla Marcia Maestoso that opens the set to the transformation of the waltz into an elegant Mozartean minuet in the final variation — make that point in any case. But Mr. Serkin was at his best in the group of slow variations near the end, particularly the almost operatic Andante, sempre cantabile, and the Largo, molto espressivo, where his ruminative account recalled his flexible touch in the contemporary works in the first half of the program.
たいへん微妙な表現で，到底，訳しようがないので，ほとんど原文のままですが，どうぞ大意をお酌み取り下さい．あとは，ご自由なご渉猟に委ねさせて下さい．
Music Review
Fluid States of Tension to Celebrate Connections
Published: December 11, 2011
You might not expect works by Stefan Wolpe, Toru Takemitsu and Charles Wuorinen to share much common ground with Beethoven’s “Diabelli” Variations, and few pianists would be able to persuade you that they do. But then few pianists would assemble a program that would even raise the question.
Julieta Cervantes for The New York Times
Peter Serkin at the 92nd Street Y on Saturday. His recital included works by Stefan Wolpe, Charles Wuorinen and Beethoven.
Peter Serkin would. He almost always includes surprising juxtapositions in his recital programs, and at the 92nd Street Y on Saturday evening he played Wolpe’s pointillistic Toccata in Three Parts, Takemitsu’s “For Away,” a new Adagio Mr. Wuorinen composed for him and Beethoven’s quirky, expansive variation set. And he left you feeling that the connections — expressive as well as technical — between the contemporary scores and the Beethoven were both solid and logical.
That could be because Mr. Serkin’s interpretive style is so thoughtful and distinctive that disparate works seem to have similarities in his hands, which might not be apparent otherwise. The light, almost feathery touch he uses in gentle passages, for example, yields a smooth, strikingly transparent texture and conveys a sense of patient exploration, whether the material is couched in Takemitsu’s gauzy harmonies or Beethoven’s expansions on Classical language. At the other end of the spectrum Mr. Serkin’s tightly focused and bright-hued approach to more assertive passages is suited to both new and old styles.
Mr. Serkin also found links among the contemporary works, though their composers wrote in very different languages. In the Wolpe he had little choice but to bring out the sharp edges of the outer fast movements and to play the closing fugue with exacting clarity. But Wolpe’s slow movement — an adagio subtitled “Too Much Suffering in the World” — allowed for a more introspective approach that found resonance in the Takemitsu and the Wuorinen pieces, both slow and rich in delicate tracery.
Mr. Wolpe’s 14-minute Adagio uses an alternation of consonance and mild dissonance to create fluid states of tension. Much of the piece is pleasantly meditative, yet a strand of clashing harmonies keeps it from becoming a New Age dreamscape, something unimaginable in Mr. Wuorinen’s catalog. Not surprising, perhaps, he gave the more muscular strand the final word. The piece ends with an easygoing, descending single line, followed by a sudden, loud, dissonant yet oddly stable closing chord.
Mr. Serkin’s balance and control of contrasting elements were impressive, and in some ways they prefigured the task at hand in the Beethoven, a startling display of what a master composer could do with even the most commonplace theme. Mr. Serkin took an outgoing, celebratory approach to the Diabelli waltz that is the subject of these variations, letting its mundane qualities speak for themselves without stressing them.
Beethoven’s responses — from the regal Alla Marcia Maestoso that opens the set to the transformation of the waltz into an elegant Mozartean minuet in the final variation — make that point in any case. But Mr. Serkin was at his best in the group of slow variations near the end, particularly the almost operatic Andante, sempre cantabile, and the Largo, molto espressivo, where his ruminative account recalled his flexible touch in the contemporary works in the first half of the program.
