Scintillating Pianism
By Sedgwick Clark
Note to the blogosphere: Sorry, I’ve been in Muncie. But I return with an exciting discovery.
Tamara Stefanovich. Hers was a new name for me until her piano recital of works by Bartók, Carter, Ligeti, and Rachmaninoff last Wednesday (1/27) at Poisson Rouge. Simply put, I was bowled over and urge anyone within Internet distance to hie themselves to any concert she plays. I would say more about that recital now, but Musicalamerica.com editor Susan Elliott has asked that I keep readers in suspense until March for my interview with Stefanovich as the Web site’s New Artist of the Month.
I am allowed, however, to mention last night’s Chicago Symphony concert at Carnegie Hall where she performed with her mentor and fellow teacher at the Cologne Hochschule, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Musical America‘s Instrumentalist of the Year for 2007, in Bartók’s Concerto for Two Pianos, Percussion, and Orchestra (1940). The destitute Hungarian composer, newly arrived in America, made this orchestral transcription of his Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion (1937) at the suggestion of his publisher in hope of widening the work’s appeal and providing a vehicle for himself and his pianist wife during what would be his last years.
Despite the superb efforts by the two pianists, percussionists Cynthia Yeh and Vadim Karpinos, and the Chicago Symphony under Pierre Boulez, the Concerto version is unquestionably inferior, merely gumming up the Sonata’s evocative timbres with superfluous doublings. It should be retired to the curio bin, in my humble opinion, and Carnegie Hall should re-engage the four soloists to perform the Sonata ASAP.
And yet. And yet, my wife and another friend in attendance had never heard either version, enjoyed the Concerto immensely, and are looking forward to hearing the original. So Bartók and his publisher were right.