This was the second recital of this fine pianist given over to a survey of Mozart’s piano sonatas which I was looking forward to with some anticipation but also not a little trepidation. The latter arose I have to admit from what seems to me still a valid grumpiness regarding the programming of the first recital as the opening concert of the annual Leicester Festival, in effect a midday music recital to be followed by just one other concert. This overall hardly seemed to me to constitute a satisfactory Festival offering, particularly since, such as I had heard, I had never been much of an enthusiast for this part of Mozart’s huge output.
However, it did cause me, as I sat down to write this blog aware of said previous grumpiness, to think about the role of those who write reviews and what should be expected of them. Should they, for example, attempt to play the role of some mighty judge in the sky when they are just like the rest of us, mere mortals open to ‘the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to’? This question set me off to search out some facts concerning the mighty man who did more than anyone else in Britain to encourage that approach, Ernest Newman, who was still writing for The Sunday Times when I was a lad in the 1950s.
My investigation immediately led to one very uncomfortable fact, that when young himself he decided to change his name from William Roberts, so unsuitable a name did it appear to him in his chosen crusade. I nearly did not read on! However, that he was clearly a mover and shaker of great intelligence was clear. I remember reading long, long ago his magnum opus, his biography of Wagner. He was also fabulously witty at times and quite often did not avoid cruelty. I remember reading that he had written probably the shortest review in history which I think went as follows: So and So.… sang at the Wigmore Hall last night. Why?
However, it was also obvious that he had thought about whether it was possible for the music critic to achieve some almost scientific detachment which would give the critical judgement complete validity for all readers but that in the end he seems to have realised that to be impossible. Critics would be wise to accept their humanity, and realise that even enthusiasms might reveal you as having got some things sometimes wrong.
Unfortunately, over my lifetime his legacy particularly in America has seemed to me to have spawned some very unpleasant critical egos. Towards the end of his life I became a friend of Edward Greenfield, for many years the music critic of The Guardian, and he told me of an ongoing feud he was having with a New York critic who accused him of lacking any real standards. He rather wistfully remarked to me he would much prefer to be called an appreciator but I equally wistfully said to him that I thought linguistically that that boat had well and truly sailed and critic was here to stay. However, I went on to say that I felt he was quite right to indicate that, without at least some attempt to see where artistic endeavour was coming from, there was very little pleasure or indeed validity to be had in the activity of being a critic.
After all the above, the reader will no doubt hope that I found something to enjoy in this recital and I am glad to be able to say that I quickly lost any residual grumpiness and found myself frequently full of delight! I had heard on the grapevine that there had been some change of programme from the original published and in the event I have to say that what was heard presented a Mozart of much wider variety of mood than I had detected in the Festival recital. For instance, in the Piano Sonata No.9, after an ebullient opening movement played with brio, the music of the second movement at once suggested the part of the composer that relished the dramatic possibilities of the singing voice and was to create unsurpassable music in the operas. Add to that a third movement of ineffable high spirits played here with great virtuosity and I felt myself somehow to be in different territory than the music of the first recital.
And that feeling of joy did not let up in the second offering, Piano Sonata No.10, composed in his first year of marriage to Constanze and six years after the work we had just heard. Once again it was the middle movement that went far beyond being a mere display piece. There seemed to be real drama at its heart in the midst of on either side movements of contrasting high spirits.
By this time, I felt that I was listening to a well thought out programme, a feeling that was amplified by the next work, a descriptive and contemporary piece entitled Levantina, composed by Helen Ottaway. Here the music was based on a folk song sung by women whose wish was in some sort of code to get messages to their men who were away at the wars. Composed with an impressionistic voice, very beautiful, which came and went as it were, this work in a way I cannot fully explain seemed a lovely contrast to the clarity which so wonderfully characterises most of Mozart’s music.
And there was still one last surprise in the final work of the concert, Piano Sonata No.8, written at the dreadful time of Mozart’s 1778 sojourn in Paris, during which his mother died. Here in the two fast movements there was music of a fury and power not to be found so far in this musical journey, with the show off capacities of the composer here employed to a very different purpose and even to be found in the much quieter and deeply thoughtful Andante. That mood returned completely in the fierce final movement which may have been short but inhabited a world that for me looked forward to such works as Don Giovanni and made for a fine climax to a very well thought out programme, full of contrast and brilliantly played throughout. I shall look forward to the next instalment.
The Diary of a Leicester Concert-goer 