Piano recital Ivo Pogorelich, 10 November 2024, Blauwe zaal deSingel, Antwerpen;
Genius
Confused, unsettled, uncanny, that's how I felt when leaving deSingel on 10 November after Ivo Pogorelich's recital. During the introduction beforehand, Rudy Tambuyser told the story of pianist and man Ivo Pogorelich, a man who does not want to entertain or please, but wants listeners to think. Almost every music lover knows the anecdote about Pogorelich. He became known through the competition he didn't win. In the 1980 Chopin competition, he didn't get past the second round, after which Martha Argerich angrily withdrew from the jury and proclaimed Pogorelich a genius.
The young pianist was a rebel who shifted the artistic boundaries. He also looked and behaved like a romantic genius. Record label Deutsche Grammophon made the young god a sales success. For about fifteen years, the star shone brightly in the piano firmament, until his wife and mentor died in 1996 and he withdrew, performing only rarely over the next twenty years.
The concert does not begin at a conventional time but at 5 p.m., and there are reasons for this. Pogorelich lives with the sunlight and with the rhythm of nature. Like a sort of Buddhist monk, he has renounced the hectic life, and we will hear this during his recital.
Fragile
The three mazurkas op. 59 by Chopin sound fragile, sometimes as if they are falling apart like old paper. Sometimes hesitant, dragging, vulnerable and hypersensitive. In Chopin's second sonata, it's as if he is not playing the piece, but rather musing over it, a sort of meta-form of piano playing, transcendent musicmaking.
In all the pieces he chooses slow to very slow tempi, except in the slowest movement, the Marche funèbre from Chopin's second sonata. That should of course be played like a funeral march, slow and weighty. But tell the rebel Pogorelich that something must be done, then… He plays the funeral march not weightily but softly and almost lightly, with light step, as if he is pleased with the death.
Pogorelich claims to be an heir to a nineteenth-century tradition. As a student of Alexander Siloti in Moscow, he is an heir to Franz Liszt, Siloti's teacher. This undoubtedly explains his wilfulness and originality, which we hear in abundance this evening as well.
Petrified
Concert hall deSingel is currently "under construction". All around the Blauwe Zaal you see scaffolding and cardboard signposts. We know deconstructivism from architecture, but can a pianist also play deconstructively? Pogorelich proved it this evening. Through his unconventional, surprising and authentic piano playing, he leaves his audience amazed and confused. The silences in his playing are as moving as the notes. Sometimes he sits motionless and petrified at the keyboard, forgetting time. Even more so than in the nocturnes and Chopin's second sonata is this the case in the six Moments musicaux by Schubert. Here virtually no virtuosity anymore, here pure simplicity, intimacy and poetry.
Pianist Pogorelich is the opposite of a showman. He plays his recital with score, assisted by a page turner. Yet these are well-known works that he can undoubtedly play from memory. We know this from the legendary Russian pianist Sviatoslav Richter. He did it to put the composer and score centre stage and to counter the showman element.
That Pogorelich wants to present himself as the opposite of a showman is also evident in his entrance and exit. Not the page turner, but he himself reluctantly holds his scores under his arm. He does not step onto the stage swiftly, but comes slowly and somewhat hesitantly shuffling. You see, you feel it in everything he does: this man has turned his back on the glamour and conventions of concert practice. For a moment I thought: this man doesn't care about the world. The standing ovation makes him return once more, but we don't know if he wanted to. After a musing nocturne by Chopin as an encore, he leaves his audience stunned and petrified.