Katchen’s Piano Recital A Forceful Impact

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29221, 3 June 1960, Page 13

Katchen’s Piano Recital A Forceful Impact

Julius Katchen’s piano recital last evening was an event that made a forceful impact on his audience. The programme was entirely devoted to three important works of a forceful composer —Beethoven. This was a really fine example in programme building. The musical microcosm that Mr Katchen intended to turn our minds towards was the world of Beethoven’s three artistic periods, and we, as an audience, felt complimented that the field was a powerfully limited one requiring intelligent listening; we were not in for the usual child’s guide to the piano. But Mr Katchen has been to New Zealand before and knows New Zealand audiences. All the treater, therefore, is the compliment he pays us by giving us an intelligent programme based on his past experiences here. One cannot exhort artists too strongly, both here and visitors from overseas, to follow Mr Katchen’s splendid example of intelligent programme building. The programme began with the well-known Sonata Pathetique. Though this is a fairly early work, it is full of stormy passionate feelings which were to develop to such a tremendous peak in the later works. This is young man’s music; strong, looking towards the future, and direct in its appeal. Consequently an excellent choice for an opening item. Full-blooded Reading

Mr Katchen showed us after the first two chords that it was going to be a warm, full-blooded reading of the Sonata Pathetique. Every nuance was as large as life, sometimes very much larger so that there was no possibility of the hearers at the back of the hall misisng anything. Mr Katchen certainly indulges in exaggerations and extremes in order to make his point, but for this particular music, and in as large a theatre as the St. James, the style was entirely appropriate. We were literally forced to concentrate.

Particular reference should be made to Mr Katchen’s use of rubato. Rubato, in the hands of about 80 per cent, of players who use it to the degree of Mr Katchen, generally sounds either as though they are emotionally unstable, or just trying to be funny. Tn Mr Katchen’s powerful grip, the effect was entirely sincere and irresistibly captivating during the whole evening. The slow movement, in particular, gave one the feeling that one had never really heard the piece before. The centre-piece was the middle-period E flat Major Sonata Op. 81 (a)—Les Adieux. Here Beethoven changes from the impetuous youngster to the man of human experience, tragedy and remoteness from normal friendships—but this sonata was written for a real friend of the composer. Just imagine being a friend of Beethoven, and that he thought you were a really splendid chap! However, this was a friend who had to go away for a time, and the three movements are entitled: Farewell, Absence, and Return.

The slow’ introduction to the first movement was one of the loveliest things in the concert (the Diabelli Variations, by the way, don’t attempt to be lovely) but the quick section was perhaps the only movement of the evening which really left something to be desired. It is simply one spontaneous breath of farewell, to be uttered with gay simplicity, and the pianist's intensely studied and intellectual performance of the movement took the music perhaps just rather too earnestly. The fiendishly difficult finale, however, was quite breathtaking in its wild fever and rapturous delight. This is rightly a favourite sonata with many Beethoven enthusiasts.

Marathon Project Finally, from the composer’s late period, the colossal set of variations on an absurd theme by silly Diabelli. Mr Katchen embarked on this 55-minute marathon project with energy, but nobility, and convinced Us by the end of the first variation that one of the most noble things in the world is the key of C major. There are 33 variations, and many of them are short and highly contrasted, so that Mr Katchen’s aforementioned qualities of larger-than-life playing were really just what the doctor ordered for this great occasion. This would have been a tremendous event for any members of the audience who had never heard the Diabelli variations before—and a fine chance for reassessment for those that had. Very nearly at the end of the work, when we feel that perhaps we may be getting tired, Beethoven launches out of the home key

of C and embarks on a huge fugal movement in the fairly distant key of E flat. This lasts for some time until the pianist dreamily climbs up some transitional chords so that we can see our way in the far distance to C major (Mr Katchen appeared to be standing up at this point) ready for the unique last movement—a minuet of all things. This was the greatest moment of the evening. We felt like the pioneers who climbed the Port Hills from Lyttelton, and saw a place in the distance fit for a city. Mr Katchen admitted that it was well-nigh impossible to play an encore after the Diabelli Variations, but for “old time's sake” did so. The architectural tension of a terrific recital subsided, and we listened to “Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring” and Mendelssohns “Rondo Capricioso.” —M.H.T.