So let's talk a little more about my new favorite pianist: Lili Kraus.
Of all the pianists I've ever heard, the only pianist who provides this consistent level of transcendence is Rudolf Firkusny. Solomon? When he plays at his best, there is a level of freedom, and play, and wit, and joy, that no one has ever equalled. And when he's not quite at his best, his playing is still beautiful. But there is an artistic level even beyond Solomon. Moisewitsch? There is some repertoire, extremely crucial repertoire, which he avoids. What he plays, he almost inevitably enobles to greatness, but would it have killed him to learn some Mozart and Schubert? Curzon? Oh my god, he's so consistently wonderful, but there is a level of British inhibition which he never goes beyond. Cherkassky? The opposite, for all the wit and joy, a resolute refusal to organize. Schnabel? Well, you know... every single performance is amazing if you can take the sloppy... Kempff? Of course he's extraordinary but occasionally you wonder if the high-minded zen is just a costume he wears to cover a lack of emotional involvement. Ditto Brendel and Schiff. Moravec? For all the poetry there are dimensions he never goes to. His Mozart is... well it's just about ideal, but in composers like Chopin and Beethoven he can be weirdly earnest and the incredible irony of his playing in Mozart is rarely if ever to be found. Lupu? His studio recordings clearly don't capture what's most extraordinary about him, and he doesn't always capture what's extraordinary about himself. Rubinstein? God bless him, the man had game, but it's all so suave and confident, it almost sounds invulnerable. Hofmann? He's blblically awesome, but let's face it, you often have to remove the frost from your ears. Gulda? He's a genius. He might be the most talented since Hofmann, but occasionally he seems like a kid with ADHD, everything is so hyperactive. You almost feel him trying to 'unstuff' classical music. Richter? The most literally awesome pianist of the recorded era, but he's Richter, you take the great with the weird. Alicia de Larrocha? Yudina and Grinberg? We'll probably talk about them later this week.
But Lili Kraus and Firkusny? Like how Mozart composes, everything is so human that it's almost inhuman. Everything is personalized, but always from a base of extreme organization. There are so many dimensions in their approaches that every performance sounds different on each hearing. However complex the expressive challenge, they're aware of it, and they rise to it, and their solutions are different than anyone else's. It would seem so basic, and yet there is something uncanny about it. We'll deal with Firkusny more extensively another time, who is... well he's magic... he's not human... he's an alien from another a planet where they communicate through music...
I don't know how musicians like him and Lili Kraus do it. Everything Kraus does has a certain level of irony and cheek, as though she's winking through her playing. I could understand how some people might find this playing too mannered, as though she tries to make you feel every note tactilely and playing without a true legato. And yet everything has such deep feeling, complex feeling, and she can retreat into such repose and beauty.
Listen to her do Beethoven 4. Hell, just listen to her do the opening. It's the most 'difficult' opening in the repertoire - within one second, you know whether you're going to hear an extraordinary performance, and NO ONE has ever done the opening as well as this. Kraus makes it into a statement of affirmation from heaven itself.
Beethoven 4 is one of my personal articles of musical faith. Listening to a great performance restores your faith in the grace of the cosmos. Kempff restores your faith, Moravec restores it, Istomin, Brendel, Paul Lewis, Alicia de Larrocha, but on a completely different journey than Kempff's illuminations of the beyond, Kraus takes us on an equally ultimate pilgrimage.
Kraus certainly has all sorts of moments in which she accesses benediction from the clouds, but she juxtaposes those moments of grace with a wit that is purely of the earth. Irony stands with sincerity inseparably here, joy with sadness, song with dance, poetry with comedy.
Art is about meaning, and the meaning of the greatest art is ambiguous. You can never figure out what the greatest art is about, because every time you experience the greatest works, it's about something else. We're clearly supposed to leave the B-Minor Mass in heaven, we're clearly supposed to leave Liszt's piano sonata electrified, but we're clearly supposed to leave Don Giovanni very confused.
It's a paradox, but perhaps the greatest artists are the ones through whom a work's meaning seems the most opaque, because the more meanings a work can be said to have, the more utility a work has in very specific life situations. As great as a pianist like Kempff is, he is so imperturbable that he may not speak to you (me) in your darkest moments. As great as a pianist like Richter is, he is only to be consulted in dark moments, because his passion is so all-consuming that it may bring you down.
On the other hand, Lili Kraus is an artist for all seasons. Whether it's the great Viennese classics in which she seems to excel nearly any pianist in recorded history, or Chopin, or Schumann, or Bartok, or Bach, she plays with this incredible, inexpressible complexity. The depth and feeling is infinite, and yet it is also couched in humor and playfulness and irony. Lili Kraus is one of those rare artists who is, truly, pure music, and pure art. This... is... MUSIC.
No comments:
Post a Comment