Tamas Vasary was one of the greatest performing musicians of all time. Full stop. His playing is instant catharsis, his conducting scarcely less so, and he was conducting and teaching to nearly the end. In his youth, Deutsche Grammophon recorded and marketed him as a virtuoso. What a shame. In those years, DG's pianist of probity was his fellow Hungarian Geza Anda, whom I think never got to the level of Vasary. In Anda you heard technical perfection: utterly even passage work and balanced chords, god knows what practice it took to get him there, but I've never heard music.
There are a number of ways to make the highest level of music. But one of my favorites is art so subtle that it sounds as though they're playing the music as straight through as Anda, but they're not. It's just phrasing so subtle it can't possibly be noticed. You only notice it by the cathartic effect it has on you. They don't play colors rather than notes. One could call it flow or glow, but it's past even there. It's fully in the 'next world.' Who gets there? Well, it's so few, you'd probably have to look past just pianists. Along with Vasary, Sandor Vegh, Menachem Presler, Adolf Busch, Gustav Leonhardt, Helmut Walcha, Marcel Moyse, Josef Suk, Brendel and Schiff and Kempff at their best but only at their best, if I'm feeling charitable then Grumiaux, Lupu, Marcelle Meyer. I honestly wonder if that's it. You'll notice how many of them were not just instrumentalists: they were all-around musicians--chamber musicians, teachers, and conducting being their very last priority. This is the very top of the mountain of musical performance, where full-time conductors don't belong. Neither crowd nor craft matters as much to them as music, and music is all they are.
Mozart Piano Concerto No. 17 - London Philharmonic Orchestra - Tamás Vásáry (piano) (RFH, 1981)
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