{"id":28085,"date":"2015-05-02T14:11:59","date_gmt":"2015-05-02T18:11:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/?p=28085"},"modified":"2015-05-02T15:07:31","modified_gmt":"2015-05-02T19:07:31","slug":"scrutiny-evgeny-kissin-encore-machine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2015\/05\/02\/scrutiny-evgeny-kissin-encore-machine\/","title":{"rendered":"SCRUTINY | Evgeny Kissin, Encore Machine"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Pianist
Pianist Evgeny Kissin Photo: Malcolm Cook<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Pianist\u00a0Evgeny Kissin at Roy Thomson Hall, Friday May 1, 2015.<\/h3>\n

Rather like old times on Friday night: Roy Thomson Hall packed to the rafters, stage seats added, hurrahs from all corners, a girl with a bouquet of flowers and a world-famous Russian with a serious demeanour taking his bows nobly in front of a Steinway. What we needed to complete the picture was playing at a high, high level.<\/p>\n

We got it sometimes, which is to say less often than is usual for Evgeny Kissin. This 43-year-old headliner can produce marvels of articulation and soulful colours, but they did not manifest themselves on this occasion with quite the expected consistency.<\/p>\n

Beethoven\u2019s Waldstein Sonata made for a so-so start. The hymnlike second theme of the first movement was brusque. Semiquaver runs faded in and out of focus. The slow “introduzione” section was broad but also morose. While there were some fine brushstrokes in the finale, the magic level oscillated from moderate to low.<\/p>\n

Prokofiev\u2019s Sonata No. 4 is a more quixotic piece, made of silk and steel. Anyone with a taste for percussion will surely long treasure the fortissimo hammer strokes that ended the first movement. But only toward the end of the middle movement, with its interlocking trills and melancholy cantilena, did the music rise successfully off the page.<\/p>\n

After intermission (and a helpful tune-up) Kissin played three Chopin Nocturnes (Op. 9 No. 1 and No. 3 and Op. 48 No. 1) with much conventional rubato and a hectoring rather than fluid right hand. I detected here a certain determination to be \u201cexpressive,\u201d bar by bar, even beat by beat. We felt closer to the spontaneous heart of the artist (and the composer) in six Mazurkas, most early and in the minor mode.<\/p>\n

\"_DSC8573\"
Pianist Evgeny Kissin Photo: Malcolm Cook<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It was going on 10 p.m., so Kissin gave us a barnburner, Liszt\u2019s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 15, its Rakoczy March main theme taken too quickly to register as truly martial. Then came the encores. The second, Liszt\u2019s Paganini Etude No. 5 (La Chasse), was wonderfully spirited, its hunting-horn thirds and sixths voiced to perfection. Finally we heard the March from Prokofiev\u2019s The Love of Three Oranges, crisp, bracing and brightly lit.<\/p>\n

So, happy ending, if not exactly full value. All the same, the people spoke, both by buying tickets and cheering on their hero. This night gave Roy Thomson Hall plenty of encouragement to stay in the big-name recital business. For this we can be thankful.<\/p>\n

#LUDWIGVAN<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Arthur Kaptainis reviews pianist Evgeny Kissin Toronto performance at Roy Thomson Hall, Friday May 1, 2015.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":28086,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[118,76,19,52,63],"tags":[1213],"yst_prominent_words":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2015\/05\/DSC8586.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9bakr-7iZ","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28085"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28085"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28085\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28092,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28085\/revisions\/28092"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28085"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=28085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}