Fellner Fills Big Shoes at the 2013 Salzburg Festival

Solo recital: Till Fellner, pianist

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Großes Festspielhaus Salzburg

9pm

Program:

J. S. Bach - Well-Tempered Clavier II, nos. 1-4

            Prelude and Fugue in C major BWV 870

            Prelude and Fugue in C minor BWV 871

            Prelude and Fugue in C sharp major BWV 872

            Prelude and Fugue in C sharp minor BWV 873

W. A. Mozart – Piano Sonata in F major, KV 533/494

Intermission

F. J. Haydn – Piano Sonata in B minor, Hob. XVI:32

R. Schumann – Symphonic Etudes, Op. 13

Pianist Till Fellner had no easy task in front of him in preparing a recital program on such short notice that would satisfy the 2,500 disgruntled music lovers who had purchased tickets to see legendary pianist Evgeny Kissin perform live in the Großes Festspielhaus last night, a recital which was to be one of the highlights of this year’s Salzburg Festivals. Kissin had canceled the performance three days prior due to a “critical finger injury” leaving him unable to play. As his first solo concert in over a year, Fellner daringly chose a program of mostly “personal premieres”, excepting the Bach set, which he learned about the time he released his recording of WTC I under the ECM label in 2004. Curiously, the Bach was the most questionable set on the program – his heavy use of pedal throughout most of the pieces, although carefully cleared now and then to maintain the independence of the contrapuntal lines, did obscure the ornamentation, muddy the texture a little and make more some too-bell-like long notes. Most people I talked to agreed that it was too much. Still, the warmth of tone he was able to create with it was captivating – especially in the C sharp and C sharp minor preludes and fugues. His skill in developing an intense, churning fugal texture is first-rate; the preludes, by comparison, were rather flat and seemed poorly thought-out.

The tremendously difficult, exposed, cheerful opening line of the Mozart was very carefully executed, but I could hear him shaking as he played it. For most of the first movement, his lines were uneven and forcedly cheerful, and the dynamic range was narrow. He got gradually better as he went, finally closing out the movement quite nicely. His second movement was the highlight of the evening: absolutely brilliant. His tone was stunning; varied; directed; full of sensitivity, pain, and happiness. It was everything that one could have dreamed of hearing at the festival – to my young ears, in any case. Not everyone was equally enraptured, and I heard more rustling of programs during the B section of that movement than at any other time during the concert. After the final movement came intermission.

After intermission, he played a lovely Haydn sonata that I was personally unfamiliar with, and which I did enjoy. His final piece were the devilishly hard Symphonic Etudes by Robert Schumann, which was obviously his most immature piece. All of the “impossible parts” he played flawlessly, but the lostness, the forced phrasing, the mechanical pounding out of notes and even a memory lapse managed to work themselves into the darker corners of the performance. My favorite parts of the piece were disappointingly unmusical, but there were other moments I had never noticed before that were truly beautiful. Such is life in the world of live performance!

At the end of the concert, he bowed four times before the audience finally convinced him to play an encore, a thing which he should not have been expected to do on such short notice. He played the Sarabande from Bach’s A minor English Suite, and he was clearly unprepared. It sounded tired, shaky, and uneven. There were some beautiful, musical moments in it, but for the most part it was weak. The entire audience felt this with me, too, because the stopped clapping and were heading out the door before he even made it to the stage door. To be fair, it was a long walk to get offstage.

So, what’s the final opinion? In that same 1836 article by Schumann, he writes that criticism always has a million letters more than praise. Such is the case here, sadly enough. His performance was worthy of the stage he was on, and the audience enjoyed his performance very much, a thing I was skeptical of when going into the hall, seeing all the bored faces. There’s nothing more difficult as a performer than substituting for a world-famous artist at a sold-out concert.

Rupley’s Rating: