An evening of music and words
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Roberta Swedien's piano recital moved easily from understatement to eloquence
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INTERPRETATIVERoberta's renditions were subtle and intense Photo: Murali Kumar K.
Bangalore School of Music's East-West Encounter continued on February 8 with an unusual piano recital by Roberta Swedien. The evening consisted of a selection of Rachmaninoff Preludes, part of The Music Room, which is this American pianist's new recital series, wherein she weaves scripted narrative about the composer and his music between the pieces she plays. The performance thus has an additional ingredient of background information, though Ms. Swedien's ability as a keyboard performer far outweighed her scripting or elocutionary powers.
Her verbal accounts were expansions on what one sometimes finds in programme notes, and provided useful as well as entertaining links between biographical data and the music, being more anecdotal and personal. For example, the Rachmaninoff felt that music and poetry were closely allied, so that Op23 #5 seemed to echo the galloping horses referred to in Pushkin's poem that preceded the Prelude.
While Rachmaninoff is best known for his largescale works that gave full scope to his typically Russian characteristics, he could also be the perfect miniaturist. His shorter pieces also show his traits of deep romanticism and the undercurrent of disturbing melancholy, but only very occasionally (as in Op23 #3) his puckish sense of humour that belied his lugubrious appearance.
The composer is idolised for the perfect balance between melody and accompaniment and Ms. Swieden's technical address was impressive, allowing her to move easily from understatement to eloquence. Her precise focus on even the smallest pianistic detail gave her playing the requisite rhythmic drive and accuracy, as in Op32 #13, the most challenging from the technical point of view, or the tempestuous rush of semiquavers in Op23 #7. She took great pains to maintain clarity even at the height of prodigious technical demands.
Her keyboard command was also evident in virtuoso pieces of great flamboyance, such as the intensely dynamic Op23 #2. It bears marked similarity to Chopin's `Revolutionary' Etude in its sweeping and impetuous opening and closing sections, and Ms. Swieden betrayed no undue exertion in the powerfully sweeping arpeggios either.
On the other hand, her interpretative powers brought out the shades of subtle inflections in richly intensely lyrical pieces such as Op23 #4, with its descant of great beauty - a reminder that Rachmaninoff composed one of the most popular romantic pieces of all time, the Rhapsody on a Paganini Theme.
The piano resonated excessively as was evident in the sustained chords of that dramatic and familiar three-note-figure opening of Op3 #2, repeated frequently through the piece. The Yamaha's lingering vibrations did not make it an ideal instrument for Rachmaninoff's famous "thumpers" (massive powerful chords, usually concentrated at the very bass end of the keyboard) either.
BSM would do well to be clearer about its admission fee: all posters advertising this East West Encounter specified only that Donor Passes were available. As no figure was mentioned, this mislead some to believe that admission was free but found, on turning up at the Alliance Francaise, that they had to pay Rs. 200 as a "donation to the building fund".
No matter what the nomenclature - ticket, donor pass, donation, etc - the public should be informed in advance exactly how much they have to pay for admission to any event.
MALINI WHITE
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