Volume 21 Issue 1 - September 2015

The Mooredale recital will be Goodyear’s fourth performance of the
Bach this year. “Every time I do it, it’s different,” he said. The notational
text is sacrosanct, the basis for all Goodyear’s formal preparatory
work until it feels “like it’s in every pore.”
“So that whatever happens, it feels like I’m improvising,” he elaborated.
“I know it 500 percent that whatever comes out it’s not like I’m
reciting something or reiterating something; it’s just coming out.”
Part of his practising method is delving into a piece’s history and its
qualities. In the case of Messiaen’s Turangalîla Symphony which he’s
playing again with Paavo Järvi, later this season with the Orchestre
de Paris, it’s trying to “find the seed to this masterpiece.” Listening
to him talk about its character reveals the way he relates to a musical
work: “It’s very theatrical; there are sweeping gestures, extremely
lyrical, very colourful, with fermatas, rallentandos. There are moments
when you see the lovers running to each other just like Hollywood;
there are slow-motion moments when they finally embrace. It’s a
technicolor extravaganza. It’s a beautiful work, 80 minutes long. It’s
decadent, it’s pure, it’s everything. It’s romantic.”
It’s a telling insight into Goodyear’s approach. Despite the marathons,
despite the prodigious technique and memory that they
require, the basis for Goodyear’s appeal is his empathetic relationship
with the music he performs and his ability to communicate that to an
audience – qualities that will undoubtedly be evident to all who hear
him in Walter Hall on the last Sunday afternoon of September.
Summer Pleasures. A completely different traversal of the
Beethoven piano concertos took place in Stratford August 27 to 29
when Stratford Summer Music presented Jan Lisiecki and the Annex
Quartet with Roberto Occhipinti, bass, in three programs encompassing
all five of the concertos in transcriptions by the German
composer and conductor, Vinzenz Lachner’s (1811-1893). It was
Lisiecki’s first time performing all five piano concertos. In the days
leading up to our September production deadline, I was fortunate to
find time to attend the middle concert which paired the Second and
the Fourth.
The 20-year-old wunderkind was his usual gracious and charming
self as he introduced the concert. “We can’t give you all the drama,” he
said. “But we can give you intimacy and the beauty of this music.”
St. Andrew’s Church is a bright room acoustically but Lisiecki met
its challenge (and that of the Yamaha grand) in the Piano Concerto
No.2, Op.19, begun when Beethoven was still a teenager and only
published after his first six string quartets (Op.18). Lisiecki’s touch
was even-handed, very classical, marvellous. He made every note
count. The Allegro con brio was Mozartean in its passagework, Haydnlike
in its succession of swells but intimations of the composer-to-be
were clearly present. The Largo that followed is not one of Beethoven’s
best but Occhipinti’s rich, sonorous sound stood out. The lively Rondo,
however, is a delight, presaging the more mature symphonist, and the
performers seemed to relish playing it, bringing out the joy that flows
from the return of the opening theme in its inverted form.
The six played like cohesive, well-balanced chamber musicians in
the Rondo, and the piano part especially stood out since it didn’t have
to compete with a full orchestra. This transparency continued in the
Op. 58 concerto, a piece composed in that luminous time just after the
Triple Concerto, the “Waldstein” and “Appassionata” Sonatas and the
“Eroica” Symphony and immediately before the “Razumovsky” String
Quartets. Lisiecki often played with a sound big enough to match an
orchestra which made for a less balanced whole, though given the
somewhat rough-hewn sound of the violins, it was not unwelcome.
Intimations of beauty leading into the cadenza were dashed by a
hurried approach until a surfeit of melody righted the course on the
way to a thundering climax.
The second movement conversation between the dark and
dissonant strings and the gorgeous lyricism of the keyboard set up
the magical, rhapsodic piano cadenza. The spirited third movement
Rondo, seemed to outrun its musical sense. But all was right in
the encore, the Rondo of the “Emperor” Concerto, in which Lisiecki
2015.2016
season highlights
Early Music
Performances by Schola Cantorum and Theatre
of Early Music, a lute song recital with
Dame Emma Kirkby
Chamber Music
New Orford String Quartet, Beverley
Johnston and Christos Hatzis, Gryphon Trio,
Cecilia String Quartet
Workshops/Master Classes/Lectures
Atom Egoyan, Sondra Radvanovsky, Barbara
Hannigan, Michael Colgrass, Norma Winstone,
Lawrence Shragge, Scott Burnham
Opera
The Medium and The Telephone, Paul Bunyan
New Music Festival
Featuring work by JUNO Award-winning guest
composer, Allan Gordon Bell
Download our 2015-16 season brochure at music.utoronto.ca
To order tickets, call the RCM Box Office at the TELUS Centre at 416-408-0208
The Faculty of Music gratefully acknowledges the generous support of our presenting sponsors
music.utoronto.ca
16 | Sept 1 - Oct 7, 2015 thewholenote.com