Ashkenazy and Ax at Severance

This weekend saw the return of two artists with whom I’m separately familiar.  In December of 1990, I saw Vladimir Ashkenazy in recital in Boston.  Around the same time, I saw Emanuel Ax in recital.  But this weekend marked the first time I’d seen them perform together, and my first time seeing Ashkenazy as conductor.  In addition to their joint performance in Cleveland this weekend, both will be featured in separate interviews on Zsolt Bognár's Living the Classical Life, which were taped earlier this week. 

Dan and I like to get to Severance Hall early so we can settle into our seats well before the starting time.  A few members of the orchestra were already on stage, including Ashkenazy himself, who was animatedly conversing with one of the violists.  It must have been an amusing conversation as both were smiling and laughing.  Ashkenazy’s combination of rock solid musical credentials, willingness to work hard, yet always maintaining a pleasant and warm demeanor is no doubt part of the reasons he’s not only one of the most successful musicians in Classical music, but one of the most highly regarded, personally.  The conductor returned backstage as the hall began to fill, the lights dimmed, and the orchestra tuned.

Ashkenazy strode on stage with a brisk yet easy gait that belied his 80 years, and the program began with Edward Elgar’s Serenade for Strings, Op. 20 – a work with which I am largely unfamiliar.  From the first notes, Ashkenazy’s unobtrusive mastery in conducting was apparent.  He carefully balanced each section of the orchestra (the string section was reduced) so that each strand of music was transparent.  In particular, the long lined melody of the central Larghetto movement unfolded beautifully.

As part of the orchestra’s 100^th anniversary season, management has decided to occasionally use decades-old program notes in their books.  This weekend’s book featured notes about Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto by George H. L. Smith from 1941 – with a disclaimer that these notes represented standard musical opinion back in the day.  Audiences who heard Sergei Rachmaninoff perform this concerto (the first time it was presented at Severance) read these very notes.  Reading them I was astonished how much musical opinion in the United States has advanced.  The notes claim, among other things, that Beethoven’s first two piano concertos are devoid of original ideas and are merely Beethoven’s recreations of the a musical form perfected by Mozart.  This is simply tosh.  The terseness of Beethoven’s musical ideas, his orchestration, the way the rhythmic motif dominates the entire opening movement are entirely Beethovenian – and the virtuosity of his piano writing goes beyond anything Mozart ever dreamed of.   

Emanuel Ax was soloist in the concerto, and he brought the virtuosic spirit of the young Beethoven to the work, but also a sense of scale that was appropriate to the period.  Witnessing Ax’s rendition of the first movement cadenza, it was easy to imagine how Viennese audiences were set on their ears by the young Beethoven’s playing.  Yet the performance wasn’t all about Ax, and the spirit of communicativeness and sense of joy in making music with the conductor and orchestra were ever present.  One can tell that Ashkenazy and Ax genuinely enjoy performing together. 

Ax gifted the audience with an encore, Schubert's A-flat major Impromptu D. 935, No. 2, in a feathery performance, sans repeats.

Following intermission, the audience was treated to an ideal rendition of Elgar’s Enigma Variations.  Despite the work’s relative popularity, this is the first time I’d heard it in concert.  From the first bars, it was apparent that Ashkenazy was determined to avoid the pitfalls heard in too many European recordings of this work, which tend to sound soggy and foggy.  As with the Serenade, each section was transparently balanced.   As is well known, each Variation on Elgar’s original theme is based upon someone in his life, from his wife, to his best friend, to a neighbor’s bulldog.  In the score, each variation is headed with a name or set of initials, which has allowed researchers to determine which Variation belongs to whom – except in the case of the 13^th variation, which is headed by “***”, and probably was written in memory of an early amour.  The recipient of each Variation is beautifully characterized.  But what’s most interesting to me is that the most moving variation is reserved not for Elgar’s early love or even his wife, but for his best friend.  The “Nimrod” Variation, which is often used for funerals and other state events in Britain, has become as well known on its own as the 18^th Variation of Rachmaninoff’s Paganini Rhapsody.  It occurred to me that the Variation is more than a portrait of a friend, but a meditation on Platonic friendship, which is a kind of love in and of itself.  Last night’s rendition marked only second time in my life that I’ve been moved to tears by a concert.

Emotional connection.  That’s what music making is all about.