Yo Yo Ma in Boston

Went with friends to see Yo-Yo Ma at Symphony Hall.  An eloquent recital of the final three Cello Suites of J. S. Bach.  He offered an encore as a prayer for peace.  There was a reception afterwards at which he was present.  The drive back was awful due to the snowstorm.  The roads were almost impassable. We didn't get back until after one in the morning.

Ashkenazy in recital, Boston

Went with my teacher Charles to hear Ashkenazy at Symphony Hall on Wednesday. He played Beethoven’s Opp. 110 & 111 for the first half. A touch bland, but Charles loved it at first. The second half was much better, Brahms Op. 119 and Handel Variations. Very strong playing.

Horszowski at Harvard

A memorable night tonight, as I went to Sanders Theatre to hear Mieczyslaw Horszowski play.

While standing in the lobby before the concert I saw an old couple pass: it was Horszowski and his wife. Apparently, the others there didn’t know who they were, as Horszowski’s path to the back stage area was blocked. I cleared a path for them and they were able to make their way back.

I then entered the hall, and shortly after the lights dimmed. I heard a rattling sound, angry talk, and feet stomping from a curtained area at the back of the stage. (I later learned it was Horszowski angrily refusing a walker which had been offered to him.) When Horszowski came out, a few people rose to greet him, but he cut short the ovation with an impatient gesture.

None of the playing was perfect, but it was so beautiful and colorful that questions of technique ceased to be germane. The Mozart Fantasy in D minor sounded improvised. The Bach E minor English Suite was highly personal: emotional moments came very quickly, within a single phrase.

Horszowski diverted from the printed program in the second half (all Chopin). He played a Nocturne in E-flat, Op. 9, No. 2 instead of the F-sharp, Op. 15, No. 2; and the B minor Mazurka instead of the B-flat major. The Bolero, hardly a simple piece, really brought the house down. There were a number of fluffs and the end, but I didn’t care. It was authentic, pure, real.

Two encores, Chopin’s Nocture in F-sharp and an Etude from Op. 25. Ironically, Horowitz - a decade younger than Horszowski - died one year ago today.

Perahia in Boston

Murray Perahia’s recital at Symphony Hall was stunning. The Haydn Sonata in A-flat (HOB. XVI:43) was expressive but well within the Classical style. Then came the most original Brahms F minor sonata that I’ve ever heard. Dramatic, declamatory, bordering on the uncontrolled. Perahia let a few passages run away with him in the finale. After the intermission, there was a Chopin group with a rather mannered Mazurka, Op. 24, No. 2 and rushed Introduction and Rondo in E-flat, Op. 16. He ended with the Mephisto Waltz (first version) in which he threw caution to the wind and brought the house down. There was one encore: a rather disappointing Schubert Impromptu in E-flat. I think he was too exhausted to play more.

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Vladimir Horowitz in Boston

I heard Horowitz live on this date - October 19, 1986 - at Symphony Hall in Boston.

I sat in the last row of the top balcony, and Horowitz's quietest notes projected to my ears, while the bass notes in Scriabin's Etude Op. 8, No. 12, clanged like deep  hourly bell of Big Ben.

Despite his age, 83, the playing was more polished than most recitals he was playing at that time. (There was the briefest of memory lapses in the Schumann Arabeske, which only professionals would have noticed, and which did not detract from the unforgettable legato.) For me the high point of the concert were the Scriabin Etudes (stunning) and Chopin Mazurka (melancholy, with a slight flirtation in the rhythm).  He was able to maintain an astonishing tempo in Chopin's B Minor Scherzo (a far superior performance to his 1985 recording), but held back on the dynamics until the coda - which he ended with his usual interlocking octaves instead of chromatic scales.

Horowitz always liked Symphony Hall, and perhaps its acoustics were a factor, as his performance here was superior to his Moscow recital. He also seemed to be in a good mood today.

As he left the hall after the concert, he shook the hands of several people, including myself, on his way to the limo. 

Post script, 2013:
Over the years, I began to wonder if my memories of the recital were through rose tinted glasses. But then a friend sent me a pirate tape of the concert, and it was just as I remembered it, maybe even better.