Beethoven Festival: Ryo Yanagitani, Audrey Andrist
Voluptuary and empath
February 9, 2012Two Canadian pianists were the fifth and sixth contributors to the Beethoven piano sonata cycle sponsored by the San Antonio International Piano Competition. Both were former gold medalists in the triennial competition -- Audrey Andrist in 1994, Ryo Yanagitani in 2009.
After his 2010 appearance with the San Antonio Symphony, I characterized Mr. Yanagitani as a “raconteur,” a musician gifted with the story-teller’s arts of timing and color and inflection. The same gifts were fully evident in his Beethoven program, Feb. 7 in Christ Episcopal Church.
More striking still in this performance was a voluptuous quality, a sensory vividness, that one doesn’t usually associate with Beethoven’s piano sonatas.
In the third-movement funeral march of Op. 26, for example, fortissimo accented chords fell with the terrifying finality of a medieval castle’s iron portcullis. The many long rests in the first two movements of Op. 7 were not just momentary absences of sound but pregnant pauses, perfectly timed; Mr. Yanagitani showed a fine ear for Beethoven’s earthy wit, and for his lyricism, too.
The fugue in the finale of Op. 101 was remarkable not only for Mr. Yanagitani’s technical grace in notoriously difficult material, but for his ability to change atmospheres in a trice.
(If you’d like to “see” how the atmosphere shifted from section to section within this fugue in Mr. Yanagitani’s performance, you could do no better than to examine Beethoven’s autograph of Op. 101, available on the Beethoven-Haus Bonn Digital Archives. Note the changes in stroke weights, stem lengths, spacing and control/wildness of penmanship as the fugue progresses over the next five pages.)
In the adagio of Op. 101, Mr. Yanagitani impressed with his patience and intense concentration, allowing him to maintain structural coherence and sense of direction despite choosing an unusually slow tempo.
His account of the familiar “Pathetique” Sonata struck me as a shade too fussy, too given to little hesitations and Chopinesque left-hand rhythms.
Otherwise, these were appealing, thoughtful, mature and technically crisp performances.
Ms. Andrist’s recital, Jan. 31 in Christ Episcopal Church, exemplified both the promise and the problem of the cycle’s format -- with seven pianists of varying sensibilities and interests dividing the 32 sonatas among themselves rather than a single pianist who has committed many years to concentrated study of the entire cycle. Although many of the sonatas were doubtless well-established in the repertoires of all the participants, some would have to be learned specifically for this series. Wide disparities in performance standards were inevitable.
Ms. Andrist’s accounts of Op. 28 “Pastorale” and Op. 31, No. 3 “The Hunt” suffered from underpreparation. Many technical and rhythmic challenges hadn’t been fully worked out, and the performances seemed disjointed. Op. 54 came off much better, played with fluidity and a good feel for Beethoven’s contrapuntal mode. As in the “Pastorale” and “The Hunt,” her dynamics were admirably fearless.
But in the great Op. 110, the next-to-last of Beethoven’s sonatas, Ms. Andrist shone very brightly indeed. She gave uncommon poignancy to the lyrical first movement. The central allegro was played boldly and with a clear sense of direction. The adagio was absorbing from first to last, the tempos and phrasings shaped by complete empathy with its intensity of feeling. Each of the two fugues was given its own distinct character, the first controlled but with a wonderfully expressive halting rhythm in the right hand, the second more free and buoyant. This was an intelligent, technically secure and deeply communicative performance.
Mike Greenberg
