Daniel Pollack in Moscow = RACHMANINOV: Prelude in G Minor, Op. 23, No. 5; Prelude in G Major, Op. 32, No. 5; Prelude in G-sharp Minor, Op. 32, No. 12; FRANCK: Prelude, Chorale and Fugue; CHOPIN: Mazurka in A Minor, Op. 17, No. 4; Scherzo No. 3 in C-sharp Minor, Op. 39; Polonaise-Fantasie in A-flat Major, Op. 61; Ballade No. 2 in F Major, Op. 38; Polonaise in A-flat Major, Op. 53 “Heroic” – Daniel Pollack, piano – Classical Records CR-136, 70:00 [Distr. by Albany] ****:
Daniel Pollock (b. 1935) may be recalled as “the other American pianist” at the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1958 at which Van Cliburn took the Gold Medal. Pollock came in eighth. But that experience began a life-long love affair with Russia and its recording studios, Pollack’s having devoted considerable energies to inscribing a substantial repertory to records, courtesy of the studios of Russian Radio/TV in Moscow. This recital derives from sessions in March 2009.
I auditioned first some of Pollack’s Chopin: the Mazurka in A Minor, for openers, communicates a sober approach, bright, attentive to agogic detail–Chopin’s subtle shifts of the beat–with a decided gift for rubato within the bar. The piano color rings a bit harsh to my taste. The C-sharp Minor Scherzo permits the aggressive Pollock his full panoply of percussive effects; the chorale section, however, yields to the poetic temper in this artist, limpid without neurosis, graduated in the application of dynamics to the series of runs and block chords that alternate for primacy in this tempestuous work. In several respects, Pollack reminds me of John Browning, though his sonic patina is not so hard.
I proceeded to the militant G Minor Prelude of Rachmaninov, that perennial warhorse Horowitz, Hofmann, and the composer himself could transform into cascades of rockets or snowy avalanches of sound. Pollock certainly invests the first third of the piece with might and main; the liquid melody of the central section gives us opals rather than pearls. The gallop of the finale thunders and volleys with crisp precision.
If Rachmaninov ever tried to be Debussy, his G Major Prelude qualifies; and though none performs it with the erotic translucence of Benno Moiseiwitsch, Pollack applies deft and vibrant colors to its pastels and tender oils. Here is a pianist with genuine sympathy for Rachmaninov. The G-sharp Minor Prelude churns, rocks, and soars in liquid agitation, forceful without having been forced, persuasive and dynamic at once. The Franck Prelude, Chorale et Fugue (1884) receives a driven performance, pointed from the very first toward a firm sense of resolution. The Prelude section is all Bach, chromatic and brilliant, the high gloss beholden to the Liszt appreciation of the Baroque master. Pollack moves rather prosaically–more of the toccata–not lingering over harmonic or color details, though his bass harmonies consistently bespeak a ravishing palette. The Chorale conveys epic sweep and nobility of sentiment at once, here without false exaggeration, befitting the Pollock sensibility. Here we do receive an extended sense of Pollack’s capacity for legato playing. The Fugue, again, is pure Bach cross-fertilized by Belgian harmony. The last pages resound with contrapuntal abundance, a cornucopia of plastic techniques in exalted harmony, triumphant in the last burst of chromatic transformation.
Pollack successfully takes on the challenge of the intricately massive Polonaise-Fantasie (1846) of Chopin, leisurely establishing its weaving contour, which fuses elements of ballade, fantasy, and Polish dance-form. In this exposition, we might hear something of Pollack’s Germanic tradition in his pedagogy, the broad strokes that Wilhelm Kempff applied in the music of Chopin. The labyrinthine mix of staccati and legato elements, the interior agogics and shifting accents, always rife with dance-pulsation, mount inexorably in textural thickness and affective nostalgia, an alchemy that composer himself was loath to label. The disarming F Major Ballade (1837) at first rings with the soft colors of a Gallic noel, only to explode into frenzied articulate passion and spiritual revolt. Pollack the lion alternately snarls and brandishes the velvet paw in exotic tension. Finally, the perennial Polonaise in A-flat Major (1842), with its grand declamations of Polish aristocracy of spirit, its unquenchable pride of place. Pollack’s sheer finesse, his innate bravura and suavity of transition, rank this performance with the epics we know from Rubinstein, Horowitz, and Cziffra, dignitaries in the Chopin style of the first order, the Knights Templar of the spirit.
–Gary Lemco
