In Celebration of the Piano: An All-Star Tribute to the Steinway
Program: LISZT: Au bord d’un source; La Campanella; MOSZKOWSKI: Etude No. 13 in A-flat Minor; Etude No. 6 in F Major; NAZARETH: Odeon; VILLA-LOBOS: Polichinello; SCHUBERT: March in G Major; Impromptu in A-flat Major; Hungarian Melody in G-flat; INFANTE: Three Andalusian Dances; MACDOWELL: Hexentanz; RACHMANINOV: Moment Musicale in E Minor; Prelude in G Major; PROKOFIEV: March from The Love of 3 Oranges; STRAVINSKY: Danse Russe from Petroushka; HOFMANN: Kaleidoscope; SCHUMANN: Carnaval
Pianists: Peter Orth/Ilana Vered, Jose Feghali/Rudolf and Peter Serkin/Murray Perahia/Cipa and Mischa Dichter/Hai-Kyung Suh/Lazar Berman/Alfred Brendel/Ruth Laredo/Alec Chien/Shura Cherkassky/Leon Bates/Edmund Battersby/Alexis Weissenberg/Robert Taub/Stephen Hough/Jerome Rose/David Dubal/Navah Perlman/Barbara Nissman/Alexander Toradze/Grant Johannesen/Christopher O’Riley
Studio: VAI 4328
Video: 4:3 Color
Audio: PCM Stereo
Length: 97 minutes
Rating: ****
Van Cliburn hosts this unique video, celebrating the manufacture of the 500,000th Steinway Piano; and by the way, recreating a benefit concert of 1921 in which a host of keyboard giants participated in Schumann’s Carnaval in order to raise money for a destitute Moritz Moszkowski. The first half of the video, engaging eleven individual pianists and two duets, addresses individual, stellar readings of familiar repertory, such as Murray Perahia–in the basement at the Steinway warehouse–playing Schubert’s A-flat Impromptu, Op. 90, No. 4. From a videotaped feed, we see Alfred Brendel perform the Hungarian Melody by Schubert. A rarity is seeing Rudolf and son Peter Serkin at one keyboard in Schubert’s G Major March. The powerhouse Lazar Berman plays A Rachmaninov Moment Musical and the Prokofiev March from his parodic opera. The late Ruth Laredo plays the G Major Prelude of Rachmaninov, and Shura Cherkassky renders a stunning Kaleidoscope from his own teacher Josef Hofmann. Robert Taub lights up the Steinway with Liszt’s transcription of Paganini’s La Campanella. Ilana Vered, who made her name on the old Connoisseur Society label with Moszkowski’s Op. 72 Etudes, gives us two from the set. A sanguine Alec Chen tears into the staccati of Stravinsky’s Danse Russe. Cipa and Mischa Dichter appear at two separate Steinways in the colorful music of Infante.
The Carnaval suite has pianists entering and exiting the stage as each panel of the characteristic suite proceeds. Jose Feghali opens the Preambule then leaves as Leon Bates takes up Pierrot, and so on. A stoic Alexis Weissenberg slows down the pageant with a lilting Eusebius. Ruth Laredo’s Coquette seems appropriate enough. Jerome Rose executes the anagram ASCH-SCHA for us in etched tones. After a passionate Chiarina by David Dubal, Shura Cherkassky makes the first of two entrances in a plastic Chopin, a nocturne of great beauty. Cherkassky will bring down the house with final March of the Davids-Leaguers Against the Philistines. Barbara Nissman appears in a quicksilver rendition of Pantalon et Colombine. Alexander Toradze likewise appears twice, first to play the Valse allemande and then to follow a hectically brisk Paganini from Jean-Yves Thibaudet with the reprise of the Valse. Aveu from Grant Johannesen is to recall an elegant poet of the piano. Christopher O’Riley takes us on the Promenade, and Jose Feghali makes his second appearance in the misnomered Pause, which sets up the grand finale from Cherkassky.
Straightforward camera work, perhaps even prosaic, but the musicians provide all the poetry we may require. This fortunate audience has cultivated every note with a sense that posterity has had its 97 minutes of fame.
–Gary Lemco
