Ivan Moravec: Live in Brussels = BEETHOVEN: Piano Sonata No. 15 in D Major, Op. 28 “Pastoral”; BRAHMS: Intermezzo in A Minor, Op. 118, No. 1; Capriccio in B Minor, Op. 76, No. 2; Intermezzo in A Major, Op. 118, No. 2; Rhapsody in G Minor, Op. 79, No. 2; CHOPIN: Nocturne in B Major, Op. 32, No. 1; Nocturne in C-sharp Minor, Op. 27, No. 1; Mazurka in A Minor, Op. 17, No. 4; Mazurka in C-sharp Minor, Op. 50, No. 3; Scherzo No. 1 in B Minor, Op. 20 – Ivan Moravec, piano
Supraphon 4004-2, 72:14 [Distr. by Qualiton] ****:
Recorded at the Concert Hall at Conservatoire Royal de Bruxelles 4 February and 7 November 1983, Ivan Moravec (b. 1930) demonstrates the silken agility and deep tonal beauty he elicits in each performance of the music he champions. A Michelangeli acolyte, Moravec has made a specialty of the Chopin-Brahms repertory, with frequent incursions into the Beethoven sonatas, as he does here with the D Major Sonata (1801), Op. 28. The drone bass that provides the so-called “pastoral” element does not hamper the forcefully dramatic dialogues among the various registers of this often galant progression. The Andante’s brisk walking tempo in marching marcato figures in the bass maintains a bright, pearly tone, luminous and mysterious at once. The playful middle section puts various questions and answers in contrasting registers, but none of the riddles seems too serious. An equally playful Scherzo, Allegro vivace, rather a dazzling village romp. The finale moves crisply, perhaps a mite geared to the toccata style that shows off touch and tonal voluptuousness, but that is the way with Moravec.
Moravec plays Brahms with an internal fervor that renews itself no matter how often he performs the small body of works in his arsenal. With Moravec, there are no “miniatures.” The Op. 118, No. 1 casts a glacial economy of earnest sadness, romantically passionate but restrained unto death. The Capriccio, an old Artur Rubinstein delight, evokes an agogically intricate excursion, kaleidoscopic and sunlit. The A Major Intermezzo plastically defines the “old bachelor” in Brahms, a rainy-day duet that proceeds to some polyphonic depth in the middle section. A touch of fervent haste colors the G Minor Rhapsody, but its dramatic content is superb. The triplets move with a steamy vigor impossible to resist. The bass moves obsessionally, fevered, driven in a way appropriate to the D Minor Concerto, belying any sense that late Brahms has “resigned” himself to fate.
We discovered the Moravec Chopin experience in 1966, with the Connoisseur Society inscriptions Moravec made for E. Alan Silver. The B Major Nocturne here in 1983 has a brittle quality, as though the moonlight itself could break its gossamer threads. The middle section retains touches of the first Impromptu, Op. 29. The C-sharp Minor Nocturne elicits a haunted eroticism, plaintive and tinged with regret. The middle section invokes a storm of emotion that bursts into Polish national pride. The A Minor Mazurka Moravec recorded twice prior, its interior, chromatic agonies and searching intimacy obviously qualities Moravec chooses to hone. The middle dance asserts itself more buoyantly than before. The latter half Moravec plays slightly faster than in 1965, yet his internal rubato still enforces a steady pulsation on the harmonic rhythm. The 1842 C-sharp Minor Mazurka becomes a symphonic poem, a self-contained passionate dynamo, as explosive as anything in Beethoven but nationally idiosyncratic. The 1831 B Minor Scherzo expresses personal rage over the November uprising in Poland, and its demonic fervor eliminates anything like the dance character from the traditional scherzo. The velocity of execution does not diminish Moravec’s capacity for poetry; and even in the violent outer sections we find a solace that comes fully crowned in the Polish noel that constitutes the middle section.
Sonic remastering by Stanislav Sykora of SR Studio is superb, and we would never know these are live inscriptions except when the enthralled audience erupts most gratefully for the most refined pianist living today.
–Gary Lemco
