Pianist Benjamin Hochman performs the first of a series of concerts of the Complete Piano Sonatas of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart at the Israel Conservatory,Tel Aviv




Photo: Jennifer Taylor

Jerusalem-born pianist/conductor Benjamin Hochman is presenting the complete Mozart Piano Sonatas at the Israel Conservatory in Tel Aviv and also at the Bard College Conservatory, New York, where he is a member of the piano faculty. The five concerts will comprise Mozart’s eighteen piano sonatas and five shorter works. This writer attended the first concert of the series, which took place on December 23rd 2019 at the Israel Conservatory, Tel Aviv.

 

The program opened with Sonata No.1 in C major K.279, one of six composed 1774-1775 in Munich and whose numerous dynamic markings reveal Mozart’s intention to play them on the fortepiano, enlisting the instrument's wide dynamic range and rich bass timbre. Indeed, Mozart performed all “six difficult sonatas” (as he referred to them) from memory in concerts in Munich and Augsburg. Hochman’s playing of the opening Allegro gave Classical beauty and festiveness to the movement, his judicious use of the sustaining pedal leaving the text’s clarity totally intact. Following the tranquil, thoughtful and gently flexed Andante, the final Allegro, rich in fine detail, offered a sprinkling of somewhat nonchalant moments of intensity, albeit, quick to disperse.

 

Then to Mozart’s Sonata No.11 in A major K.331 (1783) to which Hochman brings elegance, freshness and depth of feeling, starting with the delicacy, lyricism and a profusion of intricate detail of the Theme and variations - Andante grazioso - with some vibrant, bold flashes emerging in the 6th variation. Following the majestic Menuetto and its velvety Trio (bearing occasional strident comments), we heard the Rondo alla Turca. A much-mistreated piece, Hochman kept well clear of the rough “janissary bash” often produced by pianists, rather, offering a precise and controlled reading of it, infusing “tutti” sections with hearty textural substance.

 

Some mystery surrounds Sonata No.17 in B flat major K.570, a late Mozart work which the composer, according to some scholars, intended as a work for his students to perform. Its deceptive Classic simplicity, however, goes far beyond the realm of student performance.  In fact, it was Mozart’s biographer Alfred Einstein who referred to this sonata as “the most completely rounded of them all, the ideal of his piano sonata.” Exuding elegance and a sense of well-being, Hochman’s playing of the Allegro movement addressed importance to all melodic lines in fine-spun detail and sparkling runs. The Adagio movement, its tranquillity sometimes interrupted but always returning to calm simplicity, yielded to a delightfully deft jovial and contrasted reading of the final Allegretto, its lively syncopations and unexpected thematic leaps there to entertain!

 

In August 1777, Mozart resigned from his post as court musician, leaving for Europe in search of employment. The journey was beset by tragedy when his mother passed away from an undiagnosed illness while accompanying her 22-year-old son on tour in France. Composed under the aura of these traumatic circumstances, it is no coincidence that Sonata No.8 in A minor K.310 represents Mozart’s first experiment in writing a large piano work in a minor key.  Hochman addressed Mozart’s ground-breaking use of unrelenting pulsating rhythms, asymmetrical melodic phrasing and irregular cadences, maintaining the intensity, contrast and strong colour of the opening movement, yet observing its “maestoso” marking. One of the evening’s highlights was Hochman's playing of the Andante cantabile con espressione, splendidly crafted in aristocratic gestures, with darker, soul-searching grief evoked in the middle section in contrast to the (near perfect) mood of composure and dreamlike singing of the outer sections. As to the final Presto movement, the artist presented its suspenseful excitement together with fragility of textures. In the letter to his father informing him of his mother’s death, Mozart wrote: “I have indeed suffered and wept enough – but what did it avail?” 

 

In this first concert of the Tel Aviv Mozart Sonata Series, Benjamin Hochman’s eloquent, light-fingered, glittering and largely understated playing of Mozart sonatas allowed one to forget the dimensions of the concert hall to join him in the intimate world of the musical salon. For his encore, the artist played a piano version of a soprano aria from J.S.Bach’s "Sheep May Safely Graze"  from Cantata BWV 208, its melodic lines flowing in natural silhouettes from a crystalline setting.