Tuesday, November 16, 2021

The 2021 Piano Festival (Jerusalem) - Duo pianists Tami Kanazawa and Yuval Admony perform works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and his sister Nannerl

Tami Kanazawa, Yuval Admony  (Yonatan Shlomo)

 

Under the artistic direction of Prof. Michael Wolpe, the 9th Piano Festival (November 10-13, 2021) taking place at the Jerusalem Theatre, marked 230 years of the death of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. At the centre of the festivities were several of Mozart's piano concertos, their solo roles performed by Israeli pianists of various ages. In addition to the concerto events, there were chamber music concerts, these also featuring little-known works of the composer, one of Mozart's sister Maria Anna (Nannerl), jazz (Guy Mintus Trio), vocal music and some new works performed by the Jerusalem East-West Orchestra. Prof. Wolpe gave two lectures. 

 

A recital on November 10th by duo pianists Tami Kanazawa and Yuval Admony turned out to be a family affair, starting with the fact that the two pianists, widely-performing artists, who have received prizes and rave reviews in the United States, Europe, Canada, Cyprus, Israel, Korea and Japan, are a married couple. They opened their recital with an arrangement of Mozart's Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No.15 in B-flat major K.450. Originally scored for piano, flute, two oboes, two bassoons, two horns, and strings, the K.450 has been quoted as being the composer's most difficult concerto. In a letter to his father in 1784, Mozart referred to Concertos Nos.15 and 16 as "concertos which are bound to make the player sweat", also pointing out the particular importance of the wind instruments in the two works, both elements to be reckoned with when hearing it as Hugo Ulrich and Robert Wittmann's arrangement for 4 hands (one piano.)  Admony (primo) and Kanazawa (secondo) presented the character of each movement - the charm of the Allegro, the dignified and serene variation-form Andante and the spirited Allegro finale, with moments of the latter's joyful rondo form a gentle reminder of Mozart's predilection for opera buffa characters. The artists' playing was crisp and buoyant. Admony felt the challenge of this setting to be the maintaining of clear dialogue between soloist and "orchestra" and the contrasting of intimate solos with tuttis. In the finale, he decided to split the main theme between the primo and secondo in order to evoke convincing dialogue between solo piano and woodwinds.

 

As children/teenagers in the 1760s, Mozart and his gifted older sister Maria Anna (Nannerl) greatly popularized four-hand playing all over Europe. It is thought by many that it was Nannerl who had written the Sonata in C major K.19d for four hands. In Mozart’s day, it was customary for the woman to play the primo and the man the secondo. Wolfgang and his sister always played this way, possibly instigating the custom. Indeed, at the Jerusalem Piano Festival concert, Kanazawa took on the primo role. Kanazawa and Admony's reading of the work sparkled in grace and elegance, their discriminating use of the sustaining pedal never clouding the work's singing melodiousness and charming naivete, its wistful and noble episodes and its understatement. Not to be ignored was the richness of the composer's ideas, moods and keys explored in the first movement's development section. Following the appealing, sweetly ambling Menuetto, with its somewhat more agitated F major Trio, Admony and Kanazawa invited the audience to join them on a romp through the final Rondo: Allegretto movement, its unexpected harmonic diversions appearing in the episodes, the sudden pause (always surprising!), the brief, searching Adagio and the final return of the principal theme. One is reminded of the painting of the Mozart family from around 1780 depicting young Nannerl and Wolfgang in cross-handed technique at the keyboard, their father standing by with violin, a portrait of their recently deceased mother behind them on the wall. From 1769 onward, having reached marriageable age, Nannerl was sadly no longer permitted to perform in public.


An appealing evening of salon music,leaving a taste for more!






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