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| 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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