Beethoven Steps Out

From the Classical Vault Dept.: Martha Argerich turns 83 on June 5, so let’s salute her with a look back at performance she gave in Saratoga Springs in 2002, when she was merely 61. She has a full touring schedule listed on her website, but we won’t see her in Saratoga again any time soon: once the powers-that-be axed conductor Charles Dutoit from the roster, we lost access to his wives, current (Chantal Juillet) and former (Argerich) as well as many other friends.

                                                                                           

THE IDEAL IS to serve the composer’s music – and thus the composer’s intentions – as well as possible. If this means subsuming yourself to an idea of what the composer might have wanted hear, then Martha Argerich wouldn’t be your pianist of choice. But her performance of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Philadelphia Orchestra at SPAC last week demonstrated that when a star soloist places her stamp of individuality on a work like this one, sparks fly. Good ones. The kind that revitalize a well-worn piece of music and remind us why the music became important in the first place.

Written in 1795 and revised over the next few years, the concerto is firmly in the classical form but with substantial bulges at the edges. It’s purposefully written to showcase the soloist, and Argerich put her fiery technique to good use. The opening movement has an air of classical delicacy about it, interrupted periodically by unexpected cascades of arpeggios from the soloist that the orchestra insists on shepherding back into line.

Which adds a nice edge of tension between pianist and orchestra, with Charles Dutoit exacting precise but flexible control over the group as Argerich rode the rhythm with surprising (and surprisingly effective) rubato. The slow movement revealed a level of lyrical drama I’ve never noticed before, and she charged into the finale with both guns blazing yet without sacrificing any of Beethoven’s vaunted wit.

We’ve grown accustomed to a parade of cookie-cutter soloists who play well, with faultless technique, and take no chances. With Argerich, it’s a refreshing case of take no prisoners. Beethoven was excellently served, confirming her reputation as one of the all-time greats.

Too bad the sound of the piano was poorly amplified (too bad it was amplified at all). With its midrange magnified and muddied, the all-important overtones were drowned out and the resultant sound was painfully unpleasant.

The second half of the program comprised Beethoven’s “Eroica” Symphony, which started with a bang (two bangs, if you want to get literal). A fleet, heated first movement, shorn of its repeat, got me expecting similar excitement for the rest of the piece – but it started to flag in the second movement, a funeral march that turned inappropriately funereal.

Sculpting a long symphony is a tough challenge, calling for an overall sense of the drama of the piece as a whole as well as effective approaches to the individual components. In this case, with the second movement miring in its own heaviness, the scherzo that followed still had some of that mud on its shoes. And that’s the climax of the piece: the final movement is a charming set of dance variations that needs to be propelled by what came before.

Playing, as usual, was breathtakingly precise – this orchestra seems incapable of delivering anything less – but it seemed as if Dutoit relaxed too much in the symphony’s middle. The “Eroica” justifiably remains a benchmark of the literature, and thus invites the closest scrutiny both musicians and listeners can offer. In this case, it fell only marginally short, but in this case it’s also a gap that really shows.

The Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Charles Dutoit
Martha Argerich, pianist
Saratoga Performing Arts Center, Aug. 8

– Metroland Magazine, 15 August 2002