An Assured but Subtle Farewell
The Spanish pianist Alicia de Larrocha appeared with the
Tokyo String Quartet on Monday evening at Carnegie Hall in
a program said to be her last public performance.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/27/arts/music/27LARR.html?todaysheadlines
>From New York Times
November 27, 2002
An Assured but Subtle Farewell
By ALLAN KOZINN
The Spanish pianist Alicia de Larrocha, a revered presence in the New York
concert world since the mid-1960's,
appeared with the Tokyo String Quartet on Monday evening at Carnegie Hall
in a program that a spokeswoman for her
management company said would be her last public performance. She has been
associated particularly closely with two parts
of the literature: Mozart's work and the music of the Spanish nationalist
composers, who have been figuring prominently in
her repertory in recent years. But for her performance on Monday, she returned
to Mozart.
As departures go, Ms. de Larrocha's appearance was unusually low-key. Not much
had been made of it publicly, although
her retirement at 79 was not entirely unexpected. A note in the program book
described the concert only as her Carnegie
Hall farewell, although she has no further engagements on her calendar.
When she came out to play the Piano Concerto No. 12 in A (K. 414) in its version
for piano and string quartet midway
through the first half of the program, she neither looked nor sounded her age.
As always, she played with quiet assurance
rather than flashiness. And although she came out for perhaps half a dozen
curtain calls, she offered no encores.
Ms. de Larrocha played the solo line of the A major Concerto with sparkling,
transparent textures that were perfectly
weighted for this version of the work: essentially the familiar score stripped
of its oboe and horn parts, and with the string
body reduced to one player to a part.
She seemed to find this chamber setting invigorating. Like any musician who has
enjoyed a long career, Ms. de Larrocha has
seen performance style, and the tastes that drive it, move through cycles of
change and reconsideration. In the Spanish works
in her repertory she has remained peerless, but in Mozart, the expansion of the
early-music world and the expectations it has
created have been challenges for her. During the 1980's and into the 90's, her
Mozart sometimes seemed to have an
old-fashioned breadth.
On Monday, though, everything seemed to be right. The small details - the trills
and turns that adorn the score - as well as
the more expansive pianism in the cadenzas and the glowing Andante, had
considerable energy behind them. Her
performance had the bright, light quality that she brought to her playing in the
70's, when her appearances at the Mostly
Mozart Festival were among the highlights of New York summers. If anything, her
approach to Mozart on Monday was
more fluid, more carefully nuanced than it was then.
This was also a night for the Tokyo String Quartet, which, after all, had the
stage to itself for two-thirds of the program.
Having undergone several personnel changes in the last five years, it has taken
some time to find its sound. But this
ensemble's longtime admirers who have found its unsettled performances worrisome
in recent seasons can breathe easier
now.
In Schubert's Quartet in E flat (D. 87), which opened the program, and
Beethoven's Quartet in F (Op. 59, No. 1), which
closed it, these musicians played with a far richer tone and greater unity than
they have produced in a long time.
The greatly improved sound was apparent immediately, with the first notes of the
Schubert. This is an early score, composed
when Schubert was 16, but it was given such warmth and depth by the Tokyo
players - Martin Beaver and Kikuei Ikeda,
violinists; Kazuhide Isomura, violist; and Clive Greensmith, cellist - that it
could have passed as a more mature work.
The Beethoven, too, benefited from a beautifully burnished sound, impeccable
ensemble and delicately modulated balances.
In its best moments - the return of the principal theme at the end of the first
movement, for example - the performance
bristled with energy.
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