Donald Satz <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>As far as his music goes, there's nothing wrong with Donohoe. He's an
>excellent pianist who has reaped some fine critical reviews. I would
>hesitate to consider him one of the greatest of the century, but he is
>much better than his public image; I think EMI has done a poor job of
>representing him.
I used to (well, actually, I still do) have a very fine impression of
Donohoe's playing. He has indeed made very many fine recordings, save for
a couple of mishits here and there, like the Prokofiev War Sonatas on EMI.
Sadly, the one and only time I've heard him in recital proved to be
extremely disappointing. He was here in 1997 as one of four pianists in
a 4-day Piano Festival, which also featured Hamelin, Demidenko and Piotr
Anderszewski, who all matched up to the very high standards they themselves
have set based on their previous track record. Donohoe's recital, OTOH,
not only failed to match up to his usual standards, it actually turned out
to be quite an embarrassing affair.
I wrote a review which was published by the local newspaper, The Straits
Times, the following day:
International Piano Festival 1997
Peter Donohoe, piano
Wednesday 9 July, Victoria Concert Hall
LIONEL CHOI
After three consecutive nights of consistently good performances, it
was a real pity that the fourth and final instalment of this year's
Piano Festival had to be a disappointment.
And ironically, it attracted the largest audience. The most likely
reason must be that Manchester-born pianist Peter Donohoe chose a
programme of mostly familiar works.
He started off beautifully in the first movement of the opening work,
Mozart's eminent Sonata in A, K.331 - poised and cultured, with a
clear melodic line singing throughout, and a very judicious use of
rubato. It was a balanced and gimmick-free view that was civilised
without reducing the music to porcelain fragility.
The third variation, in the relative key of A minor, was a particularly
fine example of how a Mozartian tragic utterance should sound like.
But it was too bad that these good things had to come to an abrupt
end at the last variation, which ended up as a virtuoso exercise for
Donohoe. A hard-pressed race to the finish line at a very quick tempo,
phrases, though crisply articulated, ran breathlessly from beginning
to end, and were not even allowed a moment of respite in the final
six bars.
I have never heard the ensuing minuet of the second movement played
so fast and with such contempt. The famous Alla Turca finale, however,
went well enough.
After having made a mess of half of Mozart's masterpiece, Donohoe
turned to butchering one of Beethoven's most heroic sonatas, the
Waldstein, Op.53.
Actually, it was all rather impressive technically. But alas, Beethoven
means far more than just immaculate running passages and precise
fingerwork. Besides a fluent keyboard technique, one needs consummate
musicianship, something that Donohoe seriously lacked here. Furthermore,
I mourn at the lack of concern for detail.
Stretching and compressing tempi and phrasing at will, liberal
fluctuations in dynamics, heavy fortissimos - all these are hardly
ways to achieve that special incandescence in the first movement.
The second movement had nice poise, but I detected a pervading sense
of routine. And in the finale, he missed exploiting the atmospheric
music's subtle tonal and textural colours. The contrasting sections
of the rondo were executed with panache, although the second one was
just too overpowering in its relentless vehemence. The quick coda
was very impressive, but alas, it had come a little too late.
Things worked a lot better after the interval in Chopin's Sonata No.3
in B minor, Op.58. The strong-fibred musician in Chopin emerged
strongly in the monumental first movement, although Donohoe tended
to ramble quite a bit.
The Largo was the movement that finally brought out the true genius
in Donohoe that we were straining to hear before this. There was a
wonderfully deep calm and a romantic yearning.
From then on, he remained in form. The Liszt items, "Venezia e
Napoli" from Annees de Pelerinage II, were superb, culminating in an
electrifying Tarantella that was full of extrovert brilliance, verve,
flair and diabolic impishness.
For his only encore, Donohoe explored the sounds of Javanese gamelan
music in Debussy's "Pagodes" from Estampes, albeit in an artificial
and unduly agitated fashion, bringing the concert and the four-day
festival to a not-so-sweet close.
Lionel Choi
Singapore
http://www.singnet.com.sg/~lionelc/dummies.html
|