NAFA Arts Festival 1999: Lazar Berman
Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts presents
ARTS FESTIVAL 1999: CELEBRITY CONCERT
Wednesday, 12 May 1999
Victoria Concert Hall
RACHMANINOV 6 Moments Musicaux Op.16
CHOPIN 6 Polonaises
Lazar Berman piano
rdent readers of Louis Cha’s pugilistic novels will find the following scenario familiar: a kongfu master’s young disciple is challenged to a duel by a powerful opponent. The old kongfu master has just invented taichi, an extremely lethal form of martial arts, but has only minutes to impart the entire skill to his pupil before the duel starts. After demonstrating the complicated steps once through, the master asks, “so have you remembered all the steps?” The disciple thinks hard for a while, then answers, “Sir, I have cleanly forgotten all of it.” His teacher smiles knowingly: “Then you have mastered taichi.” And the disciple went on to defeat the opponent hands-down.
This scenario is meant to illustrate the fact that taichi, having been developed for self-defence and self-enrichment, is not based on form, but rather on a set of abstract philosophies: the defendant reacts to the aggressor by utilising certain general concepts, and rigid formal moves become secondary. What the master had shown his disciple was merely a crystallisation of his taichi philosophy, as manifested outwardly by a certain set of moves; what the pupil then grasped was the concept and motive that lay behind the steps. Once that was understood, whatever moves he used to counter his opponent were unimportant, as long as he utilised the concepts his teacher demonstrated.
Extending this analogy to piano playing, I personally believe that a pianist, if he is to rise above the ranks, should be rather like a taichi master. It is true that the composer writes down all the notes, dynamics and tempi to be followed by the pianist, and the emphasis on authenticity by the present generation of music critics has ensured this. However, wouldn’t it be more convenient then, to program all this instruction into a computer and have an electronic keyboard play it out?
Hence we come to the matter of interpretation: how the same piece of music is played differently from one pianist to the next. Among mediocre pianists it might be noted quite easily that the same pieces get performed “in the same way”; yet among the top pianists each has his own stamp. How can this be when all is written down clearly in black and white?
Well, simply put, the top pianists are the taichi masters who have truly mastered the skill: they have read the score, they know what is written in the score, they have played the notes, and they understand what lies behind the notes. After this point the notes become secondary; the primary objective then becomes how the pianist reacts to the piece, and distills from it the message to be put across to the audience, be it blood-curdling rage or sentimental romance. The written score then becomes merely a vehicle for the performer to understand what goes on behind the piece; once he has comprehended, he is ready to interpret the piece in whatever way he decides would get the audience on the same wavelength. And when he succeeds, he becomes a true virtuoso – as it were, a true exponent of taichi.
Lazar Berman is one such personality, and tonight I am very sure he has convinced the entire audience of this. There were numerous blatant wrong notes and slips, occurring in almost every piece; running passages smudge onto themselves, and the tempi were atrociously uneven. Yet who would care about the actual notes, when the fundamental understanding of the pieces was so evidently put across? The question of whether Berman actually adhered strictly to the score is irrelevant; here we can only consider whether he has digested and assimilated the score and conveys the message inherent in the pieces. This understanding of pianistic style is especially crucial when listening to Berman play Rachmaninov.
Rachmaninov, though known primarily as a composer, was also an adequate conductor and a brilliant pianist from all accounts. His own style of playing was akin to the taichi method: assimilate the concept, forget the steps, and react accordingly. His performances of Chopin and Mozart have been widely criticised for not adhering to the written score, and taking intolerable liberties with rubato and dynamics. Yet what electrified audiences was not the notes that he played, but the mood that he was able to distill out of the piece, the crystallisation of thought and emotion that he was able to convey. In writing his own pieces then, Rachmaninov wrote for his own abilities, and naturally wrote for the pianist who could do the same.
Hence in interpreting Rachmaninov, if a pianist is too involved with playing what the composer wrote, he would miss the inherent daredevil showmanship of the composer’s intentions and emerge a rather cautious, if not placid, performer. Thankfully, Berman plays with torrential abandon, letting his fingers loose at the keyboard, pounding away with a stoic sureness and confidence picked up more than six decades at the keyboard.
His technique, though phenomenal, was just a tool for him. While he plunged head-on into the six Moments Musicaux, the notes melted away, and what the listeners would detect were the rhythm and vitality that pulsed beneath arching Romantic phrases. Berman’s age also added a tinge of resignation and nostalgia, a bonus seen in the light of Rachmaninov’s own temperament. However, the youthful sunny Rachmaninov emerged occasionally, for we must be reminded that this set was composed at 23, before the disastrous and extremely traumatic premiere of the composer’s First Symphony (yes, we all know that story).
In Chopin too, Berman delights us with his individual brand of interpretation. As with the Rachmaninov, he is just as convincing, even if the Polonaises are considered extremely heavyweight repertoire. Far from their origins as stately dances, Chopin’s Polonaises are epics integrated closely with his life and innermost feelings, mostly to do with patriotism for his motherland — Poland — which was under Russian domination during his lifetime. Many of the Polonaises are huge-scale works requiring not just an understanding of the unique rhythmic lilt but also an insight into Chopin’s anguished tormented psyche as well (he was definitely not a sickly Romantic poet penning mushy romantic nocturnes). As it turned out, Berman gave a rendition that could make blood boil. Entirely freed of the formal confines of the score, Berman laid bare Chopin as a composer: Chopin the musician; Chopin the poet; Chopin the patriot.
Through the six Moments Musicaux and six Polonaises, Lazar Berman enlightened us with his understanding of music as it occurred to pianists of legendary calibre. It is not entirely true that he is the last ‘big’ Russian pianist; it is merely that the present generation of pianists do not share the same principles of interpretation and insight, and try too hard to discern every single marking on the score. Though the search for authenticity in a composer’s intention is important, it is even more crucial to recognise that what is written down is just a map, and the true test of a pianist’s calibre transpires only when he puts down the map and beholds the real treasure. Lazar Berman, pianist extraordinaire, has opened the chest.
