{"id":377,"date":"2009-12-12T08:21:39","date_gmt":"2009-12-12T12:21:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/dingansich\/?p=377"},"modified":"2011-11-26T23:10:20","modified_gmt":"2011-11-27T03:10:20","slug":"zankel-hall-peter-serkin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dingansich\/2009\/12\/12\/zankel-hall-peter-serkin\/","title":{"rendered":"ZANKEL HALL | Peter Serkin"},"content":{"rendered":"

Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall
\nThursday, December 10, 2009 at 7:30 PM<\/a><\/p>\n

Peter Serkin,<\/strong> Piano<\/p>\n

SCHOENBERG<\/strong> | Three Piano Pieces<\/em>, Op. 11
\nDEBUSSY<\/strong> | 6 \u00e9pigraphes antiques<\/em>
\nKURT\u00c1G<\/strong> | Selections from J\u00e1t\u00e9kok<\/em>: Pen Drawing, Valediction to Erzs\u00e9bet Scha\u00e1r; (\u2026and round and round it goes…); Portrait; The mind will have its freedom\u2026
\nWUORINEN<\/strong> | Scherzo<\/em>
\nCHOPIN<\/strong> | Polonaise in C Minor, Op. 40, No. 2; Impromptu in A-flat Major, Op. 29; Etude in A-flat Major from Trois nouvelles \u00e9tudes<\/em>; Nocturne in E Major, Op. 62, No. 2
\nSCHOENBERG<\/strong> | Suite for Piano<\/em>, Op. 25<\/p>\n

Encores<\/em>:
\nBACH<\/strong> | Prelude & Fugue in B-flat Major from The Well-Tempered Clavier<\/em>, Book I
\nCHOPIN<\/strong> | Etude in G-flat Major, Op. 25, No. 9, “Butterfly”; Nocturne in F-sharp Major, Op. 15, No. 2<\/p>\n

Serkin\u2019s hands were fascinating to watch: the rippling sprawls, the feathery glides, the sniper-like dartings, the instant bounce-backs to midair arrest before the next dives in. Throughout the Debussy there was a magical lightness of touch that never came at the expense of clarity or warmth. These pieces, though only about 15 minutes in all, offered a sense-gallery of tautness and tenderness. Notes grazed, lingered, softly crumbled. Deft pedaling aided with subtle, not sentimental, hazes. These \u00e9pigraphes<\/em> were evocative independently, then, as well as effective for their original function: accompanying the recitation of Pierre Lou\u00ffs\u2019 fin-de-si\u00e8cle Sapphic verses, Les Chansons de Bilitis<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The four micro-selections from Gy\u00f6rgy Kurt\u00e1g\u2019s seldom performed series of exercises were charmingly willful (J\u00e1t\u00e9kok<\/em> = \u201cGames\u201d). Particularly memorable for this listener: the brightly skittish, trill-intensive \u201cPortrait.\u201d Wuorinen\u2019s Scherzo<\/em>, written for Serkin and premiered last year, offered densely intricate, animated textures that upped their stakes (and raised the technical bar) along the way. Rigor and vigor defined the two Schoenberg sets that book-ended the program, in the form of focused intent and (again those) leaping hands.<\/p>\n

Encore number one, the Bach, was taken at an unusually rapid pace; partly due to Serkin\u2019s magic, and partly to the aural afterimage of Wuorinen and Schoenberg, perhaps, this prelude-fugue pair became scintillatingly enigmatic. It made me want to hear more Bach from him. To the Chopins\u2014six in all, thanks to generous encores\u2014he brought everything from everything above. In sequence, mere impressions, impressionistic for having been too engrossed to be alert registrar: sober, penetrative intensity, broken by lush quiets; fluid lyricism as well as muscularity; simple, lush blots and dapples; dreamy reverie from which it felt barely possible to recover; featheriest-ness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall Thursday, December 10, 2009 at 7:30 PM Peter Serkin, Piano SCHOENBERG | Three Piano Pieces, Op. 11 DEBUSSY | 6 \u00e9pigraphes antiques KURT\u00c1G | Selections from J\u00e1t\u00e9kok: Pen Drawing, Valediction to Erzs\u00e9bet Scha\u00e1r; (\u2026and round and round it goes…); Portrait; The mind will have its freedom\u2026 WUORINEN | Scherzo CHOPIN […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":241,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,2328],"tags":[4684,14129,14126,14125,13248,14127,14128,14130],"class_list":["post-377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music","category-nyc","tag-bach","tag-debussy","tag-kurtag","tag-peter-serkin","tag-review","tag-schoenberg","tag-wuorinen","tag-zankel-hall"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dingansich\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dingansich\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dingansich\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dingansich\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/241"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dingansich\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=377"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dingansich\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":868,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dingansich\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377\/revisions\/868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dingansich\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dingansich\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dingansich\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}