I WOULD have been the first to applaud the audience at Steven Osborne's colossal performance on Friday, running for an unbroken two-and-a-quarter hours, had the pianist not got in first.
At the end of his magisterial performance of Messiaen's massive Vingt Regards sur l'enfant Jesus, a set of 20 solo contemplations on the baby Jesus, as the audience got to its feet and roared approval, Osborne turned round and demonstratively applauded them for their endurance, stamina, appreciation and, I would wager, their concentration over the long time span of the piece.
We were stilled and emotionally drained. As Osborne turned round to face his audience, he was purple, presumably from the sheer physical, intellectual and emotional power required to get this gentle and infinitely powerful monster off the pages and hang together as a coherent entity.
He has done it before, as a unit and in bundles; and his universally acclaimed Hyperion recording is still regarded as one of the finest.
But live is different, every time; I do not know if, and in what way, Osborne has been re-thinking Vingt Regards, but I seemed to learn a lot about the piece. Yes, it is dreamy, serene, tender and expressive at one extreme; and yes, thunderously rhythmic and crashingly powerful at another. But Osborne found infinitely more expressiveness on Friday than I have heard, even from him. It was all about dynamics and shading: how does he do it, even within a single chord, never mind across a line? What a palette this man has. It was uplifting, sobering and shattering, all at once. A thought-provoking experience.
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