Music
YOU just cannot beat old-style piano playing -- no perfumed antics, no
limp-wristed stroking of the keys, no mannerisms, and no messing.
Yesterday, to an ovation that might have been reserved for a
superstar, veteran Catalan pianist, Alicia de Larrocha, gave a recital
that was an exemplar of its type.
She's tiny and ever so slightly frail-looking as she mounts the steps
to the platform. She's 72 and plays with the vigour and passion of
somebody half a century younger. What a class act she is. Completely
unfussy, she sat down at the piano, polished her glasses, placed her
hands on the keyboard, and took her audience off to the stars.
The only visible evidence of her age came when the going got tough,
the notes got fast -- and I mean fast -- and there was a sense of
splashiness with the odd tumble on to a neighbouring wrong note. But
this was nothing. The entire recital -- to a standing-room only crowd --
was a model of musical vivacity and integrity.
After a couple of introductory sonatas by Soler, de Larrocha plunged
straight into the heart -- and soul -- of Spain with the Spanish Dances
of Granados. Oh how she played these: the colours rose off the
instrument, rich and dark, the sense of heat, the dust, the stamp and
twirl of flamenco, the soulful stir of duende. It was like a magnificent
improvisation.
The great lady -- to call her old would be an insult -- then proceeded
to give a stunning account of Schumann's Carnaval that caught
comprehensively the multiple moods of this immense character piece. She
is a supreme colourist, a rare lyricist, and -- as for characterisation
-- suffice to say that she played the coquettish movements with all the
flirtatiousness of a 16-year-old. Heartlifting stuff.
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