Carnegie Hall: Daniil Trifonov and Kremerata Baltica Perform Chopin

As part of the Concertos Plus series I subscribe to every season at Carnegie Hall, pianist Daniil Trifonov joined with the Kremerata Baltica on Wednesday evening to perform an all-Chopin program in arrangements by several different composers.

The program opened with the Variations on "Là ci darem la mano" from Mozart's Don Giovanni, Op. 2 (1824) as arranged for piano and chamber orchestra by Andrei Pushkarev.  The work is best known for having elicited from Schumann the famous remark "Hats off, gentlemen! A genius!", but it was his future wife Clara, a virtuoso pianist, who made the most interesting comment on the piece:

"Chopin's Variations Op. 2, which I learned in eight days, is the hardest piece I have ever seen or played till now. This original, brilliant composition is still so little known that almost every pianist and teacher considers it incomprehensible and impossible to play."

Though this was Chopin's first orchestral work, he later preferred to perform the piece without accompaniment.  He showed good sense in so doing.  The orchestra's role is perfunctory and often seems more an encumbrance than anything else.  The best passages are those where the piano plays unaccompanied.

The next work was the Piano Trio in G minor, Op. 8 (1828-1829) in whose performance the pianist was joined by violinist Gidon Kremer and cellist Giedrė Dirvanauskaitė.  This early work is something of an anomaly in the composer's oeuvre that seems far removed from the Romantic miniatures for solo piano that would characterize his later work and win him fame.  At the time the trio was completed Chopin was still a student in Warsaw, a pupil of the composer Józef Elsner, and the work was at least partly in the nature of an assignment.  Its structure and tone are Classical rather than Romantic and hearken back to Beethoven (as well as Hummel).  Some critics have even heard in the adagio sostenuto the influence of Beethoven's Sonata No. 5 in C minor.  Nevertheless, the tone of the work, particularly in the slow movement, is unabashedly Romantic, an indication that even at this early point in his career Chopin was fully able to imbue his music with the force of his personality.  The great problem with the piece is Chopin's lack of experience in composing for strings.  Even though he had assistance in writing those parts, there is never any of the interplay among the strings and piano that one finds in the work of more experienced chamber music composers.   Nevertheless, the work was well received at its premiere.  In his usual hyperbolic style, Schumann wrote of it: "Is it not as noble as one could possibly imagine? Dreamier than any poet has ever sung?"

After intermisson, the musicians returned to perform the Mazurka in A minor, Op. 17, No. 4 (1832-1833) as arranged for chamber orchestra by Victor Kissine.  In contrast to the waltzes or nocturnes, the mazurkas, like the composer himself, were native to Poland and emblematic of its culture.  That the four such pieces comprising the Op. 17 were composed shortly after Chopin arrived in Paris is indicative of the homesickness he felt for his homeland.  Certainly this particular mazurka was filled with a sense of nostalgia and a pervasive mood of melancholy.  It seemed a shame to hear it performed in an orchestral version, however, when so competent a pianist as Mr. Trifonov was available to perform the piece in its original form.

The program concluded with the Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor, Op. 11 (1830) as arranged for chamber orchestra by Yevgeny Sharlat.  With the two piano concerti (the E minor was actually the second composed but the first to be published) one comes to the major problem in Chopin's career as a composer.  While a brilliant pianist and unsurpassed in writing miniatures for solo piano, Chopin was unable to effectively compose for orchestra or for any instrument, including voice, other than his own.  His genius lay rather in creating moods within very brief piano pieces, too brief in fact to allow for any development of musical ideas.  Unlike such great pianists as Mozart and Beethoven, Chopin never attempted a symphony or for that matter any orchestral works other than his two concerti.  As one listens to the Op. 11 it what immediately becomes evident is the awkwardness of the orchestration.  One has the strong sense throughout the work that Chopin would have been glad to have dispensed with the orchestra altogether and to have the piano play alone.  Chopin was here complying with a tradition that held it was de rigueur for pianist composers to write their own concerti - earlier this season I heard Trifonov perform his own 2014 concerto with the Mariinsky Orchestra - but he acceded to custom without success.  As for the arrangement by Yevgeny Sharlat, I didn't think it added anything noteworthy to the original score and am not really sure why it was even attempted.

Daniil Trifonov certainly has an impressive technique - and Chopin was the perfect composer with which to showcase his talents - but I do not yet consider him a great pianist.  Still, this was a highly entertaining performance that drew a blissful response from the audience.  And the musicianship was undeniably on a very high level; Mr. Trifonov was ably supported by Mr. Kremer and the excellent Kremerata Baltica throughout the evening.  I do think a bit more diversity in the program, however, would have been most helpful.  Chopin's early works, no matter how much promise they may show, are hardly masterpieces deserving the attention they received here.  And, with the exception of the piano trio, these aren't even Chopin's original works but rather arrangements by other composers.