From Beethoven to Barber—Sort of

The pianist was Benjamin Bradham, who I have heard before. The program:

Sonata in g minor (K.461), Sonata in B-flat major (K.545), Domenico Scarlatti (1685–1757);
Sonata in d minor, Op. 31, No. 2, Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827), Largo; Allegro – Adagio – Allegretto; Fantasy in f minor, Op. 49, Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849)

Intermission
Reflections in the Water, Ondine, Claude Debussy (1810–1918); Funeral March, Chopin

Which brings us to “Sort of.” The concert was to have ended with the Barber Sonata in e-flat minor. An announcement at the beginning of the program provided a bit of unintended humor—due to Mr. Bradham being a bit under the weather, the Funeral March replaced the Barber.

First, Mr. Bradham played very well throughout. There may have been a few dropped notes in the Chopin pieces (but there are thousands!) but the entire program was well played and well received. Negatives first: there was a specific announcement made to turn off all electronic devices, yet one phone and one beeper (watch timer?) went off during the concert. Turn them off, even after intermission. I feel good about saying this, since I don’t have a cell phone/beeper/electronic device.

Positives: Since the program ran in a chronological format, the Scarlatti pieces were a bit more simple that the rest. The first Sonata had some exploratory phrases followed by more fully realized phrases. My notes for the second Sonata include: more explosive, still mostly two lines, syncopation more fully realized in a very brief composition.

The Beethoven was much more expansive, opening with rolled chords (involving more use of the pedals to sustain the sound). This was followed by rapid passage work that was reminiscent of the Scarlatti—but with more depth of harmonies. The middle movement had chords, with filigree sections and a slightly disjointed compositional style, but with beautiful phrases. The piece finished with arpeggiated, though tuneful, phrases.

Chopin—this is a familiar piece (Google/youtube it—I’m a Yahoo! guy myself). My best friend ever called this the “Itsy-Bitsy-Spider” piece because of a prominent four-phrase segment in the middle. Overall, including “Itsy-Bitsy," there are fireworks passages plus a chorale-like section. (This is one piece where it seemed that a few of Chopin’s thousands of notes might have been dropped.)

The Debussy pieces entailed what I call a wash of sound. As in, the use of the pedal keeps the sounds in the air for a longer period of time. It’s similar to the wash of Impressionist colors in paintings, though the composers claimed not to be Impressionists. The second Debussy piece had many arpeggios plus some more angular/spiky phrases and a few bursts of sound.

The aforementioned Chopin Funeral March was basically in four sections, with the third being the famous “pray… for… the… dead …”, but the other sections were filled with the muscular bombast of Chopin.

All in all, a wonderful program (played entirely from memory) by a very gifted pianist. I am a lucky fellow to hear such great music for free via the New York Public Library system. Go out and explore, folks!

ConcertMeister