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If you followed, a few days ago in the conversation with “Michaelz” I was spinning my usual plot, bitching that most of the today’s pianists play, unintelligent as senseless, almost like with the "rubber fingers”:

 http://www.GoodSoundClub.com/TreeItem.aspx?PostID=3863

The last Friday performance of National Philharmonic of Russia (NPoR), led by Vladimir Spivakov and their pianist was one of those very rare exceptions. In fact the exception was of a high magnitude…

I never heard Russian’s National Philharmonic before. The name a little confusing. It is the Spivakov’s new orchestra:

http://www.playbillarts.com/news/article/6057.html

I never was a big fun of what Spivakov did with “Moscow Virtuosi” (his former orchestra) and I hardly knew what to expect. When they opened up with Shostakovich Festival Overture it was immediately obvious that it was different orchestra then we accustom here in Boston. I was superbly disciplined, highly professional sound, the disciplined up to the point that they allow themselves some scripted playfulness, still very tasteful playfulness, the playfulness that was very god for the vulgar Shostakovich  with his depriving sense  of humor. I very much liked what I hard in the Overture and then the Rachmaninoff’s Second Concerto came….

When they opened with Second Concerto I was a little scared – they did it WAY too slow. It was similar tempi in the painful slowness to Gieseking playing first movement of Third Concerto with Barbirolli in 1939. Well,  if the Gieseking’s first movement was the best Rach3 first movement ever committed to recording media then why was I scared? I was scared because to play Rachmaninoff VERY slow is VERY VERY dangerous. The ultra-slow Rachmaninoff demands too much inner-force, too much REAL confidence and too much balls from a player. The Rachmaninoff concertos have some very freakish ability to “ring”, to “resonate” a player, to expose his/her ability to deals with enormity or “load”. The slower pianist goes the more “resolution” and the more demands in this “exposure”. Not to mentioning that the slower playing has much more phonetic, parasitological and punctuation burden… So, is not wonder that most of the players tend to race through the Rachmaninoff Concertos fast, trying to “sink”, to subdue the “possible details”, hiding everything into fast tempo and techniques.. With good techniques, that many players possess, they  stay about the danger, crashing superficially through the movements but there is nothing else in their play then juts a good “notes rendering”…..

So, when NPoR opened with Second Concerto as slow as they did I was wondering…  The Russian’s National Philharmonic is very lush and in a way “slow” orchestra. They do not have that “burst capacity”. I personally feel that it come form that way in wich Spivakov positioned musicians.  He wide spread them a across the entire stage and in some instances the players were sitting over 10 feet from each other. So, what I presume happen – the Sound from the instruments was overly randomized and the edge of the attacks was stretch over and muffed across space. It was disadvantage in a way, not as huge though as it could be considering the chosen slow tempi …

So, the firs movement was OK, Olga Kern did here and there some wrong notes but the orchestra was very supportive and very considering – a big difference from the typical BSO play that rarely give a dam about a soloist. All together the NPoR and Ms. Kern sounded very nice, it was different expressionism from what I would like to hear but looking what THEY were trying to it was QUITE GOOD. It took for me some time to get accustomed to that tempo and then, when my expatiations where “in tune,” then it was actual very nice.

The second movement… This turned out to be the punch line of the entire concepts.  Very slow, superbly smart and amazingly balanced. The NPoR’s soft, un-edgey sound was absolutely perfect for the movement… Then the Olga Kern’s took over. It hard to explain her play but it was different from even her first movement. Some second echelon of feelings was turned on and Olga took her play way out there. It was not the play in a normal sense as the notes and “phrases” were gone and were replaced with “piano moaning”. Instead of the sequence of the notes it was gloriously-torturing metaphysical sound with Olga as a Sound creator. She was slow, very liquid but at the same time each her statement was very distinctive. Returning back to the conversation about the “rubber fingers touch”– the Olga Kern’s play in the second movement was as far from it as it imaginable. She made efforts to pamper and to treasure each tonal message.  The way how she holed poses and how she opened up the notes was sort of magic and in way remained me what Cortot did in his best years.  Each her note was loaded with sensitivity and with “second meaning” – and this second meaning made all difference. The Olga’s notes were not the notes in a normal sense but rather sonic reflections of something else or something more. What was also very fascinating to hear that Olga plugged in that “something more” her own reflections and the resulting Sound was nothing short of sadistically-stunning. I was so intimate, so special and so personal that Olga’s play sounded as she had sex with Sound…. So did I, and so any person in the Symphony Hall that evening…. It was so “out there” that no audiences made any sounds during the entire Second Movement…. It was truly extraordinary and I was praying that it might never stop…

Well, as everything else in this life: any event came to it’s end Olga finished with the most extraordinary coda of the Second Movement I ever imagined in my mind. I did not care about the Third Movement, where both Olga and NPoR butchered quite a lot - it was OK but nothing special…

Well, frankly speaking I did not paid a lot of attention to the Third Movement as I was still under hypnoses of what I heard in the second one movement. I was still in that semi-hypnoses state during the intermission and the whole two first movements of thye Pathetique. The Pathetique was generally very good - it was the Mravinsky-type of Pathetique. The NPoR and the Spivakov were fine, however in the Pathetique’s Third Movement they showed off some VERY serious class of musicianship. The Spivakov’s Third movement was slower then textbook-like Mravinsky 1961 Third Movement. The Mravinsky with his crashing dynamic and almost-offensive XRay-like articulation plays the Pathetique’s Third Movement as a perfect march. However, the Mravinsky’s march has some elements of dance, almost rumba-like dance. Spivakov has completely different orchestra – way less violent and abrasive then Leningrad Philharmonic. So, Spivakov used his orchestra differently. The Spivakov’s orchestra with it’s atypical for Russian orchestras lush was good for Brahmas or for Saint-Saens symphonies and Spivakov fully knowing it put the best of his orchestra in use. The Third Movement was relatively slow and probably not as “marchy” as I used to but you have to hear HOW Spivakov and the NPoR did WHAT THEY INTENDED TO DO.  I have to note that it was my first live Pathetique when orchestra was positioned with first and second violins on the opposite sides. So, the way how NPoR cared the waves from the first violins, across the woodwinds to the second violins and then back to the cello section, synchronizing all these orchestral tricks with the rhythms of “Allegro molto vivace” was in a way an orchestral freak show. I was sitting there like a Cat who found herself in jar of sour cream and was clearly realizing the THIS level of orchestral playing is VERY seldom to witness

From that NPoR  play I kind of “wake me up” a little but still to the rest of the concert, including the Olga Kern’s encores I was under a deep influence from what I head in the Second Rachmaninoff’s movement. Furthermore, I was under its influence many hours after the concert…. I was waking across the Boston snowy streets that night holding within myself the “big secret” of juts heard Kern’s second movement.

Sure, it the extraordinary Ms. Kern’s second movement was a perfectly staged performance but is it how it should be?  Anyhow it was quite a seldom event when my ego collapsed to the size of decimal point and Sound via its supersensory nature took a full control over me. I said the “seldom event” because the AMPLITUDE of that influence…

I will be most likely catching Olga Kern and Spivakov’s NPoR before they left US in NY City next week and if my schedule allows me then in Connecticut. I do not know if the “event” I experiences was the Kern’s scripted routine or it was juts a lucky accident. Anyway, I would like very much to experience it again…

There is clip with Olga Kern play the first movement of Rachmaninoff’s Third Concerto with DIFFERENT ORCHESTRA during her Cliburn Competition:

I do NOT like her play in there. Well, I should not say “do not like” - I shell say that it was OK but truly nothing special. However, it might give you some idea who she is. Olga has few CDs out there. They are good but not extraordinary. If she record Rachmaninoff’s Second Concerto then you bet I will have it…

Well, the NPoR and Vladimir Spivakov is very much the orchestra to watch.  Olga Kern is obviously also in the watch list. It also truly pays off when orchestra bring own pianist. NPoR and Kern will be for another month in US and I think for next season they have a tour in Asia… I just wish the Celebrity Series:

http://www.celebrityseries.org/06_PRESS/NatlPhil_Rel.htm

…under umbrella of which the concert took place allow broadcasting their performances and I would have a chance to record this beauty…

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