The Phoenix Network:
 
 
 
About  |  Advertise
 
CD Reviews  |  Classical  |  Download  |  Live Reviews  |  Music Features  |  New England Music News
--> -->

A hero of our time

Ivan Moravec at the Metropolitan Museum
By JEFFREY GANTZ  |  October 18, 2007

WEB_moravec1_printinside
Ivan Moravec
Now 77, Ivan Moravec has been flying under the classical-music radar for nearly 50 years. A student of Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, he made his London debut in 1959 and his American debut with George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra in 1964. Starting in 1962, E. Alan Silver’s hip but obscure Connoisseur Society label began releasing recordings. A four-disc Chopin set became a Book-of-the-Month Club selection; the complete Chopin Nocturnes drew a rave review from Harris Goldsmith in High Fidelity; Village Voice jazz critic Nat Hentoff wrote the liner notes for a 1967 Debussy disc, citing Moravec’s command, on previous releases, of “the inner imperatives of Beethoven and Chopin.”

A major, and major-label, career seemed in prospect. Forty years later, however, Moravec remains “the elegant, elusive Czech pianist,” as Michael Church calls him in an interview at Andante.com. His repertoire is limited: a good deal of Chopin and Debussy, some Mozart and Beethoven, less Haydn and Schumann and Grieg and Franck and Ravel. He appears infrequently in the world’s great concert halls. Along with the Connoisseur Society, his recordings (some 30 in all) have been released by Supraphon, Vox, Vai, Hänssler, Dorian, and Harmonia Mundi — hardly the who’s who of record labels. Apart from the eight months he spent in England in 1968, he’s lived quietly in Prague with his wife, Zuzana. He never joined the Communist Party, and that must have inhibited his touring. He hasn’t performed in Boston since his 1994 Celebrity Series recital in Jordan Hall, but last Saturday he made his seventh appearance for the PianoForte series at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, just a short hop from Princeton University, where he’s the 2007–2008 Belknap Visitor in the Humanities. He’d be a perfect subject for the New Yorker (not least because of the piano tool kit he carries around with him); maybe Alex Ross will get round to him one of these days.

The hair is a little whiter, but it’s the same chubby, cheerful face (he looks a bit like veteran character actor J. Pat O’Malley) and stocky body, same shy smile, same little-boy walk, bent slightly forward, arms hanging straight down, as if his parents were about to present him to an important visitor. There was, as always, minimal fussing with the piano bench: within five seconds of sitting down, he’d launched himself into Haydn’s Sonata in D Hob. XVI:37. His trademarks — what have made him a cult figure (he doesn’t have a Web site, but his fans do: www.ivanmoravec.net) — are his heroic tone, the big structural arcs he creates, his dance pulse (no thumping on the beat), and phrasing that’s more like breathing. Sitting at the piano, he might remind you of Walter Gieseking. (He’s described Gieseking’s recordings of Schumann’s Kinderszenen and Brahms’s Intermezzi as his “first great experience”; they were mine also.) He’s very still, and his hands move along the keyboard like the spirit of God upon the face of the waters. He says that his tone comes from the weight in his arms, but when you watch him play, it seems to be coming from his very core.

The Haydn sounded a little gentler than the performance on his 2000 Live in Prague disc. It had enough size to be Beethoven, and also wit; it wasn’t dry and it wasn’t overpedaled. The middle-movement Sarabande was by turns operatic and religious, with a firm, clear bass; it left me wishing he’d program Schumann’s Symphonic Études. You could hear the proverbial pin drop in Rogers Auditorium (about 700 seats, mostly filled). Debussy’s Estampes followed, edifices of great tensile strength, with delicate washes of pedal but no blurring. La soirée dans Grenade rocked in its rhythm, as if it were the Habanera from Carmen; Jardins sous la pluie was a driving rain. The audience didn’t so much as hiccup. Then Debussy’s Pour la piano, with its Prélude of Spanish fireworks and harp runs, its Sarabande passing from churchy to bluesy without breaking stride, its Toccata dazzling in its crystal fingerwork and tonal shaping, the music opening like a flower.

The second half of the program was given over to Chopin, four Nocturnes and the F-minor Ballade. The early (despite being Opus 72 No. 1) E-minor Nocturne was vintage Ivan, starting beautifully before taking on ominous weight and inflection, the ornamentation never obscuring the line. The G-minor (Opus 15 No. 3) that followed seemed impatient, searching, and it remained that way even through the chords of its “religioso” second half — quite unlike Moravec’s iconic 1966 recording. The effect was unsettling. Someone actually coughed, and a cellphone went off. (If this had happened in the first half, the audience would have had the miscreant drawn and quartered.) The C-sharp-minor (Opus 27 No. 1), with its stormy distensions, was virile rather than macho, but a sense of haste rather than urgency persisted. The D-flat, Chopin’s “Moonlight Sonata” (and like Beethoven’s, it’s Opus 27 No. 2), rolled with its own ominous waves, and shooting stars in the right hand. The Ballade, Moravec’s signature piece, had a fraction more forward motion than his recordings and, I thought, a fraction less conviction. These were performances of individuality and integrity, but not inevitable the way the Haydn and Debussy had been.

1  |  2  |   next >
Related:
  Topics: Music Features , Claude Debussy , Ludwig van Beethoven , Walter Gieseking ,  More more >
  • Share:
  • RSS feed Rss
  • Email this article to a friend Email
  • Print this article Print
Comments
A hero of our time
Delighted to see this recital reviewed. I traveled from Boston to hear it - too bad the NY papers apparently could not be bothered. I heard some things differently from Mr. Gantz (I thought Moravec's Chopin was the highlight - the last A minor Mazurka was to die for), but in general agree that it was the place to be that night. I also appreciated the many small details about Moravec's bio and personality, which are so much part of the man's music. Now if we could just get him back to Jordan Hall!
By denisb on 10/21/2007 at 10:17:50

Today's Event Picks
ARTICLES BY JEFFREY GANTZ
Share this entry with Delicious
  •   HARVARD BEATS YALE 29-29  |  November 24, 2008
    Scores in nearly every department
  •   VERTICAL ENERGY  |  November 14, 2008
    Irina Muresanu gave an emotionally compelling performance, even if her view of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto didn’t always jibe with conductor Jonathan McPhee’s.
  •   NO CHOPPED LIVER  |  November 14, 2008
     Wait Wait in Boston
  •   WISING UP  |  October 22, 2008
    James Kudelka’s Cinderella at Boston Ballet
  •   STATE OF THE ART  |  October 17, 2008
    Boston Ballet’s third ‘Night of Stars’

 See all articles by: JEFFREY GANTZ

MOST POPULAR
RSS Feed of for the most popular articles
 Most Viewed   Most Emailed 



Monday, December 01, 2008  |  Sign In  |  Register
 
thePhoenix.com:
Phoenix Media/Communications Group:
TODAY'S FEATURED ADVERTISERS
Copyright © 2008 The Phoenix Media/Communications Group