Imogen Cooper Recital - 25 May 2009

Featuring:
- 16 German Dances, D. 783
- Piano Sonata No. 18 in G major, D. 894
- Six Moment Musicals, D. 780
- Piano Sonata No. 19 in C minor, D. 958

I was really looking forward to the recital, but this recital ended up being a mixed-bag recital. The biggest let down is not the artist, it's the Elisabeth Murdoch Hall at the Melbourne Recital Centre. While I have no problem or whatsoever with the hall acoustic in my previous 3 visits, this time I understand some people's complaint about the acoustic of being muddy. The piano sound did not arrive clearly to the rear seats of the stall and I noticed this problem as soon as Imogen played the first notes of the German Dances. The German Dances was played in a jumbled order to the reason that it's not explained in the program note. It was an okay performance, nothing new or different and the muddy sound did not help.

I have just recently being acquainted with Schubert's D. 894. Another sonata, another gem. I love Schubert's piano sonatas :). Right from the opening of the sonata, the whole journey takes you into a long journey of calm, wonderful soundscape. Imogen's playing exploits the lyrical beauty of the opening movement, and those thundering climaxes in the middle section were very well played. Again, if I can get a seating with better acoustic, I could have enjoyed those moment more. The second movement is less successful, I don't know if it's the playing or the freaking acoustic again, I was almost bored here. The third and fourth movements fared better.

A little bit of digression: the recital hall is 30% empty at the stalls. My first thought is "that's not too bad if the balcony is 80% full", but my fear came true when I looked up during the interval and saw an empty balcony and wing sections (gasp!). This recital really brought to life all the grim news that I heard about the problems with the recital hall: bad acoustic and low ticket sales. During the interval, I moved to an empty third row seat which is closer to my seat during Katia's recital compared to the back seat that I was seating during first interval. To my horror, when Imogen started playing the first moment musical, I was taken aback how the sound changed from muddy sound to crystal clear. A number of other audience actually did switch the seats and from the comments after the concert, they all agreed that switching seat made a big impact. I now seriously have to stop promoting the recital hall as acoustically wonderful - it all depends on where you are seating. If you're in for a chamber music recital, I would definitely recommend you to sit at the front row seats. I haven't had problem with balcony seats, but I would reexamine the acoustic there the next time I'm sitting up there.

Back to the music: the moment musical are exquisitely played. The first 3 are wonderful, lyricism is plenty in this performance. Imogen perhaps over attacked the opening of 4th moment musical, and I'm actually quite worried about her performance in the 5th as she made few mistakes when playing large chords of the piece. The 6th moment musical is a poetic one and its style suited more to Imogen's playing.

Dramatic chords open up Schubert's C minor sonata, Imogen's tone is slightly harsh and I've found that her fortissimo borders on banging the piano. Also, there's this wonderful passage in this movement where the bass played a very satirical melody just before the main theme came back after the development, and also just before the end of the piece. Here, Imogen placed less impact than I would have liked, but I'm just nitpicking. Imogen playing shone during the lyrical sections and the glorious Adagio of the sonata is the highlight of the recital for me. The gradual crescendo building in the middle section of the movement still sounded a little bit too harsh, but maybe I was sitting too close to the piano? I don't know. Third movement was charming and the fourth movement repeating main theme never sounded boring which is a good thing. As a whole though, I still very much prefer Richter's and Pollini's playing of the piece in their recordings.

To sum up, I think tonight's programming was very generous, and even after the problem that I had with the acoustic, I still very much came out uplifted with Schubert's glorious and 'heavenly-length' music.