Perahia, Poet of the Keyboard, Comes Back With Thunder

Perahia, Poet of the Keyboard, Comes Back With Thunder

 

By ALLAN KOZINN

Published: March 27, 2007

The pianist Murray Perahia has been sidelined by hand injuries a couple of times in recent years, but lately he has been telling interviewers that he has overcome his latest bout and is back at full strength. His recital at Avery Fisher Hall on Sunday afternoon was confirmation: his playing sounds bigger and more powerful than it once did. He has, it seems, abandoned his old image as a sensitive keyboard poet in favor of one that moves him into the Horowitz school of outsize Romantic thundering.

This is not to say that his new approach is all-consuming. Mr. Perahia has also lately devoted himself to Bach, and if his account of the Partita No. 3 (BWV 827) was thoroughly pianistic — nothing in it even hinted at the lightness of the harpsichord — it was lightly pedaled and phrased in ways that suited its energetic dance movements.

Mr. Perahia played the Bach between two Beethoven sonatas, which drew their power from his newfound passion for big sonorities. Bass lines in particular were boldly stated and given a hint of a growl, without upsetting the overall balance, and chordal passages were clear and carefully voiced.

In the opening Allegro of the E major Sonata (Op. 14, No. 1), the graceful theme in the treble glided easily over Mr. Perahia’s sharp-edged rendering of the bass figures; and in the closing Scherzo of the G major Sonata (Op. 14, No. 2), the magnified bass seemed a manifestation of Beethoven’s humor.

After the intermission Mr. Perahia gave a vividly characterized account of Schumann’s “Fantasiestücke” (Op. 12). By this point you knew what to expect: movements like “Des Abends” and “In der Nacht” were grandly scaled and full of fire, and gentler ones like “Fabel” sang sweetly, at least until Schumann’s stormier side kicked in and allowed Mr. Perahia to produce a more tempestuous sound. The set’s finale, “Ende vom Lied,” moved similarly, from stately to huge.

Mr. Perahia touched the extremes of his current style in a reading of Chopin’s Ballade No. 4 that began with a light touch, poetic phrasing and an alluring rubato, and ended up as a mammoth expansion of this introspective score. It was something for the list of guilty pleasures: those who argue that such an explosive interpretation violates the spirit of Chopin’s meditative work are probably right, but in purely visceral terms, it was thrilling all the same.