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Al-Ahram Weekly 18 - 24 March 1999 Issue No. 421 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 18 - 24 March 1999 Issue No. 421
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Profile Features Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Crack ahead
By David BlakeCairo Symphony Orchestra; Vladimir Bunin, piano; Ahmed El-Saedi, conductor; Main Hall: Cairo Opera House, 13 March
Prokofiev wrote five finger-twisting piano concertos. The one that was played on the 13th of this month was the third and worst of them, but it still got a gold-medal send-off from the Cairo Symphony Orchestra with the help of Vladimir Bunin. "Prestissimo" was really its name because, once its irresistible head was reared, it was speed which kept it moving till the end.
From a tiny harbour of peace and security at the opening of this three-movement piece, it was soon off down the course, head-on Formula One till the end. Prokofiev the romantic can melt metal, but Prokofiev the algebra master can turn the listener to stone. He had, of course, swallowed a lot of gorgons in his time -- including the Soviet Union. As a rueful commentary for architects of empire, Prokofiev advances apace, but his background has melted away into a shambles. In darker days, nobody had dared kill him: he was somehow too great.
This was the message of the performance. Prokofiev was himself the holy master of the twist. Whatever variations or impossible turns of speed the conductor aims for, Prokofiev's music is there before him. The struggle being unequal, the brunt of the difficulties, therefore, fall on the pianist's shoulders. Bunin had everything he needed for the battle, except one thing: a bright, savage, almost dry percussive tone. Or perhaps he did have this, but Saedi's speeds never allowed him the time to use it.
When Saedi gets into speed, it's pure dementia. He's a missile, hardly stopping to let the listener in on the music at all. He revels in the tough stuff of the concerto, but there are clefts in the ice for hope, in spite of the sense of a pounding death-rattle to the music.
Stinging power Bunin had, though he is no Titan for tone. He also had a lyrical flow which would have gone well in the famous hole in the third movement, where the predicament of the human spirit would be grateful for the romantic Prokofiev. As it was, it was Bunin's last stand as an Antarctic explorer. Down fell the electronic avalanche as the work rockets to its end in a tangled mass of entrails.
What a work! Prophetic, frightening, there is no shelter from this storm. Bunin's end was thrilling, an electrocuted bird. The audience was nerve-wracked, but he and the orchestra had their reward, and the cheers did come.
There followed another strange phenomenon -- the last item on the programme was Beethoven's Eroica Symphony in E flat Major, op. 55.
Things had been highly-tuned for the Prokofiev, and so they stayed for the Beethoven. However autobiographical it is as music, whatever Napoleon is doing in the symphony, it mattered little. The funeral march of love and disbelief was tragic and dark, trembling with regret. This movement is one of Saedi's major obsessions. As the movements followed one another, they seemed to grow in speed and urgency. This is good enough for the Eroica. Napoleon was soon left behind, a shibboleth. The life force is what Saedi found in the latter part of the symphony. Creatures stand nowhere as the great arcs of destiny sweep up and over them.
Like the Prokofiev concerto, this Eroica was astounding, It shone with brightness, far beyond mere politics, or loss and gain. The listeners found themselves caught in the same vitalising blaze which erupts out of the monumental fugue which ends the opera Fidelio. The speed was justified, for it ended in this catharsis.
Piano Recital: Moushira Issa; Main Hall: Cairo Opera House, 14 March
Moods and magic were two aspects of a concert Moushira Issa gave this week. It came as the last offering of what has been "piano with everything" -- Cairo's annual visitation of pianists, offering as ever mayhem, Olympia and the last days of the city-states collapsing. The pain is overwhelming. Moushira Issa's concert was the last of this piano festival -- and the most beautiful.
Issa's wild, youthful days are merging and giving way to something like a woman player whose dedication and toil have brought her the great reward. At last, she and her piano understand each other, have become one. Her youthful trophies are hung on the wall, and now begins a time of wisdom and broadly flowing achievement. From young and wild, she may well be turning into that rarest thing a woman player can become -- a pianistic sibyl. She has all the ingredients, just like Annie Fischer. Age can't touch these people, and since their art is founded not on habit or gain, but depth of understanding, they remain always fresh creatures of surprise. Like the wind they dance where they will.
Issa adores the piano. She listens to it head down, close to the keys. Where is she? She's down there inside. Who is she? God knows. We call her Issa.
This recital began with Bach's Prelude and Fugue No 5 in D Major from the 48. Before she began, Issa seemed to have the mood, and it haunted the almost floral-like opening to the Prelude. Bach presents silences though he plays, and so did she. There are pauses and sudden stops. The effect is one of an important event which either never takes place or is seen in a dream.
And then the Fugue. Another puzzle. Subject? A question, whose realisation is indiscernible. A sigh -- and it's over.
The Beethoven Sonata op 109 in E Major is another conundrum. It opens with --Êof all things --Êthe breaking up of the lovely melody he has invented for it, sad and beautiful. Beethoven could have enlarged this melody for whole sequences, but he does not. He breaks it up. Song is not going to be the object of any part of this peculiar sonata.
Issa likes a challenge, and so it suited her to attempt a revelation of its component parts and echoes. It stops and starts, and then, in a series of variations, it moves into a dolce annunciatory warning, which is about as clear as the march of time. All this change, hesitation, and eerie bits of silence are part of the variations which follow. It must be extremely difficult to form anything out of it at all. It is almost a shadowless piece, moving about in a self-generated light.
Issa was wonderful. She refused to play ghosts in this work, and her tones grew more beautiful as the work proceeded to make its ever more impossible demands. It began to be symphonic, and then without any warning, suddenly ends -- elusive and contradictory to the last.
Then came two Chopin waltzes. Her performance of these was perfect pianism. The waltz rhythm is capable of enormous variety. She proceeded to put these pieces through all their hoops, luminous and sharply defined, almost historic, with not a nod to Rubenstein, and avoiding sentimentality. Her swoops and twists were almost military. And every note was clear. The breadth of the playing was sumptuous and a delight. One just wanted it to go on all night.
The Debussy Suite for piano ended the evening, which had been too short. It was great Debussy playing, too detailed and exciting to write about. With this music one must just be there to hear it. Moushira Issa flashed and soared like a great sea bird in flight.
It was broad, big, small, witty and happy. Such was her playing, with a largesse which showed the broad path along which she will travel in the future.
