Review – András Schiff in Salzburg: A Magical Piano Evening | News & Reviews | PR Classics

He hates Steinweis. He loves hosting his own piano concerts. Pianist András Schiff is a soloist, usually very charming and sometimes a bit stubborn. At 70, he is at the peak of his powers at the Salzburg Festival.

When he comes in, he looks like a well-mannered retired clergyman in his black suit with a high neck. That changes suddenly when he plays. Then the Blüthner grand piano he has fallen in love with vibrates with youthful energy. Lightning-fast, wide-awake, often almost cocky, they fly around and snap their fingers. 70 years old? Nobody believes it – until he stands up and bows ceremoniously and again a little awkwardly.

Then he guides you through the program in a conversational tone, switching easily between German and English. There is a sense of situational comedy in him. He mischievously offers his piano stool to latecomers who have been admitted between acts and cannot immediately find their place. A short while later, after saying something in German for a while, he jokes: “And now for the English-speaking people. You should learn German.” The audience laughs, but the joke is meant seriously: the language spoken by composers is also present in the music. This is Schiff’s firm belief.

Andres Schiff: Language in Music

Pianist András Schiff | Photo credit: Nadia Romanyni

So, if you want to play the evening's composers on the piano – Bach, Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Schumann – harmoniously, you must have the melodies of the typical German words and phrases in your head, says the ship. He also gives examples of this that he demonstrates on the piano. For example, when Robert Schumann quotes a line from a song by Ludwig van Beethoven in his C major fantasy. Of course the words resonate. In any case, Clara Schumann, the recipient of this coded declaration of love, knew exactly that there was a message in these sounds.

The poet speaks

And that’s what makes pianist András Schiff so great: he makes music speak in an incomparable way. He’s helped by the grand piano he plays: an old Blüthner. Not because it would be historically accurate – after all, you’d have to play Bach on the harpsichord and Mozart on the piano. But because this 100-year-old instrument, with its very precise and specific sound, satisfies Schiff’s need for a voice that speaks.

Playing with words means using the freedom inherent in spontaneous expression. Each phrase opens and closes, the nuances, the hesitations, the half-tones, the liveliness when ideas emerge: Schiff absorbs meaning from the notes. For this music, that of German-Austrian classical and romantic music, he does it with a unique confidence. Without a trace of exaggeration, completely free but as if it could not be any other way.

Andras Schiff in Salzburg: Freedom and Precision

This combination of freedom and intensity is also the theme of his piano playing: the program is full of fantasies. Bach's “Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue” or Beethoven's “Sonata quasi una fantasia” in E flat major. In the fantasy it should seem as if the music is flowing from the fingers as you play, as if the composer were sitting at the piano and improvising. Schiff achieves this with a persuasive force that hardly any living pianist can surpass in this repertoire. A wonderful evening, and a standing ovation.

broadcast: “Allegro” on August 16, 2024 at 6:05 AM On BR-KLASSIK