Some boys have a sandbox, a little shovel and plastic bucket to make their dreams come true. Kristian Bezuidenhout has a fortepiano, Tafelmusik and Mozart for his Toronto début this week at Jeanne Lamon Hall.
- Classical Music 101: What Does A Conductor Do? - June 17, 2019
- Classical Music 101 | What Does Period Instrument Mean? - May 6, 2019
- CLASSICAL MUSIC 101 | What Does It Mean To Be In Tune? - April 23, 2019
The image of Bezuidenhout as a kid in a sandbox is so apt because this 30-something is so deeply engaged with — and so enthusiastic about — what he does musically that it’s impossible not to get swept up in his smiling, wide-eyed, nimble-fingered musical passion.
Here is someone who continues to absorb everything he can get his hands on in his chosen field — and yet wears his already considerable knowledge lightly.
The London-based South African native, who counts the Eastman School in Rochester among his academic credits (and, as a student there, two visits to Toronto to hear Tafelmusik), has emerged as one of the world’s most eloquent advocates of 18th century keyboard music played on period instruments — most especially the fortepiano, a smaller, lighter and, in many respects, nimbler direct ancestor of the modern grand piano.
As we sit down on the Jeanne Lamon Hall for a post-rehearsal chat, it only takes moments before his fingers start to caress the keys at the fortepiano placed at centre stage.
Over the course of 45 minutes, the keyboardist delivers a show-and-tell touching on all the key points of what makes his work at the fortepiano so worth paying attention to. Most of what he speaks about — and demonstrates effectively at the keyboard — is a musical rhetoric that allows us to appreciate the sound world of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert as if the composers were in the room with us.
Anyone familiar with the vast expressive and dynamic possibilities of a 11-octave, iron-framed modern concert grand can be forgiven for scoffing at a relatively small 5-octave wooden box where the strings are struck with little leather-covered hammers.
But all those dynamic possibilities in the modern instrument can actually obscure the ideas and motivations that caused the composers working on the cusp of the 19th century to try so many new things — from Mozart’s singing soprano melodies in the right hand to Beethoven’s crashing low chords in the left.
In example after example, from Mozart sonatas and piano concertos to Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight’ Sonata, Bezuidenhout’s fingers trace the balance in timbres, the confluence of harmonics, the rapid decay in the sound in the fortepiano. Pedal markings that make soup out of the sound on a modern piano are utterly clear when he uses the knee-activated ‘pedal’ (damper control) on the fortepiano.
Most significantly — and this has been the theme of Bezuidenhout’s work for several years now — Mozart’s music can be played with the dramatic verve of his operas on the fortepiano. If you tried it on a modern piano, the music would be too big, too garish, an assault on the senses.
Bezuidenhout’s Toronto début is mostly about Mozart, a composer he has been pursuing on record with the Harmonia Mundi label. Starting on Thursday night at Trinity-St Paul’s Centre, we’ll hear two concertos — No. 9 in E-flat Major, K271, and No. 11 in F Major, K413 — and the Prelude and Fugue for solo piano, K394.
Also on the programme are symphonies by two Bachs — Johann Christian and Carl Phillip Emmanuel — who, as Bezuidenhout explains, laid the expressive foundations for Mozart, opening European ears to music that was about overt emotional connection rather than technical development of form.
“This is music that clearly telegraphs to the audience whether it should be perceiving joy or sorrow,” says the musician, who will be leading Tafelmusik from his keyboard.
So, not only is Bezuidenhout taking us back into a sound world we could not imagine without these period instruments, he is also reminding us of a time when composers and musicians strove to communicate clearly and directly with their public. Imagine that.
You’ll find all the concert details here.
+++
Harmonia Mundi is about to release the 5th and 6th volumes of Kristian Bezuidenhout’s ongoing survey of Mozart’s keyboard music — and will anticipate its January release by making advance copies of the CDs available at this week’s concerts.
I’ve had an early listen and can safely say that the music is a treat even for fortepiano skeptics — people like me, until I listened to Bezuidenhout’s Vol. 4 at the start of the year. You can read my review here. You’ll find Harmonia Mundi’s catalogue here (with apologies for the horrible website).
As an introduction, here is Bezuidenhout playing a very well-known D-minor Fantasia for Dutch broadcaster VPRO in Amsterdam earlier this year:
John Terauds
- Classical Music 101: What Does A Conductor Do? - June 17, 2019
- Classical Music 101 | What Does Period Instrument Mean? - May 6, 2019
- CLASSICAL MUSIC 101 | What Does It Mean To Be In Tune? - April 23, 2019
