Song of a Reformed Headhunter

The air in Alice Tully last night was thick with anticipation. The concert, of the three piano sonatas that Schubert wrote in the last summer of his young life, was sold out. Paul Lewis strode onto the stage, bowed, sat down and immediately struck out the first notes of Sonata in C minor, D. 958. The articulation of the phrases was crisp but not chilly; sensitive but not sentimental. Billed as a poet of the piano, he displayed the expressiveness suggested by the moniker but also a quality less commonly associated with it, that of intelligence. Modeled on Beethoven's sonatas, D. 958 is heroic in its aspiration. Lewis gave its grandeur its due. I was holding my breath throughout the performance. Sonata in A major, D. 959, the next work on the program, was played even better. The restlessness, the anger, the resolution of the music spoke more clearly than D. 958 of an individual and refined personality. I heard Schubert hesitate and think, choose and continue. Paul Lewis was p...

LW gave me her ticket to hear the young French pianist David Fray last night, telling me I was in for an Experience. She heard him playing a Bach concerto, and likened his playing to taking a lovely stroll through the park. Only the French, she insisted, could take one on such a walk. Not any American. Pumped with excitement, I sat in Zankel Hall with AG, MC and her husband. The pianist walked in rather awkwardly, and so added charm to his glamorous good looks. Hunched over the piano, he banged out Schubert's Allegretto in C Minor and Allegretto from Klavierstücke , before attacking the German's Four Impromptus . Although there were passages of great delicacy, I felt that the pianist was not entirely at ease with the Romantic passion of the pieces. The playing was tentative, and then, as if to make-up for it, overly insistent. A different pianist returned after the intermission to play Bach's Partita No. 6 in E minor . It was as if the "objective" quality of ...

Last night the New York Philharmonic, with TB. Alan Gilbert conducted. Haydn's Symphony No. 49 in F Minor, La passione (1768), which I was too tired to appreciate. John Adams's The Wound-Dresser , for Baritone Voice and Orchestra (1988), sung by Thomas Hampton. Interesting music but the words sounded wrong in it. Adams unexpectedly appeared with singer and conductor after the piece, and was warmly applauded. I was more awake after the intermission. I especially loved the first movement of Schubert's Symphony in B minor, D. 759, Unfinished (1822). The playing was passionate but controlled. The program ended with Berg's Three Orchestral Pieces, Op. 6 (1913-15), which Gilbert thought "completed" Schubert's Unfinished . You often find Berg's Three Orchestral Pieces . . . at the beginning of a program. It can be seen as an extension of Mahler's Symphony No. 6; in fact, when we perform it, you'll see an incredible instrument at the back of the s...