Pianist Rare Gift For Audience

Akron Beacon Journal - November 17, 2004

by Elaine Gureglan

Krystian Zimerman gives profound performance at E.J. Thomas with pieces from Mozart, Ravel, Chopin

I hope that somewhere in the audience Tuesday night at E.J Thomas Hall was a young pianist just old enough to grasp what a gift the performer on stage was giving him. For the rest of us, whistles and cheers were the best we could do to salute Krystian Zimerman for a recital that will go down as a highlight of the season, and then some.

In an illuminating preconcert lecture for this Tuesday Musical presentation, pianist Philip Thomas of the University of Akron observed that Mozart, Ravel and Chopin, the three composers on the program, all wrote music that could be described as elegant and refined. Zimerman's poised, reflective and deliberate playing drew out these qualities. Mozart's Sonata in C Major, K. 330, was a wonder of rounded tone and perfectly weighted runs.

Zimerman has fire in him as well. He roared into the fireworks that open Ravel's Valses Nobles et Sentimentales. Within the group of four Mazurkas, Op. 24 (Polish dances in triple time) he played the third with a boldness that contrasted with the delicate whirl of the second or the grace of the first.

It has become too difficult, logistically, for Zimerman to travel with his own intact piano. But the answer to the question of why Zimerman goes through the trouble of carrying his own action (for this performance, placed inside a piano body borrowed from Steinway in New York) was obvious when he leaned over the keyboard to begin the fourth Chopin Mazurka and drew the sound seemingly from nowhere. Zimerman is big on control, and his fastidiousness pays off in a precise touch and gorgeous tone.

Zimerman closed with Chopin's Sonata No. 2 in B-flat minor, Op. 35, nicknamed for its third movement funeral march. He is getting ready to record this piece, he said in an earlier interview, and he is ready. From the steady death-tread to the unbelievably controlled runs that were more like a vibration than individual notes. It was a scarily moving interpretation.

The last time Zimerman came to Akron, in 1995, it was also under the auspices of Tuesday Musical. He was terrific then, and he has become an even more insightful musician since that time. It's fair to call him one of the greatest pianist playing today.

This exacting and profound musician tours very little, so this rare recital was something to appreciate all the more.