Shostakovich:
Preludes and Fugues, book 2
Alexander
Melnikov (pn)
Alexander Melnikov’s recorded Shostakovich is a
known quantity – accolades for his CDs of these works take up half his
programme bio – but nothing prepares you for the live experience. Melnikov is
able to perfectly express the paradoxical mix of introversion and intensity
that characterises this music, while carefully shaping the dramatic arc of
every movement. He takes the music to the dynamic extremes that Shostakovich
specifies, but without ever compromising the evenness of his touch or the
roundness of his tone. And he finds myriad ways of expressing the composer’s
inner world, the insecurities behind the bluster, the intensity behind the
lyrical lines, and the directness of expression behind the most complex of fugal
intrigues.
Melnikov’s technique, at least as presented here, is
profoundly Russian, but never to the point of cliché. Every note is a
statement, and whatever poetry he might express through his playing, it is
always based on a very defined relationship with the keyboard: the beginning
and end of each note is always very clear. Much of this music is very loud, but
the thundering dynamics never compromise Melnikov’s tone. As the dynamics rise,
often through very long crescendos, Melnikov just keeps putting in more power,
yet his body movements hardly change. Wherever this intensity comes from, it produces
a clean, unlaboured fortissimo that
fully justifies the composer’s many extended passages at this dynamic.
On paper, many of these Preludes and Fugues look
surprisingly simple, with open diatonic harmonies and foursquare rhythms. But
under Melnikov’s hands the music becomes considerably more complex. His rubato
is often extreme, although a regularity is maintained through his ability to
apply the same amount of give and take through the entire course of a long
movement. He is also able take the dynamics right down to a whisper, and still
fill the hall with sound, such is the roundness and warmth of his tone. He
doesn’t run the works together into a cycle, but rather treats each as a
separate unit of expression, requiring its own palette of colours and range of
internal contrasts. Shostakovich will often begin a prelude with a jolt, an
emphatic statement of the theme or a bracing introductory flourish. Melnikov
presents these directly and without interpretive extravagance, the better to
surprise the ear. Then, as the movement progresses, it gradually becomes clear
that not everything is as it seems: simple and direct textures take on dark
overtones, extreme rubato breaks up repeated figurations, and thematic
statements bubble up from the middle of the texture to unexpectedly dominate.
Melnikov’s is an extreme reading in many ways, particularly
in terms of the dynamics and rubato, but it is a confident and carefully
controlled one too. He cites Richter as an inspiration, and many of the
Richter’s finest traits find their way into his playing, particularly the
focussed intensity and the dark poetry that the two pianists find in
Shostakovich’s work. The Wigmore Hall is the ideal venue to hear Melnikov in this
repertoire, the roundness and richness of his tone are well projected by both
the piano itself and the hall’s warm acoustic. Drier and more formal readings
of Shostakovich’s Preludes and Fugues also have a place, but Melnikov’s
readings seem truer to the spirit of the music, and to the complex and
inscrutable character of the composer himself.
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