Pollini plays Chopin in London March 2010 (1)

Chopin: 24 Préludes Op.28 ; Ballade No.1, Two Nocturnes Op.27, Eight Études from Op.25
Maurizio Pollini
Royal Festival Hall, 2 March 2010

Over the last few years, Maurizio Pollini has earned a reputation for inconsistency. At his best, few can touch him for poetry, grace and power, but this second Chopin birthday concert, given as part of Polska! Year, found him some way below that standard. The programme he had chosen – the complete Op.28 Préludes in the first half, the First Ballade, the Op.27 Nocturnes and a selection of the Op.25 Études in the second – threw up one challenge after another, and an out-of-sorts Pollini seemed ill-equipped to rise to them.

He was not helped by a noisy audience or a piano – a 'Fabbrini' Steinway – which, from my seat at least, seemed to have had the brightness of tone conditioned out of it, and had a clattery mechanism that was worlds away from the instrument Krystian Zimerman had brought with him last week. This is not to detract from the problems of Pollini's playing, though, since right from the first prélude there was a shortage of clarity, the pianist's patrician technical command having been replaced with something less crystalline and often over-pedalled. Throughout the concert he struggled with voicing Chopin's lines, while his left hand often dominated the texture. This was the case with the G major prélude, whose left-hand semi-quavers lacked lightness. The D major sounded messy while the F sharp minor was muddy and monochromatic. The G sharp minor similarly lacked focus, while the big rhetorical outbursts of the G minor and D minor were undermined by the piano's dull sound. We got through the presto con fuoco of the B flat minor relatively unscathed, but the fingers just didn't seem able to keep up with Pollini's speeds with the accuracy one expects – and I couldn't help wondering how Zimerman might have pulled this off.

At the other end of the spectrum, Pollini seemed rushed in the slower préludes, his Lentos and Largos consistently a notch faster than one expected. Here, however, there was still poetry – in the famous E minor, for example, or the F sharp major – but despite a couple of moments of beauty, the D flat 'Raindrop' seemed rather matter-of-fact, the build-up in the central section counting for little.

Things improved gradually in the concert's second half, but I was similarly disappointed with the first Ballade, with which it opened. Technically, once again, Pollini didn't seem comfortable, and his passagework, in particular, seemed laboured. His mind, too, seemed to wander as he waited an inordinately long time on the first fermata, before embarking on an account that was short on both poetry and, until he rallied for the coda, excitement.

He relaxed into the two great Op.27 Nocturnes that followed, even if, once again, he chose tempos that seemed a touch fast for their Larghetto and Lento sostenuto markings. The left hand still dominated the texture – particularly in a strange effect achieved with the constant octaves and fifths in the bass for No.1 – but the right sang beautifully, and several of the flourishes in the second gave us glimpses of the legerdemain that seemed so lacking elsewhere in the evening.

The final selection of eight of the Op.25 Études again brought mixed results. There was plenty of poetry in No.1, but the F minor No.2 lacked clarity in texture. No. 3 in F was muddy, too, while buoyancy in the syncopations of No.4 (A minor) were lost in the mêlée. Respite came in the Lento No.7, perhaps also taken a little fast, but octaves of No.10 were choppy in the extreme, even if there was much to be admired still in terms of velocity and volume. The 'Winter Wind' was mightily impressive, if marred by overpedalling, but the final C minor was poorly voiced and effortful. For anyone familiar with Pollini's imperious account of the Études on disc, there was not a great deal to enjoy here.

The first encore, however, was an account of the 'Revolutionary' that better reflected Pollini in his prime, while perhaps the finest performance of the evening was Scherzo No.3 given as a third encore. Overall, though, despite the now-obligatory standing ovations, this was a disappointing concert.

By Hugo Shirley
MusicalCriticism.com