Word: feltsman
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...beginning with the F-sharp Impromptu, Op. 36. A rich sotto voce approach was somewhat undone by an erstwhile banginess in the right hand; transparent scalar passages were a key ingredient in the strong finish. This piece reminded one of the best playing of the rude and unpredictable Vladimir Feltsman, who seems to patronize Mr. Zimerman's barber, if not vice versa...
Apart from its knuckle-breaking difficulty, the piece presents a fundamental challenge: how to handle the repeats of Bach's 30 variations without becoming tedious. Glenn Gould solved the problem by skipping most of the repeats in his landmark 39-minute studio version, recorded in 1955. Feltsman has found another way. In addition to changing the dynamics, articulation and ornamentation of the repeated passages, his 79-minute interpretation departs radically from the usual approach by shifting octaves and even reversing the voices by crossing hands on the keyboard. The result is an electrifying performance -- technically dazzling yet infused with romantic...
This recording also marks a departure for Feltsman. When he arrived in the U.S. in 1987, everything was handed to him on a silver platter: hailed as a "hero of the human spirit" by Ronald Reagan, he was offered debut performances at Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center, a busy concert schedule, an $80,000-a-year teaching job at the State University of New York at New Paltz and a recording contract with Sony Classical. The recording contract, however, turned out to be a Faustian bargain: the pianist was expected to concentrate on the powerhouse Russian composers -- Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky...
Composed in 1742, supposedly to ease the slumbers of an insomniac Russian , count, the Goldberg Variations are among Bach's most brilliant and daunting keyboard works. "Somehow the piece has been very special all my life," says Feltsman. He speaks passionately about its mathematical and mystical symbolism -- "the meaning of it is infinite, infinite" -- and describes a long "love-hate relationship between Goldberg and myself...
...MusicMasters that will allow him to record the Germanic repertory he loves, particularly Bach and Beethoven. "Now everything is balanced," he says. "And I think that people finally are looking at me as just a musician, you know, not as a political hero or specialist in Russian music." For Feltsman, the cold war has finally ended...