including: Noktürnök part 2
Written by Gábor Tórh
The time was: Sunday, October 13, 2024, 6 p.m
Venue: Great Hall of the Partium Christian University, Nagyvárad
This time I intentionally reversed the order between author and speaker in the title. Zoltán Thurzó is a performer who perfectly controls his precise and musically synthesizing interpretation approach, and is able to transcend - during our direct meeting before six o'clock in the afternoon, we got into a conversation in front of the banquet hall, not only about music, but also about everyday problems, and then suddenly, when he stepped on stage and went to the piano sat, everything went into another dimension, in two moments, I say two because chronologically one was his moment, the of musical performance, the second, on my part, of listening.
As I have written about this several times before, music is a great gift, it can take you out of time and space, especially those who are very lucky, despite the difficulties of choosing a profession and career, who practice music, but if they are good, their students can be approximately as lucky. .
Zoli now played the second series of the Chopin nocturnes, from the eleventh to the posthumous ones (in more detail below). Unfortunately, Chopin was not lucky with the length of his physical life, but perhaps that is why he masterfully managed every tenth of a second of the compositional moment. Zoli felt very good about these in his interpretations - both in linear decorations and vertical inflections - which will also be discussed below. Now just a time parallel, the current Chopin concert at Zoli took place between 6:00 p.m. and 6:57 p.m., unfortunately Chopin himself was physically present only between 1810 and 1849 - but what luck that since then... Chopin's heart is a great treasure. Physically, we know that Chopin himself lies in Paris, but according to his last will, his heart is separate, he returned to Poland, and since then it has been beating there in every pianist who has ever touched it.
I admit that I was looking for something to hold on to, so for the sake of the K-searching alliteration, I write the K-rhyme as K und K: i.e. refined and poetic. This was the basic atmosphere of Zoltán Thurzó's Chopin Piano Evening, the third of Chopin's series of solo piano pieces, which he more than boldly undertook.
Discretion and passion, this is no longer alliterative in letter, but in mood yes, that was also there. Zoli reads Chopin's written intentions well, with today's technology he works from a tablet sheet music anyway, but he clearly knows these pieces inside and out. In the apparent "simple" strophic formal scheme (often only ABA), it builds very well from the refined internal nuances, unfolds the dramas of the middle parts from the sophisticated tension predictions of the lyre, and then, returning after the big journey(s), gently fades out and releases those certain ethereal small clauses . He does all this in such a way that, to put it mildly, this PKE stage piano is unfortunately not the highest quality instrument at the moment in Várad...
And speaking of piano maintenance and hospitality, let me also write about the conditions, the temperature that was trapped in the PKE's hall that afternoon was a bit like an icebox. Zoli also had to take the stage in a jacket, but in the usual notturno atmosphere, i.e. on a darkened podium to help better reception of the music, but we from the audience of about 35 people also shared the current low Celsius with Zoli.
Just one more thing about practicality as a performer: Zoli continued the great Chopin journey with the second part of the nocturnes exactly where he left off in the previous series on September 22nd, and in the same emotional/intellectual tone.
With his tender lyric of serial number 11 (op. 37, no. 1) (as I said above), he became essential immediately after entering the stage, and after a break in the series of almost a month, he continued tuning in the same state of mind, in a very human tone.
The 12th (op. 37, no. 2), on the face of it, are steep harmonic adventures, but then on hearing how natural they are, although here I felt a slight wavering in the right-hand parallels.
13. (op. 48, no. 1), a C minor influence almost inherited from Beethoven and/or Mozart, a heavy start and finally a triumphant finale, almost Rachmaninoff-like, before Chopin finally tames everything he wanted to say in five measures , saying goodbye with white-gloved elegance (there is also such a Mozartian hat-waving).
14. (op. 48, no. 2) starts Zoli as if I were hearing the beginning of the ballad in G minor in mood. And again the nuances of the middle parts, what enharmonies, e.g. From Gisz to Desz, the author moves the publisher just like that.
15. (op. 55, no. 1), the ultra-famous one who heard it in, say, Horowitz's performance, so it's hard to speak after that, but luckily there are as many perceptions as there are pianists. Zoli found in it that certain airy lead - and now just as a free association, Bacovia's autumnal melancholy also catches my ear, by the way, the Romanian poet also played the violin, maybe not everyone knows that.
The 16th (op. 55, no. 2) - yes, this is already philosophy, Zoli felt good about it, even if the texture of the work gave itself from the ground up.
17. (op. 62, no. 1) another favorite of mine, a forte arpeggio dramatic opening, then a lyre immediately falling into a soft voice, and those inner alto parts...
The 18th (op. 62, no. 2) also had a gentle caressing start. Chopin wakes up again, then calms down, again the stormy conflicts and calming closures. Chopin plays well with the Nocturne genre, with waking up with more oxygen in the morning after a night's vomiting fever dream.
The posthumous are the most painfully calm, or the most calmly painful. 19. (op. 72, no. 1), then as a "late" intermezzo, the "forgotten" 20th, which even has an Albinoni feeling, and finally the ethereal C sharp minor, which is also a very popular encore, e.g. for many pianists.
Well, all in all, Zoli intelligently exploited those "mines" (according to Schumann: cannons hidden among flowers), the way Chopin explodes, exploding between tearfully resigned smiles.
Zoli also played an encore, again winking at another genre: in the transcription of Fabrizio Calligaris, we could hear the famous autumn-appropriate standard: Autumn Leaves (we know that József Kozma is the original songwriter).
English
Hungarian