Email
“Strange Sonatas” was the theme of the program Thursday night at the Lensic Performing Arts Center in Santa Fe. Hosted by the Santa Fe Concert Association, British pianist Stephen Hough played a selection of sonatas from Beethoven to Scriabin. Hough has long enjoyed a reputation as one of the outstanding pianists of his generation.
Beethoven’s “Moonlight” Sonata might not immediately conjure the adjective “strange,” but as Hough explained in a short address from the stage, the three movements are decidedly contradictory in character and would have seemed quite unusual in their day. The opening Adagio sostenuto, known to everyone on the planet, actually derived from a custom of warming up before playing — “preluding,” it was called — in which earlier generations indulged. This easily executed piece in the hands of a sensitive interpreter becomes magic well beyond the mere notes. The following Allegretto was almost light-hearted in comparison, while the final Presto agitato, with its wild-horse triplets and boisterous syncopations, violently dispelled the atmosphere that had come before. Hough then gave the American premiere of his own composition, Sonata for Piano (broken branches), cast in 16 short movements. He describes it as fragments of reality overlaid with a spiritual dimension. Little more than a series of beginner composer clichés, the work never really gelled, save for the Volando movement near the end. The style is certainly listenable, but ultimately forgettable. In his Fifth Sonata the Russian composer Alexander Scriabin had just begun to move into the mystical realm that would engulf his final works. With an economy of thematic material this one-movement work is more fantasy than sonata in any classical sense of the form. Hough gave much of it a dream-like quality yet utterly non-Romantic in sentiment, where strange juxtapositions create etherial surrealist associations. Hough has a clear style, conveyed through dynamic shifts as much as anything. What could be an annoying mannerism in a lesser performer becomes thoroughly integrated into the music, even persuasively logical. The final work on the program was another one-movement sonata, the Liszt work in B minor, lasting nearly half an hour and containing some of the most difficult writing in all the piano literature. Hough seemed to emphasize the already manic quality of the work alternating sections of furious fits of sonority with others of cerulean calm. I once described the work as the sound of devils and demons, and indeed there was an intimidating picture of hellfire to be heard. The quasi-fugue had an exceptional clarity. Only a handful of performers even attempt this most challenging work, let alone demonstrate the mastery and virtuosity Hough brought to it. Few will soon forget a performance of this magnitude.
