Goerner: intellect and spontaneity
Friday, 5 March 2010
A guest of the 14th festival, devoted to the phenomenon of the piano, will be Nelson Goerner. The artist will perform a recital, including the works by Beethoven, Chopin and Schumann, and conduct master classes for young pianists. Stanisław Dybowski on the Argentinian virtuoso.
He trots onto the stage, and while at the piano looks like a bookkeeper poring over his desk.
In this initial phase of this performance, Nelson Goerner brings to mind the famous Shura Cherkassky (1911–1995), the great Russian–Polish–American pianist, a student of Józef Hofmann (1876–1957). I do not know what Martha Argerich may say in a fit of sincerity about her protégé, Goerner, yet this is what the caustic Hofmann said about his student: “from me, he only learnt to dip his hands in hot water”. Despite such an opinion, which quite naturally does not convey the truth, Cherkassky did make a world career, and as a super-virtuoso conquered the hearts of listeners for decades...
What connects the two musicians, besides physical similarity, is the love for piano literature written by composers who were also practising pianists, such as Chopin, Liszt, Brahms, and Rachmaninoff. The piano music written by composer–pianists “yields to the fingers”, and in most cases is “comfortable” to play, and has unbelievable layers of beauty: after all, it was created by people of genius. Much like Cherkassky, Goerner is capable of “sculpting in the soft sound material”, as I noted down after one of the performances by the Argentinian at the 13th Chopin Competition in 1995. He is similarly capable of taking delight in the piano and pianissimo, and also of the fast, “total” play, exploiting the entire space of the keyboard. A comparison of Goerner to maestro Cherkassky in these few aspects is certainly a compliment for the Argentinian.
Born on 9th May 1969 in San Pedro, Nelson Goerner initially learned from Argentinian teachers: Jorge Garrubba, Juan Carlos Arabian, and Carmen Scalcione. In 1986, he had a great success, winning the Liszt Piano Competition in Buenos Aires. It was then that Martha Argerich turned her attention to the young musician, opening to him a scholarship for further studies in Europe. Here, he found himself in the Geneva Conservatory, in the class of Maria Tipo, an eminent Italian pianist following her mother in continuing the traditions of Ferrucio Busoni and a student of Alfredo Caselli and Guido Agosti. Possibly it was this experienced artist who curbed the quick temper of the student and “set up” his musical thinking, turning his attention not only to the pure and smooth playing, but also to the architecture of the works performed.
Meticulousness, precision, and keeping his temper at bay are the features that are distinctive of Goerner’s playing. Having virtuoso technique at his disposal, he never brutalises the music, would never “overcharge” the sound or overdo the expression. All the phrases are chiselled out, and their energetic quality is logically planned and efficiently executed.
Listening to Goerner, be it in Rachmaninoff’s 3rd Concerto in D minor, Liszt’s 12 Transcendental Etudes, Chopin’s Concerto in F minor and Sonata No. 3 in B minor, and Martucci’s Concerto No. 2 in b flat minor, that is in works that require the highest qualifications at the piano, I clearly heard the balance of intellect and spontaneity. This serves well with the music that always flows properly under his fingers.
The art of the piano is not destined for fast food consumers, but for the gourmet. Hence it is only one of successive listenings to the Argentinian’s recording that discloses the richness of musical nuances: Rachmaninoff’s Sonata No. 2 in b flat minor, Brahms’s Concerto in D minor, and Nocturne in C minor, Op. 48 No. 1 by Chopin, in whose music the pianist liberates the exquisite and unusual chiaroscuro that others have failed to notice.
Stanisław Dybowski, Beethoven Magazine No. 4
“Around Chopin and Schumann” Master classes conducted by Nelson Goerner for students and graduates of music universities will take place on 21st and 22nd March in the Chamber Hall of the National Philharmonic Hall in Warsaw.