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A Legendary Pogorelich Recital · The Piano Maven with Jed Distler

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  This is Jed Disler and welcome to the Piano Maven, your friendly podcast guide to piano
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  recordings.
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  Ordinarily, the focus of my podcast is with commercially released recordings, but a listener
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  wrote to me recently and asked if it might be possible for me to talk about a particular
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  recital involving Ivo Pogorelic, the pianist that took place on May 7, 1990 at Carnegie
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  Hall.
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  This concert survives in a very good quality recording.
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  I'm not sure what the source of this recording is, but if an audience member indeed taped
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  it, then the sound is surprisingly excellent for its provenance and it's really not far
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  from professional standards.
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  Or maybe it was recorded officially by Carnegie Hall in-house and a copy just kind of floated
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  its way out into the so-called tape underground and of course it's now on the internet.
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  You can find this recital on YouTube and it's long made the rounds of collectors.
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  Now normally, I feel ambivalent about stealth recordings, mainly because they are made without
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  the artist's approval, nor does the artist receive any compensation.
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  And I think it's wrong when these recordings are sold for money and the artist gets nothing
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  out of the deal.
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  But because one can access this concert fairly easily at the moment, I've decided to talk
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  about the May 7, 1990 Ivo Pogorelic recital because not only does it showcase Ivo Pogorelic
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  at the pinnacle of his very considerable powers, but also because he gives astounding performances
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  of some works that he otherwise did not record in the studio.
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  The concert begins with Haydn's D major sonata number 19, and I find this live performance
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  a little more exciting and spontaneous in the outer movements than in Pogorelic's studio
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  recording on Deutsche Grammophon.
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  The pianist takes enormous rhythmic leeway throughout the three Brahms intermezzo, opus
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  117.
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  Yet you get this sense of an interior monologue taking place where every word and every comma
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  and every pause and every point of emphasis seems to have been seriously considered and
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  deeply internalized.
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  I remember when this dear friend of mine turned me on to Pogorelic's Deutsche Grammophon studio
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  recording of selected Brahms piano pieces, and my friend said that Pogorelic may take
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  liberties with the notes, but he doesn't take liberties with the music.
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  And I kind of understood what he meant by that comment.
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  The first half of this concert, however, ended with what I think are far and away the most
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  demonic, fiercely characterized, and pianistically well put together performances I've ever heard
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  of the Liszt Transcendental Etudes, number 8, Wilde Jagd, number 5, the Fue Folie, and
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  the unnamed number 10, which is in F minor.
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  And this is precisely why certain bootleg recordings have tremendous artistic value.
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  If we did not have this recording of these etudes, we would not know how Pogorelic had
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  played them, and we would not have proof that he played these etudes on such a transcendent
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  level that just beggars belief.
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  The concert's second half began with six Scarlatti sonatas, Kirkpatrick numbers 380, 87, 8, 135,
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  13, and 119.
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  And there are some idiosyncratic moments in these performances that kind of annoy me,
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  such as those rhythmic distensions in the E major, number 380.
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  I mean, why does he have to do that?
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  But then you have some of the immaculate balances and amazingly controlled repeated notes in
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  the D major, Kirkpatrick number 119.
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  And here, I think, Pogorelic's studio recording set the gold standard for this sonata.
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  But I think the live performance benefits from a little more adrenaline.
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  Chopin's Three Mazurkas, Opus 59, were next.
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  And these works can easily absorb Pogorelic's rhetorical stretching.
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  The Scriabin fourth sonata, which came after, manages to toe a fascinating line between
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  nervously driven and very sexy.
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  And I think the only other pianist who can compare in this same sense interpretively
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  and pianistically probably is Mikhail Platonov.
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  And last but not least on this recital, we have what I think is probably the most texturally
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  cogent, consistently characterized, and pianistically poised live performance that I've ever heard
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  of Balakirev's near impossible Islamé.
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  I know there's a later Carnegie Hall performance of this piece with Pogorelic.
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  And that one I have not heard.
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  But this live May 7, 1990 performance preserves a peerless interpretation of Islamé, which
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  is another work that Pogorelic did not otherwise record.
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  I've posted a YouTube link in my episode description.
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  And all I can say is that I hope this extraordinary recital will eventually find its way to being
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  commercially released in some way, shape, or form.
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  It truly lives up to its legend.
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  This is Jed Disler, and you've been listening to The Piano Maven, your friendly podcast
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  guide to piano recordings.
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  And I look forward to being with you for the next episode.
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  Take care and stay safe.