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Carnegie Hall -- Spotlight on Ivan Moravec
Spotlight on Ivan Moravec
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Return to event page for Thursday, March 31.
On Thursday, March 31, the Orchestra of St. Luke's will conclude its Carnegie Hall season with a concert that Principal Conductor Donald Runnicles has dubbed "Postcard from Prague"—a Czech-themed program with an early Janacek work that echoes Moravian dance, a jazz suite from Martinu (with Runnicles at the piano!), and Mozart—his sublime "Prague" Symphony, and the Piano Concerto No. 25, the symphony's contemporary, which was probably in Mozart's suitcase when he made his first visit to the Bohemian capital.
The soloist for the concerto is none other than Ivan Moravec, the revered Czech pianist and Prague native for whom this music is a specialty. The 74-year-old Moravec has recorded this concerto several times, at least as early as the mid-1970s, but an American Record Guide review of a 1996-97 disc remarks, "there's almost a wide-eyed wonder to his playing, and where many a pianist would polish off a phrase to show what a consummate professional he is, Moravec plays it as if it is new and fresh and important—as if he finds it utterly fascinating."
Talking about the affection of the people of Prague for Mozart, Moravec says, "These are Mozart's words, in his letter to Gottfried Freiherr von Jacquin, in which he reports about the love and frenzy for Figaro by the people of Prague: '…I did neither dance nor eat, but I watched with pleasure how all these people hopped happily to the music of my Figaro, transformed into counterdances and allemandes. Nobody here talks of anything else, but—Figaro, nothing else is played, sung or whistled as—Figaro. No other opera visited, but—Figaro, forever Figaro.'
"Mozart of course strongly influenced Czechs," he continued. "The melodic and rhythmic structure of his music was very near to the feeling of not only professional musicians, but to that of ordinary people as well. The slightly folksy character of the main theme of the third movement of this concerto could remind of a Bohemian folk song, but I don't think there was any conscious connection."
Long recognized as one of the century's great pianists, Ivan Moravec has prompted critics in search of parallels to call up such names as Gieseking and Richter. Yet his musicianship, while it challenges comparison with these masters, is riveting and penetratingly individual in style.
Richard Dyer of the Boston Globe has said, "Moravec is one of the few pianists today who has his own sound; once you have heard it you can identify it immediately. This kind of individuality was more common in an earlier generation." When asked how he maintains this character, when he plays on a different piano for every concert, Moravec replies, "The first thing is a strong inner need for a long, beautiful tone. If you don't have it, you will try to force your hand to use all technical means to reach it. Each time I need to spend at least five hours at a new instrument to know what it can give me. Needless to say, I always welcome working with a good technician!"
But it is the pianist, not the piano that elicits consistent raves. "Mozart wrote some of his most sublime music for the city of Prague," said The Minneapolis Star Tribune about a 2003 performance. "On Friday evening, Prague returned the compliment when native son Ivan Moravec played Mozart's Piano Concerto in A Major, K. 488, with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. It was an experience of the highest order. In a lifetime of concertgoing, one will rarely hear a performance of such poetic concentration, such grave beauty."
Return to event page for Thursday, March 31.
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