I like writing the phrase “Icelandic pianist”—or “Icelandic” anything. “Icelandic” is a beautiful word, and exotic sounding. Over the years, I have written “Kristinn Sigmundsson, the Icelandic bass,” and “Anna Thorvaldsdottir, the Icelandic composer.” And “Víkingur Ólafsson, the Icelandic pianist.”
He gave a recital in Carnegie Hall last night. Everything was in E major or E minor. Can that get wearying, aurally? I think it can, yes. But this was Mr. Ólafsson’s conception.
He came out wearing a striking green jacket—velvet, I think. It was accompanied by a bow tie and a red hankie (I think red). The pianist looked great. The next morning, I read his program notes, in which he says, “I perceive the pitch of E as green in color. So works in both E major and E minor evoke different hues of green, ranging from dark and lush to bright and vibrant.”
Ólafsson began his program with Bach’s Prelude in E major, from Book I of The Well-Tempered Clavier. It was a little odd to hear the prelude without its fugue. Odder still was how it was played, this prelude. Mr. Ólafsson fussed over it, with unwanted pauses and the like (unwanted by me, I should say).
He continued with a special Beethoven sonata, No. 27 in E minor, Op. 90. They are all special, of course, but what I mean is, this one is in only two movements. The first is indeed in E minor: lively and somewhat stormy. The second is in E major, and it is a song—a lovely, simple song. I have sometimes called it “Schubertian.”
But then I chastise myself, because Beethoven precedes Schubert, so maybe Schubert is “Beethovenian”?
Ólafsson was excellent in the first movement, full of dynamism. He made rich sounds, playing deep into the keys. The second movement was fussed over (as I said about the Bach, above). It was warped with little ritards and so on. I wanted to say, “Just pick a tempo and play the song.”
Next was more Bach—a whole partita, No. 6 in E minor (of course). Ólafsson makes really beautiful sounds. And his left hand is an equal partner with the right. Also, he plays with great sincerity of expression. What I wanted, in this Bach, was more definition. More “structure,” if you like. It seemed to me that the partita turned into a beautiful E-minor soup.
More definition came with the closing movement, the Gigue.
A lady left after the partita—while Ólafsson was playing the next piece. She had had no choice. Ólafsson played this recital without an intermission and without breaks between pieces. This has been a fashion for about ten years now; I look forward to the passing of this fashion.
It is an imposition on the audience. Many don’t know which piece the performer is on. Who the composer is. “Where are we, again?” Plus, the ear or mind needs a break. Do you take a bite of the next course immediately upon concluding the previous course?
This no-breaks thing is a conceit, I think. A musicological or personal conceit. Enough!
(I have given this rant before, but don’t no one listen to me.)
Following the Bach partita, Ólafsson played a Schubert sonata—a rarity, the Sonata in E minor, D. 566. Carnegie Hall has been open since 1891, and, before last night, this sonata had been heard in the hall only once before.
A rude question—or rather, an honest one: If D. 566 were not by Franz Schubert, would it be known at all? In any case, Víkingur Ólafsson proved a very good advocate of it, bringing his manifold skills to bear.
He ended his program with Beethoven’s Sonata in E major, Op. 109. Ólafsson landed on the first note—virtually thumped it—and then held it for quite some time. This was odd. I think it stemmed from the no-breaks thing. In the first section of the sonata, Ólafsson was unusually slow.
The sonata in general was personalized, not to say eccentric. Yet it was all beautiful.
Not so beautiful were the phones going off in the hall, one after the other. More on that in a moment.
Before playing an encore, Ólafsson spoke to the audience. He acknowledged two of his teachers in the hall. He then said something like, “Twenty years later, you understand what your teachers taught.” So true.
He said he would play his own arrangement of Bach’s “Air on the G String.” He had dedicated this arrangement to György Kurtág, the Hungarian composer, who turned one hundred last month. Ólafsson call him “maybe the world’s greatest musician.”
That arrangement is very well wrought, and Ólafsson played it superbly. Ineffably.
Yet the experience was marred by the repeated ringing of phones in the hall. (Actually, I think it may have been one phone, whose owner did not know how to silence it.) When he concluded the air, Ólafsson quipped, “Was that Bach calling?”
He gave us two more encores, each by Rameau, the second in his own arrangement as well.
As I have made clear, I had some “issues” with this recital. But there is no doubt that this Icelandic pianist is a big talent and a likable—even a lovable—personality. I look forward to his next appearance, green jacket or no.
