HCMS: Michael Houstoun performs Beethoven
WEL Academy of Performing Arts
Saturday 17th November 2007
Reviewed by Andrew Buchanan-Smart
Beethoven’s last three piano sonatas Opus 30, 31, and 32 are arguably the cornerstones of the piano repertoire. Uchida realized that they could be considered as one giant musical structure. With Michael Houstoun’s intuitive empathy and mature reading of these colossi, their appeared to be a similar concept of unity that was characterized by intellectual depth; intense, highly personal expression and formal innovation.
The last movement of the final sonata, for example, is approximately an eighteen minute set of beloved variations; each was like a series of transcendent epiphanies, beyond sturm und drang, beyond beauty, beyond peace, beyond love, at times they are almost a prayer, as if Beethoven is pleading with his creator, whilst at the same time being utterly human.
The performance of these sonatas was deeply moving, as intelligent and insightful as any I’ve heard. The late piano sonatas are spiritual testaments; they really do delve uncharted territory and are profoundly spiritual.
According to Hugo Leichtentritt “they are magnificent cosmic visions that have passed beyond the appassionato and the Titanic phases into metaphysical depths, mystic regions of a world beyond, with intermezzi of incomparable lyric beauty and intimacy of utterance tinged with melancholy that sing of the enchanting loneliness of the terrestrial world.”
They require a piano player with the wisdom to understand this and the skill to express it; Michael Houstoun has and did.
COMMENT: Should I carp about ‘opus’ when ‘numbers’ is meant, ‘their’ for’ there’, the iterative use of ‘spiritual’? Perhaps not if I don’t want to be accused of looking a gift horse in the mouth. MH