United Kingdom Edinburgh International Festival 2023 [5] – Bach, Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven: Sir András Schiff (piano). Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, 11.8.2023. (SRT)
J.S. Bach – Aria from Goldberg Variations; Capriccio on the Departure of his Beloved Brother in B-flat; Ricercar a 3 from The Musical Offering; Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue in D minor
Mozart – Fantasia in C minor
Haydn – Variations in F minor; Sonata in E-flat
Beethoven – Sonata No.17 in D minor (‘The Tempest’)
Well, this was fun! Not only was it a morning spent in the company of one of our great pianists, but the programme was a complete surprise. Sir András Schiff didn’t announce in advance what he would be playing in this Queen’s Hall concert. Since 2021 he has preferred the to bring the element of surprise to his concert, enjoying the spontaneity of choice and the immediacy of the communication it gives him with the audience, so we went into this concert clueless as to what it would contain.
The aren’t many pianists who could get away with that – in general, audiences like to know what they will be hearing – but Schiff is so loved and trusted that the Queen’s Hall was packed out regardless; and maybe the audience was looking forward to being bamboozled by the results.
In the event, Schiff played music from his core repertoire: Bach, Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. He played it beautifully, of course, but almost as interesting was the way he communicated with the audience from the stage. He has about him the air of an aged, learned Magus who has earnt the right to do just whatever he wants. He speaks with laconic understatement and droll humour, telling us the ‘life’s too short to listen to bad music’ and lamenting the fact that Haydn is the most underrated of the great composers, ‘except in Britain.’
And after his first few numbers, his couplings were intelligently chosen. He bracketed together Bach’s Ricercar and Mozart’s Fantasia due to the similarity of their opening themes, while Bach’s Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue was paired with Beethoven’s The Tempest Sonata because they share both a key and a recitative-like quality at certain critical moments. Everything was played with his trademark intelligence, which could be either soft-focused or forensic as the music required.
True, it made for a long concert: the first half alone was nearly 90 minutes, drawing a deadpan ‘thank you for staying’ after the interval. Furthermore, there was an element of rifling through the toybox to the whole thing, rather than necessarily considering the programme as a whole; something which also explained the unwieldy length. It did cause me to reflect, however, on whether we put too much emphasis on the concept of the well-conceived programme, and how many musicians really achieve that successfully, anyway? Schiff’s playing and his musical intelligence are at such a high level that most audience members would willingly spend an hour in his musical company, even if his choices could be capricious.
Simon Thompson
The Edinburgh International Festival runs at venues across the city until Sunday 27th August click here for details.