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Clash of the titans
Pianist Jonathan Biss at the Kimmel
Steve Cohen
It’s rare to experience a confluence of styles as diverse as the one Jonathan Biss presented in this recital, which he premiered here and repeated two days later at Carnegie Hall in New York. The Curtis-trained 34-year-old pianist juxtaposed early and late Beethoven with the radically modern compositions of Arnold Schoenberg and Alban Berg, plus the reflective romantic music of Robert Schumann.
The compositions of Schoenberg and Berg were shocking to listeners in the first half of the 20th century — even their earliest pieces, such as the ones Biss played. A Vienna newspaper in 1909 said that Schoenberg’s music sounded like “the shrill sound of door keys” and Edwin Schloss in the Philadelphia Record wrote that a later Schoenberg composition produced “the sound effects of a hen yard at feeding time.” Berg’s atonal compositions were similarly denounced.
Biss’s transparent performances of these pieces made the complicated writing clear and the emotional content gripping. Placing these two composers in close proximity to Beethoven and Schumann made one realize that they have more in common than those old critics thought.
In the two Beethoven sonatas, Biss’s playing was detailed, direct, and unfussy. He transmitted the rigor and intensity that keeps Beethoven’s music appealing. Schumann transformed the piano sonata into a more flexible and intimate genre than it had been. Schumann has neither the power of Beethoven nor the grace of Schubert, but Biss feels a precious quality that speaks to him. Schumann’s private life, as we know, was tumultuous, and he had mental disturbances. That makes the emotions in his music all the stronger.
What, When, Where
Jonathan Biss, pianist. Beethoven, Sonata in F Minor, Op. 2 No. 1; Schoenberg, Sechs Kleine Klavierstücke; Schumann, Waldszenen; Berg, Sonata, Op. 1; Beethoven, Sonata in A Major, Op. 101. Presented by the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, January 22, 2015 at the Perelman Theater, Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, Broad and Spruce Streets, Philadelphia. 215-569-8080 or www.pcmsconcerts.org.
Biss is an author and a teacher on the faculty at Curtis. He also wrote the e-book Beethoven's Shadow, a meditation on the art of performing Beethoven's piano sonatas.
He is in the midst of a recording project of the entire Beethoven sonata cycle. The fourth volume, including two works from the program he performed here, was released January 27 by JB Recordings.
Biss’s online course, Exploring Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas, is available for free, allowing students to watch all the video lessons at once or progress at their own pace. It is a personal exploration of his experiences with this music rather than a musicologist’s dissertation.
He will host online and in-person meet-ups throughout the country this winter and spring.
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