Another Perspective on Salzburg

Alex Ross went to Tanglewood this year instead of Salzburg, but Jay Nordlinger was there and wrote a nice piece on the Grigory Sokolov recital that I didn't manage to attend: ‘Hello to Music’

Grigory Sokolov is an odd duck — I say that with considerable admiration. He is his own man, going his own way. He is unconventional, idiosyncratic — you might even say eccentric. He won the gold medal at the Tchaikovsky Competition when he was 16. (The year was 1966.) He is the youngest person ever to win that medal.

Early on, he toured Great Britain, the United States, and the rest of the world. Now he stays in Europe. He doesn’t play concertos, either — no engagements with orchestra. Just recitals. He plays about 70 of those a year, and they are all devoted to a single program: a single slate of pieces. (The slate changes each year, I should say.)

Typically, he walks onto a stage rather grim-faced and bows solemnly. Then he begins. He maintains his demeanor all through an evening. A Sokolov recital is like a religious rite. The pianist plays as though he were doing the most important thing in all the world — and his audience listens in hushed wonder.

Please be advised that musicians’ bios in programs are practically useless. They seldom give you biographical information: where the person was born, what his nationality is, who his teachers were, etc. It’s a lot of PR puff.

This is how Sokolov’s bio begins:

Grigory Sokolov is widely recognized as one of today’s greatest pianists, an artist universally admired for his visionary insight, spellbinding spontaneity and uncompromising devotion to music. His masterful interpretations of compelling intensity and expressive beauty arise from profound knowledge of the works in his vast repertoire.

All of that PR blather just happens to be true.

Yep.

And here he is playing Chopin Polonaises: