Valentina Lisitsa Performs Schubert's Lieder at Bösendorfer New York's Artist Salon

Roberta on the Arts

Valentina Lisitsa Performs Schubert's Lieder at Bösendorfer New York's Artist Salon

Valentina Lisitsa Performs Schubert's Lieder at Bösendorfer New York's Artist Salon

- Classical and Cultural Connections

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Artist Salon
Valentina Lisitsa, Piano
(Valentina Lisitsa Website)
At
Bösendorfer New York
www.bosendorfernewyork.com
200 Lexington Avenue
Suite 902
New York, NY 10016
212.684.1956
Gerhard Feldmann, President, and Lisa L. Feldmann, EVP

And
Bösendorfer Loudspeakers, powered by Einstein's "The Absolute Tune" and fed by Einstein's "The Last Record Player" - connected via Dynamic Design cabling

Welcome Comments by Lisa L. Feldmann
And Prof. Jo Reiter

Dr. Roberta E. Zlokower
May 17, 2006

(See a Feature on the Bösendorfer Loudspeakers).

Program:

Schwanengesang: Franz Schubert’s (1797-1828) last 14 lieder to poems by Ludwig Rellstab, Heinrich Heine, and Johann Gabriel Seidl, transcribed by Franz Liszt (1811-1886).

Die Stadt (The Town) - Heine
Das Fischermädchen (The Fisher-Maiden) – Heine
Aufenthalt (My Dwelling Place) – Rellstab
Am Meer (By the Sea) – Heine
Abschied (A Farewell) – Rellstab
In der Ferne (Afar) – Rellstab
Ständchen (Serenade) – Rellstab
Ihr Bild (Her Picture) – Heine
Frühlingssehnsucht (Longings in Spring) - Rellstab
Liebesbotschaft (Love’s Message) – Rellstab
Der Atlas (Atlas) – Heine
Der Doppelgänger (The Shadow) – Heine
Die Taubenpost (The Pigeon Post) – Seidl
Kriegers Ahnung (Warrior’s Foreboding) – Rellstab

Valentina Lisitsa, Ukrainian born, began playing the piano at age three. Her musical career developed rapidly, and a two-piano competition with a colleague, Alexei Kuznetsoff, won them first prize in 1991. They have since performed at the Mostly Mozart Festival in New York, and Valentina has performed solo at Avery Fisher Hall, Carnegie Hall, and Vienna’s Musikverein. Ms. Lisitsa, a Bösendorfer artist, has recorded eight CD’s, and a DVD of 24 Chopin Études.

Tonight, at Bösendorfer New York’s standing-room-only Artist Salon, Valentina Lisitsa performed Schubert’s last 14 lieder, written to poems by Rellstab, Heine, and Seidl in the fall of 1828, just shortly before his untimely and youthful demise. Schubert’s friends called them Schwanengesang, or The Swan Song. Franz Liszt later transcribed the 14 vocal songs, among many others, for solo piano.

Valentina Lisitsa, on the gold-ornamented, Bösendorfer Emperor, played these 14 lieder with barely a pause in between, in one of the most versatile and virtuosic solo piano recitals I have ever seen. Allowing for each lieder to present its own personality and mood, Ms. Lisitsa sometimes dove into the work with deep drama and sometimes with feathery softness. In order to fully absorb the moment, I decided to lose track of which piece was being performed in sequence, and, rather, to lose myself in the Gestalt. This was a good decision, as the magnificent and unparalleled potential of the one-of-a-kind, Bösendorfer Emperor, was maximized in this concert at the luxurious Bösendorfer New York Artist Salon.

The seamless unfolding of Schubert’s many moods and the unsung poetic lyrics, such as “Wave follows wave in its surging race” (Rellstab), “My soul is rent with yearning” (Heine), and “She never halts, she doth not tire” (Seidl), flowed with mesmerizing grace. I could not help, later on, thinking that the third quoted poetic line (above) was evocative of Ms. Lisitsa’s tireless and tenacious performance. There were mellow, mournful passages, driven dissonance, raging rapture, and meandering melodies. At times I honestly heard an entire orchestra emanating from this larger-than-life piano and its totally focused pianist. The sharp contrasts, sometimes instantaneously juxtaposed, were at once foreboding or comforting, depending on the transcription of the lieder.

Kudos to Valentina Lisitsa, kudos to the Bösendorfer Emperor, and kudos to Bösendorfer New York, a piano showroom worth a visit on its own, all photographed below.