On Tuesday night, Joshua Bell and Daniil Trifonov teamed up for a concert in Carnegie Hall. It was a good concert—a very, very good concert. This is gratifying to report.
Bell, as you know, is a violinist and Trifonov a pianist. Each is a star soloist. Sometimes these pairings of star soloists work—in fact, they often do. I noted this a week ago when writing about Maxim Vengerov and Evgeny Kissin.
Bell and Trifonov began their concert with Beethoven, his Violin Sonata No. 1 in D major. I have said “Violin Sonata.” But do you know what Beethoven said, for all ten of these things? “Sonata for Piano and Violin.” Pianists tend to know this.
Frankly, No. 1 is one of the best of the ten. It is not a starter piece. I think the same of the first piano sonata, in F minor—one of the best of the thirty-two.
In the opening movement of their sonata, Bell and Trifonov were rather light. You could have argued for more substantiality. Some of the passagework was rushed—a bit. Some of the passagework could have been better articulated. The second movement—a theme and variations—was gracefully executed. Trifonov did some beautiful trilling. And the closing rondo? Nimble, scampering, merry.
There were imperfections in this account of the Beethoven. Bell even had some faulty intonation, which is rare. But, you know? There was always life. Real musical and artistic life. This counts for a great deal. Bell and Trifonov are not stiffs. They are not potted plants.
“The cardinal sin of performance,” said Liszt, “is dullness.” Amen.
Let me note that, after the first movement, some of the audience burst into screaming applause. Bell’s fans, I’m assuming. (This is not a putdown. We should all have such fans.) Let me note, too, that Trifonov seemed unusually happy at the keyboard. Often, he appears the Angry Young Man. (Again, this is not a putdown. I myself have been an Angry Young Man for several decades now.)
On this evening, I saw something I’m not sure I had seen before, in all my years of concertgoing. A couple brought a baby to the hall—not a toddler, a baby, maybe three months old. They sat in the middle of a row. “What will happen?” a friend and I wondered. Midway through the third movement of the Beethoven, as I recall, they left. Soundlessly. The baby had not cried, as far as I could tell.
Bear with me a second. Last week, I was in Chicago, for a concert of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, led by Riccardo Muti. After the concert, Muti and I recorded a podcast. It occurred to me: he looks essentially the same on the podium as he always has. And I have been watching him since at least 1980, when he assumed the music directorship of the Philadelphia Orchestra.
Joshua Bell, too, I have been watching since about 1980. And he is essentially unchanged. The calendar says he is in his mid-fifties. I don’t believe it. There he is, going up on his toes. (Matthias Goerne, the baritone, does the same.) There he is, performing his knee bends. Joshua Bell is a constant on our concert scene.
After their Beethoven, Bell and Trifonov played a Prokofiev sonata—No. 1 in F minor. He wrote it during the war. It is one of the most Prokofiev-like of all Prokofiev pieces: encapsulating his moods, his methods, his genius. Prokofiev is a particular favorite of Daniil Trifonov. At least he returns to him again and again.
The first movement had its required qualities: fear, gravity, delicacy. The second movement is marked “Allegro brusco.” Often, Prokofiev tells you what he wants in his markings alone. (“Precipitato”!) In this movement, Bell and Trifonov were fearful-crazy. The playing was often ugly, and not wrongly so.
Maybe the high point of the evening was the third movement—Andante. It was ethereal, more like ghostly. The movement was a plaintive aria. Better violin playing, you will seldom hear.
After intermission came a piece by Ernest Bloch: “Nigun,” from Baal Shem, which is subtitled “Three Pictures of Hasidic Life.” Can there be violin playing without Jewish soul? In any case, Bell was soulful and virtuosic.
And the printed program ended with the Franck Sonata. Can you hear this piece again, for the thousandth time? Yes—if it is played with freshness, vitality, and heart. Which is how Bell and Trifonov played it. I have my complaints, sure: Trifonov, at the beginning, was too wispy in his piano. Too superficial. But I promise you, there was not a dull page in this performance. The players demonstrated why César Franck’s sonata got famous in the first place. You could fall in love with it again.
There would be two encores—the first of them a romance by Schumann. Not Robert, but Clara. The second one was by someone in love with Clara—again, not Robert.
This is what Bell said, in his remarks to the audience. Very witty.
The second encore was the Hungarian Dance No. 1 in G minor, by Brahms. It was played with incredible flair—energy and flair.
Not meaning to slight Trifonov—the impressive Trifonov—I wish to close with an observation about Bell. It is one I have made before. If he is unchanging, so am I. In my experience, critics and musicians are often sniffy about Bell. Grudging. “Yeah, Josh from Indiana.” Envy is never far from the surface, when it comes to human affairs. This guy is so damn good-looking and talented. But if Bell has been a constant on our musical scene, he has also been constantly, or consistently, excellent. He will not let you down. He is not a phoner-in. Night after night, he combines discipline, intelligence, and charisma. He has an unteachable musicality.
Is he not one of the finest instrumentalists—indeed, musicians—of the last half-century? (I say yes.)