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Stories   >   Davies Symphony Hall - Great Performers Series features the wizardry of Daniil Trifonov / The Berkeley Daily Planet

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Davies Symphony Hall - Great Performers Series features the wizardry of Daniil Trifonov / The Berkeley Daily Planet

Posted: November 28, 2023

The Berkeley Daily Planet's James Roy MacBean writes…..Russian-born pianist Daniil Trifonov exhibits what can only be called wizardry, for no matter what music he plays, Trifonov turns it to gold. I have heard Trifonov play Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Bach, Rameau, Mozart, Mendelssohn, and Beethoven, to name only a few composers he has performed here. And Daniil Trifonov’s wizardry has turned almost everything to gold. 

On Sunday, November 19, Daniil Trifonov returned to Davies Symphony Hall under the auspices of the Great Performers Series. The program for this solo recital by Trifonov was particularly wide-ranging. Opening this recital was the Suite in A minor by French Baroque composer Jean-Philippe Rameau (b. 1683, d. 1764). Playing without a score, Trifonov gave a beautiful rendition of this expansive, highly intellectual Suite by Rameau. This work began with Trifonov performing a stately, potentially mournful Allemande featuring three-voiced counterpoint. As I listened, I recognised that this music was written for harpsichord at an era when the piano itself didn’t yet exist. However, I soon had to acknowledge that in the hands of Daniil Trifonov I welcomed the increased tonality and changes of volume offered by the grand piano. There followed a fast Courante with melodic material repeating over and over, each time on a different pitch. For the ensuing Sarabande, Rameau turns to the major mode, which Trifonov navigated beautifully with its impressive series of arpeggiated chords. Next came a movement entitled Les trois mains (The Three Hands). Here Trifonov rose to the occasion with a dazzling series of rapid-fire cross-hand passages where the left hand repeatedly overlapped the right hand, creating the illusion that there were in fact three hands. Trifonov’s technical wizardry in these passages was jaw-dropping. Two ensuing movements, Fanfarinette and La Triomphante, became increasingly extroverted, and Rameau’s A minor Suite concluded with a Gavotte that included no less than six variations. I cannot say how very much I appreciated Trifonov’s choice of this Rameau Suite in A minor, a work I had never heard before, as the opening work of this recital. It was truly an eye-opener, or should I say, an ear-opener!

Next on the program was Mozart’s Piano Sonata in F Major, K. 332. This work was the last of a group of three sonatas that included the C Major and A Major sonatas. Though I listen frequently to my CDs of the D Major and A Major sonatas, as well as my all-time favourite Mozart Piano Sonata, the B Flat Major Sonata, K. 333, my CD collection strangely lacks the F Major Sonata,

K. 332. So it was with special attention that I welcomed Trifonov’s performance of this particular sonata. It opens with an Allegro in triple time and develops seven or, by some accounts, eight different melodies, rich in harmonic juxtapositions. In the hands of Daniil Trifonov, this movement was scintillating. There follows an Adagio that summons up all of Mozart’s sensitivities for the sublime aspects of a slow movement. In the second half of this Adagio, the material of the first half is repeated, but this time with rich embellishments that in his program notes James M. Keller indicates may give us a glimpse of how Mozart himself would have performed such a slow movement. As performed here by Daniil Trifonov, Mozart himself could scarcely have done better.

The concluding Finale unleashes an exciting, rapid-fire theme, a fiery development section, many mood changes, and a closing harmonic shift that eventually just melts away. In his performance of this Finale, and throughout this sonata, Daniil Trifonov demonstrated his masterful feeling for Mozart’s music.

The third piece on this recital’s program was the short work by Felix Mendelssohn entitled Variations sérieuses, Opus 54. This piece packs plenty into its 12-minute length. A brooding theme is introduced in monumental fashion, then undergoes no less than 18 variations. Rhythmic propulsion mounts throughout, as tempos become ever quicker. Halfway through this work, moods begin to change. A dreamy, almost Schumannesque variation 11 is followed by a fiiery variation 12 and by a dazzling variation 13. Next comes a hymnic piety in the major mode in variation 14. When the minor mode returns in variation 15, the propulsive thrust of this work marks its renewal, and it boils over in the ensuing variations, until the work ends on dying D-minor chords. As you may imagine, with all this musical drama packed into just 12 minutes, this work by Mendelssohn was a perfect vehicle for the pianistic wizardry of Daniil Trifonov.

After intermission, Trifonov returned to perform Beethoven’s Hammerklavier Sonata in B-flat Major, Opus 106. This remarkable sonata is so rich, so complex, and so demanding of both the pianist and the listener, that I always find something new and interesting, even exciting, when I hear it.

This time around, I must say that though on past hearings I was most impressed by the robust opening movement and the “hammered” quality of the final movement, now I found myself most impressed, but also perhaps most perplexed, by the brooding, introspective and particularly lengthy third movement. This material is marked by Beethoven Adagio sostenuto. Appassionato

e con molto sentimento. Perhaps what struck me the most in this movement were the frequent cross-handed passages where Daniil Trifonov’s right hand overlapped the left hand. Such right hand overlappings are fairly rare, and here most of them were quite brief, just a few notes. But once there was an extended passage where the right hand overlapped the left and played a low register melody in entirety. This emphasis on the lower register added immensely to the passionately brooding quality of this movement, especially as sensitively played by Daniil Trifonov.

Then, of course, the final movement explodes in a dynamic fugue, one that bears little resemblance to the logically unrolling fugues of Bach. For Beethoven, at this stage of his career, the fugue offers endless opportunities for surprising manipulations, including inversion, retrograde, augmentation, stretto, and, of course, so many trills. All of this amazing fugal material by Beethoven was magisterially performed by Daniil Trifonov. thereby bringing to a close the printed portion of this recital. As encores, Trifonov performed a jazz version of “I Cover the Waterfront” plus the 3rd movement of Alexander Scriabin’s Piano Sonata No. 3.

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