Busoni’s transcription of the Bach Toccata, Adagio and Fugue BWV 564 largely brings out the best in Evgeny Kissin’s protean technique. He revels in the work’s gothic pianistic terrain, unleashing the cruelly deployed left hand octaves and mealy chords in a continuous velvet roar. In the Adagio, however, I find Kissin too much in love with his sonority in the way the plaintive cantata-like melody sinks under the left hand’s plush goo. Go to Horowitz, Rubinstein, and, more recently Woo Paik to hear how a shapelier bass line helps propel the music forward. There’s no doubting the physical excitement Kissin generates at the Fugue’s climactic points, along with impressive contrapuntal clarity at all times–but why does he make a sudden diminuendo on the fugue subject’s final note?
The effect is overly arch and self-conscious, as are many of Kissin’s interpretive decisions throughout Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. In the Gnome, for instance, the staccato downbeat of the theme beginning at measure 19 (and again at measure 76) sounds as mannered as the coy avoidance of Mussorgsky’s many sforzando markings. The Old Castle crumbles under Kissin’s Chopinesque rubatos in the right hand and his rudderless left-hand pedal point. While Bydlo’s steady tread is effectively measured and massive, Kissin’s hectic tempo for the Unhatched Chicks Ballet necessitates little breaks in the rhythm in order to accommodate his hands, although he manages to illuminate the Trio’s rarely projected bass lines.
Kissin’s metric freedom in the declamatory opening octaves of Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle dissipates the jagged rhythmic asymmetry others like Richter and Ashkenazy achieved by taking Mussorgsky’s note values as written. Kissin takes a near-breakneck yet miraculously controlled spin through the Limoges Market Place, then lingers evocatively in the belly of the Catacombae. For all the ferocity and booming sound he generates in Baba Yaga, Kissin’s occasional rushing strikes me as more excited than exciting. Fortunately he projects the Great Gate at Kiev’s rolling grandeur with dignified poise and poetry. The Promenades come off best because Kissin’s dynamic and agogic choices do not impede the music’s processional flow. Mention also should be made of Glinka’s The Lark (in Balakirev’s transcription), which Kissin plays gorgeously. While I often grouse about the hit-and-miss character of Kissin’s instinctive musicianship (and there’s plenty of “miss” on display here), his instrumental prowess unquestionably justifies his stellar reputation among today’s piano playing elite.
