Brahms...And there was light!

Review by Xavier Rivera, Crescendo Magazine, Belgium

Johannes BRAHMS (1833-1897) : Klavierstücke  Eight pieces for piano Op. 76 ; Two Rhapsodies Op. 79 ; Seven pieces for piano Op. 116; Three Intermezzi  Op. 117 ; Six pieces for piano Op. 118 ; Four pieces for piano Op. 119.  Boris Berman, piano 2018. Booklet in French and English. 100' 48 ''

2 CD Le Palais des Dégustateurs  PDD018

Boris Berman does not share much beyond his name and his profession with his compatriot, the very famous Lazar. Beyond that, one could speak of the Russian school yes, but… it would be difficult to find two personalities more diametrically opposed than those of these two great artists. Where with Lazar there is ardor, fireworks, passion, or the exhibition of virtuosity, Boris offers us reflection, elegance, and a depth of thought. He is not of these artists that seduce from the beginning. However, he wins by being listened to at length, in calm, and with the introspection to which we succumb to during these days of confinement. His trajectory itself is unusual for a Russian virtuoso: studies with Lev Oborin […], but also studies of harpsichord and sustained activity in contemporary music. Denisov, Schnittke, Ligeti, or Stockhausen, all find in [Boris Berman] a fervent defender and an early champion in Russia. He has also developed a great activity as a pedagogue and chamber musician: many great artists have had the privilege of collaborating with him and he offers advice to students all over the wide world. His mastery of the keyboard is absolute, both in the clarity of the execution and in the control of the sound, with a sense of legato so perfect that it makes us completely forget the natural evanescence of the sound of the instrument. And we must thank him for his transparent and limpid use of the pedal which can evoke, through the Steinway used here, the lightness of Brahms’ Streicher piano. 

His approach to this composer is sober; he avoids indulging in pathos or grandiloquence. This certainly does not imply coldness, however: the fact of reflecting on each detail of the phrasing and of ensuring the architectural balance of the works does not prevent it from being expressive and warm as desired. Like a stage director, Berman offers us a subtle gradation in the sentimental landscape from this Unruhig bewegt, the anxious movement of Capriccio in F sharp op. 76 born from a tormented encounter with Clara Schumann, through the reminiscences of Vienna of Capriccio in B Minor or Intermezzo no 3 of the same opus, arriving at a fabulous Op. 119, miraculous ecstasy in Intermezzo in B Minor, or achieving apotheosis in the Rhapsody in E flat, which marks the end of the CD and of the piano repertoire of Brahms. Robert Schumann said of Brahms: “as soon as he sits at the piano, he takes us to wonderful regions, making us enter with him an ideal world.” Impossible to find a better definition of Boris Berman’s version!

Our only regret, in the sound of the recording, is a certain lack of transparency in the middle register of the piano that sometimes harms the clarity of the melodic contours, while the extreme registers are well rendered. Excellent booklet in English/French with a very erudite essay written by Paul Berry. 

Sound: 7 – Booklet: 9 – Repertoire: 10 – Interpretation: 10

» View original review in Crescendo Magazine

Artamag Review: Quarante-Huit Préludes

By Jean-Charles Hoffelé

Some time ago, Boris Berman had recorded an album of Debussy for Chandos, played with a surprisingly full sound, sensual, songful, and colorful. Images, Pour le piano, the animated Epigraphes antiques, and then nothing else, at least by Debussy.

We had to wait until the centenary for a French producer to offer a distant sequel to that first album: nothing less than all of the Préludes, but also the Estampes and four short pieces, including the sublime “Les soirs illuminés par l’ardeur du charbon” rediscovered not long ago.

Berman plays the Préludes as a collection of secrets. His piano, formerly so opulent, has transformed its magnificence into mysteriousness, the complex harmonies saturate the deep touch, the piano resonates like an orchestra, surpassing the limitations of the instrument. Unparalleled, the two books are played with the same atmosphere of a passionate search for a new sonorous world, and as soon as Debussy rises the pitch, Berman responds by producing a dimension of gripping panic, whether it is in Ce qu’a vu le vent d’Ouest or Feux d’artifice. What piano! So ample and so little French in the tone, in the way of playing, that it reminds us to what extent Boris Berman, student of Lev Oborin, is linked to a certain tradition of interpreting Debussy, which includes the illustrious Neuhaus, Richter, Gilels, Vedernikov or Alexei Lubimov to whom he is often so close.

And his Estampes? Everything except impressionistic: Pagodes is a gamelan in which one hears dry tones, a percussive landscape; La soirée dans Grenade is very passionate, almost sexual; and Jardins sous la pluie abstract, a singular line. Add a very free gesture for D’un cahier d’esquisses, a comtemplative Hommage à Haydn, a little headstone lost in heather, and La plus que lente that does not let up. Boris Berman now owes us the Etudes, the fire of his piano is destined for them.

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Pianist Boris Berman explores the strange and wonderful sounds of John Cage

Boris Berman plays John Cage's "Sonatas and Interludes" during the Soundings concert at the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas, Texas, Saturday, February 18, 2017. (Allison Slomowitz/ Special Contributor) Special Contributor

by Scott Cantrell, Special Contributor
The Dallas Morning News

Legend has it that the composer and critic Virgil Thomson once took his aged mother to a concert of music by John Cage. Asked afterward for her impressions, Mrs. Thomson replied, "Well, I certainly wouldn't have thought of it."

Cage, who lived from 1912 to 1992, is most famous for "composing" a piece of non-music: 4'33", for which the performer sits four minutes and 33 seconds in silence, thereby focusing hearers' attentions on the sounds of their own heartbeats, respiration and digestion--and random sounds in the room. Cage's exploration of unorthodox sonorities led to his development of the "prepared" piano, with foreign objects--screws, bolts, bits of rubber, plastic and what have you--inserted between strings to vary the sounds of different notes.

A Steinway grand piano "prepared" for John Cage's "Sonatas and Interludes," at the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas, Texas, Saturday, February 18, 2017. (Scott Cantrell/Special Contributor)

Cage's 70-minute Sonatas and Interludes for prepared piano, from 1948, was the sole fare for the Saturday-night Soundings concert at the Nasher Sculpture Center. The performer was Boris Berman, a pianist better known for Prokofiev and the like, but obviously an interpreter deeply committed to these 16 "sonatas," interspersed with four "interludes."

Most of the sections are in AABB form, each half repeated once, and much about the music is mathematically determined. But one soon abandons oneself to the sheer hypnotic weirdness of the experience.

The preparations turn the piano into a one-person percussion ensemble. The music clunks, clangs, tinkles and thuds, the effects variously suggesting wind chimes, twanging sitar, muted bongos, tollings and pealings of bells. It's not as disconcerting as you might expect, the overall impression often that of a Balinese gamelan ensemble. One marvels that so rich a range of sound can come out of a "mere" piano.

Berman certainly savored the rhythmic nuances, no less freewheeling than the sonorites. The music alternately jerked, danced and twiddled. Occasionally it extruded hints of a would-be melody. 

I once interviewed Cage, back in the late 1980s. For all his reputation as an enfant terrible of modern music, he was soft-spoken and gracious, and obviously didn't take himself too seriously. Sonatas and Interludes is anything but scary. In fact, as Berman proved Saturday night, it's strangely beautiful.

Staff classical music critic of The Dallas Morning News for 16 years, Scott Cantrell continues covering the beat as a freelance.

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Like a Magician, Boris Berman Enchanted Mänttä

From Aamulehti

Boris Berman, whose background is Russian, does not actually play the piano, but he magically creates pure music by his amazing touch and excellent conceptions.

In the recital, which was one of the finest in the history of the Mänttä Music Festival, he was enthusiastic enough to play a program consisting of the preludes by Debussy in a fairytale manner. One has very seldom a chance to hear such richness and balance of sound!

Berman showed how to realize the continuous change of dynamics and the clarity and fogginess of sound in the most ideal way.

He was like the mythical Blacksmith Ilmarinen from the Kalevala. When he forged the world, he remembered to include all the details, not forgetting the colors of the sunrise and sunset.

Berman also proved that these musical pieces, performed usually one or two at a time, form an actual unity. Each prelude was now a prelude for the next one. Each piece seemed to stem from the previous one.

Also, the difference between these two books of preludes became evident: the first book was like vibrations of inner states of mind and dreamlike pictures, while the second one reflected pictures created by images from the outer world.

Berman charmed the audience with the misty preludes, like the softly glowing images of
Voiles and Brouillards as well as with thorny and mischievous pieces like La danse de Puck.

One of the most dramatic moments of the evening was the intoxicating motion and stormy ecstasy of Ce qu’a vu le vent d’ouest.

On the other hand, there was an amazing serenity and clarity in the prelude that describes an Egyptian urn. 

The change from the strong wind of Ce qu’a vu le vent d’ouest into the simple and pure beauty of La fille aux cheveux de lin was an excellent example of the differences in dynamics of the preludes.

And finally, all that Berman did was self-evident, wise and thought-out – and still fresh and created at the moment.
Harri Hautala

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Pianist Boris Berman proves himself by letting Brahms, Schoenberg speak for themselves

As reviewed by Joan Reinthaler of the Washington Post

How refreshing to hear a concert performed by someone who doesn’t seem driven to say something new. Pianist Boris Berman, who chairs the piano division of the Yale School of Music, was at Catholic University’s Ward Hall on Monday evening with a mostly Brahms program, and he seemed content to focus on letting the music speak for itself. The program included all 20 of the assorted and vaguely labeled intermezzi, rhapsodies and capricciosos that make up the Brahms Op. 116, 117, 118 and 119 “Klavierstücke” (or piano pieces). Berman also threw in, as sort of palate-cleansers, Schoenberg’s six short, delicate Op. 16 pieces — altogether an elegant program elegantly played.

This was Brahms at his most Brahmsian, with melodies that floated effortlessly from the welter of intricate textures, triple and duple rhythms that rubbed up comfortably against each other, harmonies that slid almost imperceptibly between major and minor and timeless landscapes of passion and longing. The nuts and bolts that went into making all this happen included a broad repertoire of legato touches that ranged from the vocal silkiness of the middle section of the Op. 116, No. 6 Intermezzo to the more instrumental-sounding linearity of the spooky middle section of the rollicking Rhapsody that ended the Op. 119 set. There was the care Berman took to keep the bass in check, never letting it muddy the sonorities, and a rhythmic integrity he maintained that still allowed lines to flex and breathe.

Architecturally, Ward Hall may have all the charm of a gutted barn, but acoustically it is a terrific place to hear a piano recital. On Monday night, however, something backstage bumped around loudly throughout the second half of the concert. That Berman was able to keep the noise from affecting his performance testifies to a world-class power of concentration.

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