Search - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Jean Sibelius, Enrique Granados :: Piano Recital

A Musician's Musician in a Marvelous Recital

J Scott Morrison | Middlebury VT, USA | 11/28/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I've known the playing of pianist Anton Nel for a number of years as he is a member of the artist faculty at the Aspen Music Festival which I have attended regularly for many years. I have, however, never heard him in a recital of his own. It has primarily been in his role as a collaborative artist in chamber music or accompanying instrumentalists and singers that I've heard him. I can assert that he is one of the finest chamber pianists I've had the pleasure of hearing, though, and well remember also an early Beethoven piano sonata that I heard him play beautifully. A native of South Africa (and a recently naturalized American citizen) he is the chair of the piano department at the University of Texas. It was with great anticipation that I opened this Artek CD of a program in which Nel plays Mozart's A Major sonata, K331; Sibelius's Romance in D Flat, Op. 24, No. 9; Granados' Allegro de Concierto; Debussy's Estampes; and Schubert's Wanderer Fantasy in C Major, D. 760.



One immediately notices in the first few moments of the Mozart sonata the unfailingly beautiful tone Nel produces. [Some credit must be given to the piano itself and its technicians in Austin, Texas, where the recital was recorded. As well credit goes to the recording engineers, Francisco and Alex Rodriguez.] The first thought that ran through my mind on hearing the opening notes of the Mozart was that it sounded like the playing of Murray Perahia, no small compliment. This is due, no doubt, to Nel's rounded tone, impeccable legato, unfailingly musical phrasing, and his ability to let the music seem to speak for its self - the art that conceals art. This sonata is, of course, one that many beginning piano students learn and thus it tends sometimes to be dismissed as 'easy Mozart' -- I well remember a famous recording of President Harry Truman playing the opening bars of the first movement -- but great artists like Mitsuko Uchida, Alicia de Larrocha and Maria João Pires, among others, have disabused us of that idea. Nel's gentle and exceedingly musical performance deserves to join their number.



I will admit that I don't recall ever hearing the Sibelius Romance. Only 3 1/2 minutes long, it has a languorously beautiful first theme, a restless and virtuosic middle section. Nel plays it gorgeously; his tone in the slow section is songful and preserves the long line inherent in the long main theme, and in the dramatic middle section his tone takes on a brilliance that can only be accounted for by an adjustment in his tone production.



Granados' Allegro de Concierto was a staple of de Larrocha's and I must give the edge to her for the éclat of her performance currently still available on the RCA CD that also contains her Goyescas. However, Nel's take is just a bit more pastoral and delicate and that is a valid approach.



Nel's Debussy is excellent. The three pieces (Pagodes, La Soirée dans Grenade, Jardins sous la pluie) are played with maximum poetry and perfume, and yet this is masculine Debussy with no bending and distorting the musical line nor faintness of sound production. And he doesn't overpedal as some do.



The glory of this recital, though, is the Wanderer Fantasy of Schubert. If one had any concerns about Nel's technique they certainly vanish here in this bear of a piece. This is, though, less a barn-burner of a performance (like, say, that of Richter) and more attuned to the poetry of the music; his un-virtuosic-seeming approach allows the music, in its own time, to display its many beauties. His performance reminds me of the classic Pollini recording and has the advantage of exquisite piano tone and recorded sound.



This CD is a winner. Not only is Anton Nel a magnificent pianist whose musicianly instincts coupled with technique allow him to carry them out, the recorded sound is of demonstration quality.



Strongly recommended.



Scott Morrison"