To speak of Krystian Zimerman's mastery of the piano is to overlook the rare feeling of equality that exists between him and his instrument. There was hardly a sound in this recital that gave the impression of not having been thought through in the minutest detail, voicing and timbre calculated with loving precision. The audience had a demonstration of the seriousness with which Zimerman treats his instrument when, after the opening Bach (his Partita No. 2 in C minor), the whole mechanism of keys and hammers was swapped over as we jumped forward a century to Beethoven's Sonata Op.111; throughout the concert, pianist directed the audience's enthusiastic applause towards piano and, by extension, the instrument's hard-working technician.
The adjustments for the Bach made for a piano sound that was at once crystalline and sweet, albeit at the expense of power. The clarity of Zimerman's fingerwork was to be expected but the effortless control of dynamics and sonority at times took the breath away. Long passages would rattle along at a pianissimo reminiscent of the flute stops on an organ, with no reduction in projection. We were able, in the faster movements, to take delight in the music's mechanical ingenuity without any loss of musical line or feeling of note-spinning and Zimerman's dreamy, meandering way in the 'Sarabande' was beguiling enough to banish any questions of authenticity.
The supreme refinement of Zimerman's approach seemed initially less suited to Beethoven's final sonata, one of his most experimental, even perplexing, works. A couple of minor smudges at the opening were all the more noticeable given the flawless nature of the playing throughout the rest of the concert, and seemed to reflect the fact that the pianist needed a minute or two to reposition himself in a world of more direct musical rhetoric. He did, however, manage to whip up considerable drama and was particularly fine in the development's contrapuntal experiments. In Zimerman's hands, though, it was the astonishing second movement that was revelatory. Seeing it primarily as an experiment in sonority and pianistic texture, Zimerman's performance was not only a masterclass in intelligent, thoughtful pianism, it was a reading whose objective beauty seemed to suit perfectly the abstract nature of Beethoven's late style.
Brahms's Klavierstücke Op.119 might be his final published works for piano, but Zimerman's performance emphasised the still strong influence of Schumann in the three 'Intermezzi', coaxing a wonderful array of sounds from the instrument in performances of immense subtlety. The scherzo-like third was miraculously light and mercurial but in the final 'Rhapsody', Zimerman let rip with some imperious and undeniably Brahmsian and full-blooded playing. He never resorted to bombast, though, and the power was still tempered with delicately controlled, sparkling arpeggio interjections.
Resisting the draw of his more famous compatriot, Chopin, Zimerman dusted off an early work by Karol Szymanowski to finish off with, his Variations on a Polish Theme Op.10. Started before the composer was out of his teens, it's a substantial piece of considerable cumulative power and ties in with the composer's contemporary nationalist leanings. It's hard to imagine better advocacy than it received here. Not surprisingly, Zimerman made the most of the varied pianistic effects and textures the composer creates, in the shimmering seventh variation in particular. However, the eighth variation's funeral march was also allowed to build up with powerfully regulated intensity and the long final variation was despatched with blistering virtuosity.
Some might scoff at the fact that Zimerman limits himself to 'just' fifty concerts or wonder whether what his biography calls 'a comprehensive approach to the musical profession… studying hall acoustics, the latest sound technology and instrument construction' is not the sign of a control freak. It might well be, but this concert showed how the approach can bring unparalleled results in performance. Zimerman's achievement is that all the care and attention is apparent but here it was never self-serving, never at the expense of spontaneity or musicality. His decision to refuse an encore also commanded respect: the audience did not need any more evidence of why Zimerman is a great pianist.
By Hugo Shirley