Beijing, Forbidden City Concert Hall, a couple of hours before the concert, August 4, 2014. Here is Brian Becrofts article, Aug 25, 2014, NZ, Reflections on a great musician: I heard Rami play the Busoni and Appassionata and his own Rhapsody in Blue and White in different venues. This choice of program especially in the first half is designed to create a monumental impression on the audience with the three long and substantial works. One characteristic of Ramis playing is the ability to match technique with musical genre. In a quite clever way we see here in his recital programming psychology an ability to communicate the musically big statements spanning 1600s-21st century. We have his Bach personified via the apex of the late post-romantic era in Busoni as he encourages the piano to its full note potential. An added build to the audience mind occurs when Rami speaks to the music he is about to play. In a masterful coup - (please note that the word coup used advisedly here is not the usual a sudden, violent, and illegal seizure of power from a government although this could be said about Ramis artistic takeover of the audiences musical mind - BUT the more complementary alternative dictum: an instance of successfully achieving something difficult.) - he speaks to the claim of Busoni, who attempts to create the grandeur of the large hall organ with arms and feet and twenty digits like a master magician with the piano only. So this is the canvas Rami Bar-Niv, pianist extraordinaire, in an almost beguiling ingenuous way niavely suggests he will attempt this heroic expedition! So in the first composition of his recital series he plays the epic Busoni BWV 564 - the Toccata, Adagio and Fugue on Piano. In lesser hands this would be a brash and calculated farce, especially given the two subsequent pieces in the recital first half. It is apparent that Bar-Niv is actually presenting here not as an exploring young pianist developing persona gracia but as an experienced colourist. He clearly speaks through the musical Regency of JS Bachs musical ideas and thus establishing credentials in 21st century pianistic terms, a veritable hello statement of an elder statesman of the piano and its illustrous traditions and assumed audience of similar pedigree... Why do I say this? Because I believe that by his choice of programming, he rises above mere pianism, he presents a tour de force - A feat demonstrating brilliance and mastery, the collective power of Bach, Busoni, Beethoven, Bar-niv, like any great pianist he is not a pianist, but a man, a musician who wears his heart on his sleeve. He who programs such serious works is making a statement of his life and culture, in particular Israeli culture and it could not be any other way. He speaks in his inimitable way, as a measure of what I am trying to convey, try saying it another way - so good or unusual as to be impossible to copy... When you hear how he has woven the Israeli folk songs and the National Anthem into a forging of national identity. The musical scope is primeval and raw - based on note cluster effects, primal and at times even savage, then the emotional theme continually returns on cresendos of articulated arpeggiated bass which creates an impression of an ocean of waves expressing the rising and falling of a profound Lament of the Israeli nation and peoples in a turbulent Middle-East setting. The juxtaposition of Beethovens Sonata Appassionata, represents everything that could be said of Mr Bar-nivs nation and situation in the world context that Beethoven clothed his piano sounds with, the idea of personal identity, freedom of the human spirit, at times, overwhelming forces, power and responsibility, also not the least, the exquisite expression of the human spirit. The trilogy of compositions placed the whole gamut of human experience before us in confidant assertive terms. Such is the conception, the big picture inherent in Ramis style of playing piano, to use sounds and notes to express ideas; a wide picture. In the second half of his concerts Rami showed us his delight and funful character, with his own compositions, the Rags, bathed in an eloquent golden-glow style of playing, quoting in a masquerade of masks... and a two-step to his three-step... and a ...!! always ready to laugh and mime in a musical characterisation which I believe is his musical forte, always the hallmark of a composer pianist. His understanding of Rhythm, Rubato, Inner voicing, Dynamic clip, shows as an organic expression of purpose. This is not a young musician; this is a mature expression of a golden life of musical culture. No distant musician here. Rather a closely engaged emotional man of purpose and directness, warm-heartedness, but a serious man with knowledge of every Caprice of the human condition.
Posted on: Sun, 31 Aug 2014 08:27:51 +0000
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