Page 238 - Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Coverage Book 2023-24

would it also bring out the music’s unsuspected lyricism and poetic strangeness? Some of his
performances at the Wigmore in recent years have been forbiddingly dry. The bon viveur side of
Schiff, who revels in sensuous harmonies and dancing rhythms has been occluded by the grump
who sees signs of cultural decline everywhere.
Last night the loveable side of Schiff came roaring back. There was no reverent “let’s pay homage
to a masterpiece” furrowing of the brow. He just plunged straight in to each fugue with an
engaging no-nonsense quality, taking care to highlight the innumerable recurrences of that all-
important idea, which was often buried deep in a tangle of notes. But Schiff wasn’t pedantic about
this, and if he was more attracted to the naive pictorialism of cuckoo-calls, or the mysterious
shimmer of a harmonic sequence, he would highlight those instead.

But what really held us on the edge of our seats was the sheer concentration of Schiff’s
performances (and of pianist Schaghajegh Nosrati, who briefly joined Schiff for the scampering
‘mirror’ fugue which needs four hands). That energy was especially thrilling at each fugue’s ending,
where all the preceding complication was gathered up and flung angrily at the final chord. It
revealed the demon lurking in that white-haired, soberly suited figure – and in Bach himself.

In the final fugue the spiral of increasing complexity reached its dizziest height, in playing of
perfect limpid clarity. Then without warning Schiff simply stopped, without any emphasis or false
pathos, at the point where Bach’s manuscript ends. The long silence from the packed audience felt
like a small slice of eternity. IH

Simon Rattle conducting the LSO CREDIT: Mark Allan

London Symphony Orchestra/ Barbican ★★★★☆

It’s an occupational hazard for a serious composer to find that his or her brand-new piece has to
compete with a popular favourite. The subtly crafted work on which they laboured so hard could
all too easily be put in the shade by a bunch of catchy melodies jammed together any old how.