WRESTLING WITH Mozart
British pianist’s quest to make his instrument sing as the composer desired brings him to Toronto
English pianist Christian Blackshaw has spent much of his life looking for the elusive magic that turns the little black dots on sheet music into the stuff that enchants the heart.
As a young player starting out in the early 1970s, his curiosity took him to the seemingly impenetrable Soviet Union, which had produced legendary pianists such as Emil Gilels and Sviatoslav Richter. Nearly five decades later, Blackshaw is still hot on the heels of musical magic.
He has something to show for it, including a recorded set of Mozart’s piano sonatas performed live at London’s famed Wigmore Hall. Those recordings have, over the past half-decade, become prized among Mozart fans.
The consensus among fans and critics is that Blackshaw produces a particularly polished yet lively sound; his is not a household name, but it deserves to be.
Blackshaw hasn’t even performed in Toronto since the 1980s, when he was called in to substitute for Christian Zimmerman in a solo recital at the St Lawrence Centre in the 1980s.
Now, he is back for an afternoon recital at Walter Hall on March 17 for Mooredale Concerts’ 30th anniversary season. The program features two Mozart sonatas — B-flat Major, K. 333and A minor, K. 310 — as well as Robert Schumann’s emotion-filled Fantasie in C Major, Op. 17.
Blackshaw can’t say enough about Mozart. “I’ve always tried to fathom what is his universal appeal and I’m still trying to find out,” he says.
“I feel him to be a universally vocal composer rather than necessarily an instrumental or orchestral composer. All his music is written, I believe, with the human voice in mind. That is why he is especially difficult to perform at what is a percussive instrument, the piano. To make his lines sing is the ultimate challenge and that’s what I’ve wrestled with for a lot of my life.”
The pianist sees Mozart’s relationship to the high-definition romanticism in the Schumann Fantasie through song, as the composer pours out love and long- ing for Clara, the woman who would become his wife.
“Isn’t it wonderful that the next year he burst into song, literally?” Blackshaw says, noting the composer turned his hand to writing art song.
I ask Blackshaw if he can pinpoint what it is that separates a fine piano recital from a great one. He speaks of finding a balance between practice and spontaneity, and between technique and expression. Each informs the other but, ultimately, the music has to emerge with a sense of freedom from the stage.
“That sense of freedom is one of the most elusive things for a performer,” he explains.
Blackshaw also works hard at the quality of the sound itself, which begins with the connection between the fingers and each piano key. It’s a connection that only gets better through searching.
“The great thing that many artists have in common is a never-ending quest and wonder,” Blackshaw says. Visit mooredaleconcerts.com for full concert details. Classical music writer John Terauds is a freelance contributor for the Star, based in Toronto. He is supported by the Rubin Institute for Music Criticism, San Francisco Conservatory of Music and Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation. Follow him on Twitter @JohnTerauds