Concert Review: Peter Frankl (Chopin Society)

Concert Review: Peter Frankl (Chopin Society)

October 15, CH
Joy of Music Festival
Chopin and Schumann

Biography
Peter Frankl made his name on the international circuit as a young pianist in the 1960s and, since that time, he has appeared with the conductors Abbado, Ashkenazy, Barbirolli, Blomstedt, Boulez, Chailly, Davis, Doráti, Fischer, Haitink, Kempe, Kertész, Leinsdorf, Maazel, Masur, Muti, Sanderling, Solti, Szell, among others.

Following his London debut in 1962 and his New York debut with the Cleveland Orchestra, he has been performing with many orchestras in the USA (Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, Washington, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Pittsburg etc), the Berlin Philharmonic, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Orchestre de Paris, Israel Philharmonic, all London orchestras and many others in Europe. He has also toured Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, playing with orchestras, in recitals and also in chamber music concerts. He has appeared over twenty times at London’s BBC Promenade Concerts and has been a regular participant at the Edinburgh, Cheltenham, Aldeburgh, Verbier and Kuhmo Festivals. Among the highlights of his many Edinburgh Festival appearances were his performance of the Britten Concerto under the baton of the composer and the opening televised concert with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Muti. He was the soloist at the Enescu Festival in Bucharest with the Budapest Festival Orchestra at one of the last concerts Yehudi Menuhin ever conducted.

In the USA, Peter Frankl has been regular guest–artist at the summer festivals in Aspen, Chautauqua, Hollywood Bowl, Marlboro, Norfolk, Ravinia and Santa Fé and he often performs with well-known artists, such as Kyung Wha Chung, Ralph Kirshbaum, András Schiff, Tamás Vásáry and many string quartets like the Amadeus, Bartók, Borodin, Fine Arts, Guarneri, Lindsay, Panocha, Takács, Tokyo and Vermeer. He has given master classes all over the world, including the Royal Academy and Royal College in London, Liszt Academy in Budapest and the Van Cliburn Institute in Texas.

Peter Frankl’s discography is very wide-ranging: in addition to his recordings of the complete piano works by Schumann and Debussy, he has also recorded solo works by Chopin, Schubert, Beethoven, Bartok and other Hungarian composers, piano concerti by Mozart, Brahms, Mendelssohn, Schumann and Chopin and chamber works by Mozart, Brahms, Schubert, Schumann, Dvorak, Dohnanyi, Martinu and Bartok.

Peter Frankl studied at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest with Professors Hernádi, Kodály, Weiner and won first prizes at several international competitions. He lives in London and is visiting professor at Yale University in the USA.

His 70th birthday this year was marked with special concerts in the USA and in Europe and in Hungary he was given one of the highest civilian awards by the Hungarian Republic for his lifetime artistic achievement in the world of music.

Frankl and Vox
When I started collecting records in the 70's, I bought quite a few budget records, Odyssey (Columbia), Seraphim (EMI), Stereo Treasury (London) and, of course, Vox. Like what Naxos is doing now, Vox was the first budget label that aimed to record complete works of major composers as well as little known pieces of obscure composers, all performed by promising but then unknown young musicians. Alfred Brendel, Wlater Klien and Peter Frankl were three concentrating on the Austro-Germanic repertoire. Upon the recommendation of music magazines I bought a couple of volumes of Peter Frankl's complete Schumann on Vox, now unfortunately available only in (MP3) downloads (also his Debussy). Despite many alternate versions later, I had lived with Frankl's versions for years and they remain among favorites.

The Concert
When I saw the combination of Peter Frankl and Schumann I knew I had to attend. Apparently he had appeared before with the Society but I had missed it. A juror in Chopin Society's piano competition, on Friday night he played the same program in Shanghai. Peter Frankl has always been low-keyed; his under-stated style can be glimpsed from his sparsely populated website.

And what exceptional Schumann! In his mid-seventies, Frankl still possesses excellent technique and control over the keyboard. Not one to play to the gallery even in his youth, Frankl honed his technique on producing utterly refined pianism in the Fantasiestucke and Faschingswank aus Wien. In his subtle amalgamation of rhythmic felicities and a colorful palette, one can hear decades spent with this music. Many younger pianists eager to show off their virtuosity often hit harder and bend the music out of proportion; in doing so they also impart impatience and awkwardness in the frequent gear changes. Frankl has long surmounted these considerable difficulties. The smoothness of his playing belies hard work and profound understanding of the music. Beneath all this burned an inner glow that kept the opposing elements in fine balance.

Frankl played Chopin with much the same sophistication. Rhythmic figures, as in the Polonaise in C sharp minor, Op26/1, were not stamped out, but articulated. Two Nocturnes of Op 55 were much less dreamy than we usually encounter. Best of all of were a finely differentiated set of Four Impromptus and a staggeringly evocative Scherzo No. 1, which closed each half.

The joy of music!