This week our guest soloist with the orchestra has been the legendary pianist Andre Watts. Watts is one of the true legends of the piano worldwide, but especially so in America. He made his national debut with Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic at the age of 16 on the nationally broadcast Young Peoples’ Concerts. This took place just a couple weeks after he made
his New York Philharmonic debut replacing the ailing Glenn Gould, also with Leonard Bernstein conducting. He studied with the great Leon Fleischer at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore (who still teaches there to this day!), and went on to have an incredibly successful career around the globe. He continues to concertize and since 2004 has held the Jack I. and Dora B. Hamlin Endowed Chair in Music at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University.
I remember the first time I heard Mr. Watts play with the Oregon Symphony. I believe it was my first year in the orchestra, though I don’t remember what he played (though it could have been the Beethoven ‘Emperor’ concerto that he played this weekend). What I do remember was the power, charisma, and artistry that he brought to his performance. In addition, there was incredible accuracy – not a note out of place – he sounded every bit secure as the young lions nipping at his heels.
This time around, the accuracy has diminished. Tempos are a bit slower, some of the finger-twisting accompanying lines that Beethoven delights in are not as clean as they once were, and his loudest dynamics approach clangor instead of the rich, full-bodied, effortless fortissimos that I remember from 16 years ago. But the artistry still remains. In spite (or perhaps because) of these struggles, his sense of musical line is undiminished, and the ultimate picture of his performances has been of an almost heroic transcendance of the physical effort of playing the notes, leaving behind an interpretation that is more than the sum of its parts.
I wish that we didn’t hold our heroes up to the same standards through their entire careers. The music business quickly discards those who no longer produce recording-ready live performances as yesterday’s trash. In doing so we lose the artistry that years of touring and practice have honed to a fine edge. So I cherish the slow movement of the Emperor very much, hearing that way Watts shades the voicings and phrases so delicately, as well as the incredible coda to the finale, which is one of the most satisfying and beautiful that Beethoven would ever write.