Arts & Events

New: A dazzling display of piano artistry by Saleem Ashkar

Reviewed by James Roy MacBean
Tuesday April 25, 2017 - 10:17:00 AM

There are so many young instrumental soloists endowed with prodigious technique breaking into the international concert circuit these days that it’s hard to keep up. Where concert pianists are concerned, the New Yorker recently ran rave pieces about Yuja Wang and Daniil Trifonov, two of the most heralded young artists currently making a big splash. On Friday evening, April 21, U.C. Berkeley’s Hertz Hall hosted a recital by another illustrious newcomer, Palestinian-Israeli pianist Saleem Ashkar, who performed four piano sonatas by Ludwig van Beethoven. Ashkar made his Carnegie Hall debut a few years ago at age 22, and since then he has performed with conductors such as Zubin Mehta, Daniel Barenboim, Riccardo Muti, Ricardo Chailly, and Fabio Luisi, to name only a few. Ashkar’s current project is a complete Beethoven sonata cycle presented by Konzerthaus Berlin and performed in parallel in Prague, Osnabrück, and Israel. Here at Hertz Hall, under the auspices of Cal Performances, Ashkar performed Beethoven’s Sonata No. 7 in D Major, Op. 10, No. 3; Sonata No. 23 in F minor, Op. 57, Appassionata; Sonata No. 26 in E-flat Major, Op. 81a, Les Adieux; and Sonata No. 31 in A-flat Major, Op. 110.  

This was a well-chosen program featuring works from Beethoven’s early, middle, late, and very late periods. Playing these works in chronological order, Ashkar gave us a glimpse of how Beethoven’s musical style developed and expanded over time. First on the program was Sonata No. 7 in D Major, Op. 10, No. 3, which replaced the listed item, Sonata No. 6 in F Major, Op. 10, No. 2. The switch was fortuitous, for the third of Beethoven’s Op. 10 sonatas is generally considered the most interesting and probing of the three. Its opening movement, expertly played by Saleem Ashkar, was a Presto full of changes in dynamics and much cross-hand passage work. Then came the elegant and somber Largo e mesto, a melancholy movement with achingly beautiful melodies. The third movement, a Menuetto, was a lively and captivating piece in the hands of Saleem Ashkar. The final movement, a Rondo, brought this sonata to an elegant close. 

Next on the program was the Appassionata Sonata. This sonata may or may not have been inspired by Beethoven’s romantic interest in one or the other of two sisters, Therese and Josephine von Brunswick, though Beethoven vacillated between the two and never got very far with either. But the Appassionata sonata is indeed an impassioned work of music. As usual, Beethoven threw his libidinal passions into his music. The Appassionata Sonata is in three movements, fast, slow, fast. The tone is tragic throughout, with hardly a hint of positive affirmation. The first and last movements are massive sonata-form essays, and the middle movement is a brief set of variations seemingly intent on making time stand still. Saleem Ashkar’s tone throughout the Appassionata was fulsome to say the least. His technique was in prodigious display. The Appassionata has always struck me as perhaps too much of one thing – it’s all passion, but a blind, all-consuming passion bound to fail. Yet in the hands of Saleem Ashkar a fine case was made for this impassioned piano sonata.  

After intermission Saleem Ashkar played Sonata No. 26 in E-flat Major, Op. 81a, Les Adieux. In this work Ashkar ably displayed his delicate and cheerful side, as he brought out Beethoven’s positive and heartfelt feelings for his young 20-year-old patron and student, Archduke Rudolph, on the occasion in 1809 when the advancing Napoleonic forces were moving on Vienna and obliging the Archduke to flee to safety. A work in three movements, whose titles are given in French as Les Adieux, L’Absence, and Le Retour, this sonata opens ominously, then quickly breaks into a melody of fond farewell, whose first three notes seemingly echo the three syllables of the French title Les Adieux. The middle movement is an Andante espressivo, full of touching chromaticisms. The third and final movement marks the happy return of the Archduke when the danger has passed. Saleem Ashkar navigated the changing moods of this wonderful sonata in exquisite fashion, leaving no doubt, if ever there was one, as to whether this was a pianist who was all technique but devoid of sensitivity. Quite the contrary, Saleem Ashkar brings a very high level of sensitivity along with his prodigious technique. 

These two qualities were also much in evidence in Ashkar’s performance of this program’s final work, the Sonata No. 31 in A-flat Major, Op. 110. Composed in 1822, this work is considered one of the towering peaks of piano literature. By this late date in Beethoven’s career, the composer seems to have found the complete fusion of sonata, variation, and fugue that were to mark his last great works. There is a serene vision at play here, a vision of unity rather than contrast and struggle. The opening movement, marked Moderato cantabile, is sunny throughout. Likewise with the second movement, an Allegro molto. The Adagio begins with a delicate Arioso dolente, then transitions to what is without a doubt Beethoven’s sunniest fugue. Here there is no storm and stress as in the Hammerklavier Sonata or Die Grosse Fugue. Here there is a crystalline melody developed in fugal form, with elements of the opening Arioso dolente interspersed between two sections of the fugal finale. Saleem Ashkar brought an equally brilliant amount of sensitivity and technical expertise to the finale of this great Sonata No. 31 in A-flat Major, Op. 110. Playing the entire concert from memory, Saleem Ashkar put on a dazzling display of piano artistry. I came away convinced that in Saleem Ashkar we have yet another splendid young concert artist who will make waves for many years to come on the international music scene.