Last December (page 1138) Barrymore Laurence Scherer reported on the ''furore'' created by Kissin's New York debut recital. The concert took place in Carnegie Hall on September 30th, ten days before Kissin's nineteenth birthday, and RCA have moved fairly smartly to get it released. No wonder, for the quality of the playing is outstanding, confirming that what we have here is no mere Wunderkind but an established artist of the first order.
I am told that a patching-up session was arranged shortly after the recital to eliminate some fluffs. But I cannot say that I would have guessed it—certainly I was never bothered by intrusive edits, and the sense of a live occasion remains constant. On the other hand, compared with the 1987 Tokyo recital I reviewed in November (on Sony Classical (CD) CD45931), Kissin does take fewer risks. His playing is that bit more finished, and his romantic repertoire is noticeably more mature; but by the same token he is slightly less prepared to abandon himself to the excitement of the moment. Both recitals are very closely miked, incidentally; if anything there is even less ambience in the RCA. But with playing of this range of colour and attack I am coming round to the view that such closeness is a positive bonus.
The start of the Carnegie Hall programme is wonderfully beguiling. Kissin addresses each phrase of Schumann's Abegg theme with warmth and understanding, in response to the concealed conversational tone. And in the variations he displays not just brilliant fingerwork but empathy with the flow of Schumann's enthusiasm and poetry—the finale opens with a touching moment of regret that the whole episode is drawing to a close.
Marginally less satisfying are the Etudes symphoniques. Perhaps it is just that there have been more fine accounts of this cycle than of the Variations, but I get a certain impression of Kissin consciously establishing himself as a force to be reckoned with, rather than letting the music flow through him. I should stress that everything is wonderfully well shaped, beautifully blended in tone and spacious even at extremes of dynamic and tempo. It has the feeling of a great interpretation in the making, but I enter my small general reservation in order to guard against unrealistic expectations.
Perhaps most pleasing of all to anyone following Kissin's career closely is the steady blossoming of his Liszt and Chopin playing. The balance between temperament and technique is much more confidently struck in the Waltz and the Etude here than it was three years previously in the F sharp minor Polonaise and La leggierezza, while the Liebestraum and Widmung radiate glowing tone and nobility of phrasing. Just occasionally in the Rhapsodie espagnole there is a suggestion of passages being nailed down rather than allowed to soar freely—but listen to the playing from about the 6'00'' mark and you will find an irresistible alliance of charm and scintillating dexterity.
The Prokofiev Sonata is essentially the same in concept as before, and I repeat my contention that this is one of the great piano interpretations of our time. The New York performance is slightly tidier and more considered, but also slightly less 'dangerous' and therefore less totally compelling.
The RCA booklet contains an interview with Kissin about the Carnegie Hall programme, and his remarks about the Sonata are very revealing, especially when he relates the central episode of the finale to the Georgian film Repentance (a thinly veiled parable about the Stalin dictatorship, made just before the advent of glasnost). Here is one clue to the originality of Kissin's interpretation. I must say though that I feel uneasy when I read critics encouraging him towards 'originality'. Originality applied from the outside will nourish neither him nor his audiences. Originality from within comes from a profoundly elusive harmony between the composer's spirit, the performer's developing personality, and the spiritual needs of audiences; each of these is of course intangible and variable—hence the infinite variability of 'great' performances—but Kissin's remarks about the Prokofiev Sonata indicate one way in which the three-way harmony may be helped into being.
Originality of this kind cannot be willed into existence, but provided the channels do not become blocked by the obvious perils of the modern Career (among which are adulation and the reaction against such adulation), there is no reason why a musician as phenomenally gifted as Kissin should not fulfil everyone's high hopes of him. And if there is any doubt about those phenomenal gifts, let them be stilled by his fourth encore, the Prokofiev Etude—an extraordinary display which rightly brings the loudest cheers from the Carnegie Hall audience.'