When listening to old recordings of pianist György Cziffra, one is transfixed at not only his extraordinary technique, but also his combination of fearlessness and sympathetic awareness of the composer’s most soulful demands. And for much of Cziffra’s career, that composer was Franz Liszt – through the professorial guidance of István Thomán, Liszt’s pupil. If any pianist now is to inhabit that same mix of incredible bravado, lyricism, and the occasional moody Hungarian brooding, it is János Balázs.
Originally scheduled to perform the Grieg Concerto for the last ‘Hommage à Cziffra’ in 2021, as part of the ongoing celebration of Cziffra’s 100th birthday, Balázs instead performed a solo piano recital at the Liszt Academy. The orchestral part of the concert with Concerto Budapest with maestro Gábor Takács-Nagy, was cancelled due to covid’s fourth (and hopefully last) wave.
Balázs’ last-minute program of Beethoven, Chopin, and Liszt, was frankly, not my cup of tea, but I attended anyway, just to hear the quality of his performance. It was broadcast live on Bartók Radio, a fact to remember after you read this review.
I was not disappointed. Balázs employs the keyboard as his physical launching pad, an organic well-spring of gymnastic leaps into powered phrases punctuated with mighty punches on the bass notes. His Beethoven (“Moonlight” Sonata, Op. 27) was muscular and gutsy when it wasn’t dreamy and romantic, a necessary dynamic contrast for any interpreter of that piece. But Balázs also embodied Ludwig’s brawny personality and his take-no-prisoners approach to the keyboard’s potential for a good Geschrei.
Next, a set of four Chopin pieces shared related key colors, so he could make easy segues into everything that followed. His rendition of the E-flat major Waltz, Op. 18, was one of the more sexy and exciting versions I’ve heard, and the C-sharp minor Waltz, Op. 64, was an elegantly executed centerpiece of the group. His next group was a brilliant melding of Liszt’s Sonata Petrarcha 123 and the Schumann-Liszt “Widmung” (Dedication) from the song cycle “Frauen-Liebe und Leben.” As the latter reached its apotheosis, he segued effortlessly into the Wagner-Liszt “Love-Death” from “Tristan und Isolde.” Here, he fueled the love-duet with consistent energy throughout the seemingly endless sequences of chromatic pivot chords that characterize Wagner’s operatic maelstroms.
He lightened up toward the end of the concert with his own arrangement of Puccini’s famous aria “O mio babbino caro,” transforming it into a lively Hollywood-esque entertainment à la 1940. (This reflects what Cziffra loved to do: improvise on famous themes, spiking them with bits of modernity and his own flights of fancy.) Balázs ended his program with Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 6, in which he dispatched the non-stop, rapid-fire octave-work with the same fearlessness as Cziffra tossed off so many times in his career. This finale was so explosive that he was coaxed back by the audience for four encores – the first of which was the Grieg Piano Concerto’s first movement.
For me, pianist Bálazs had not only turned a few war horses into a musically memorable evening of painterly pianistic magic, but proved himself a hero for honoring Cziffra’s legacy with great aplomb as a last-minute substitute for the cancelled symphonic concert. He also earned big points for ignoring an absurd number of beepers and phones (and even a crash of glass bottles) going off in the hall, and graciously wearing his face mask for the whole performance. Cziffra would have been proud.