Corrections or additions?
This article by Elaine Strauss was published
in U.S. 1 Newspaper on February 18, 1998. All rights reserved.
The Literal Long-Haired Musician
Consider these credentials: A son of two university
professors studies piano, violin, and conducting. He is the first
student in the history of Baltimore’s Peabody Conservatory to receive
diplomas in all three areas of concentration. He wins the Naumburg
International Piano Competition, and tops that honor by being awarded
an Avery Fisher Career Grant. A pianist who looks for repertoire
chiefly
among Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms, he hasn’t gotten around to
20th-century
music yet, and he has no interest at all in popular music. This is
clearly a long-haired musician. But this man’s long hair is in the
form of dreadlocks.
The unconventional artist is pianist Awagadin Pratt, who gives a
recital
at McCarter Theater Monday, February 23, at 8 p.m. He’ll play his
own version of a Bach Passacaglia and Fugue, Brahms’ "Variations
on a Theme by Handel," and Mussorgsky’s "Pictures at an
Exhibition."
This is a monumental program for any artist.
Pratt’s concert appearance is unusual in every way. Besides sporting
dreadlocks, he eschews the traditional tuxedo. A tall man, he sits,
spider-like, on a stool 14 inches high that brings his knees close
to his chin and his nose in close proximity to the keyboard. If you’re
not comfortable with unconventional sights, one listener has
suggested,
"it’s better not to look."
When Pratt won the Naumburg Prize in 1992, he was the first
African-American
to do so. When he signed an exclusive recording contract with
Angel/EMI
a year later, he was one of the first black instrumentalists since
Andre Watts to capture a major label recording contract. Pratt says
he doesn’t think about his achievements in terms of his being black.
"But," he adds, "I’m not ignorant of the
implications."
The cover art for Pratt’s second recording for EMI, four Beethoven
sonatas, shows him in what looks like African tribal dress, with a
grand piano, lid up, in the midst of a savanna. The selections consist
of two early Beethoven sonatas, and two of Beethoven’s formidable
final three sonatas. The choice of pieces is bold and imaginative,
demonstrating both the genesis and the culmination of Beethoven’s
unprecedented writing for the piano.
Pratt’s sound on the CD recording has a unique spectrum. Its clarity,
in places, suggests Canadian Glenn Gould as a model. Besides a pearly,
Gould-like touch, Pratt has a gift for telling pauses and delicate
shadings. His playing can be meltingly tender and sensitive. What’s
missing is a cushioned sound and a sense of spaciousness.
I attribute Pratt’s lack of roundness to his sitting so low that his
fingers have to do the bulk of the work. Ordinary mechanical
principles
necessarily apply to playing the piano. For a large and luscious sound
the weight of the player’s arm must join in. Without arm weight, the
piano produces only the pings and tinklings that make detractors
consider
the piano a percussion instrument. The arm can be used to nuance the
system of levers that make a piano function. The approach works.
It would be nice if Pratt would add a large and gentle sound to his
battery of tricks. In any event, it will still be worth heading to
McCarter to hear this very gifted musician play the instrument his
way.
— Elaine Strauss
Place, 609-683-8000. $22 & $25. Monday, February 23, 8 p.m.
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This page is published by PrincetonInfo.com
— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.
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