Mozart – Debussy: Menahem Pressler-Paavo Jarvi

   in Piano International (Mar, 2015)
The German-born Israeli-American pianist Menahem Pressler (born 1923) played for 53 years with the Beaux Arts Trio and has taught at Indiana University since 1955. He approaches notes subtly, like a string player, or as the French cellist Paul Tortelier told him: ‘You are a pianist who plays with a bow arm.’ As concerto soloist, Pressler listens as attentively and co-operatively to orchestral musicians as any conductor, rather than with the adversarial stance of other pianists. Paavo Jarvi leads a blunt, generic and overemphatic orchestra (the Orchestre de Lille and Ensemble Orchestral are France’s chief Mozartian groups), redeemed by Pressler’s tenderly intimate playing and admirably limber wit.

The Adagio of the …