Beginning with Beethoven

Sep 24

By Glenn Pillsbury
Special to The Record
September 24, 2009 12:01 AM

One of the powers of music is the ability to shape the way we respond to visual stimuli, for instance the way movie music calls us to get out a hankie or nervously grip the armrest. This power of association can also be connected to geo-political circumstances, as Israeli pianist Alon Goldstein experienced last month in Jerusalem.

Walking onstage at a recital at the Brigham Young University Jerusalem Center, on the Mount of Olives, which overlooks the city, Goldstein was struck by the packed audience on his right and the inspirational sunset view of ancient Jerusalem to his left.

"I was starting with Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert, etc., and suddenly it came to my mind that I can't start with Beethoven - it's too confrontational," said Goldstein. "I have to start with the Bach, 'Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring.'


"I have this very inspiring site," he remembers of his impromptu program change, "but at the same time it's such an intense and controversial site, and it felt much more in tune to start with the Bach."

Goldstein, who has been in Stockton the past week as part of the Stockton Symphony's Beethoven Festival, performs Beethoven's "Piano Concerto No. 5," popularly known as the "Emperor" concerto, when the orchestra officially opens its 83rd season tonight.

The program will also feature Ibert's "Escales," Ravel's "Pavane pour une infante défunte," and Gershwin's "An American in Paris." Marking his 15th year at the podium of the symphony, Peter Jaffe conducts.

Born in 1970, Goldstein's musical training began at age 7. "Israel is kind of a miracle country, being a desert, but you get so many opportunities and so much attention," he said. "It's interesting that the two things which are so difficult to attain in America, which are education and health care, both things are free in Israel."

While studying piano at Tel Aviv University, Goldstein, like all Israeli citizens, served in the Israeli Defense Forces. His mandatory military service was never in doubt, he said, but was a way for him to give back, even though he worked in an office.

"The army was just a way to say 'thank you' to a country you grew up in," said Goldstein, who is a naturalized American citizen.

After a successful career in Israel, Goldstein studied with legendary pianist Leon Fleisher at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore. From there, his international career took off while his relationship with the masterworks of the piano repertoire, especially those by Beethoven, deepened.

"With Beethoven it's always a rollercoaster: Sit down, hold tight. He's not necessarily the nicest person, but he conveys so many emotions which are tangible," said Goldstein of the "Emperor" concerto. "There's so much we can see of ourselves in the music."

Indeed, the concerto, written in 1807, represents for Goldstein the beginning of a great flowering of the piano as the central instrument of classical music. "It's an incredible celebration of the instrument," Goldstein explained, one in which Beethoven seems to be saying to later composers, " 'Here is the instrument, and this is what it can do. Now it's your turn.'

"This (concerto) is the instrument at its grandest, at its richest," said Goldstein.

Yet, his relationship to classical music, and his relationship to the past masters, is more complex. He maintains an avid interest in programming new music and especially new music by Israeli composers.

One young Israeli composer who has benefited from Goldstein's publicity is Avner Dorman, who wrote a piano sonata for Goldstein several years ago. The two musicians have paired up again for Dorman's new piano concerto, a work titled "Lost Souls."

Goldstein describes the new work, which he will premiere in November with the Kansas City Symphony, as exploring the 19th century piano concerto genre from the standpoint of a cosmopolitan 21st century musical landscape, with the soloist representing the lost souls of the concerto genre itself.

In his notes about the new concerto, Dorman describes how Goldstein not only plays 19th century music but seems to be from that era personally. It is a characterization with which Goldstein quite comfortably agrees.

"If you want to make me really, really happy," he said, "just give me a phrase of Schubert or Mozart, or a phrase of Beethoven, and I'll sit in my unreal world." His wife prefers to think of that nostalgia as his "bubble," which is also fine with him.

"If this is reality, I might as well live in my bubble, or in the 19th century, or in the Beethoven 'Emperor' concerto," he said.

Contact Glenn Pillsbury at features@recordnet.com. 

Concert preview
Stockton Symphony featuring Alon Goldstein

When: 8 p.m. today; 6 p.m. Saturday

Where: Atherton Auditorium, Delta College, 5151 Pacific Ave., Stockton

Information: (209) 209-951-0196; stocktonsymphony.org 

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