Barbara Nissman
Prokofiev Lectures
Misperceptions have marked the life of the Russian composer, Sergei
Prokofiev. Musically, politically, and personally, this composer has been
much maligned and misunderstood. Even now at the beginning of the
twenty-first century, his music still defies categorization. We don't know
what to do with him, where to put him. Is he a modernist or a reactionary?
Barbara Nissman celebrated the 50th anniversary of Prokofiev’'s death
during the 2002-2003 and 2003-–2004 seasons with concerts and lectures
devoted to an increased understanding of the man and his music. Nissman
made history in 1989 by becoming the first pianist to perform the complete
Prokofiev piano sonatas in a series of three recitals in both New York and
London. Her recordings of this repertoire represented the first complete set
of Prokofiev Sonatas made available on compact disc, and were recently
released as a three-CD box by Pierian Records, a label devoted to historical
releases.
Known as “the reigning Prokofiev specialist,†Nissman performed his five piano concertos with orchestras throughout the US, Europe, Russia and the Far East during the 2003 anniversary year. She is currently at work on her second book, Prokofiev and the Piano: A Performer's View, to be published by Scarecrow Press.
In the December 2008 issue featuring Prokofiev and his music, BBC Magazine recommended as its choice for Prokofiev's piano music Barbara Nissman's Complete Prokofiev Sonata recordings.
LECTURE RECITALS
An Evening with Barbara & her “Friend†Prokofiev
This program provides an informal introduction to a composer whose music can still make the average listener uncomfortable. Barbara has the gift of making Prokofiev accessible. She brings clarity to his complex pianism.
The Complete Piano Sonatas (3 programs)
These three informal programs encompass all nine piano sonatas and highlight “the "bad boy of music"†as classicist, lyricist, and virtuoso. A separate program is devoted to a discussion of the “War Sonatas.â€
Prokofiev & Liszt
Nicknamed by Poulenc, "the “Russian Liszt,â€" Prokofiev built upon Liszt’'s foundation of pianism. Hearing both these composers side by side makes one realize that Prokofiev provides the continuum for bringing the nineteenth century into the “modern†world.
Prokofiev & Bartók
True to the romantic definition of the individual, these two pianistic giants of the 20th century had the courage to go their own way to speak with a personal voice. Bartók's studies embraced original folk music while Prokofiev's primary interest rested with his own writing. One a disciple of Beethoven, the other more akin to Liszt, both developed their natural talent at the piano, the instrument of their youth where they were free to be their most adventurous.
Prokofiev & the Russians
This program provides an exploration of Prokofiev and his roots, as well as those of his Russian contemporaries. It is important to remember that Prokofiev was a Russian composer, not a product of the Soviet regime like his colleague, Shostakovich. Along with Prokofiev, this program also features music of Stravinsky, Rachmaninoff, Scriabin and Balikirev.
"Prokofiev Meets Gershwin: Gershwin Meets Prokofiev"
The two pianists/composers initially met in Paris in 1928 and then again in New York in 1930. Barbara brings a performer's viewpoint to the discussion and poses the question: who influenced whom?
The Five Piano Concertos
A stylistic journey with the many faces of Prokofiev as seen through his piano concertos. In No. 1, we meet the “bad boy†of the keyboard; No. 2, the Romantic; No. 3, the melodic virtuoso; No. 4, the “prankster†and No. 5 the trapeze artist, always working without a net!
Barbara was just interviewed by Sugi Sorensen at www.prokofiev.org
To read this interview of Barbara's insights into this composer, click here.
Read Barbara's article on the Five Prokofiev Piano Concertos in Three Oranges Journal:
Click Here
Bartók and the Piano: A Performer’s View
by Barbara Nissman
More Reviews
"Barbara Nissman gets very close to the music and to the attentive readerhers is very much the performers viewpoint and Bartók is seen and heard throughout from the piano keyboard. This book is clearly the fruit of long and intensive study of the music but she has also steeped herself in Bartóks voluminous writings. Richly detailed...welcome features include a CD on which the author gives some spruce performances of 80 minutes of the music she discusses so eloquently.
MUSICAL OPINION
"[Nissman] offers the sort of insight that can only come from repeated performances of the music...Bartók and the Piano will undoubtedly find its main readership among pianists preparing this demanding but important repertoire for performance and teachers responsible for guiding students through it, but it also has much to offer to those interested more generally in Bartók. It undoubtedly deserves to become the standard work on its subject."
MUSIC TEACHER
"An excellent addition to the pianist's library."
AMERICAN RECORD GUIDE
"Whether you are a pianist who performs and teaches Béla Bartok's music or simply a lover of piano music, you will find this book a valuable new resource. What makes this book such a treasure-trove are Nissman's insights into the music from a performer's point of view. This book would be an outstanding acquisition for music libraries and is worthy of inclusion in pianists' personal resource collections.
AMERICAN MUSIC TEACHER
"An admirable volume...It is heartwarming to see an accomplished, virtuoso performer such as Barbara Nissman equally at home in the scholarly activity of writing a book. There is an engaging quality to her writing, at times refreshingly colloquial, that will certainly appeal to the proper audiencethat is, to pianists in practice rooms around the world ."
NOTES
Bartók and the Piano is a well-researched edition by pianist Barbara Nissman who presents the composers music in an engaging and informative style.
CLAVIER
"The book teems with music examples .The accompanying CD offers admirable performances by Nissman of 16 titles.of interest to pianists at the learning and teaching levels."
CHOICE
"It always lends a definitive veracity to a book when it is written by an internationally acclaimed concert pianist like Barbara Nissman whos been there, done it; moreso when it shows a keen analytic mind on matters of style, form and structure of Bartóks music. Barbara Nissmans credentials as a Bartók pianist are pedigree. She studied under Hungarian pianist György Sandor, himself a pupil of Bartók. The books sub-title A Performers View, reveals its original purpose as a manual for pianists on how to tackle technical and interpretative aspects of Bartóks piano music. For that purpose the accompanying CD of excerpts played splendidly by Nissman herself is a crucial extra. But whats in it for the music lover? Plenty, provided you can read music, as Nissmans book has copious music examples. For a book covering all Bartóks works and life, my well thumbed Halsey Stevens classic The Life and Music of Béla Bartók is the one I keep returning to. However Nissmans more specialised monograph delves deeper and more thoroughly into some of the piano works. Her coverage is wider and includes the unpublished Piano Sonata of 1898. Also her chapter 11 on Bartók the pianist includes all the piano recordings he made, much of it now restored to CD. This all makes Nissmans book a very different proposition to the Stevens one. As a guide to the piano repertoire its as thorough as one could hope for. Naturally it includes all solo piano works, and all the piano concertos including Bartóks transcription of his Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion into Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra (I heard it performed here by the Kontarsky brothers with the NZSO. It works well). She even fits in little known arrangements such as his piano version of the orchestral Dance Suite. She has briefer notes on all chamber works with piano such as Contrasts and the two sonatas for violin and piano. Rather than discussing works in strict chronological order, she offers a better semi-chronological alternative of grouping them into related chapters. Thats in line with her approach which is not just about fingers, but embraces heart and intellect to guide pianists deeply into the core of each piece. The Mikrokosmos works for instance, youll find tucked into the chapter Bartók as Teacher. Most of his folk-inspired works are in Folk Music, thePerfect Union. Thats the chapter Id kick off with if teaching pianists. Nissmans thorough description of all those tiny key points such as modes, rhythmic patterns, meter, and intervals graphically show pianists and listeners Bartoks essentially East European dialect. Then the next chapter Form and the Sonata shows how the microcosm of Bartóks language is synthesized into the macrocosm of West European form and counterpoint that East-West fusion which makes him the greatest nationalist composer of all time. These sorts of insights reveal the quality of this ebulliently written book and its worth for pianists and music lovers alike."
Ian Dando, New Zealand Listener.
"Her imposing book on Bartók's piano music confirms Barbara Nissman's communicative skills in words as at the keyboard (the book includes a CD to illustrate the text). There are insights on every page and it is notable for its practical perspective by a pianist who has studied and performed the whole corpus of this great composer's piano music. To sample it, look at the thorough analysis of Mikrokosmos, the teaching pieces begun for Bartók's son Peter, and often composed quickly during his lessons. We can all manage at least some pieces from the earlier books, designed to cover progressively the succession of musical and technical pianistic problems faced by the beginning student."
www.musicalpointers.co.uk
Introduction
Excerpt from Bartók and the Piano: A Performers View
All rights reserved. Barbara Nissman, 2001
"I must state that all my music is determined by instinct and sensibility; no one need ask me why I wrote this or that or did something in this rather than in that way. I could not give any explanation other than I felt this way, or I wrote it down this way. I never created new theories in advance. This attitude does not mean that I composed without set plans and without sufficient control. The plans were concerned with the spirit of the new work and with technical problems (for instance formal structure involved by the spirit of the work) all more or less instinctively felt."
---Béla Bartók1
Bartók never believed in theories or trusted theorists, and he had good reason, for his music defies pigeonholing. The more deeply one explores his piano music, the more it resists categorization. In other words, there are no easy solutions to tackling Bartók's piano music. There are no sets of prescribed rules or formulas to follow when studying each work. The performer must find and follow the path the composer walked, discarding all preconceptions. Bartók forces the pianist to approach his music with an open mind, a flexible soul, and very good ears.
I am neither a music theorist, a historian, nor a musicologist. I am a pianist and a performer. I did not set out to write a book about Bartók's piano music. It would be more accurate for me to say that the book found me. While preparing Bartók's piano music for recording, I started exploring a wide range of literature written about this difficult repertoire in hopes of clarifying my task at the keyboard. (See the annotated bibliography at the conclusion of the book.) I was looking for material from the Bartók scholars, expert advice I could use to benefit my interpretations at the piano. From some Bartók specialists, I gained an increased understanding of his harmonic language; from others, a heightened awareness of his ethnomusicological frame of reference. But it was the performer's viewpoint I craved. I wanted to know how Bartók, the pianist/performer, approached his music.
I was stunned to discover that Bartók's piano output-- a total of over 300 works, including the 153 pieces from Mikrokosmos-- had never been discussed in print primarily from the place where the music had been conceived, at the piano and from the point of view of the performer. Himself a student of a Liszt pupil, Bartók was primarily a pianist; he played, performed, and edited most of the standard and early keyboard literature.2 Although he became well known as an ethnomusicologist, Bartók never labeled himself a theorist or musicologist. A formidable pianist, he was probably at his most adventurous and most natural self when composing for the keyboard.
What I gained from this exploration strengthened my determination to return to the piano, to the printed score and the words of the composer. In retrospect, I am delighted to have approached Bartóks piano music without preconceptions, including those of my teacher, pianist György Sándor, who was a pupil of Bartók. The discipline I imposed on myself was to start with the music, a fresh score without any pencil markings. As I studied this repertoire, I became more comfortable with its new language. I began to discover, and then I began to hear. Fortunately, Bartók has left a vast pianistic legacy with detailed indications and keen observations entered in the scores. The real authority on Bartók's piano music remains Bartók, and the principal source materials are his music and his words.
In trying to extract the composer's intent a performer must find the way through vast amounts of instruction. Without musical compromise, the performer must then reinterpret, using his or her own voice at the piano and communicating as convincingly as possible a personal interpretation of the composer's wishes. Any one page of Bartók's piano writing is filled with meticulous dynamic, articulation, and metronome markings, and timings calculated to the exact second. This complex music requires intelligence and effort. The brain must first decipher it and organize it; only then can the task of learning begin. Bartók makes pianists learn another language-- his language-- and demands that they speak it as if it were their mother tongue.
I have waded through the mass of details in each of Bartók's scores and wrestled with each work's technical problems and musical difficulties. Perhaps my observations will be helpful in guiding the eye and ear during the initial learning process. At the very least, my conclusions will provide a catalyst for discussion and exchange of ideas. Isn't that why we want to hear different interpretations of the same musical work and also want to hear the same work performed by interesting artists more than once? A phrase in the hands of one pianist sparks an idea, which is absorbed and digested in a different manner by another. I have written this book not to instruct but to give enabling guidelines to further an understanding of Bartók's piano music.
My concentration is on the major piano works in the repertoire, with separate chapters devoted to the most difficult and challenging masterworks: the Out of Doors suite, the Sonata (1926), and the three piano concertos. Each chapter also includes an overview and more general discussion of Bartók's related minor works. The decision to focus on the standard repertory of the advanced pianist precluded my writing in depth about more than a selection of pieces from Mikrokosmos.
I originally conceived this book chronologically, but I found that the exploration of roots and influences necessary to an understanding of Bartók's pianism did not always follow a chronological order. Chapter I progresses from the youthful unpublished 1898 Sonata to the transitional Elegies, works difficult to pigeonhole because of their combination of romantic pianism and new minimalism. This minimalism was further developed in the Bagatelles, a revolutionary work that reflects Bartók's succinct new style, discussed in Chapter II. The Ten Easy Pieces, written as a complement to the Bagatelles, contain some early folk transcriptions; the CsÃk songs were also part of this new approach to the piano. The Seven Sketches, according to the composer, are more or less written in the same style as the Bagatelles [except for no. 4, which could have been included in a discussion of the romantic pianism of Chapter l].
Because this is a book written by a pianist for other performing pianists or lovers of the piano, a chapter on Bartók's pianism and virtuosic music became a necessity, prompted by my learning the difficult Etudes. The Rumanian Dances and Allegro Barbaro also qualified as bravura compositions to be included in Chapter III. In the chapter on folk music, I tried to show the composer's progression from a simple transcription of a folk tune to paraphrases using folk music, culminating with the Improvisations, inspired by the folk song tradition but written in a completely original language.
For me as a pianist, form and structure are the most important ingredients in interpretation; the discussion of form in Chapter V focuses on two major works: the 1926 Sonata and the Sonata for two pianos and percussion. In Chapter VI, Bartók's piano masterwork, the Out of Doors suite, is analyzed pianistically and musically. Here I have tried to share with the reader what I discovered as I prepared this work for performance.
The following chapter features the suite and explores Bartók's relationship with the past. The oddly titled Chapter VIII, Ten Plus Nine Plus Two Plusincludes many other Bartók works pianists love to play. The rest of the book is devoted to a discussion of Bartók's pedagogical works, including Mikrokosmos; an analysis of his three piano concertos; and a survey of the piano/chamber repertoire. Finally, going full circle, the book concludes where it began, with the composer at the piano playing his own music. I believe that this progression presents a logical picture for the pianist's enhanced understanding of a unique composer.
A brief note about Bartók's relationship to detail: Bartók was meticulous in all of his markings; even metronomic markings and timings have been accurately noted. As an editor of other composers' keyboard music, Bartók was very aware of the problem of authenticity within editions, and the inclusion in many editions of "arbitrary performing indications by unscrupulous editors."3 As in Beethoven's works, the authority for Bartók's music rests with his own manuscript. Whatever is indicated in the score reveals "precisely his intentions,"4 unless there might have been copyist errors in the publication process. While preparing this book, in addition to studying Bartók's published scores, I have gone back whenever possible to autograph sources to further confirm what appeared to be errors. (Note: Currently in preparation by László Somfai at the Budapest Bartók Archives is the forty-eight volume Béla Bartók Complete Critical Edition. Several new editions whose revisions benefit from the manuscripts in Peter Bartók's possession have recently been issued by Boosey & Hawkes and Universal and are discussed in the appropriate chapters.)
Bartók's piano music defies categorization. Like Picasso, he developed his own language while retaining traditional formal structures. Bartók built upon the foundations of romantic pianism, allowing each piece to dictate its own form and style. What remains constant, however, is the way any performer should approach each composition. All elements-- tempos, rhythm, melodic line, dynamics, mood, touch, color, technical demands, compositional technique, harmonic language-- must be analyzed, evaluated, and then viewed within the larger structure. Yet ultimately it is the individual pianist/performer who must bring to all of Bartók's indications his or her own intelligence and imagination. I wish you an interesting and challenging voyage.
Barbara Nissman Lewisburg, West Virginia
Notes
1. Béla Bartók, "Harvard Lectures" (1943) in Béla Bartók Essays, ed. Benjamin Suchoff (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1976), 376.
2. Bartók was responsible for editions of Scarlatti Sonatas; works of Couperin; The Well-Tempered Clavier and other works of J.S. Bach; 19 Haydn Sonatas; 27 Beethoven Sonatas and other miscellaneous works; 20 Mozart Sonatas, plus various pieces by Schubert, Schumann, and Chopin among others; in addition to his piano transcriptions from early Baroque keyboard music. (See Chapter VIII.)
3. Béla Bartók, "Motion in the Committee of Intellectual Co-operation of the League of Nations" (1932) in Béla Bartók Essays, 499.
4. Bartók, "Motion in the Committee of Intellectual Co-operation of the League of Nations," 499.
2001 Barbara Nissman Concert Reviews
Arrebatadora pianista en los ciclos de RTVE
Arrebatadora pianista en el mejor sentido del término, y también pujante y excelente concierto en su consideración global el que se disfrutó la semana pasada en la presente serie de los conjuntos radiotelevisos. No habÃa tenido occasión hasta ahora de escuchar a la pianista Barbara Nissman. Y me ha parecido que, aparte de un dominio mecánico y técnico absoluto del instrumento, presenta una particularidad a mi modo de ver nada común, a la hora de enfrentarse con una página de las caracterÃsticas prosódicas y expresivas del Concierto #3 de Sergei Prokofiev: la de hacer compatibles caracterÃsticas tan aparentemente dispares en principio como son el poder, la energÃa, por una parte,y la claridad, limpieza y transparencia, por otra. Y todo ello con excelente sentido constructivo y musical. Su éxito fue el merecido, recompensado con dos propinas.
Dazzling Pianist in the RTVE Concerts
A dazzling and passionate pianist, in the best sense of the words! It was also an absolutely excellent concert, broadcast last week within the series of concerts offered by Spanish radio and TV. Never before have I had the opportunity to listen to Barbara Nissman. Apart from her magnificent control and technique, she offered something special which I have seldom come across. When faced with a page of music, both prosaic and expressive, of Sergei Prokofiev's Concerto #3, she brought the extremes together in a fusion of power and energy on the one hand, and with clarity, lucidity and transparency on the other. And all of this combined with a profound sense of musicality and construction. Her success was well deserved, and the enthusiastic public was rewarded with two encores.
ABC, Madrid, Spain 12/3/01
Orchestra Plays Brahms For Full House
But the best was yet to come. Barbara Nissman, soloist in Brahms Piano Concerto No. 2 offered a superlative performance of this difficult work and obviously enjoyed every minute of it. She displayed a powerful, imposing technique that overcame all of the difficulties the composer put before anyone attempting to play this work. Nissman showed her ability to shift from lyrical themes and vigorously passionate ones in the first movement. She also exhibited her brilliance as a technician in the scherzo second movement. Nissman realizes completely the beauty, serenity and expressiveness of the lovely nocturne of the third movement and then shifts effortlessly to superbly executed technical flourishes in the finale.
Asheville Citizen-Times, NC 10/29/01
Lexington Philharmonic/Beethoven #4
Pianist Barbara Nissman was heartbreaking in the Andante of Beethoven's 4th piano concerto, her plaintive entreaties finally winning over the aggressive unison of the orchestra. She opened the work eloquently, now bold, then ethereal. In her hands, the piano was not one instrument, but many, making her an equal partner with the orchestra in effects and colors. This was evident throughout the work, but especially in the impressive cadenzas which drew applause from the audience in mid-piece. The final Rondo was a playful, boisterous bit of fun- a real "buffa", life-affirming happy ending.
Lexington Herald-Leader, KY 9/22/01
Baton Rouge Symphony/Prokofiev #3
This warhorse from the piano repertoire featured guest soloist, Barbara Nissman, a Prokofiev scholar who's recorded all of the composer's sonatas for solo piano and performed them on stage in London and New York. Nissman's other credits include appearances with great orchestras in the US and Europe. She romped through a spirited, technically astute performance here, seemingly treating this engagement with all the importance of a Philadelphia Orchestra or London Philharmonic concert. The dreamy opening swiftly gives way to a rush of strings and piano, a busy splash of high drama and high anxiety. The fiery Nissman stabbed piano chords before slipping into a gypsylike melody. She subsequently produced an onslaught of pianistic fireworks, rushing up and down the keyboard. Orchestra and soloist were excellent partners in the first movement, lively to say the least.The second movement included shimmering piano lines and trills from Nissman. At times, her hands bounced above the keyboard, adding some visual flash to the performance though she obviously performed with music rather than show business in mind. The Concerto, a challenging work, filled with musical invention, concluded with a brilliant third movement, including spiky, percussive melody and swooning strings and piano.
The Advocate, Baton Rouge, LA 9/15/01
Reviews from New Zealand Tour 2001
Passion, Charisma From a True Risk Taker
For one cliffhanging hour this American pianist burned up the keyboard with impassioned temperament. Barbara Nissman's fingers go straight to her heart. Her safety net is technique of a level that even the toughest Liszt wouldn't stop her in her tracks. Liszts La Campanella didn't. For all her treacherously fast speed and volatile nuancing, she got there with a bravura performance that brought the audience to its feet. Yet she is neither a show-person nor hysterical. Everything is clearly thought out to get style and sonority right from each composer. She operates just as tellingly in the quietly introspective as in her caressing phrasing of Chopin's tender Nocturne Op 27 No2 and in the second piece -Dance of the Sad Girl (surely the lushest melody Ginastera wrote) from the Tres Danzas Argentinas. In the last of these dances, the toughest piece in the recital, Nissmans ferocious cross accents dispatched untamed gauchos thundering across the pampas. What also excites is Nissman's range of colour shown at its most telling in Chopin's Scherzo No3 - a sonorous deep hymn decorated with filigree soft decoration up high and contrasted with heroic double octave fortissimos in the outer sections taken at such speed and power that I wondered whether Nissman's fingers would trip over themselves. Never. Her playing makes a mockery of that illusory cliché of discophiles "the definitive interpretation." Nissman spontaneous pianist that she is, would probably dismiss the term as a killjoy anyway. For Nissman nothing is definitive - which makes her such an excitingly unpredictable pianist.
The Star, Christchurch, NZ 6/20/01
'Landmark' Performance from Christchurch Symphony
Pianist Barbara Nissman is a risk-taking live wire whose strongly characterized Liszt Piano Concerto No. 2 and Totentanz brought out many subtleties not heard in conventional performances... Her solo encore of Liszt's poetic Consolation No. 3 confirmed what an outstandingly sensitive and refined pianist she is. Imagine her solo recital this week will be a sell-out.
The Star, Christchurch, NZ 6/13/01
Barbara Nissman immediately revealed a technique of unusual power... she captured the strength of Liszt as well as his crass bits. If one had any doubts about Nissman's sensitivity, however, these were allayed by her account of Liszt's lovely Consolation No. 3- played in response to the audience's enthusiastic applause.
The Press, Christchurch, NZ 6/20/01
Nissman on Piano
The American pianist Barbara Nissman is one of the most vital visiting musicians to have been here for a long time. Not only does she have a prodigious technique but she also made the music live. Her mastery of style was exciting.
A Benchmark in Physical Pianism- Prodigious Pianist Plays With Power, Passion
Pianist Barbara Nissman held her audience spellbound last night at her Theatre Royal recital of works by Chopin and Liszt... it was playing of searing intensity.
The Daily News, New Plymouth, NZ 6/20/01
Passionately Piano
. . . a brilliant performance. Every piece she played to perfection, with feeling and passion.
Guardian Review, Palmerston North, NZ 6/26/01
Pianist Astounds with her Interpretation of Concerto
A pianist with power in her hands and rhythm in her body commanded immediate standing ovations at performances Saturday and Sunday as she played magnificently Khachaturian's demanding 1936 composition, Concerto for Piano and Orchestra.
The Intelligencer Journal, Lancaster, PA. 5/15/01
Pianist supplies finale fireworks
Occasionally, very occasionally, a world-class musician visits Lancaster and gives us a performance we'll never forget. That's what happened Saturday when Barbara Nissman joined the Lancaster Symphony for its season finale concert "Armenian and Oriental Fireworks" at the Fulton Opera House. (Khachaturian Concerto)
The Sunday News, Lancaster, PA. 5/13/01
Guest Pianist Nissman makes 'A' Liszt
Nissman's astonishingly colored reading of the fiendishly difficult "Chaisse-neige" (Snowstorm), showed her remarkable ability to deliver different tonal colors in either hand.
The Charleston Gazette, WV 5/7/01
Symphony of Seville/Prokofiev No.3
Nissman is a spectacular pianist with an overflowing technique and a clarity of interpretation-never lacking in expressivity, her musicality always conveys the larger structure.
ABC- Seville, Spain 3/6/01
Barbara Nissman Concert
January 27 was a glorious night for Carnegie Hall and Greenbrier County... what a wonderful, wonderful concert, I wish every single person could have been there- the new Steinway has been well and truly 'christened'.
The Mountain Messenger, Lewisburg, WV 2/4/01
2000 Barbara Nissman Concert Reviews
Symphony Guest Pianist a Classical Showstopper
Two pianos, one pianist and a riveting concert. Guest artist Barbara Nissman performed the Rachmaninoff Paganini Variations and Mozart's 23rd Concerto with a power and clarity that brought a standing ovation from the Peoria audience Saturday night. If a classical pianist can be said to 'wow' them, she did.
The Journal Star, Peoria, IL. 12/11/00
Shreveport Symphony/Gershwin Concerto in F
Pianist Nissman did a bravura job of interpreting the piece and bringing forth that sensuous, jazz piano feeling that permeates it.
The Shreveport Times, LA. 11/19/00
West Virginia Symphony /Brahms Concerto No.2
Saturday night she played Brahms' Second Concerto as if she had tossed kerosene on the keyboard and struck a match. ...Nissman was sensational.
The Charleston Gazette, WV 10/9/00
I was attracted to Nissman's artistry through her recording of Prokofiev's complete piano sonatas, long before I was aware that she now resides in Lewisburg. She delivered a thrilling reading of the Brahms' Second Piano Concerto. ...in the third movement sublime poetry was created. She melded the lovely pianistic feelings of this work so securely with the orchestra that they seemed to breathe as one.
Charleston Daily Mail, WV 10/9/00
Orchestra's 40th Season Opening
The highlight of the concert was Bela Bartok's Concerto No. 3. Nissman from the beginning displayed a virtuosity which made her clearly the master of all difficulties included in Bartok's keyboard writing, as she executed with apparent ease the technically demanding passages of the allegro third movement as well as the beautifully melodic,restrained phrases of the adagio second movement.... Both soloist and orchestra richly deserved the enthusiastic standing ovation which they received.
Asheville Citizen Times, NC 9/18/00
Pianist Barbara Nissman Delivers
Miraculous. Two hours of nearly impossible music performed effortlessly. ...She brought off extremely dissonant sonorities with such clarity and beauty that one became lost and forgot that an actual human being was sitting at the keyboard creating these sounds.
The Fresno Bee, CA. 3/4/00
Reigning Lady of the Keyboard
This extraordinary concert by Symphony of Bilbao featured the distinguished pianist Barbara Nissman and the chance to discover Rachmaninoff's Concerto No. 4. The work shows his personal signature, introverted but brilliant-its lyrical melodies progressing to animated accelerandos-which the lady of the keyboard and the orchestra delivered expressively. Barbara was effective and played with conviction the delicate passages with the violas, the intricate writing with the cellos, and the passionate finale without ever compromising authority, grace, and technical perfection.
El Correo, Bilbao, Spain 2/8/00
More Comments About Barbara Nissman
What was far more important about this was Nissmans phenomenal playing; she is one of the truly great pianists of the day.
New York Daily News
Nissman was brilliantplaying with an innate sense of mastery that knew no difficulties; she approached these works as music rather than as some sort of pianistic decathlon.
New York Newsday
A winning blend of technical command and interpretive insight.
The New York Times
A refined combination of delicacy and passionher effortless technique went along with a restrained classicism.
Barbara Nissman is probably the reigning Prokofiev specialist of the day.
The New York Post
With pianist Nissman, Slatkin, and the CSO you got the sense of three mighty forces of nature coalescing: I dont expect ever to hear the piece (Ginastera Piano Concerto) done better.
The Chicago Tribune
Nissman and Slatkin interacted with one another to produce a performance of stunning power and conviction.
The Chicago Sun-Times
Virtuosity with her is the handmaiden of musical understanding; where color, intensity, and poetry are required, Nissman delivers the goods.
Nissman is a musician who seems undaunted by technical obstacles. She made her way through Rachmaninoffs torrent of keyboard demands with a virtuosic flair. Her playing of the rapturous music was poetic, and in passages calling for velocity and accuracy she had confidence and strength in abundance.
The Pittsburgh Press
Nissman gave a performance of rare emotional coherence.Taking Rachmaninoffs quick tempos at their word, she achieved a fleet lyricism thats rare today,and Nissmans phrasing drew upon color, dynamics, and articulation for beautifully nuanced lines.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Barbara Nissman, the pianist made an ideal exponent. (Prokofiev Concerto #4/National Symphony)
The Washington Post
That a musical performance literally can be breathtaking was demonstrated at 9:35 p.m...at the end of pianist Barbara Nissman's ravishing performance of the Chopin Db major Nocturne, an audience held its collective breath for what seemed an eternity. No one wanted to shatter the magic.
The Kansas City Star
Sheer bravura, rhapsodic lyricism, and classical restraintshe played like natural speech, with perfect control of nuance.
The Times, London
Extraordinary bravura-just an amazing performance.
Die Welt, Berlin
The American pianist presented herself brilliantly.
Die Welt, Hamburg
A perfect balance between her artistic mastery of the keyboard and her soul
Het Parool, Amsterdam
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