Gergely Kovács Piano Recital

“B-flat minor. An oddity, for the most part dressed in the garment of night. It is somewhat disgruntled and embraces most rarely a pleasant mien. Mockery of God and the world, dissatisfaction with himself and everything else; preparations for suicide—all of this resonates in this key.” So wrote Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart, poet and renowned music aesthetician, in 1785. Indeed, b-flat minor is considered the darkest, most tragic of all keys; it is no coincidence that Chopin chose this key for the “Funeral March” movement of his sonata. This is also the connecting thread among the three pieces in Gergely Kovács’s concert. Chopin’s works have a particularly dramatic tone, while Rachmaninov’s sonata begins straight from the gates of hell and descends even deeper. This is perhaps Rachmaninov’s most powerfully self-expressive composition, whose first version from 1913 is still free of compromise, in contrast to the later revision of 1931. We can hear all of this in the performance of Gergely Kovács, a young Hungarian pianist, primarily a performer of the Romantic repertoire.