Ivo Pogorelich: profundity in a minor key

The Croatian pianist Ivo Pogorelich has the status of a pop star. Reviewers of his concerts regularly turn to the words “eccentric” and “idiosyncratic”. The beginning of his career back in 1980 caused quite a stir. When the young Pogorelich failed to win the renowned International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw, jury member Martha Argerich was so angry that she immediately quit the jury, declaring, “Pogorelich is a genius.” And she was right. In the meantime he has a splendid career over three decades to his name. He is praised, above all, for his highly subtle, electrifying, carefully thought-out way of playing. His sense of timing is legendary.

He is not a pianist you would call cheerful. “In tears, usually,” was his reply when one journalist asked whether he liked swimming, like his father, who was an amateur swimming champion. We are told that Pogorelich has now come to terms with his intense grief at the death of his piano teacher and wife. Most of his recital programmes, however, still have a melancholy air to them. So it is no accident that in Flagey, too, he will for the most part play profound works in a minor key. In addition to Chopin’s Second Piano Sonata (with its famous “funeral march”), his programme also includes Franz Liszt’s monumental Sonata in B minor.
The day after his solo recital, on 5 April, Pogorelich will play at Flagey again: together with the Brussels Philharmonic in Chopin’s Second Piano Concerto.

Ivo Pogorelich • 4/4, 20.15, €13 > 25 & 5/5 (+ Brussels Philharmonic), 20.00, €20/25/30, FLAGEY, Heilig Kruisplein/place Sainte-Croix, Elsene/Ixelles, 02-641.10.20, www.flagey.be