Review: Simone Dinnerstein

Oct. 26, University of Richmond

Simone Dinnerstein is one of the leading Bach pianists of our time. Perhaps the main reason for that is her combination of digital dexterity – few pianists can beat her for speed and accuracy – and bright tone.  

Thanks to those attributes, Dinnerstein doesn’t have to compromise on tempos and phrasing and can render Bach’s often dense elaboration and ornamentation with almost as much clarity on a Steinway as harpsichordists produce on their instruments.

What’s good for Bach, however, is not necessarily good for composers of the romantic era.

Those were the upsides and downsides, respectively, of Dinnerstein’s program at the University of Richmond’s Modlin Arts Center. The same technique and sensibility that made her performances of Bach’s partitas Nos. 1 in B flat major, BWV 825, and No. 2 in C minor, BWV 826, so satisfying made her rendition of Chopin’s Nocturne in D flat major, Op. 27, No. 2, sound uncharacteristically hard-edged.

The pianist brought a softer touch and more subtle tone-coloring to Schumann’s “Kinderszenen,” and a fine balance of classical clarity and romantic lyricism to Brahms’ Intermezzo in A major, Op. 118, No. 2.

Her Bach, idiomatic as it was, still showed the limitations of the modern grand piano in this music. The tone of the instrument tended toward the congested in fast, loud and/or heavily ornamented sections of the two partitas, such as the rondeau of the C minor and the menuets and gigue of the B flat major. Dinnerstein made more of slower movements, notably the allemande and sarabande of the C minor, playing with more songful phrasing and conveying a pronounced sense of introspection.

In Daniel Felsenfeld’s “Cohen Variations,” a fantasia-cum-pianistic showpiece using the tune of Leonard Cohen’s “Suzanne,” Dinnerstein (for whom the piece was written) reconciled virtuosity with moodiness, and stayed true to the piece’s stylistic shifts, from romantically lyrical to expressionistic and neoclassical.