Krystian Zimerman's been called a "rabble-rouser", an "intruder", a "cold aristocrat", a "thin-skinner". Both he and the Steinway piano he carries around to his concerts have been called "utterly eccentric."
Krystian Zimerman will play with Bangkok Symphony Orchestra on Jan 27.
A single phrase, though, invariably sticks with the mercurial pianist by critics and audiences alike: "One of the greatest pianists alive today."
"Krystian Zimerman's approach to playing the piano has greatness written all over it," said the reviewer of the Times of London. "It has intensity, majesty, intimacy, daring and simplicity, and above all, insight."
And whether eccentric or not, another British newspaper had a contest to answer the question, "What is the secret to Krystian Zimerman's piano technique? What he does is physically impossible."
The answers were more philosophical than technical. For example: "Imagine getting to a place no one has ever been before, then set the course and head for it."
Zimerman will be playing Brahms' First Piano Concerto in Bangkok on Jan 27, with the Bangkok Symphony Orchestra, and nobody doubts the performance will be a monumental one. Yet there might be a few knowledgeable people here who have doubts about what else may happen besides the music.
Call it the Dixie Chips Phenomenon, the gals who introduced politics into their act.
With Zimerman, there was the case in Los Angeles a few years ago, when he introduced a work by stopping the recital to announced that — in protest to America's military policies — he would never appear in America again.
"Get your hands off my country," he said in a low menacing voice, referring to rumours that Poland was a country to which Americans sent prisoners to be tortured.
When four-dozen people walked out shouting obscenities, he aimed his next comments to them.
"Some people," said the man known in Poland as King Krystian the Glorious, "when they hear the word military, they start marching."
Then he reportedly played the piece with such passion and emotion that nobody could remember any other music in the evening.
In Germany a few years ago, he noticed a person in the balcony with an iPhone apparently taking pictures of him. This time, without saying a word, he marched offstage. When Zimerman returned to the stage a short while later, he explained that he had lost contracts by these unofficial pictures. "The destruction of music by YouTube is enormous," he declared.
And just to show that Krystian Zimerman is an "equal opportunity" cynic, he took a more drastic step, by criticising both orchestras and recording companies in one fell swoop.
Announcing that he would play all Chopin concertos without orchestra, he explained, "Have you noticed that all orchestras today play the same way? Relying on one's ears alone, it is impossible to tell one from the other. The recording industry has succeeded in 'globalising' interpretation.
"I have trouble finding unique performance characteristics in existing orchestras. In addition, orchestras dislike rehearsing and I love to rehearse, for weeks at a time even."
As a replacement, Zimerman formed his own group of young Polish musicians; they worked for "weeks at a time", and gave their own concerts across Europe (though to varying critical appeal).
Nor does Zimerman shun from rewriting Johann Sebastian Bach.
Just before playing a Bach's partita, he told the audience that Bach was composing music for an aristocrat he didn't like. So he changed the original key from major to minor.
Zimerman then played the work — and ended in the major key. Perhaps, said some, because he had a fondness for President Barack Obama!
So who is this Krystian Zimerman? His antagonism to the US is such that I have never reviewed or met him in New York, but his recordings — and the dreaded YouTube performances — speak for themselves. Musically, for the last four decades, he has earned his reputation as being inspired, mercurial, erratic and, in a word, great.
One friend told me about a concert where the first half was all technique, no inspiration.
"Then," said an acquaintance, "he gazed into the balcony, though nobody knew what he saw. He stopped playing for a second or two, then he continued as if he was on fire. We didn't know what to make of it, except that we experienced a once-in-a-lifetime performance."
Not that Krystian Zimerman has had many troubles achieving his greatness before. Ever since his father introduced him to the piano at the age of five, in Zabrze, Poland, his gifts enabled him to study with the best teachers in the country. His career was launched after winning the 1975 Warsaw International Chopin Piano Competition, when he was immediately invited by Herbert von Karajan to play with the Berlin Philharmonic. He next captured America, making his first (of two recordings) of the Brahms First Concerto, which he will play here. The conductor then was Leonard Bernstein.
Zimerman's recitals and concert performances have continued non-stop, except when he wishes to stop them. Best known for the Romantic period–Chopin, and, of course, Schumann and Brahm, he has premiered works written for him by Witold Lutoslawski, as well as recordings of Ravel, Beethoven, Grieg, Rachmaninoff and Debussy. Giving perhaps 50 concerts a year, he gives many more for charity.
And when home in Switzerland with his family, he indulges not only in organ-playing, but in building his own pianos — many of which he takes with him on tour.
"My concept of the piano goes far beyond comfort and perfection of technique. I don't search for this at all. Rather, I don't want everything to sound the same. If I find the ideal piano for a movement of Beethoven or Brahms, I want to bring it with me to show the people."
It costs much money to bring one's own piano — but Krystian Zimerman is a man of such musical, political and personal ideals, that the financial inconvenience is less important than perfection.
Except for one particular time. And this just may explain why he despises certain aspects of America.
In 2006, Zimerman had put his newly constructed piano inside the baggage carrier of the plane carrying him to New York. Arriving in New York, he waited… and waited… and waited to retrieve his piano.
Finally, he found it. In a thousand pieces.
Zimerman, it seems, had constructed much of the piano especially for the tour. And the glue he used, to the American guards, smelled like explosives, so they ripped the piano apart to see what other terrorist material they could find.
One imagines that the real explosives came from the mouth of Krystian Zimerman himself. So let us remind Bangkok security officials. Don't trifle with this guy. Keep his piano safe and tidy. It won't contain explosives. But with luck, at the Thailand Cultural Centre, he may set off some very explosive Brahms.
The Great Artists Concert Series 2015 "Zimerman Plays Brahms" will take place on Jan 27 at 8pm, at Thailand Cultural Centre.
Tickets from 800-4,000 baht are available at ThaiTicketMajor outlets or visit www.thaiticketmajor.com.
Visit the Bangkok Symphony Orchestra Foundation at www.bangkoksymphony.org or call 02-255-6617/8, or 02-254-4954.
