This recital, in Oxford's cathedral, was part of Oxford Philomusica's Summer Academy programme.
Much time has passed since I last saw this pianist in concert - in those days he still retained the 'Bishop-Kovacevich' surname seen on many of his finest recordings - and by some accounts those years have seen a diminishment.
After a stroke in 2008, though insisting in the interviews around his high-profile 70th birthday concert in 2010 that he had completely recovered, it did seem that some of the old assertiveness had gone from his playing. By his own account it's only in recent years that he has really started to enjoy public performance - he used to be the victim of terrible stage-nerves - but some reviewers have connected less well than before with his live work, finding concerts uneven and sometimes
unconvincing.
He has always concentrated on the core of classical repertoire, though this is a pianist who has expressed a 'loathing' of Haydn, and a measure of indifference to the 'over-rated' Mozart solo piano works: such forthright opinions are perhaps allowed for a maestro of his standing!
This concert was focused on his favoured classics; Bach, Beethoven and Schubert, including the Bach Prelude and Fugue BWV849 that has become one of his signature pieces - and what would Bach have thought about the emotional charge that can be brought to his music, played on an instrument whose like he never knew? And in such a redolent space!
Kovacevich also chose Beethoven's Opus 110, of which he has said that parts remind him of "someone who is dying... almost unable to speak". The performance of this and the whole programme spoke eloquently enough to the large audience - there was nothing metronomic here, but music that was deeply felt, expressing a deep familiarity, and an affection from one artist to another.The superlative Fazioli piano's sound wallowed and softened somewhat in the big, irregular space for the more distant of the audience - placing the instrument in the crossing of the cathedral presumably allowed the greatest number of people to see and hear - but there was rapt attention from all.
And it was clear enough from the pianist's face that he was very happy with both his performance on the night, and the tremendous reception it got. It felt like something of a privilege to be there, and whatever idiosyncrasies there may have been in performance, it was a very contented audience who found their way out of the darkened college at its end.