Friday, May 29, 2015

TO HAL BATES FROM REYMOND BERNEY


"To Hal / With fond regards - I will have great memories of the "funniest" interview I have ever given. Love, Raymond Berney"



From the New York Times, 18 October 1981:

Reymond Berney Offers Difficult Piano Program


Though flamboyance came more easily to him than warmth, Reymond Berney had enough of both Wednesday night to make his New York debut at Carnegie Recital Hall an engaging one. Mr. Berney's program of works by Marescotti, Beethoven, Falla, Schumann and Liszt was not the sort behind which a pianist with flaws in his technique wants to hide; fortunately, from the moment he addressed Marescotti's ''Fantasque,'' it was clear he had no need to. 

A few rough edges were present in his account of the Marescotti, but his playing exhibited remarkable control nonetheless, along with a sure sense of pacing and tone.

Going to the opposite end of the pianistic spectrum with his next selection, Beethoven's Sonata in A flat (Op. 26), Mr. Berney reveled in a performance that was absorbing in its imagery and refreshingly empty of cliches, bringing animation to the variation movement and a fine sense of flourish to the funeral march. 

Mr. Berney finished the first half of his recital with an exciting performance of Falla's ''Fantasia Baetica,'' a work in which effect far outstrips substance, but which nonetheless benefited from the velocity and weight he gave its display passages. After intermission, his account of Schumann's ''Kreisleriana'' had energy in its faster sections but a slightly hard-edged and disorderly quality in some of its slower ones. The recital ended with a driven performance of Liszt's ''Mephisto'' Waltz that, though scarcely note-perfect, was taken at tempo with no shortcuts. There were flawlessly played encores of Chopin's Waltz in A minor (Op. 34, No. 2) and Etude in C (Op. 10, No. 1). Theodore W. Libbey Jr.

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