20-21.11.2024 Two Nights with Krystian Zimerman in Taipei ​

「深秋，金黃麥田形成的梯度場上，漫天星斗流轉。」

這次我連續聽了兩場 Zimerman 在台北國家音樂廳的獨奏會。（座位是 2F 19 排前後的青年席位。）前幾週公布台北場兩套相同的曲目時，原本內心喀噔一下的我轉念一想，聲稱一首曲子有好幾套不同指法的 Zimerman 也許會在這兩天有不同的演繹手法，而且 Encores 說不定也不一樣。非常幸運地，這些猜想最終都成真了。

因為坐在票價低的雙號右側，所以我能觀察到的基本上只有 Zimerman 的踏板運用。不過換個角度想，不被手部觸鍵動作分心，得以一以貫之地觀察踏板與音響的互動也是好的。鋼琴的踏板是離合器的鏡像，踩得越深，制音器放得越開，琴音的衰減速度也就越慢。Zimerman 的踏板運用行雲流水，已臻化境，完全聽不出制音器與琴弦碰撞的斧鑿痕跡。時機通常以左手 bass 主音為準：有時一節一踏，有時一音一步。Zimerman 的彈琴姿勢以全身力量灌注，偶爾身體微傾，左腳自然抬起，右手後擺，跟隨自然的韻律晃動。

Zimerman 從選曲的品味到演奏的詮釋，都允許我們以砂畫推衍之共時性的角度來體會。在須臾的音符流變之間，視覺心像不斷向前演化。

這次 Zimerman 選擇空運自己的 Fabbrini Steinway & Sons 鋼琴來台。從一開始 Chopin 的夜曲，我便留意到其深沉遙遠的迴響。高音核心蘊含了 70% 的質量，餘下散佈在外圍用以中和場地的殘響。今天我坐的位置相對於昨天偏左前各兩排，於 interpretation loss contour 的盆地更內圈處，因此成像又更清晰了些。

雖然鋼琴是同一台，但是 Zimerman 兩場演奏的詮釋手法卻迥然有別。最明顯的是 Chopin Piano Sonata No.2 最終樂章的收尾方式。首日氣勢恢弘，在霹靂啪啦的三連音箭雨中迎來終結；今天則是連綿不絕的劍意，彷彿從少林派切換到了武當派。明月夜，短松岡。

面對 Chopin Piano Sonata No.2 第三樂章生存與死亡的強烈對比，Zimerman 在其中切換的手法是極弱音 (pp)。讓我想起藏傳佛學主張，人在兩世之間的極微細心是連續的，此即輪迴假說之基礎。回歸手排車駕駛的比喻，Zimerman 在完全踩住離合器換檔時，精妙地剝除了一切外在粗重心識，直指本心。

選擇 Estampes (版畫) 套曲在台北演奏，特別能呼應台灣受到各種文化衝擊而迸發出的火光，正如當年受異域風情刺激創作此曲的 Debussy。首曲 Pagodes (塔) 使風吹過廟堂，簷宇似牡丹飛揚。其中有一僧枯寂危坐，燭火微爍。次曲 La soirée dans Grenade (格瑞納達的黃昏) 刻劃了忽幽忽明之夕陽下，樹隙透出之光引燃土壤的溼氣。末曲 Jardins sous la pluie (雨中庭園) 更為有趣，昨天是憤怒的柑橘，今天是躁動的葡萄，泛起冰藍的色澤。整體的印象是：於玻璃溫室中，徐徐行過瑰麗的畫廊。

我也特別折服於 Zimerman 演繹 "Szymanowski: Variations on a Polish Theme, Op. 10" Var. 8 的送葬進行曲。左手不斷反覆的「低-高-低」節奏像是一座座墳墓遙遙連起的土丘圓滑線，右手是壯闊的戰火。貫徹全曲遙相呼應的高主題 "B3-G4-F#4-E4-F#4" 以及低主題 "F#3-D4-C#4-B3-C#4" 緊扣心弦，讓我想起南管裡高低五音主題互相襯托的「相思引」。

最後是 Encores。

首日 Zimerman 選了兩首 Rachmaninoff preludes (Op. 32, No. 12 & Op. 23, No. 4)。每一音的筆法井然有序：起筆立即向右滑行，漸行漸寬漸緩，結以圓潤的收束。在楓葉飄落的筆觸下，我瞥見詩意的懸吊。 未來的未來是過去。我怎麼想也想不到今天竟然能聽見 Maestro Zimerman 演奏 Bach: Partita for keyboard in C Minor, BWV 826 (I. Sinfonia, VI. Capriccio)。由於在我的印象裡，Zimerman 從未錄製過 Bach 的專輯。從 Chopin、Debussy 到 Szymanowski，時代的巨輪不斷向前滾動，沒想到 Zimerman 最後神來一筆回到了巴洛克時期的 Bach，正如曲中的賦格筆法所預示。

光錐振動頻率共生，砂畫最後停駐成為生命的光譜。於昇華之階枯葉堆的凹陷處，眾生脈搏奔騰。

Late autumn. Above a gradient of golden wheat fields, the stars wheel slowly across the sky.

I attended two consecutive solo recitals by Krystian Zimerman at the National Concert Hall in Taipei. My seat was in the youth section on the second floor, around Row 19. When the Taipei programs were first announced—with identical repertoire for both nights—I felt a small jolt of disappointment. But then I remembered something Zimerman once said: that a single piece may admit several completely different fingerings. Perhaps the interpretations would diverge from one evening to the next. Perhaps the encores would differ as well. In the end, both turned out to be true.

From my position on the right side of the hall, what I could observe most clearly was Zimerman’s pedaling. At first this seemed like a limitation; yet it soon proved to be a privilege. Without the distraction of watching the hands strike the keys, I could attend more closely to the subtle dialogue between pedal and resonance. The piano pedal functions almost like the mirror image of a clutch: the deeper it is pressed, the more the dampers lift, and the more slowly the sound fades. Zimerman’s pedaling flowed with remarkable naturalness. One heard no trace of dampers touching strings. The timing often followed the bass line: sometimes a pedal per bar, sometimes a pedal per note. His posture engaged the whole body: leaning slightly forward at times, the left foot lifting naturally, the torso swaying with the music’s internal rhythm.

Zimerman’s programming and interpretation invite a curious kind of synchronicity, like patterns emerging in a sand painting. Within the fleeting transformations of notes, images seem to arise and evolve continuously in the mind.

Zimerman had brought his own Fabbrini Steinway to Taipei. From the opening Chopin nocturne I noticed its deep, distant resonance. The treble possessed a concentrated core, while a softer halo diffused outward to balance the hall’s reverberation. My seat on the second night was slightly closer and a little further to the left. The sound image felt correspondingly sharper, as if I had moved closer to the center of a contour map of interpretation.

Although the instrument remained the same, Zimerman’s readings differed markedly between the two evenings. The contrast was most striking in the final movement of Chopin’s Piano Sonata No. 2. On the first night the ending arrived with sweeping force, a storm of rapid triplets like arrows raining down. On the second night the music carried a continuous sword-like tension—less explosive, more inwardly concentrated. The difference was almost stylistic, as though the music had shifted from the Shaolin school to the Wudang school.

"A moonlit night. A low ridge of short pines."

In the sonata’s third movement, where life and death confront one another with stark intensity, Zimerman often used passages of extreme softness (pp) as a point of transition. The effect suggested a moment suspended outside ordinary time. It reminded me of a notion from Tibetan Buddhism: that between two lives there exists a continuity of the most subtle mind, forming the basis of the doctrine of rebirth. If one returns to the metaphor of driving a manual transmission, Zimerman seems, at these moments, to press the clutch fully and shift gears—stripping away every coarse layer of consciousness and pointing directly toward something more essential.


Debussy’s Estampes felt particularly apt in Taipei, a city whose cultural life often emerges from encounters between different worlds. In Pagodes, the music seemed to let wind pass through temple halls; eaves fluttered like peonies in motion, while somewhere a monk sat upright in austere stillness as candlelight flickered. In La soirée dans Grenade, beneath a twilight that alternates between brightness and shadow, light slipping through the trees ignites the damp breath of the earth. The final piece, Jardins sous la pluie, brought the most vivid colors of the evening. Yesterday it felt like angry oranges; tonight it was restless grapes, shimmering with an icy blue tint. The entire suite unfolded like a slow walk through a luminous gallery inside a glass greenhouse.


Another highlight was Variation 8 from Szymanowski’s Variations on a Polish Theme, which takes the form of a funeral march. The left hand’s repeating low–high–low rhythm suggested a distant line of burial mounds stretching across the landscape, while the right hand evoked the grandeur of battle. The recurring high and low themes echoed one another throughout the piece, reminding me of the southern Chinese musical tradition of Nanguan, where paired melodic lines mirror and illuminate each other.


The encores brought their own surprises. On the first evening Zimerman offered two Rachmaninoff preludes (Op. 32, No. 12 & Op. 23, No. 4), shaping each phrase with remarkable clarity and poise. The lines unfolded almost like calligraphy: each stroke beginning decisively, gliding outward, then rounding gently to a close. Beneath these gestures one sensed a suspended poetry, like maple leaves drifting downward.

The second night brought something wholly unexpected: Bach’s Partita in C minor, BWV 826. To my knowledge Zimerman has never recorded a Bach album. After a program that moved from Chopin to Debussy to Szymanowski—music spanning the Romantic and early modern worlds—it was striking to hear him suddenly turn back to Bach. The gesture felt less like a historical step backward than a quiet acknowledgment of origins, as though the great wheel of musical time had briefly reversed its direction.

When the final notes faded, the impression that lingered was curiously luminous. One might imagine a sand painting settling into stillness, its patterns momentarily fixed. Somewhere beneath the fallen leaves of late autumn, the pulse of life continues to move.