The Pianist
People flocked to the Athenaeum and the Dalles Hall in Bucharest to hear Silvestri improvise on the piano. Public improvisation was a novelty in Romania and the audience would hand him themes, sometimes written on blank spaces on scraps torn from newspapers. He would improvise on these in the style of Bach, Beethoven, Schumann, Chopin, Wagner and Debussy among others. He even improvised on a phone number (23411). When Enescu came to one of these performances in 1941, he asked him: ‘And now, what about doing something in the style of Silvestri?’
On at least one occasion, Silvestri the improviser caused problems for Silvestri the concert pianist. He was conducting from the keyboard Handel’s Concerto Grosso in
B minor Op. 6 No. 12 which provided him with the opportunity to play a cadenza and indulge his talent for improvising. But he got so carried away with his modulations that he could not get back to ‘Handel’. Eventually, he decided to strike a dominant chord, stayed on it for a while and then gave a sign to the orchestra to come in. (It was not the fashion in Romania to play and conduct at the same time, but Silvestri was hardly one to be inhibited by convention.)
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Conductor Mircea Cristescu was present at a musical soirée when Silvestri asked the visiting Italian cellist Antonio Janigro if they could do the Saint-Saëns Cello Concerto together, to which the cellist replied that he did not have the piano reduction with him. Silvestri said never mind, and proceeded to accompany Janigro from beginning to the end from memory.
His fantastic pianistic verve and agility, the tones and nuances he produces are winning him standing ovations.
Nina Cassian, poet and music critic