Ten years
after this
recital was recorded, this is
still some of the most hair-raising piano playing committed to
disc and perhaps the best thing pianist Marc-Andre Hamelin
(right) has
done to date. In nearly all of his recordings, Hamelin’s
playing has seemed machine-like and polished on the surface but
detached emotionally. In this live program, taken from a series
of concerts titled Virtuoso Romantics, Hamelin is not
only engaged but thoroughly engaging, with an unexpected charm
and élan gracing his playing.
As
glorious as French pianist and composer Charles Valentin Alkan’s
transcription of the first movement of Beethoven’s Third
Concerto truly is, the fun really starts when Hamelin lets into
the cadenza. This is no mere continuation or synthesis of the
music that has preceded it. As per Alkan’s (below) dizzyingly complex
but grippingly dramatic concerto and symphony for solo piano,
this is a recomposition very much on Alkan’s terms. Written in
eight sections of increasing Byzantine intricacy and growing
excitement, the music literally explodes from a upward run into
the “victory” theme from the last movement of Beethoven’s Fifth
Symphony. From there, Alkan not only continues with themes from
the concerto but quotes that
movement from the Fifth as it would
normally progress in performance – in other words, as if both
pieces are being played simultaneously. Would anyone have the
courage or audacity to play this cadenza in an orchestral
performance of the Third Concerto? (The liner notes state that
composer and pianist Ferrucio Busoni supposedly did in one of
his orchestral concerts in Berlin in 1906, but that it is
unclear whether Busoni himself played it or if Busoni conducted
the orchestra and pianist Rudolph Ganz (to whom Maurice Ravel
dedicated “Scarbo” from Gaspard de la Nuit) did so.
Alkan was one of the certified wackos of classical music. A
contemporary of Franz
Alkan's Death
While the story of Alkan being crushed by a toppling
bookshelf while reaching for the Talmud may have
been an exaggeration that perpetuated the myth of
his eccentricity, it did generate positive interest
in the composer.
"The mystery of Alkan's death was resolved
definitively about a decade ago by the French
Societé Alkan. A French musicologist (possibly
Brigitte Sappey) discovered a long detailed letter
by one of Alkan's female piano students, who arrived
at Alkan's teaching studio for her lesson just hours
after Alkan had expired. In the letter she
elaborates that Alkan did indeed fall and injure
himself while he was trying to retrieve something on
a shelf. He had climbed up on a hall coat-and-hat
stand - a typical, large fixture in many 19th
Century French homes. Alkan lost his balance and
fell - and books did fall on top of him (the
student's letter makes no mention of the Talmud).
However, it was the fall and not the books that
severely injured him.
Alkan did not die right away. A doctor was sent for,
arrived, and began treating Alkan's injuries. But as
the final portrait of Alkan makes clear, by 1888 he
was a very frail, old man. He eventually succumbed
to his injuries and died several hours later.
The gothic detail of Alkan having been crushed by
his copy of the Talmud appears to be a colorful
invention of one of the pianists in Alkan's small
circle of friends, probably Isidor Philip. In poor
health in his final years, Alkan already knew his
days were numbered. In the few months preceding his
death, he got all his affairs in order -- including
the making of an incredibly detailed will. He also
had his manuscripts bound in leather (these
invaluable documents have disappeared, never yet to
surface.)
The amusing detail about the Talmud is apocryphal.
Instead of complaining about the fabrication of this
detail, it is better to be grateful to whoever made
it up. Limited as Alkan's fame has been in the past,
this is the one factoid that has spread his renown
among the general public and even among musicians.
The more interest in Alkan, and the more people that
remember his name (and listen to his music), the
better."
Mark Starr from
http://alkan.bluestealth.com/death.htm
|
Liszt who could supposedly outplay him any
day of the week, he became a recluse in Paris after a short but
highly successful concert career, keeping a virtual menagerie of
exotic pets in his apartment until his sudden and violent
death. (A devoted Jew, Alkan was reportedly reaching for his
Talmud on the top shelf of his bookcase when the entire piece
toppled, crushing him to death from the extreme weight.) Busoni
and Alkan both thought highly of Alkan’s compositions, though
due to the works’ extreme difficulty have never gained a
foothold in the pianists’ repertoire and perhaps never will.
Still, they can be rewarding and worthwhile sometimes, as
Hamelin has proved in several studio recordings and does very
much so here.
Alkan’s Trois Grandes Etudes for the hands separated and
reunited is an excellent case in point. The first, for left
hand alone, combines the grace and tunefulness of Frederic
Chopin’s music, the muscularity of Liszt’s and ups the ante
dramatically and technically by a quantum leap. As easy as it
almost sounds in the beginning, the length and complexity of
this piece would in most hands become too daunting for mortal
endurance. Not so for Hamelin. He does full justice to the
technical, musical and thespian demands in a riveting traversal.
The
second etude gives the right hand a similarly through workout.
One again beginning lyrically, with some beautiful passagework,
the emotional shadows and technical demons beginning showing
themselves hand-in-hand. The piece reminds me of late Schubert
in its layering of various and contrary moods simultaneously,
though with a vastly more Listzian sense of theatricality.
Again, Hamelin is fully up to all the challenges and meets them
not only head-on but triumphantly so. The only problem is that
Alkan apparently had no clue when to stop writing here. This
etude goes on. And on. And on. Wearingly so to me, proving
the old adage that too much of a good thing, no matter how good
it is, can inevitably self-defeating. (And to think, as the
liner notes point out, that Alkan specialist Ronald Smith’s
playing of this piece took seven minutes longer than
Hamelin’s does here.)
“From jump steeplechase to flat sprint,” the notes state, the
final etude sends both hands scurrying in the lower keys of the
piano in a dizzying molto perpetuo of runs and fingerwork.
The more lyrical sections, while still busy technically, are
refreshingly lyrical enough to give some relief to performer and
listener. Otherwise, there is so much going on that sooner or
later the listener’s mind goes into overload. The saving grace
here is that the third etude is by far the shortest one. Yet in
the four minutes or so that the work goes, you wonder how taxed
even someone of Hamelin’s abilities becomes. If he was straning
to keep up, it does not sound that way, though I can imagine him
breathing more than one sigh of relief after the final notes.
Hearing all three of these etudes in one sitting made me think
of a variation of the oft-quoted phrase about Glenn Gould. In
Alkan’s case, that genius is definitely a nut.
Between the Beethoven and Alkan we are afforded a quiet and
extremely beautiful interlude with Russian composer Mily
Balakirev’s arrangement of the Romanza from Frederic Chopin’s
First Piano Concerto. Balkakirev, who was no mean pianist
himself (who wrote, among such other lightweight and technically
facile works, Islamey, held a lifelong love for Chopin’s
music. That passion shines through brightly and clearly in this
breathtaking arrangement, one that deserves to be heard far more
often. Hamelin does full justice to the lyricism, lightness and
grace of the music, adding a subtle palette of tints and a
lacelike filigree of touch that makes the moment all the more
magical.
After the extreme adrenaline of Alkan’s third etude, we are
plunged into the equally high drama of Georges Bizet’s (right) Carmen,
courtesy of Busoni’s masterful Sixth Sonatine. Subtitled a
piano fantasy, the piece starts brightly but ending on a tragic
note quoting the opening chorus from Act III, Don Jose’s “Flower
Song,” the Act I Habanera in both major and minor keys, and the
“Arena” Prelude to Act I along the way. Hamelin rushes things
in the more energetic moments and loses some of the music’s
charm in the process. Stupendous playing, yes, though it does
not erase memories of Paul Jacobs’ more balanced recording from
his complete set on sonatines (for Nonesuch, now on Arbiter and
well worth seeking out).
The
Medtner Danza festiva is another matter. Hamelin delights in
the bounciness of the work – playful, athletic and thoroughly
Russian-sounding – while not overwhelming it. While the
romantic streak of the central section could be played up more
fully, Hamelin’s not doing so is not a major detraction. In
fact, Hamelin does an excellent job of balancing the
conservative melodic elements with the slightly spicy harmonic
twists. It is a highly satisfying encore to what is still a
engaging and welcome virtuosic program of rarities.
Also read Johann d'Souza's review of the same CD
http://inkpot.com/classical/hamelinwigmore.html
