Dec 11th 2014

Hamelin shows Bordeaux how it’s done

by Michael Johnson

Michael Johnson is a music critic with particular interest in piano. 

Johnson worked as a reporter and editor in New York, Moscow, Paris and London over his journalism career. He covered European technology for Business Week for five years, and served nine years as chief editor of International Management magazine and was chief editor of the French technology weekly 01 Informatique. He also spent four years as Moscow correspondent of The Associated Press. He is the author of five books.

Michael Johnson is based in Bordeaux. Besides English and French he is also fluent in Russian.

You can order Michael Johnson's most recent book, a bilingual book, French and English, with drawings by Johnson:

“Portraitures and caricatures:  Conductors, Pianist, Composers”

 here.

Canadian-born pianist Marc-André Hamelin kept a Bordeaux audience riveted Wednesday evening (Dec. 10) by his super-sensitive rendering of a familiar warhorse, the Beethoven piano concerto No. 4. Familiar, yes, but Bordeaux had never heard it performed quite so perfectly. Spontaneous applause erupted between movements and was unrestrained at the end.

Hamelin, a U.S. resident for three decades, is rare visitor to France and was making his first appearance in Bordeaux. He graciously took three curtain calls then sat down to add an encore while the orchestra sat in rapt silence. His unusual choice was the first movement of Mozart’s Sonata in C, K545, the so-called “sonate facile”. Again the Bordeaux Auditorium trembled with applause and hooting. 

Hamelin by the author, Johnson

The French seemed taken by Hamelin’s quiet concentration at the keyboard, intense yet devoid of physical showboating. His light touch on the keys, especially in the allegro moderato first movement, brought out another Hamelin strength – his ability to blend selflessly with whatever ensemble he is working with. The Bordeaux Orchestre National, conducted by British veteran Paul Daniel, never had to fight him for dominance. Hamelin has said he is not on stage to “flex my muscles or prove my manhood”, but to bring music to the audience.

A highlight of Hamelin’s performance was his own cadenza, which gave his interpretation a personal touch. Aside from the cadenza, however, Hamelin is in principle opposed to personalizing his readings of classics. His aim, he says, it to understand what the composer desired, and to deliver that. 

Curiously, the cadenza competition for this concerto has been lively over the years. More than 40 composers have offered their versions, including Brahms, Busoni, Godowsky, Saint-Saëns and Clara Schumann and Rzewski.

Beethoven finished this concerto in 1806, at about the same time he produced his Symphony No. 4 Op. 58. His progressive deafness was upon him but this highly melodic and emotional concerto reveals him at the peak of his powers.

Indeed the concerto was followed on the program by that symphony, which conductor Daniel created with true brio. He led the orchestra in an overtly kinetic style – without a score and without a baton, virtually dancing around in his space before the orchestra.

The program opened with a challenging performance of Brett Dean’s Testament, a contemporary work that set the scene for the two Beethoven works that followed. Dean was inspired by Beethoven’s well-known Testament of Heilingenstadt, which he wrote as he realized he was rapidly going deaf. Dean’s humming strings create an unsettled atmosphere with disruptive cadences that finally erupt in ferocious attacks. The score seems to replicate what Beethoven’s hearing problems were doing to his mind. 

Daniel, a friend and collaborator of the Australian composer, opened the evening with an explanation of the somewhat avant-garde work and how it fit in with the piano concerto and the symphony that followed. Despite the contrasting musical styles, the program all hung together.




     

 


This article is brought to you by the author who owns the copyright to the text.

Should you want to support the author’s creative work you can use the PayPal “Donate” button below.

Your donation is a transaction between you and the author. The proceeds go directly to the author’s PayPal account in full less PayPal’s commission.

Facts & Arts neither receives information about you, nor of your donation, nor does Facts & Arts receive a commission.

Facts & Arts does not pay the author, nor takes paid by the author, for the posting of the author's material on Facts & Arts. Facts & Arts finances its operations by selling advertising space.

 

 

Browse articles by author

More Music Reviews

Jun 24th 2017

I was flipping through my copy of Prokofiev’s Piano Sonata No. 6 recently and spotted his two “col pugno” markings. My memory took me back many years to the day I first encountered these violent directions. At the time, I didn’t know what to think.

Jun 21st 2017

One of the world’s greatest living violinists, Maxim Vengerov, accompanied by an equally accomplished pianist Roustem Saïtkoulov, dazzled a full house at the 18th century Grand Théâtre of Bordeaux Sunday night (18 June) with a faultless concert.

Jun 17th 2017

A classical-trained German pianist working in a range of musical disciplines has just launched his most audacious experiment yet – an original piano sonata consisting almost entirely of creations from his unconscious mind.

Jun 5th 2017

The Orchestre National de Bordeaux Aquitaine added another feather to its cap last week (June 1-2) with the engagement of a leading international guest conductor, Michail Jurowski, who led the ONBA in two demanding orchestral pieces, the Shostakovich Symphony No.

May 24th 2017

Taking a break in gaps between a Mozart piano concerto in Izmir, Turkey, (No. 9, “Jeunehomme”), a recording session of three Mozart concertos in Rennes, France (Nos.

Apr 15th 2017

Pianist Mitsuko Uchida delivered a sparkling Mozart piano concerto No. 20 in D minor (K.466) with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Andris Nelsons on Thursday, the eve of Easter weekend, to an enthusiastic full house at Symphony Hall. Ms.

Jan 28th 2017

The Leonard Bernstein incidental music for Voltaire’s Candide seems even fresher today than it did 60 years ago when it flopped on Broadway.

Dec 17th 2016

Veteran impresario Jacques Leiser, summing up his 60 years of toil with some of the world’s greatest performers, is worried about today’s drift in the music business.

Dec 13th 2016

Ilya Rashkovsky is a rising young Siberian pianist, now based in Paris, whose new CD injects fresh élan into Modeste Mussorgsky’s delightful Pictures at an Exhibition.

Nov 18th 2016

The Franco-American pianist Nicholas Angelich delivered a freshly crafted version of a Beethoven warhorse, Piano Concerto No. 5 in E flat, Op. 73, together with the Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine conducted by Paul Daniel, in the Auditorium of Bordeaux Thursday evening (Nov.17).

Nov 1st 2016

Visiting star composer-pianist-conductor Thomas Adès put on a bold show of musical versatility Sunday afternoon at Jordan Hall, joining the Boston Symphony Chamber Players in selections ranging from Purcell to Stravinsky.

Oct 21st 2016

Humans have always had the desire to live forever. Even today there are those wealthy enough to have their bodies frozen in a cryogenic state and others who fervently believe that the wizards of Silicon Valley will preserve them digitally.

Oct 5th 2016

Virtually all writing, talking and thinking about American experimental music in the 20th century turns eventually to the defining genius of the era, John Cage.

Sep 1st 2016

We have come a long way since the day when female composers suffered denigration for their supposed inability to compose anything of substance. That battle is over, and the women have won. There is no longer any such thing as “women’s music,” if there ever was.

Aug 30th 2016

The new production of Mozart and Lorenzo da Ponte’s classic opera Così Fan Tutte has attracted no shortage of controversy.

Aug 26th 2016

A new sound in the realm of electronic music is evolving from the mind of a transplanted Moldavan avant-garde composer now struggling to make his way in New York. He has based his recent work on “lounge electronica” but, he adds, “with a classical twist”.