Alexandre Tharaud de Retour

Charles T. Downey, Alexandre Tharaud’s expressive piano at La Maison Française
Washington Post, October 29, 2012

D. Scarlatti, Sonatas, A. Tharaud (2011) Le Bœuf sur le Toit, A. Tharaud et al. (2012)

Where some pianists thrill with fanfaronade, Alexandre Tharaud teases out the piano’s delicate side, weaving threads of sound into exquisite lace patterns. The French pianist returned to La Maison Française on Friday night, in the intimate auditorium where he gave his last solo recital here in 2008.

Tharaud’s program opened with five of the 18 sonatas on his superlative Domenico Scarlatti recording, released last year. The Scarlatti sonatas often show up on recitals as flashy encores, but Tharaud reads them more like expressive tableaux, landscapes traced with a few strokes of ink. He has written that he chose from more than 500 such sonatas by Scarlatti by “allowing myself to be guided by my fingers.” The zippier sonatas certainly sat easily under his agile hands, but it was the reclusive melancholy of K. 481 that stood out for its exquisitely shaded shyness. [Continue reading]

Alexandre Tharaud, piano
Music by Scarlatti, Ravel, Chopin, Liszt
La Maison Française

SEE ALSO:
Steve Smith, Fingertips With the Force of Nature (New York Times, October 25)

Marie-Aude Roux, Alexandre Tharaud et les fantômes du cabaret (Le Monde, October 4)

Jens F. Laurson, Original and Happy Freaks: Alexandre Tharaud’s Scarlatti (Ionarts, December 8, 2011)

---, Tharaud: A Case of Perpetual Puppy (Ionarts, December 3, 2011)

Charles T. Downey, Alexandre Tharaud (Washington Post, October 27, 2008)