A naughty-but-fitting local bon-mot in Austria's capital goes like this: “World famous in Vienna”. But because the arts scene in Vienna can tend to be complacent and enough unto itself, an inversion of it can be true, too, which is more frustrating still: "World famous outside Vienna". This recital might just have changed that for at least one artist, hitherto ignored at the local music-lovers’ peril.
It’s been entirely too long since I last heard Alexandre Tharaud in recital. 13 years, apparently. Alas, the long timeionarts-favorite, while enjoying a major career in most of the rest of the world, is still a neglected, little-known entity in German-speaking countries. It was telling that his recital at the Wiener Konzerthaus last Sunday was his solo-recital premiere in Vienna.
On the upside, that way it was still possible to hear the undisputed grandmaster of the small form in the Konzerthaus’ gorgeous, ideally suited mid-size Mozart Hall (when they get too popular, economics eventually dictate a move to the Great Hall), where he performed a program ideally suited to show off his skills. A selection of all-French miniatures, from Couperin to Ravel by way of Debussy and Satie. It is especially in the baroque works, be it Bach, Rameau, Couperin, or Scarlatti, where Tharaud has always been an incomparable interpreter, combining incredible playfulness with wonderful pianism, spark and wit with an air of liberation – but without expressing the extreme wilfulness of, say, a Tzimon Barto or Anton Batagov. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.) If “Les Barricades mysérieuses” was a study in fluidity and clever, almost disorienting agogics, yet as crystal clear as a mountain brook, his attack elsewhere was like that of a starved hen picking at a particularly fat worm. “Carillon de Cythère” rang brightly from the Steinway, with the left hand steady as the clapper of a bell while a carillon accompanied its big sister in the right hand. All that drollery and cheek was enough to cause involuntary smiles.
tic toc choc
F.Couperin
Alexandre Tharaud
Harmonia Mundi
M.Ravel
Piano Concertos
Alexandre Tharaud
ONF, Louis Langrée
Erato
His Debussy, six preludes from Book 1, was at least as varied, from nervous frippery to thunderous exclamations, hectic here, pensive there. Everything – except the pastel-colored impressionist cliché. When the first notes of the second half rang out, a lady behind exclaimed excitedly to her friend: “I know that one!”. The friend replied: “Me, too!”. It was established: They knew that one – the popular and memorable first of Erik Satie’s Gymnopédies. They probably also had heard some of the Gnossiennes before, those semi-precious jewels that so charmingly straddle the realm of Muzak and genius, minimalism and all-out romanticism, lowbrow and highbrow. That’s exactly how Tharaud makes them sound, too, with his supreme care, phrasing, and ever-present dash of irreverence.
Ravel to bring the curtain down: First À la manière de Chabrier, a little throw-away curtain raiser for the Pavane, which is – at least as per the later, self-disapproving Ravel, also, but involuntarily, “à la manière de Chabrier”... though really just a sweetly charming treat. Twenty years later, Ravel was more in the mood for sweet poison than honey – and accordingly laced his Viennese-esque La Valse just so. Tharaud performed his own transcription (as had Ravel himself, Glenn Gould, and probably several others) and it was a hoot. A few bitter, dark notes early on showed that this wasn’t going to end well, waltz-wise, but as far as the recital was concerned, it brought the house down. Hands were flying about, lusty glissandosi slid up and down, crashing exclamation marks exploded, deliciously hesitant grace notes rang out. All that was missing at the end, for a flourish, was for Tharaud to smash the piano shut. Bach & Piaf as encores rewarded an excited, sizeable crowd, which will all turn out again when Tharaud comes back to town.
Alexandre Tharaud has not visited Washington since 2018, and cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras was last here in 2017. The two esteemed French musicians have continued their long and fruitful collaboration in a striking new Baroque album, with delightful transcriptions of Marin Marais’s pièces de viole, originally for viola da gamba and continuo, for the cello and piano. The performances, in the spirit of Baroque elaboration but taking full advantage of modern dynamic range and harmonic content, are delightful.
The two longest tracks are celebrated works in Marais's oeuvre. About a third of the disc is given to Couplets des Folies d'Espagne, from the composer's second book of Pièces de Viole, Marais's epic variation set on the widely known tune "La follia." This version of the piece shivers with rhythmic vitality, including some folksy Spanish twists, not least Tharaud's guitar-like repeated notes in one variation.
The second-longest piece on the disc, though only a quarter the size of the Folies d'Espagne, is La Rêveuse, included in Marais's Suite d’un goût étranger in his fourth book and used crucially in the splendid movie about Marais, Tous les Matins du Monde. From the same odd suite is the single track performed by Tharaud alone, an arrangement of the viol piece "Le badinage" somehow rendered on the Yamaha grand piano. Queyras also has one solo track, an arrangement of "Les Regrets," a charming piece sometimes attributed to Marais, given a soulful rendering on Queyras's 1696 Gioffredo Cappa cello.
Also not to be missed is the truly bizarre "Le Tableau de l'opération de la Taille," a piece that describes the horribly painful operation to remove a stone from the bladder. Actor Guillaume Gallienne reads the descriptions of this surgery, which Marais himself underwent without anesthesia in 1720. Unfortunately for those who do not speak French, there is no translation of this brutal text in the booklet, but the vivid demonstrations by the musicians give more than enough sense of their meaning.
Alexandre Tharaud, who last visited Washington in January, is an Ionarts favorite. The French pianist gave documentary filmmaker Raphaëlle Aellig Régnier (Les Villageois) permission to follow him in his travels and private life (up to a point) for a period of two years. The result, Le temps dérobé (from 2013, and released on DVD in 2014), is an intimate look at the performing life of the pianist, as we see his rituals in the green room before concerts, rehearsals with cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras and orchestras (including Les Violons du Roy, with Bernard Labadie), his work with composer Gérard Pesson on a new piano concerto. Washingtonians had the chance to see the film, which has not been widely distributed, thanks to the always rewarding film series at the French Embassy, where it was screened on Wednesday night.
The film is known in English, for better or worse, as Behind the Veil. Its actual title, which could be translated as Stolen Time or Time Eclipsed, refers to what Tharaud says at one point in the movie, about why playing concerts is so important to him. There is in every concert, maybe only for a short time but both for him and the listeners, a moment where time is suspended. That is apparently what keeps him going on the crazy, lonely schedule of an international performer. The movie is divided into sections shot in various cities around the world, as his time is taken up with practicing, yoga, a visit to a massage therapist or chiropractor, listening intensely to his own recording takes, an interview by remote radio connection. A scene where Tharaud worries neurotically over the sound of a piano he will be playing, ministered to by a pair of piano technicians, is reminiscent of similarly sound-obsessed performers in Pianomania.
No narration intervenes, and the music heard is never identified with subtitles. Listeners who know the piano repertoire will easily pick out most of what he plays: here are fragments of Debussy's Danseuses de Delphes, there is just the tantalizing opening of Couperin's Le Tic-Toc-Choc. It is not really a film for serious listeners, though, as no excerpt is longer than a minute. One hears both sections of the air from Bach's Goldberg Variations, which is pretty much the most extensive excerpt in the film. If you want to listen to how Alexandre Tharaud plays, you are going to be disappointed. If you want to see glimpses of him backstage and offstage and hear him speak about his life, in ways that border only occasionally on self-indulgence, the film hits the mark.
The next screening in the French Embassy's film series will beL'ombre des femmes, released last year by Philippe Garrel, this time at the Avalon Theater in Chevy Chase (January 20, 8 pm).
Alexandre Tharaud continues to surprise me. At his latest recital here, at the Phillips Collection on Sunday afternoon, it was not surprising to hear him play jewel-like Couperin (his opening set) or a delightful Scarlatti sonata as an encore (the guitar-like K. 141). The bulk of the program, though, showed the French pianist going in new directions, with composers not previously associated with him, at least by these ears.
Even in the set of eight Couperin pieces, drawn from all over the place, Tharaud seemed to be questing after new sounds and approaches, adding many changes and embellishments on repeats, not afraid to use the pedals copiously, strongly differentiating polyphonic voices, even hammering out some accents for percussive effect. His Les calotines clicked and clacked, as if with mechanical sounds, and he stretched Les rozeaux and the gorgeous Les barricades mistérieuses with taffy-like rubato. The pairing of Les ombres errantes and La triomphante was played for maximal contrast, delicate and ultra-slow for the former, trumpeted motifs bustling with agitation for the latter. After the clanging, sonorous bells of Le Carillon de Cythère (an effect easier to produce on the modern piano than on the harpsichord), the rhythmic infusion of Le tic-toc-choc, now synonymous with Tharaud, was played with more force than in his recording (or his 2008 recital at the French Embassy).
Mozart's A major sonata (K. 331) followed, the variations on its gentle lullaby theme given accented wrong-note grace notes and expertly voiced hand crossings. The menuetto was organized around its big orchestral unison motif, which set off more fast and delicate music, the trio a little slower and warmer in tone. Tharaud took the piece's famous finale, Alla Turca, at a perfect Allegretto tempo, not too fast, which allowed him to make strongly marked dynamic contrasts and apply a hard-biting touch in the loud Janissary sections, enlivened by percussive attacks. Tharaud's last performance of Schubert, the Moments musicaux at his 2010 recital at the Library of Congress with Jean-Guihen Queyras, was somewhat disappointing. Here he dove into that composer's set of sixteen German dances, D. 783, with much more variety of interpretation, from big and gutsy to forlorn and enigmatic, technically solid in the many challenges (parallel thirds, filigree rising scales, and so on) but with that free, lovely sense of rubato applied in the slow pieces.
The program was designed as a long crescendo toward the final piece, Beethoven's sonata in A-flat major, op. 110, or really toward that sonata's finale. Tharaud took the first movement at a slow, expressive tempo, emphasizing the music's delicate side and telling a compelling story with it through gradations of color in sound. The middle movement, marked Allegro molto, was taken at a rather slow speed, startling at first and perhaps not right for the joking quotations of folk songs (snatches of Unsa Kätz häd Katzln ghabt, or 'Our cat has had kittens', and Ich bin lüderlich, du bist lüderlich, or 'I'm a slob, you're a slob'), but again with the payoff of being able to make maximal dynamic contrasts and to exaggerate sforzando attacks, as well as giving the piece a more legato feel than it usually has. The Klagender Gesang section was steeped in tragic gloom, through which the fugue subject pierced like a ray of sunshine. The tempo of the fugue was perfect, floating weightlessly, allowing all the voices to be delineated cleanly, even in the stretto sections, and making possible a furious cranking up of tempo as the piece rocketed to its conclusion. One of the remarks I made about Tharaud's 2012 recital at the French Embassy was that "crushing fortissimo power is the only weapon missing from [his] arsenal." The exultant hammered chords at the conclusion of the Beethoven made clear that this reservation was no longer justified.
Last week, I mentionedAlexandre Tharaud's special concert residency at the Cité de la Musique this week. The French pianist's new CD, Autograph, arrived in the mail recently, and the official release date is today. In most cases, such a recording of favorite encores is nothing more than the self-indulgence of a star musician. As usual, even under those circumstances, Tharaud delivers something that is instead thoughtful and mostly devoid of overly familiar chestnuts (a Rachmaninoff prelude, op. 3/2, and Chopin's Minute Waltz aside). There are a couple favorites from Tharaud's past, like Rameau's Les Sauvages, Couperin's Le Tic-Toc-Choc, and a Scarlatti sonata (K. 141): Tharaud has described the disc as a sort of self-portrait through the lens of his own discography. Many pieces, perhaps too many, are of the dreamy, sugary melodic variety -- Tchaikovsky's op. 19/4 nocturne, Fauré's Romance sans paroles, Sibelius's Valse triste, Satie's third Gymnopédie, Poulenc's Mélancolie, Mompou's El Lago -- but this sort of piece is so squarely in Tharaud's wheelhouse that it is hard to complain about their inclusion. The surprises are the best part -- the frantic celebration of Grieg's Wedding Day at Troldhaugen, the homesickness of Adios a Cuba by Ignacio Cervantes, the prancing dissonance of Oscar Strasnoy's Tourbillon -- and, of course, there is Tharaud's crisp and joyous Bach, which bookends the disc. The only thing one misses is hinted at in this radio interview (en français): Tharaud loves to improvise, which is another reason he thinks that having a piano in his apartment would put him at risk of doing nothing but playing for his own own amusement. A Tharaud improvisation would have been just the thing to give the final punch to this pleasing little disc.
Alexandre Tharaud planned the program around his own discography, sorted out from the screening of a documentary, Alexandre Tharaud, le temps dérobé, directed by Raphaëlle Aellig-Régnier. The filmmaker followed the pianist over the course of two years, from Kuala Lumpur to Montreal, to film what one never sees or very little: the backstage, life between concerts. "In spite of the audiences, we lead a solitary life," he says. "I am alone on the plane, on the train, in my bed (well, not always!), and I am taking advantage of this invitation to surround myself with friends and to stay for two weeks in Paris."
So Alexandre Tharaud has brought together his friends: the flamenco singer Alberto Garcia for a "flamenco Scarlatti" concert, his friends from Le Bœuf sur le toit in 2012, some from performance (tenor Jean Delescluse) and from the recording studio (the chanteuse Juliette). He entrusted the pianist Frédéric Vaysse-Knitter with Outre-mémoire, the project of the Antillais-French composer Thierry Pécou and artist François Boclé, about the enslavement and treatment of black people. He will be "content" with three recitals on November 17 (Couperin-Bach-Rameau, Schubert-Chopin, and Ravel-Satie); with Ravel's G major concerto, which he has not yet recorded in spite of his great love for this music; as well as a Bach concerto. There will also be the third concerto of Beethoven, a composer he had not played before he made the soundtrack for Michael Haneke's Amour.
Three recitals this Sunday? "J'aime les marathons," says Tharaud. His next disc is Autograph, to be released next week, is a selection of "petites madeleines," encore pieces by twenty-two composers (more on that soon). After this residency at the Cité de la Musique, he will take a vacation of three months, during which he will move into a new apartment, with a view of the Seine. He will still not have a piano at home, which he offers as advice to many young musicians. Most important, he says, is not to play on a beautiful piano, because it does not encourage you to work.
The one thing that is most certain in life, that we will die, is also the thing for which most of us will not or cannot prepare. In his most recent film, Amour, Michael Haneke explores this most personal stage of life, as a devoted husband and wife, both retired music teachers, confront the inevitable end. Since The Piano Teacher in 2001, Haneke has had startling critical success as a filmmaker, winning the Palme d'Or at Cannes for his last two films, The White Ribbon (2009) and Amour (2012), making him one of only seven directors who have won that award twice. (Caché was favored to win the award in 2005 but did not.) His films are the sort likely to make audiences squirm in their seats, but while Amour has some of those typical Haneke moments of terror and disgust it is new territory in many ways, a portrait of the eponymous emotion in all its complexity.
Classical music features importantly in Haneke's stories -- although most of the film is starkly silent -- and the couple shown here, Anne and Georges (the names of many couples in Haneke's films), play the piano, listen to recordings of themselves, read a book about Nikolaus Harnoncourt. After the introduction of the film, the story opens at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, for a long, uninterrupted shot of the audience filing into their places, the lights darkening, and the gentle notes of Schubert emanating from a piano. We cut to the reception afterward, where the elderly couple meet and congratulate the performer, one Alexandre Tharaud, who turns out to have been Anne's student when he was young and does just fine as an actor here. He comes to their apartment for a visit, plays another Schubert piece for them there, and later sends them his new CD. After a particularly disturbing scene, the camera turns away from the story, focusing on a series of beautiful landscape paintings. The message seems clear, that one of the functions of art is to show beauty when life has none, because the worst parts of a person dying -- "None of that deserves to be seen," as one character puts it.
Perhaps that is why Haneke, somewhat uncharacteristically, does not cut as mercilessly into the disturbing details of the story as he normally would. Emmanuelle Riva (Hiroshima mon amour), now in her 80s, gives a luminous performance as Anne, while Jean-Louis Trintignant is more incisive as the crusty, somewhat short-tempered husband, a role that recalls his embittered judge in Krzysztof Kieslowski's Trois couleurs: Rouge. Isabelle Huppert, a Haneke favorite, plays the couple's daughter, who pops in from time to time from her life as a traveling musician, along with her British husband, played by William Shimell (Copie conforme). Unfortunately, like many children, she is little help to her parents and even gets in their way in some respects. All of the performances are strong, especially those of Trintignant and Riva (while she has been honored with some awards buzz, he has not), who bring an entire world of a life lived together to vivid light (with excellent cinematography by Darius Khondji) almost entirely in the space of their well-appointd Parisian flat. It is Haneke's best film so far, because he has not gone to such lengths to repel his audience. That is not to say that watching it is not an uncomfortable experience, because it is, but it may indeed be the best film of the year.
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 is an Ionarts favorite, and his upcoming recital at La Maison Française (October 26, 7:30 pm) is high on our list of concerts to hear this season. Tharaud plays well, obviously, but we also admire him for some of the more unusual projects he takes on. For example, at the moment, he is involved in a recreation of Le Boeuf sur le toit as a cabaret act with the Théâtre de Cornouaille in Quimper, in the Finistère region of Brittany. Marie-Aude Roux wrote an article about it (Alexandre Tharaud et les fantômes du cabaret, October 4) for Le Monde (my translation):
This project, says Tharaud, takes him back into his DNA -- that of his maternal grandfather, Charles Auvergne, a violinist at the Concerts Colonne. "There is a photograph of him that I look at in the evenings. He is with the orchestra directed by Paul Paray at the Châtelet. He is the only one looking at the camera. He was a versatile musician, who played with the symphony orchestra as well as for popular dance groups, accompanying silent films, and recording with Ray Ventura. He had stopped playing by the time I was born, but that era has always fascinated me."
Tharaud has chosen the mythic Paris of the Années folles, an epoch blessed in both art and people, such as at the Cabaret de la rue Duphot, better known by the name of Boeuf sur le toit, after its owner, Louis Moysés, took it across the Place de la Madeleine to 28, rue Boissy-d'Anglas, and borrowed the title of the pantomime that Darius Milhaud wrote on a theme heard at the Carnaval in Rio. It was there, from 1922 to 1927 -- the belle époque du "premier Boeuf," as enthusiasts would call it -- that all of Paris, drawn by the magician Jean Cocteau, would celebrate life, love, and music in a country devastated by World War I. The journal of the pianist Jean Wiéner (1896-1982), Allegro Appassionato, gives a glimpse: "At one table were André Gide, Marc Allégret, and a lady. Next to them, Diaghilev, Kochno, Picasso, and Misia Sert. A little further away, Mistinguett, Volterra, and Maurice Chevalier. Against the wall, Satie, René Clair, his wife, and Bathori. Then I saw Picabia arguing with Paul Poiret and Tzara... Cocteau and Radiguet go give their greetings to each table. Arthur Rubinstein will come this evening after his concert" to play Chopin. There was also Ravel, Milhaud, Stravinsky, black musicians from the American jazz bands. Everyone did "Le Boeuf," in fact, sometimes with Cocteau beating the drum.
Tharaud will perform a version of the cabaret reconstruction in Paris and other places around France through October 19, just before coming to Washington, and a new disc of the project is due out at the end of the month. The pianist says that what he wanted to capture was the effervescence of the "salad concerts" organized by Jean Wiéner, bringing together older classical music, jazz, and contemporary composition. For example, the first cabaret included Milhaud's Sonata for Winds and Piano, an American jazz band, and excerpts of The Rite of Spring played by Stravinsky himself via player piano. "I am not nostalgic," says Tharaud, "but I believe that there is nothing more enlivening than to make lesser-known music known again, to weaken assumptions, and especially to be reminded that stylistic isolation is the worst thing for an artist."
Greatness in an artist, a pianist, is a rummy thing. In a variation on Potter Stewart’s pornography dictum: it’s easier to hear than to define. Especially when a pianist, Alexandre Tharaud, finds greatness in smallness: He’s a master of miniatures; a virtuoso of vignettes. Greatness in a pianist like Wilhelm Backhauslies in the great calm, the stoic unfussiness in which long lines or piled-on heroism are played, in the resistance to bending even one phrase for effect if the effect on the whole isn’t productive. Greatness in the results of Alexandre Tharaud (in any case a musician who would recoil from having that word being applied to him), lies in the innately-judicious, instinctive application of wit, exaggeration, whimsy, playfulness, tenderness, and the like. Much of that has to do with the repertoire, of course: What makes a Bach Sicilienne or a bit by Couperin brilliant may not work for a Brahms Sonata—and that which lifts a Hammerklavier Sonata to a new plane may in turn be insufficient to inspire the “original and happy freaks”, to use Charles Burney’s coyly sublime description of the Scarlatti Sonatas. Greatness, ultimately lies in getting it just right for the piece being played, in the moment one is playing it.
A little less than a year ago I attended a recital of Alexandre Tharaud at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, and by the time he made it through Schubert (the Sixth of the 6 Moments Musicaux D.780 played gorgeously, tenderly, like a letter to a long-time, older friend) and Chopin (a confident, delicately muscular E-flat Nocturne, an enthralling Fantaisie-Impromptu, a particularly delicious Ballade No.1), and he arrived at the encores, there came to the fore that greatness in the small: Bach. Chopin. Rameau. Chopin again. Then Couperin’sTic-Toc-Choc, ous Les Maillotins—his quintessential encore piece. Then, still, the crowd wanted more and he brought out Bach again. By this time I was thinking that if his next five albums for Virgin Classics were all Scarlatti, I would be a very happy man. Sure enough, his (reluctant) seventh encore was Scarlatti. And later I received better news, still: His next album—one, if not five—would be of Scarlatti. And there was much rejoicing.
Tharaud now records for Virgin Classics, after many wildly successful discs for Harmonia Mundi, a move that initially surprised the people at Virgin even more than me. “I have been friends with Alexandre for a long time, but I would have never asked or suggested he come over to our label” assures Alain Lançeron—the Parisian head of Virgin Classics—believably. “When he called me [back then] and said he needed to talk immediately, I thought about anything—maybe medical problems, who knows. But not that he would want to join Virgin. In fact, I fought for Harmonia Mundi, because I can’t help to take the side of an artists’ label. But he wanted to join us, so in the end of course I was happy to welcome him to the Virgin family.” Very happy, indeed, I would think—along with the Quatuor Ébèneand Philippe Jaroussky and a few other judiciously chosen artists, he’s a musical crown jewel in their lineup that lifts the whole EMI/Virgin Classics brand in the eyes and ears of every connoisseur.
After his Virgin-debut, an amiable disc of Chopin which I enjoyed without being ‘wowed’ by it, we now get Scarlatti—due out on the 8th of March. At the very least since Horowitz recorded Scarlatti sonatas, Scarlatti-on-the-piano recordings have become commonplace and the field ever more competitive with several pianists—often the more extroverted ones—finding their best in these short pieces: Even his greatest detractors won’t deny the success of Pogorelich’s recording. Christian Zacharias made a name for himself not the least with his Scarlatti on EMI (just boxed and re-released)—and continues to record more of it on MDG. Naxos had a wonderful idea of sourcing the 555+ sonatas out to a different pianist for each disc they add to their continuing survey, most of which is prime stuff. My very favorite, finally, is the two disc set of Mikhail Pletnev (Virgin Classics); one of my over all favorite CDs—perhaps the disc I’ve listened more often to than any other. That’s strong competition, but Tharaud sweeps aside any notion of competition. Not on ‘superiority’, if there were such a thing, but on account of how the recording exudes and oozes so much personality.
In person, Tharaud appears a friendly, weary, incredibly gentle and soft-spoken musician. A pale young man, the lines on whose boyish face betray his real age (42), he comes across as someone who needs to avoid conflict and agitation… he even seems fragile, bordering frail: A type that must immediately kindle the mother-hen instinct in any remotely sensitive person. Sometimes that comes through in his playing—in that utmost sensitive take of the D-minor Sonata Kk.32, for example. [See sample below, compared to the same sonata played on the harpsichord by Scott Ross (Warner).]
Sonata Kk.32 (excerpt), Alex Tharaud
Sonata Kk.32 (excerpt), Scott Ross
But it would be a mistake to think that Tharaud, for whatever his occasional lyrical indulgence or personal impression, is a sentimental pianist. Most of the time, he’s anything but. In fact, he seems to grow a whole set of different, colorful personalities while at the keyboard. Among them some that are bold, devil-may-care colors such as can be heard in the vigorous, punctuated, insanely fast D-major Sonata Kk.29 where he so abruptly treats pedals and keys that the piano’s action goes “Rrrrrrrrrroommmpff!” at one point. [Sample below.] Kk.3 (A-minor) receives a similar, brusque treatment—as if the sonata was tumbling down a flight of stairs. Or listen to his stupendous touch comes to the fore nicely in Kk.132 (in C-Major), where the high notes beckon like little bells. [Sample below.]
Sonata Kk.29 (excerpt), Alex Tharaud
Sonata Kk.132 (excerpt), Alex Tharaud
That he cares about every note he plays is well demonstrated by another D-minor Sonata, Kk.64. On the surface a straightforward firecracker that one might play faster or slower, more or less abrupt… but otherwise find little differentiation in it. Yet the way Tharaud enriches every space between the notes with atmosphere is surprisingly, enjoyably distinct from the perfectly fine but perhaps rigid, note-bound (and minimally faster) interpretation of Gottlieb Wallisch (Naxos). [Samples below.]
Sonata Kk.64 (excerpt), Alex Tharaud
Sonata Kk.64 (excerpt), Gottlieb Wallisch
In Kk.141, one of my great favorites, Tharaud proves Pletnevian spunk, and a more peckish-puckish touch than even Ross goes for on the harpsichord—an instrument you’d think better suited for the wind-up toy-like repeated four-note figures that characterize the Sonata (also in D-minor). [Samples below.] Kk.380 (E-Major, another favorite) has a perfect balance of attitude and cool, quicksilver fleetness and coy bumps. After the delightfully whimsical Kk.431 (in G-Major, see sample atop), he closes with Kk.9, a highlight on any Scarlatti sonata collection, and it is here, too.
The performances of Alexandre Tharaud inspire (not just) me to superlatives–which makes it all the more regrettable that recitals and concerts of his are hard to come by if you are outside France or the Netherlands. (Such are the mysterious ways in which concert promoters, agents, and happenstance work.) When the opportunity presented itself to hear him in a radio-recital organized by Bavarian Broadcasting (after last hearing him in Paris in April 2010), I naturally jumped at it: Debussy Préludes and Scarlatti Sonatas? A seemingly ideal program for the Parisian master of miniatures.
With the first few notes of “Danseuses de Delphes”, the softness of his tone and the judiciousness of his touch were obvious. The sonorous surefootedness with which he navigated the BR’s Hamburg Steinway suggested that Tharaud felt comfortable right off the bat; as comfortable as he sounded. Cheeky and busy amid a resolute pulse (“Le vent dan la plaine”), smoothly powerful (“La sérénade interrompue”), and casually tossing notes about with a robust flick of the wrist (“Minstrels”) – the Debussy was an early delight. Only in “Des pas sur le neige” did Tharaud’s deliberateness come close to overtaxing the listener’s capacity to follow the line.
But the undisputed light-weight champion of musical vignettes would best the first half yet, with ten Scarlatti Sonatas after intermission. Curarum Levamen (“Dispelling Worries” – the motto of an early set of Scarlatti's sonatas), indeed! The bright-eyed spunk of K64, the twitchy flicker of the (unusually slow) K9, the racing K72 (with Tharaud smiling at what his fingers just got away with), the bell-like inwardness of K132, the madly racing palate-cleanser K29, the roughness of K3—with Tharaud testing how much roughing the Steinway’s action can take, the deconstructed K514—suddenly sounding like a computer game jingle, the entrancing-amazing K481, and finally the brusque K141, in equal measure smile and tooth… it was a bracing performance and it made for that rarest of post-concert feelings: rejuvenation.
Tharaud might be 43, but he most certainly has a case of perpetual puppy. That, together with his fragility, weariness, the youthful corners, and much sensitivity, makes for a wonderful mix. But even with his occasional lyrical indulgence, he isn’t a sentimental pianist. Anything but. He grows a set wildly varying, colorful personalities at the keyboard—among them several that are bold and devil-may-care… and those have plenty to wrestle with, in Scarlatti’s “Happy Freaks”. His playful and soft side came out in two of his staple-encores: Bach’sSicilienne and Couperin’s Tic-Toc-Choc. I was dancing in my seat with joy, trying hard not to annoy those around me.
When you hear and evaluate many concerts, the excellent ones stand out from the fair, good, and even very good ones in an almost self-evident way. Not much more needs to be said about Friday night's recital by cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras and pianist Alexandre Tharaud at the Library of Congress, other than that it rises to the top of concerts heard by these ears so far this year. As Queyras mentioned in his recent interview with our own Jens Laurson, he and Tharaud were thrown together more or less haphazardly, because they were represented by the same agency. This is extraordinarily good luck because their natural and collaborative rapport makes it seem at times like they were born to play together. The French first half opened with two of the shorter Poulenc pieces from their Debussy and Poulenc disc. The Sérénade from Chansons gaillardes warmed the room, the luscious legato of Queyras's singing cello supported by the often self-effacing Tharaud.
More jagged edges followed in the Suite française, in which Poulenc transformed 16th-century music by Claude Gervaise into elegant dances, alternatively square-footed and graceful, and a strange, half-muted Complainte. Tharaud's savvy way with early music, attributed by him to an appreciation of historically informed performance ensembles, showed through here. The half concluded with Debussy's cello sonata, one of the composer's late, masterful instrumental works -- paired on the CD with Poulenc's cello sonata, alas not heard on this program. The Debussy sonata is a beautiful, autumnal piece, solemn and wistful but also wild and playful, with hints of earlier works: the repeated low Cs and other parts of La cathédrale engloutie (first movement), Minstrels and Golliwog's Cakewalk (second movement). The temptation is to let the loud, rollicking parts roll, but Queyras and Tharaud wisely never overplayed the room, aware of the superb acoustic of Mrs. Coolidge's auditorium.
An Austrian second half did not fall quite as perfectly into place. Schubert's "Arpeggione" sonata, D. 821, profited most from the freer flowing melodic sense of Queyras's playing, even though in the last movement his left hand, perhaps tiring, had some intonation misses. It was an ingenious idea to introduce the work with the pointillistic miniatures of Anton Webern's Drei kleine Stücke, op. 11, played without warning in continuity with the Schubert, so that the capacity audience applauded after the first movement of the "Arpeggione" (one could not possibly mistake Schubert for Webern, or could one?). Half-formed thoughts were tangled in a quiet mass in the first movement, followed by a clot of more violent phrases in the second and an expressionistic wash of colors in the third. Listening to this music, played with disarming beauty, one was reminded of Queyras's comments in his interview with Jens that he plays modern music not out of a sense of duty but because it appeals like any other music.
A set of three Moments musicaux, D. 780, should have been in the same mold as Tharaud's recording of the Chopin waltzes, but for some reason Tharaud did not find the same kind of guileless simplicity or coloristic variety. Only no. 6 (A♭ major) achieved that fleeting, pastel transparency, while nos. 1 and 2 seemed glossed over, as if the music did not much engage Tharaud's interest. Queyras's solo turn on the first half, Henri Dutilleux's Trois strophes sur le nom de Sacher, was much more absorbing, ranging from a guitar-like serenade in the first movement ("Un poco indecision" [sic] it read in the program -- a rare spellcheck-induced error for the Library of Congress, to go along with the misspelling of the cellist's name, "Jean-Guien Queyras," on the cover) to the frenetic third movement with its precariously high writing on the A string. A single encore, Gregor Piatigorsky's arrangement of a Haydn Allegro di molto movement, concluded the evening on an impressive technical flourish.
The next concert in the series at the Library of Congress will feature Voces Intimae, a fortepiano trio that will perform music by Hummel, Mozart, and Schubert (March 26, 8 pm).
It is well known that Alexandre Tharaud is an Ionarts favorite, and we have written warmly of just about every recording or concert of his to reach our ears, which led me to list him as one of the best overall performers of the first decade of this millennium. He will be returning to the Washington area next month, for a couple of concerts that we hope to review: with cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras at the Library of Congress (March 12, 8 pm) and again at the Baltimore Museum of Art (March 13, 3 pm), programs drawing on their Debussy-Poulenc and Schubert recordings together. In some ways, Tharaud is the opposite of Maurizio Pollini, who seems drawn to the largest, most demanding works by this composer, his performances of the smaller pieces seeming not to have fully engaged his technical imagination. Tharaud excels at finely tooled rendition of the miniatures, etching a remarkable level of detail into a small space: his cycle of the Chopin Preludes, in concert and on disc, was magnificently gloomy, and his disc of the waltzes noteworthy for its introspective, lonely quality.
So Tharaud's new Chopin disc, scheduled by Virgin just in time for the composer's 200th birthday celebrations on March 1, plays to his strengths, by selecting largely from the smaller piano pieces, chosen because of the memories they evoked in Tharaud's mind. He does beautiful things with the fragile melodies and delicious harmonies of several mazurkas and nocturnes, as well as the folksy impressions of the snappier écossaises (op. 72) and the dreamy contredanse in B♭ major. With the more demanding pieces on this album, he makes one hear new things in many passages with his choice of voicing or rubato fluctuation. However, as noted before, Tharaud's formidable and easy technique is not without its limits, and the most demanding passages (like the final section of the G minor ballade) do not take your breath away. (My overall preference among living Chopin pianists, of those one is likely to hear anyway, is Evgeny Kissin, who excels at the melancholy little works and has unassailable technique in the showpieces.) For this reason and because Tharaud does not include his signature type of "encore" work, an évocation of Chopin by another composer (why not the Chopin movement from Carnaval by Robert Schumann, whose 200th birthday will also be celebrated this year, on June 8?), for example, this disc is still recommended but not with the highest marks.
When it comes to a list of recorded achievements made by the age of 40, few pianists have succeeded like Alexandre Tharaud. Since his first recording for the Harmonia Mundi label in 2001, and before that on Naxos, Tharaud has released a series of discs, many of which are essential listening for any collector. He has shown a special affinity for two areas of repertory, the Baroque (Rameau, Couperin, and extraordinary Bach) and French music of the early 20th century (Poulenc and Debussy cello sonatas with Jean-Guihen Queyras, Ravel, Poulenc, and Milhaud), although he has made a very pleasing detour into the 19th century, with discs of the preludes and waltzes of Chopin and some Schubert. When I spoke with Tharaud, informally, after his Washington recital at La Maison Française last October (which I reviewed for the Washington Post), he told me about this new Satie disc, which he had just recorded earlier that spring. The recording has many delights, a few dogs, and much that reinforces my impression of Satie the composer -- witty, quirky, and sometimes off-putting. Certainly, as Tharaud and friends play him, Satie is worth hearing.
The first disc is devoted to the solo piano music, arranged in a program around the famous Gnossiennes, played just as they should be, languorous but simple, with few adjustments of the gentle, undulating -- but not oily -- pace. The best definition of what a Gnossienne is, to my knowledge, is an imagined dance named for a woman of Knossos in Crete (a Gnossien is a resident of Knossos). Like the Gymnopédies (one of them is included here), an equally mysterious word that may or may not mean a naked dance, their unusual scalar vocabulary and free, vaguely metered rhythmic sense may be an evocation of or tribute to imagined Greek music. To represent a much more extensive oeuvre, Tharaud's selections feature the many sides of Satie's style, including the satirical (Véritables Préludes flasques), jazz-influenced (the rag Le Piccadilly), surreal (Descriptions automatiques, including the Habanera-like Sur un vaisseau), winkingly postmodern (the ridiculous Beethoven parody in endless hammered cadences in Embryons desséchés), and experimental (the prepared piano jangling like percussion and banjo, in the seven pieces from Le piège de Méduse).
A second disc features pieces requiring two musicians, to mixed success. The four-hands piano works (Trois morceaux en forme de poire, La Belle Excentrique, and Cinéma), with pianist Éric Le Sage, are a delight to have in my collection, as are lesser-known works for tenor (the clear-voiced Jean Delescluse) and violin (the luscious Stradivarius of Isabelle Faust). Poor trumpeter David Guerrier is heard for only about 15 seconds at the end of La statue retrouvée. It was an ingenious idea to use the rougher voice of cabaret singer Juliette, and her distinctive works so well in the comic songs like Chez le docteur, but less so in the ballads like Je te veux, where a more refined sound is missed. At the end of the final track (5:30, after long silence), some uncredited words are spoken (by Tharaud?): "J'ai plus de plaisir à mesurer un son que je n'en ai à l'entendre. [...] Que n'ai-je pesé ou mesuré ? Tout de Beethoven, tout de Verdi, etc. C'est très curieux. [...] Passons. Je reviendrai sur ce sujet." (I take greater pleasure in measuring a sound than I do in hearing it. [...] What have I not weighed or measured? All of Beethoven, all of Verdi, etc. It's very strange. [...] Let's move on. I will come back to this subject). It turns out that these are a few lines spliced together from Satie's Mémoires d'un amnésique (Memoirs of an amnesiac). Let us hope it is a sign of another Satie album to come from Tharaud and Co.
Two leading performers of the young generation of French classical musicians, cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras and pianist Alexandre Tharaud, will be playing in Washington in the coming week. In nearly back-to-back concerts at La Maison Française, Tharaud will revisit his latest recording, the Chopin preludes, and Queyras will play with the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia. Their collaboration on disc continues with this new oh-so-French release, combining the cello sonatas of Debussy and Poulenc, with a few rich viennoiseries off the dessert cart. Most of Tharaud's recordings make a point of combining old and new, and the program of this CD makes reference to the nationalistic embrace by many French composers of historical French music. In a sense, Tharaud has followed in their wake, by releasing knock-out recordings of Couperin and Rameau, and acknowledging how the historically informed performance movement influenced his career.
Few listeners these days would likely need to be convinced of the recording's main premise, that Debussy's music has more in common with Poulenc's than different. Both performers have shown their commitment to more recent music, too, and Tharaud's worthy recording of Ravel's complete piano works shows that he is more than familiar with music of the early 20th century. (In his recital at La Maison Française on Friday, he will combine the Chopin preludes with Ravel's Miroirs.) The two big sonatas are fairly known quantities, and Queyras and Tharaud play them with a Frenchness that is both self-aware and unapologetic. The Debussy has the right combination of gauzy lightness, Queyras's tone often slipping behind pastel veils, and Spartan, hard-glazed austerity. The Poulenc is more acerbic in some ways, a little more vulgar in its embrace of the music of the boulevards.
The story of the disc is in the little pieces that surround the sonatas, including most notably Poulenc's Suite Française, which was conceived originally as incidental music played by a chamber ensemble for the play La reine Margot. Nadia Boulanger, who so often helped other composers by connecting them to music of the past, suggested that Poulenc use some 16th-century dance music by Claude Gervaise as a starting point. Poulenc arranged the work in a number of different versions, including this one for cello and piano, another way that Queyras and Tharaud join the new to the old. The menu of amuse-gueules that might serve as sparkly little encores includes Poulenc's heavy-footed D minor bagatelle and a smoky arrangement of the intentionally smarmy waltz known as La plus que lente.
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In concerts at La Maison Française, Alexandre Tharaud will play the Chopin op. 28 preludes and Ravel's Miroirs this Friday (October 24, 7:30 pm) and Jean-Guihen Queyras will play with the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia next Tuesday (October 28, 7:30 pm).
