Pianist shines on a summer night
LENOX -- Pierre-Laurent Aimard has had an unusual career trajectory. Known in the international new music community for decades, enjoying close associations with such towering figures as Gyorgy Ligeti, Pierre Boulez, and Olivier Messiaen, the French pianist became a prominent touring soloist and recording artist only in recent years, when he finally thought he was ready. His highly acclaimed Carnegie Hall recital debut (preserved on CD) came in 2001, when he was 44. He has the gift of making older music sound contemporary, of making new music sound rooted, and he plays the instrument about as well as it can be played, with virtuosity of color and dynamic gradations fully equal to his speed, power, and accuracy.
For his Tanglewood recital on Thursday night he chose an unusual selection of mutually illuminating music by Beethoven (the "Tempest" Sonata), Elliott Carter ("Night Fantasies"), and Charles Ives (the "Concord" Sonata).
Pale and serious, he gave a dark and disturbing performance of the Beethoven sonata, which may not be as claustrophobic as Aimard made it seem -- this really is outdoor music. But Aimard's realization of his own objectives cast an unusual light on the music, and his control of texture through touch of finger and pedal feet was magisterial.
Carter composed "Night Fantasies" in 1980 for four eminent American pianists, who brought such different personalities to the work that it seemed protean in its possibilities and a masterpiece, even if it was difficult to understand and follow. Now a whole new generation is tackling the piece and finding different things in it, chasing different chimeras. Aimard's performance was notable for its tints, washes, and bold strokes of color -- the work sounded like a last, unstable phantasmagoria of impressionism.
Aimard's recent recording of the "Concord" Sonata (Warner Classics) may be the most pianistically sophisticated version of the work on record, and it is so musically penetrating that it shows just how thoroughly and well-composed Ives's musical portraits of the New England Transcendentalists are; the old world meets the new, and Beethoven's Fifth Symphony meets "Columbia the Gem of the Ocean."
What the CD does not do is establish that pianistic sophistication is a primary requirement of the piece -- it lacks rough edges, spontaneity, wildness. Aimard's extraordinarily alert, sensitive, and commanding live performance was still missing the rough edges, but it was looser, and in the climaxes of the "Hawthorne" movement he all but freaked out. In the quiet conclusion of the "Thoreau" movement, Tangle
wood Music Center flutist Sarah Frisof, from the Ozawa Hall balcony, floated Beethoven's motto into the night air one final time.
Pierre-Laurent Aimard
At: Seiji OzawaHall at Tanglewood, Thursday night
