The English pianist Christian Blackshaw gave his third recital at the Ladies’ Morning Musical Club, opening the 2022-2023 season on Sunday with a long, concentrated and poetic concert.
Very long, the Fancy by Schumann was the work we dreamed of hearing under the fingers of Christian Blackshaw. This musical monument reveals itself to an elected circle of performers. Connoisseurs will unearth the Grail in fairly rare documents: Nelson Freire published by the INA; Volume 2 of “The Art of Nicolas Economou”; the Ricordi recording by Martha Argerich and the last testimony by Sergio Fiorentino (APR). “It’s in the rare”, would have said the late Claude Gingras. But it is above all precious, because these artists have scrutinized Schumann’s universe, which goes far beyond notes printed on a piece of paper.
poetry and music
The Fancy by Schumann is distinguished both by a deep unity and by the fact of exploring very diverse universes, the pianist sometimes passing from one to another on the echo of a resonance. 1er movement is the most unexpected, and Blackshaw lives up to the great performers.
But if one dreams of Blackshaw in the Fancy, it is for the Finale, this parcel of beyond on Earth. Only precious beings capable of sculpting clouds can guide us there. To have the chance to live 10 to 12 unforgettable minutes in a lifetime, that was in our eyes the objective of this concert.
Everything lined up there. And much more. The collective fascination was such that no one dared to applaud! The interminable silence, until the pianist lowers his arms, was also part of this moment of grace.
This posed, the Fancy comprises three movements, including the second. However, Blackshaw had already interpreted the Fancy in July 2018 in Orford. And we remember this interpretation very well. We therefore remember, among other things, that the pianist was “barouetted” by the score in exactly the same places, especially in the last part.
We deduce that a Blackshaw concert is now bought with its intrinsic limits. The incidents of 2e pane of the Fancy in Orford were no accident. And that is, now, a major difference with Ivan Moravec, that other aesthete of sound: Moravec would never have presented something while being almost certain to go off the rails!
A strange format
Sunday’s concert was long and curious. It looked like a COVID program (a block of 70 minutes, without breaks, consisting of the Variations in F minor of Haydn and the Seasons by Tchaikovsky) to which would have been added an intermission and the Fancy. The connection between all this was difficult to perceive, except that Blackshaw gave a very Schumanian dimension to the Seasons by Tchaikovsky played in a very confident and poetic way (a bit like the great Children’s scenes).
The English pianist excelled in miniatures, where he seemed to escape with many subtleties between salon music and reminiscences of opera (snowdrops, Barcarolle, autumn song). Admirable: its broadening of the sound of the keyboard in Troika and Christmasthe last two pieces.
In the variations by Haydn, a piece requiring great concentration for a concert debut, Blackshaw, very austere, aimed for great unity of tone. The variations were fused and not treated in episodes.
Admirable concert by an artist we are starting to see.