Turkish pianist Fazil Say, guest of the first concert of the Pro Musica season, caused a surprise by filling the Pierre-Mercure room to the brim, including the balcony. This is surprising for a pianist who is very rare in our region. His recital showed that he should come back to see us more often.
Our quick research attests to a concert given by Fazil Say in 1998 in Quebec. That’s all. At the time, he had just published his first album dedicated to Mozart. It was just before, as a prelude to the launch of his CD, in Paris, then during a fiery performance during the International Record and Musical Edition Market, in Cannes, in January 1998, that we discovered him .
Fazil Say was from the outset a pianist like no other. He had within him an intrinsic freedom, a desire to free himself from codes. He also managed to “pack a room” with an encore where he went into a tailspin with a frenzy.
Icon
The pianist we find in Montreal 26 years later is hunched over his piano. The room which acclaims him as a “ rockstar » is not usual. We feel that the entire Turkish diaspora is there, a bit as if an icon was there, on stage.
In 2013, Fazil Say made headlines across the planet for his ten-month suspended prison sentence for insulting Islam. As a result, he had become a symbol of the debate on freedom of expression in his country. His sentence was lifted in 2016. In October 2023, he just got back into trouble, but in the opposite direction, with a message on the X network against Israel in the context of the situation in Gaza which earned him several cancellations concerts, notably in Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
The situation has calmed down a little around him in recent weeks, but such is Fazil Say: he is boiling. He has neither his tongue nor his fingers in his pocket, and it is this character who delivers himself, as is, on stage.
What differentiates the pianist who started out in 1997-1998 and the artist we saw yesterday? The question we asked ourselves was quickly: Is Fazil Say happy? We had the impression of seeing a man weighed down with a weight; an artist who almost needs to shout through his art. There is something overwhelming about this indescribable sensation.
Sculptor
From the beginning, Fazil Say was the target of a certain “pianist intelligentsia”. He wasn’t refined enough, too individualistic. It is true that on the record, we cannot say that his approaches are essential. The concert is something completely different, because we understand, at least in part, the human being. Fazil Say in concert is an incantation to music. When both hands are not playing, he directs, he shows us an imaginary sound trajectory, accompanies the sound which fades away.
Few Preludes by Debussy are expressive, personal, but within the limits of what is admissible. We are among those who refuse Tartuffe’s pretenses that when it is Radu Lupu who appropriates the Preludes by Debussy (at Pro Musica, in the past), it’s necessarily great, whereas when it’s Fazil Say, it would necessarily be an outrage. Her Moonlight is admirable poetry moreover, and the Death of Isolde udoes not squall.
There are finger errors in theAppassionata, including the 2e variation of the slow movement has a strange hiccup, but this devil of an artist takes us once again into his world with his way of fighting with the music in a furious gesture. And what a sound! This quality of sound production is found in Bach/Liszt, where the piano becomes an imaginary organ. Fazil Say ends with one of his works and continues with three encores delivered in one block, including two of his compositions and his adaptation of Rondo alla turca by Mozart.
We must invite him back to the Maison symphonique, because beyond the artist who is visibly a symbol for a community, there is a pianist who can touch an audience well beyond traditional amateurs through his manner and his influence. We saw and highlighted this faculty in 1998. It has not changed, despite the vicissitudes of life.