It is the “decentralization” practiced by the piano festival of La Roque-d’Anthéron, which must, we were told, also irrigate the territory of Bouches-du-Rhône at the request of elected officials. So here we are taking the road to Aix-en-Provence to hear the young and blond Dmitri Masleev
The rich collection of the Granet museum
Aix-en-Provence is 20-25 kilometers from La Roque-d’Anthéron, which extends its musical venues to Marseille. So here we are going to stroll through this city that we had not visited for a long time, at the blessed hour of the evening, when the raw light of the blue sky gives all its brilliance to the ocher hotels of the 18th century, the Cours Mirabeau which divides the city in two being devoted to…cycling, so we didn’t dwell on it.
On the side of the cathedral, the animation, the tourists. On the side of the Mazarin district, with streets at right angles, a more secret life which comes alive in the shopping street of Italy and is concentrated around the beautiful Saint-Jean-de-Malte church and the Granet museum, neighbors of the square . A museum, therefore, in the former palace of Malta, which owes its name to François-Marius Granet, a contemporary of Delacroix and Ingres, an original painter, a singular draftsman, who, having had great success, bequeathed his collection to the town. Thus the museum presents Rembrandt or Rubens, Champaigne or Le Nain, Ingres or Géricault, Cézanne whom Granet had not been able to know but also Klee, Picasso or Nicolas de Staël. Better: we had been promised, to us, public, who then attended the concert, a free visit. Disappointment!
The Granet museum before the concert C) Bertrand Renard, France Info Culture
An Italy full of clichés… but also of old photos
Disappointment because the visit was limited to the exhibition spaces and even more – with the very exception of that of the photographer Bernard Plossu. Disappointment because, the 19th century gallery in Munich being probably under construction, the Bavarian capital had sent a set entitled German painters in Italy in the 19th century. We conf themrhad to Granet himself (who made the trip to Rome twice) Granet, without genius, succeeding without problem in surpassing his colleagues from across the Rhine who, with a boring and bland brush, brushed us by putting themselves on stage with their king (Louis I who owned a palace in Rome) a picture of an Italy where all the boys had the faces of shepherds in their youth before, as they grew older, they became fierce brigands arrested by the gendarmes, while the girls , barefoot, spent their time among the goats raising their legs to the sound of tambourines.
An ocean of clichés reminiscent of the representation, barely later, of a French orientalism linked to the first conquest of Mahgreb. The most interesting being the presentation of period photos of Rome (1840-1860) enhanced with beautiful and strange wash drawings by Granet. And meanwhile Masleev was rehearsing, in red loafers and Bermuda shorts. The time seemed long to us. And no coffee to quench.
The Fountain of the 4 Dolphins C) Bertrand Renard, France Info Culture
Of the Seasons not nostalgic enough
A good half hour later, we could finally judge the talent of this 34-year-old blond and Russian young shoot who, like Malofeev, seems barely out of adolescence when he will soon be a dad. Bizarre program, almost business card, obviously with a place for the music of his country but through an original first part, the cycle of Seasons by Tchaikovsky. We should say The months, because there are 12 pieces, each dedicated to them, which 50 years ago were called vignettes, when Tchaikovsky was accused of having a talent rotten by his melodic genius.
This genius is present here and the Barcarolle of the month of June has become a “bis” of all Russian pianists. We liked the song of the lark of March, the ironic solemnity of The hunt (September), the Troika of November or Christmas in the form of a pretty melody. But the Carnival of February is brutal and the snowdrops of April comes out of the ground with the vigor of an asparagus. Above all, Masleev never puts there this perfume of childhood nostalgia which makes the charm of this work, in the line ofEugene Onegin, at a time when Russians, nobles and bourgeois alike, spent most of their time in estates outside the city.
Rue d’Aix C) Bertrand Renard
Russians don’t play Ravel
Dmitri Masleev -closed white Russian shirt, black pants- approaches the Sonatina by Ravel. And you suddenly say to yourself: well, do the Russians play Ravel? A Richter who played everything? Debussy, yes, but not Ravel, from memory. Neither does Gilels. And, today neither Lugansky nor the younger ones. Berezovsky maybe. Yes, Egorov, but who was no longer Russian at the end of his short life. Masleev slips by the way -oh! slightly – but it proves that Ravel’s universe is not so familiar to him. Fortunately it offers a very nice minuet, sensitive and just in timbre, and a very elegant finale. We will finally thank him for taking this Sonatina not as an artwork but “seriously”
A nice Adagio of Spartacus from Khachaturian’s ballet, of which it is not known whether it was transcribed by the composer himself. The heavily loaded, flowing, almost Hollywood-like writing in the bad sense of the word, is more than offset by the deep nostalgia that emanates from the Armenian melodies, a little out of place when it comes to Spartacus but which were the very roots of the composer and forged his identity.
The town hall, the clock tower C) Bertrand Renard, France Info Culture
Liszt between Hungary and Spain
Masleev ends up Spanish Rhapsody by Liszt. Disheveled score, which will exasperate those who hate Liszt and fascinate those who adore him, where Spain is a vague pretext since the initial theme will be reused for the Hungarian fantasy with piano and orchestra: from Hungary to Spain, look for the error. The Spanish Rhapsody, anyway, start as a Hungarian Rhapsody which would be the 21st. And then, without warning, already in the midst of a torrent of virtuosity, the truly Spanish little theme emerges (a jota aragonese) which returns like a call among the splashes of piano, with pirouettes, jumps of all kinds, chromatic tumbles and rises in all directions; in short, the Lisztian piano in all its excesses. And Masleev, of course, rowdy but he had to, as if the army of François-Joseph paraded in the colors of Hungary, at his side a small regiment from Madrid like a hair in the gazpacho. It is played at the speed of a Budapest-Gibraltar TGV until a more “mystical” passage – Abbé Liszt points the tip of his nose. Some will find that to be a little nonsense. But with the genius of Lisz.
Suddenly this leads Masleev into bad habits! In bis one Elegy by Rachmaninoff who overdoes it, then a jazzy study by the contemporary Nikolai Kasputin – we prefer Duke Ellington.
While sleeping above us the Cézanne deprived of our eyes.
Recital Dimitri Masleev: Tchaikovsky (Seasons). Ravel (Sonatina) Khachaturian (Adagio of Spartacus) Liszt (Spanish Rhapsody) Granet Museum in Aix-en-Provence on July 31.