Quebec pianist Marc-André Hamelin performed a titanic concert for Pro Musica on Sunday, with two 45-minute sonatas: the Sonata in E flat by Paul Dukas and the famous hammer keyboard by Beethoven. This meeting will certainly remain in everyone’s memory.
What defines greatness and how to put words or meaning to what seems musical evidence? Curiously, and for our greatest happiness, the question arises repeatedly for several concerts at the beginning of March 2023.
To situate the level of this meeting in concert with the “Hammerklavier” Sonata of Beethoven, we will say that we are finally reassured on one point: before dying, we will have lived at least once “in real life” the conjunction between a visionary artistic conception and a flawless piano realization.
The expectation bias
We must remember here the musical and technical challenges of this “superhuman” sonata, as well as those of the following three, and never forget that listening at home, through the disc, induces significant biases in the music lover. The factitious perfection of a recording is the fruit of passages tirelessly repeated and refined over several sessions. However, we have “earned up” on these decoys and expect to experience the same thing in concert, where the pianist plays without a net. It is the greatness of certain current virtuosos to be able to reach these standards of perfection in concert. Having seen, as a teenager, Kempff and Serkin play the last three sonatas, we can tell you that a lot of things had to be tolerated for the price of intelligence and musical culture…
Spirit and letter, therefore, with Marc-André Hamelin. But what was this spirit? An idea seems to us to synthesize everything: it is the most thought-out vision (in the Germanic sense of durchgedacht “, a word that expresses a thought from the ground up), the most accomplished and accomplished of what could be a “dream of a pianoforte” with the power of the modern piano.
Everything in Marc-André Hamelin’s interpretation certainly respects the dynamic contrasts, clarifies the counterpoint, clarifies the lines. But above all that, there is resonance. Thus, on the modern piano, Marc-André Hamelin imitates the pianoforte as best as possible, an instrument that allows sound stacks. Everywhere, and obviously in the first place in the Adagio sostenuto, appassionato e con molto sentimento, the pianist ensures not only a sonic continuity, but also a musical “tiling”. To this quest, he adds a sometimes overwhelming sense of touch and nuance. The sound restraint is such that the Adagio becomes suffocating.
And what about the Allegro risoluto fugue. In this Finale, Marc-André Hamelin magnificently brings out this irrepressible world of the future which is being built with initial hesitation on the foundations left by Bach.
The payback
Throughout this interpretation, we were thinking of two things. It was important for Marc-André Hamelin to address the hammer keyboard after his supreme career in the Sonata D.960 of Schubert a few years ago. Indeed, Schubert gave him the relationship to time and to the equality of things. This results in a sense of balance which greatly benefits the 29e Sonata of Beethoven, not only in the Adagio, but also in the 2e movement, never prancing.
The other point is an observation: Marc-André Hamelin was known as a “fingered” pianist, able to do anything, thanks to an unparalleled virtuosity. It is undeniable that he has become a pianist “of meaning and sound”. The transfiguration, of which we have followed all the stages, is very moving. Finally, for the pianist himself, the revenge is dazzling 30 years after his much criticized “take 1” with the hammer keyboardhere, at the Théâtre Maisonneuve in May 1993.
Marc-André Hamelin was demanding with his listeners by programming in the first part the Dukas Sonata, which he has also been playing for 30 years and of which he made the reference recording 17 years ago. Pro Musica is one of the only organizations that still prints a “program”, but its program is not one, since it contains a hollow promotional speech, two pages of biography, the program of the next concert and three pages of self-promotion , but not a word about the works and the reason for the pairing.
The presence of Dukas is undoubtedly explained by the structural kinship with the hammer keyboard (duration, but also complexity of the last movement and technical difficulties). Marc-André Hamelin seems to us to have refined his approach to touch. Its slow movement was particularly sensitive. To say that we are won over to the cause of this work and the idea of imposing one bloc against another would be going too far.