virtuoso, Pascal Amoyel remembers his master Georges Cziffra in a single, cheerful and moving scene

Renowned for his interpretations of Chopin, Liszt and Beethoven, star of international theaters, Pascal Amoyel is like a fish in water on the stage of the Montparnasse theater in Paris, with The Pianist with 50 Fingers. In a single intimate scene of which he is the author and performer – directed by Christian Fromont – he remembers the virtuoso pianist who taught him everything: Georges Cziffra.

Synchronicity

Alternating story and recital, without ever being quite one or quite the other, Pascal Amoyel continues his work on a new approach to musical performance. The interpreter of the complete Nocturnes by Chopin (Grand Prix du Disque of the Chopin Society in Warsaw), does not play the biopic of Georges Cziffra, but evokes his relationship with the master, and with him, the love of music that they shared.

It begins with a curious synchronicity, where the performer remembers visiting an apartment in Paris with his parents as a child. The real estate agent then told him that a great pianist had lived here, and that this perhaps augured a great destiny for him. It was Georges Cziffra, who would become his piano teacher at the age of 12, an initiator and model, whose thirty years of death will be commemorated in 2024.

My friend “Piano”

These memories lead to an evocation of the life of Georges Cziffra, a Hungarian virtuoso pianist naturalized French in 1968. Son of Gypsy musicians, enlisted in the Hungarian army (then allied with Germany), prisoner at forced labor in Siberia, he later became -war the pianistic reference of the time. But beyond Pascal Amoyel and Georges Cziffra, the main character of Pianist with 50 fingersit is the piano, the instrument, perhaps the most emblematic of music, because often at the source of the composition and holder of the entire orchestral range in the interpretation.

Pascal Amoyel occupies him, examines him, caresses him, brutalizes him, but not too much, inhabits him, celebrates him, pulls his nose strings… He loves him. Just as he loves the composers he performs: Chopin, Beethoven, Rachmaninov, Bartok… with a medley of Happy birthday “in the manner of” hilarious. The love of music exudes from this show entirely dedicated to the piano, which becomes the hero of a piece offered by a lover of his art, touching with self-sacrifice and joy.

The Pianist with 50 Fingers
By and with: Pascal Amoyel
Director: Christian Fromont
Performances: Thursday and Friday at 7 p.m. – Saturday at 3:30 p.m. – Sunday at 6 p.m.
Show duration: 1h20
Montparnasse theater
31 rue de la Gaité, 75014 Paris
Tel: 01 43 22 77 74