Return of an Old Friend

Pianist Leif Ove Andsnes is no stranger to Vancouver audiences, and so it was with pleasure to welcome him back to the stage of the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts yesterday afternoon for a thoughtfully put together recital programme.

Andsnes began his recital with a series of short character pieces by Jean Sibelius. The artist commenced his performance with the Kyllikki, Op. 41, a set of three “lyrical scenes”, followed by The Birch and The Spruce, from the Op. 75 “tree” pieces, and three pieces (The Forest Lake, Song in the Forest, and Spring Vision) from the Five Esquisses, Op. 114. These are lovely little vignettes for the piano, quite reminiscent of the Lyric Pieces of Grieg. For a composer not known for his piano works, I was struck by how pianistic these pieces are. Judging from Andsnes’ idiomatic performance yesterday, it appears that these are pieces that pianists would do well to explore. Perhaps the pianist can give us the more characteristically Nordic Sonatine, Op. 67 on his next visit?

In the last few years, Leif Ove Andsnes has been devoting much time and effort towards the music of Beethoven, having performed and recorded all the piano concerti with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. The artist’s affinity for the works of Beethoven was evident in his completely satisfactory performance of the Sonata in E-flat Major, Op. 31, No. 3. In the opening Allegro, Andsnes achieved a wonderful sense of motion and direction, and brought out all the rough and tumble sense of humour so characteristic of the composer. This was especially noticeable in the development section of the movement, with the opening theme being played by the left hand (mm. 109 to 113, and mm. 117 to 122). As well, the two pianissimo chords that ended the movement were timed to perfection.

In the scherzo, Andsnes conjured up a real sense of perpetual motion in the music. The opening right hand chords had a real sense of vertical direction, and never felt ponderous. In the devastatingly funny ending of the movement, with unison passagework followed by pianissimo octaves, the pianist’s sense of comic timing was impeccable.

Andsnes played the Menuetto (Moderato e grazioso) and Trio simply but beautifully. I was thankful that he did not monumentalize the music, but highlighted its almost childlike beauty. In the return of the Menuetto, I did notice even greater warmth in the playing. The breathless Presto con fuoco, a deliberate tempest in a teacup, the pianist was in complete pianistic control, which gave the music even more of a breathless quality. The three triumphant final cadences ended the first half of the concert in high spirits.

Throughout the performance of the Beethoven, there was a sense of unity, that the four movements are part of a greater whole. There was also a sense of, for lack of a better word, “rightness” in his chosen tempi for the movements, as well as in the tempo relationship between movements.

The pianist opened his programme after the interval with Claude Debussy’s La Soirée dans Grenade, from Estampes. It was playing of great clarity, without the great splashes of sonorities that many pianists infused this music with. Andsnes’ interpretation is certainly a valid one, reminding me of Pierre Boulez’s statement that he tried to take away the fog and smoke from the music of Debussy. The pianist allowed himself very little leeway in terms of rhythm, which gave this music even more of a relentless quality.

There was some truly stunning piano playing in three Debussy Études that followed. In Pour les degrés chromatiques, the evenness of the pianist’s articulation was eerie. In Pour les arpèges composés, Andsnes’s beautiful sound really highlighted the resonances of the music. In Pour les octaves, there was an impeccable sense of timing in the many shifts of tempo and moods.

Andsnes seemed to have conceived his final group of Chopin works – four seemingly unrelated works - as an integrated set. One can see this by looking at the character of each “movement” of the set, as well as in the key relationship between the pieces. He began his Chopin set with the popular Impromptu in A-flat Major, Op. 29, and played it with a lightness and sense of motion that worked perfectly for this music. The artist did not try to “squeeze” every ounce of emotion out of the middle F Minor section, but it was clearly playing that was deeply felt. In the Étude in A-flat Major, from the Trios Nouvelles Etudes, he evoked a sound of great beauty, and he made the right hand chords truly float, highlighting the beautiful harmonies and subtle harmonic changes in the music. In the Nocturne in F Major, Op. 15, No. 1, the shifts between the calm opening and closing and the stormy middle section was very effective. In the Ballade in F Minor, Op. 52, Andsnes played like a guide that was leading us through this incredible musical journey, himself always clearly seeing the way before him. What is more, there was a real sense of organic unity in the massive work, not easily achievable and not often achieved.

After a well-deserved ovation, Andsnes graced us with a stunning and breathtaking performance of yet another Chopin work, the Etude in F Minor, Op. 25, No. 2, playing it at a tempo very close to that indicated by the composer, yet without sacrificing any of the clarity in the right hand triplets.

On the whole, the recital was truly a model of piano playing and music making. Andsnes is playing this particular programme throughout this concert season, and it showed. He had obviously thought about and lived with this music for a long time, and the confidence and maturity he brought to every note yesterday afternoon was truly a gift to Vancouver audiences.

Patrick May

Alone with Ryo Yanagitani

When pianist Glenn Gould recorded the piano music of Jan Sibelius, the pianist experimented with what he termed acoustical “orchestration.” Different sets of microphones were placed at various distances from the piano, some only a few inches from the piano, and others yards away from the instrument. The final master tape was a result of a “mixing plan” that “favors (sic) the image of the instrument most appropriate to the music of the moment.” Listening to the recording, the sound is always subtly shifting from one “perspective” to another, all in order to suit the “mood” of the music.

Listening to pianist Ryo Yanagitani’s latest recording – Alone With Debussy – I could not help but think that Gould’s aforementioned recording plan would have further enhanced these already outstanding performances. Let me begin by saying that engineer Chris Cline did an excellent job of capturing the natural sound of the piano, and the recorded sound is one that is wonderfully alive and present. The recording team favoured a sound that presented the piano in a rather close-up fashion, almost like the pick up favoured by jazz pianists. The microphone placement in the present recording perfectly captured the musical character and sound of pieces such as the Prélude, Menuet, and Passpied from the Suite Bergamasque, the Prélude and Toccata from Pour le Piano, and Mouvement from Images. Other pieces, such as the justly famous Clair de Lune, the two Arabesques, and Reflets dans l’eau, I feel, would perhaps benefit from a more distant microphone pickup.

The music of Claude Debussy forms the cornerstone of many of the greatest pianists of our time. For me, as a listener, not every one who plays Debussy, even the greatest pianists, plays him convincingly or idiomatically. When I was younger, I was bowed over by Walter Gieseking, especially the ravishing pianissimos. After a while though, I felt that everything he played began to sound the same. Arturo Benedetti Michaelangeli’s playing of the composer benefits from absolutely perfect technical control, but leaves me cold emotionally. Yet another great pianist and artist, Claudio Arrau, was surprisingly heavy handed when he played Debussy.

In this new recording, I find Yanagitani’s interpretation of the many familiar pieces, and the one unfamiliar (for me) Ballade, presented in this recording, both technically impregnable and musically utterly convincing. I loved the spaciousness and impeccable sense of timing in his playing of the Prélude from the Suite Bergamasque, as well as the rhythmic incisiveness of the Menuet, and Passpied. The very much maligned Clair de Lune sounds ravishing in the hands of the young pianist, and shines forth as the masterpiece it is, as does the relatively rarely played Ballade.

Pour le Piano was Debussy’s efforts in fully exploiting the “vast possibilities of color (sic) and texture the instrument has to offer” (from programme notes). It is also a most severe test of the pianist technical and interpretative abilities. Yanagitani very successfully and effortlessly brought out the colours and excitement of the Prélude and Toccata, and conveyed the absolute serenity of the Sarabande.

Ryo Yanagitani sets an equally high level in his playing of Book 1 of Images. The difficulty lies not only in rising to the considerable technical challenges, but in capturing and recreating the composer’s three sonic evocations. Listening to these very pieces reminds me yet again how musical masterpieces can sound new and fresh under the hands of a talented artist, as is case with Mr. Yanagitani.

This is Ryo Yanagitani’s second commercial recording. Both this and his first recording (Alone With Chopin) had been beautifully recorded in San Antonio, Texas. Judging from the playing in this recording, I expect and hope that we will be hearing much more from this talented Canadian artist. Mr. Yanagitani will soon be in residence in Washington, D.C., as a result of being one of the winners of the S&R Foundation’s Fellowship programme. The capital of the free world will, at least temporarily, be the beneficiary of Mr. Yanagitani’s artistry and talents.

Canada must find a way to lure him back to his native land.