An Auspicious Debut

Jorge Luis Prats’ reputation precedes him long before his recital debut in Vancouver under the auspices of the Vancouver Chopin Society. I have long admired and enjoyed Prats’ live recording of a recital in Zaragoza for Decca. It was therefore with great anticipation that I attended his recital on yet another wet Vancouver evening.

Prats opens his programme with Heitor Villa-Lobos’ Bachiana brasileira No. 4, A.264/W.424, the composer’s homage to Bach. Like other great artists, I immediately sense that he conjures a sound from the instrument that captivates, inviting rather than demanding our attention. I appreciate his hushed eloquence in the Preludio of the suite, his captivating playing of the almost jazzy opening of Coral, with its beautiful left hand melody. His beautiful sound comes to the fore again at the beginning of the Aria, with its plaintive melody almost reminiscent of Mussorgsky. Prats’ incredible finger work dazzles us in the colourful and energetic Danza, playing with the dexterity of a Horowitz and the freedom of Art Tatum.

It takes a brave pianist to tackle any part of Isaac Albeniz’s Iberia suite. In his debut recording for Decca, Prats plays the equally challenging Goyescas by Enrique Granados. Indeed, Goyescas is often mentioned together with Iberia as Spain’s greatest contributions to the piano literature, they are vastly different in style as well as substance. Although both monumental masterpieces that tax to the utmost the musical as well as pianistic abilities of anyone, Goyescas nods fondly back to the 19^th century whereas Iberia looks very much forward to the harmonic language of Debussy and Ravel.

Prats’ playing of the Iberia set is truly stunning, as well as pianistically honest – no blurring of texture or “cheating” with over-pedaling. The rather thick texture of much of the score came through clearly from beginning to end. The artist has an innate sense and feel for the underlying rhythm of the music, as well as the mood each piece evokes. In Lavapiés, the avalanche of sound that comes out of the instrument is truly overwhelming.

I enjoyed very much Prats’ Chopin set that comes after intermission. In the Fantasy, Op. 49, there is a sense of motion, a directness and dignity that befit the music. In the Nocturne, Op. 62, No. 2, the pianist plays with, to paraphrase Rubinstein, great sentiment but not sentimentality. In the Andante spinato and Grande Polonaise, Op. 22, Prats makes the piano sing in the Andante, and makes it dance under his finger in the Polonaise. There is lightness as well as a stylistic correctness in the Polonaise that one does not always hear, even from very good pianists. Even in the connecting passages, for instance, the few pizzicato notes that connect the Andante to the Polonaise, so often neglected by pianists, are charged with meaning. My only minor quibble is that the passagework that leads to the conclusion of the piece is slightly messy. Prats does not always play what the composer indicates on the score, but I would have to say that the he certainly plays with the spirit of Chopin, if not completely the letter.

The pianist ends his recital with his own arrangement of Maurice Ravel’s La Valse. He tells the audience afterwards that in his arrangement, he plays his own arrangement of the work, rather than the composer’s own “simple” transcription, because he is striving to recreate the instruments of the orchestra on the piano. Indeed, his playing of this dark and brooding score once again reminds us of this artist’s supreme pianism, as well as acute musical instincts.

At the conclusion of the Ravel, Prats apologizes to the audience for forgetting to play Ignacio Cervantes’ Danzas cubanas, or Cuban Dances Suite, as indicated on the programme. According to the printed programme, the work is supposed to begin the second half of the concert. I personally am glad that he “forgot” to play this until the end of his recital, because it gives us a release from the unbearable tension he conjures up in La Valse. This set of dances is, I believe, a staple of the pianist’s repertoire, and his desire to share something of his Cuban heritage with audiences. I will only say that his playing of this charming music is as beguiling and stylish as one can hope. A most enjoyable “dessert” to a fabulous meal.

In his chat with the audience before his playing of the Cervantes, as well as in the brief chat we had afterwards, Jorge Luis Prats comes across as a charming and friendly man, utterly devoid of airs, someone we would all enjoy sharing a meal with.

Certainly an auspicious beginning to what promises to be an exciting musical year!

Patrick May

New Discovery in the New Year

My first musical discovery in 2014 is a live recording from 2011 of Cuban pianist Jorge Luis Prats. Not only was I unfamiliar with Mr. Prats’s artistry, much of the repertoire he presents in his recital are new discoveries for me.

Jorge Luis Prats won the prestigious Long-Thibaud competition in 1977, a win that should have introduced him to the musical world in the most spectacular way. Because Prats is Cuban, his career became the victim of cold war politics, limiting his performances to (then) Soviet-bloc countries as well as in Mexico, Cuba, and South America. The present recording, made in the beautiful concert hall in Zaragoza, Spain, marks his first major performance in Europe for many years. Listening to this recording prompted the question of why we had to wait so long to hear this major artist. Is this not another reminder that talent is often the last and least of the factors in the “making” of a musical career?

Prats opened his recital with five of Granados’s monumental piano cycle, Goyescas – the pianist left out the Epilogo, but inserted between the fourth and fifth pieces another Granados work, El pelele. Goyescas was of course the composer’s hommage to the great Spanish painter. Granados loved the works of Goya, “for his models, quarrels, his loves and flatteries; those pink and white cheeks against lace and black velvet, those tight-waisted bodies, hands of jasmine and mother-of-pearl resting on jet trinkets. All of these things dazzled and possessed me.”

Just as the works of Goya dazzled Granados, listeners have long been dazzled and moved by Granados’s richly coloured score ever since its premiere in 1914, with its dense and multi-layered piano writing, and its many beguiling melodies. The thickness of the pianistic texture, as well as the almost insurmountable pianistic challenges, presents difficulties for any pianist attempting this music. For me, the greatest challenge lies in presenting this music idiomatically, and with élan and style. Prats’s playing towers above the many challenges presented in the score, and he plays this music as if he was born for it. The pianist brings out the character of every work in the set - the suaveness and gracefulness of the opening Los Requiebros, the quasi-impressionistic Coloquio en la Reja, the high-spirited El Fandango de Candil, the melancholic and tender Quejas Ó La Maya Y El Ruiseñor, for me the emotional core of the entire set, and the death-haunted El Amor Y La Muerte – and highlight for us the beauty inherent in every one of the unique pieces in Granados giant canvas. These are performances that give us not only visceral excitement, which many pianists today are capable of, but moments of great depth, expressiveness, emotion and tenderness. This is piano playing that moves.

I only wonder why the pianist added El pelele in between Quejas Ó La Maya Y El Ruiseñor and El Amor Y La Muerte. For me, the character of El pelele does not match the character of the rest of the pieces in the set. Moreover, there is a strong thematic connection between Quejas Ó La Maya Y El Ruiseñor and El Amor Y La Muerte, as well as an emotional connection between the two works, a connection that is broken by the insertion of an extraneous work in between.

None of the other works in this recital, from Heitor Villa-Lobos’s Bachiana brasileira No. 4, to the three encores that followed, cast any doubts in my mind that Jorge Luis Prats is a stupendous pianist, and a major artist. In the three encores, the pianist rewards the audience with Carlos Fariñas’s Alta Gracia, Ignacio Cervantes salon-like Danzas cubanas, and Ernesto Lecuona’s famous Malagueña. These are music of a lighter vein, which in many ways augments the challenge for the artist, who must play this music not only convincingly, but also with taste. Prats plays this music with great humour, conviction, taste, and style.

I hope that this beautifully recorded and engineered recording from Decca will serve to raise the consciousness of Jorge Luis Prats in the minds of music lovers. There is no reason why an artist of this caliber should not become a household name in pianistic circles. He certainly deserves to be.