Ravel, Piano Concertos / Miroirs, P.-L. Aimard, Cleveland Orchestra, P. Boulez (2010)
Liszt's La lugubre gondola I, S. 200, is a somewhat aimless description of a funeral gondola seen in Venice, possibly a reference to Liszt's premonition of the impending death of Wagner. Played in its original, shorter barcarolle version, Aimard went for murky and morose, the wandering left hand topped by a ringing right-hand melody, helped to resonate with plenty of pedal. After its curious ending came, as if summoned up by the evocation of Liszt's music, one of Wagner's brief "Album Sonatas," the one composed for Mathilde Wesendonck, the wife of one of Wagner's early patrons who was also the object of the composer's affections. Sweet A♭ major dispelled the funereal gloom, as Wagner's sentimental melodies were given careful expansion. The piece is torqued up into a more turbulent expression of these themes, with lots of dramatic chromatic movement reminiscent of Wagner's operas. The augmented chord motif in Liszt's tonally ambiguous Nuages gris, S. 199, was a fine introduction to Berg's op. 1 piano sonata, which is ostensibly in B minor but pushes beyond the boundaries of its tonal center. Where the Liszt work was little more than a whisper -- traces of semi-dark clouds -- Aimard gave the Berg sonata a full-bodied expressionism, its chromatic, dissonant gestures reaching up in volume to angry howls.
Finally, Liszt's Unstern! Sinistre, disastro, S. 208, seemed perfectly suited to introduce Scriabin's ninth piano sonata, known as the Black Mass -- the Liszt like a signpost warning of impending disaster, the insidious erotic poisoning of a "sleeping holy entity" as one might deduce from the colorful markings in Scriabin's score. After Liszt's mysterious opening, a somber recitative in octaves, Aimard hammered the dotted-rhythm motif like a clarion distress call, with rumbling bass octaves underneath. The building up of dissonant intervals into crashing cluster chords was quite similar to what Scriabin does in the Black Mass sonata with tritones, minor seconds, and minor 9ths. The strange ending of the Liszt, with the sound dying away on a half-stated bass theme, set up Scriabin's floating, disembodied opening theme, which Aimard centered on its slithering chromatic upper melody. Anxious trills, like gasps or bird twitterings, swooped back and forth erratically. Aimard did not mark or emphasize the later repeated-note motif, allowing it to percolate inside the texture, creating a bubbling, frenetic energy that grew to a roiling furor in the concluding fast section. This was subtle playing that never pushed the hall's Steinway, in a rather wet acoustic, beyond what it could take.
Joe Banno, Pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard at Sixth and I Historic Synagogue (Washington Post, May 7)
Alex Baker, Aimard plays Liszt, Scriabin, Berg, Wagner (Wellsung, May 7)
Colin Eatock, Pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard shines through the gloom (Toronto Globe and Mail, May 2)
Later this month (May 20, 8 pm), WPAS presents the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall: Charles Dutoit conducts music by Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky, and Walton's violin concerto, with Gil Shaham as soloist.