|
RECITAL REVIEW
April 29, 2005
|
By William Wellborn
Marc-André Hamelin's concert last Friday night in San Francisco's Herbst Theater provided a rare opportunity to hear a performance of Isaac Albéniz's Iberia in its entirety. The Canadian pianist is one of the most gifted technicians of the day, and while he is not a household name, he has made a distinguished career playing and recording works of extraordinary difficulty that few others attempt- his discs of Alkan, the Chopin-Godowsky etudes, and the Medtner sonatas immediately spring to mind. Hamelin has earned a special respect among cognoscenti for his desire and ability to perform challenging repertoire which is not often heard. While Iberia is not unfamiliar, it is unusual for a pianist to tackle all four books (there are three pieces in each book) of this extraordinarily intricate masterpiece in one single evening. Hamelin's traversal of Albéniz's magnum opus showed both the advantages and disadvantages of performing and digesting this work in one sitting.
The twelve pieces of Iberia are a journey through the sounds, moods and landscapes of Spain. Poetry, fire, evocations of both Spanish and gypsy dances, and a depiction of a religious procession are just a few of the varying moods found in this brilliant set. They are notoriously complicated and difficult, and even Albéniz, himself a brilliant pianist, once threw up his hands in despair that what he had written was not playable. For one pianist to capture all of these pieces to perfection is a tall order (perhaps Alicia de Larrocha has come closest). Hamelin's performance on Friday was surprisingly best in the moments of introspection. There was certainly no lack of brilliance, but his tendency toward objectivity lessened the impact of some of the more dynamic and extroverted movements.
As a prelude to the set, Hamelin began with “Navarra,” a work originally intended by Albéniz to be included in the fourth book of the set, but the nearly complete work was left unfinished at the time of his death. It was completed by Déodat de Séverac, but Hamelin played instead a version with a somewhat shorter and terser ending by American composer William Bolcom. Hamelin's reading was an inauspicious beginning to the evening, the performance being earthbound and lacking the necessary exuberance and panache for this most extroverted piece.
Happily, matters changed when we arrived at ”Iberia” itself. The first book was the most successful of the set and the opening movement, “Evocación,” was truly an evocation of half-tints and subtle moods, perfectly combining the uniquely Spanish balance of passion and reserve. Tonally beautiful and phenomenally controlled, this was aural magic. “El Puerto” depicts the lively dance rhythms of a fiesta day in the town of Puerto de Santa Mar“a, and Hamelin was right on the mark. The third piece, “El Corpus Christi en Sevilla,” captured the pomp, wonder and mystery of the festival in the town of Seville. Its labyrinthine passages held no terrors for Hamelin, and for once the brilliant alternating-hands passage did not swamp the melody line. This was superb playing. Book IV, the most difficult and least known of the set, was performed next, but with varying results. “Málaga” (from which is derived the famous malagueña) was a shade too fast for all of the dense textures to come through clearly. The second movement, “Jerez,” was another story. The exotic Moorish character of this movement was captured in its essence by Hamelin. On the basis of this movement alone, it must be said that Hamelin is a supreme colorist, and the piece was one of the highlights of the evening. The concluding piece, “Eritaña,” that depicts a tavern in Madrid, was especially admired by Debussy, and it is one of the most difficult in the entire set. Here Hamelin was less successful; a false start seemed to leave him unsettled and much of the movement seemed rushed and unclear. After intermission books II and III were presented, again with mixed results. Hamelin stated that he found this ordering (I, IV, II, III) more successful for concert presentation. “Rondeña,” a dance movement evoking the town of Ronda, offered a beautiful and haunting middle section, flanked by outer livelier sections which again felt too pressed and hectic. Once again the middle movement was perhaps the finest performance; “Almer“a” had a lovely improvisatory feel and a beautiful layering of sonorities. The concluding movement, “Triana” (a suburb of Seville), owes its origin to the sevillanas dance (not the pasodoble, as often stated), and it also found Hamelin in top form. Here the rhythmic swagger was clearly defined and the textures sharply etched.
One of the most remarkable pieces, “El Albaic“n,” opens the third set. Albéniz' depiction of this gypsy quarter of Granada is one of the most haunting in the set, and Hamelin effectively captured both the fierce Gypsy elements and the melancholy nature of the copla in this remarkable movement. ”El Polo” was rhythmically compelling, but the concluding ”Lavapiés” was again too fast to be completely coherent, and even such a superb technician as Hamelin showed signs of fatigue at this point in the cycle. The two encores provided something completely different. George Antheil's brief and flashy Jazz Sonata was an amusing foil to Hamelin's very touching rendering of Scriabin's C-Sharp Minor Etude op. 2 #1. Such a generous program was well-applauded by those with a long attention span. If a whole evening of Iberia was too much of a good thing for some, for true pianophiles it provided an opportunity to hear one of the most gifted pianists of our time successfully attempt something possible for only a handful of artists — a complete Iberia in one evening.
(Pianist William Wellborn performs and lectures in the United States and Europe, and from 1995-97 was host of the program "Piano Legacy" on San Francisco station KDFC. Wellborn is on the faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory, where he teaches courses in piano, piano history, and opera.)
|
Marc-André Hamelin
