Debussy - Grieg - Rameau - Chopin
Philippe Cassard, piano
Philippe Cassard is not particularly known in the UK, but it's a different story in France, where aside from his regular appearances on concert platforms, he has also been a radio producer for the last six or seven years, with a weekly morning programme on France Musique (the equivalent of BBC Radio 3) analysing music in a user-friendly, but not condescending fashion. Something like Charles Hazlewood, for example, save that where Hazlewood is a reasonable, but not astounding conductor, Cassard is a highly talented pianist. Given Cassard's antecedents in this domain, therefore, it was not surprising that he chose to comment fairly extensively on his programme, and the reasons for his choices of music, with the result that a two-hour (counting interval) recital turned into a three-hour lecture-concert. I don't think any of us minded, though (aside from the hardness of the church benches); Cassard is an excellent communicator, with an easy, approachable manner.
With over a dozen items on the programme, I'm not going to list them all. This being the 150th anniversary of Debussy's birth, his music is very much present in the summer festivals in France, and Cassard's programme was designed to shed light on Debussy's piano music from the perspective of (some) of his major influences. Cassard's accounted something of a Debussy specialist, and his selection covered the composer's entire life, from the very early Valse Romantique, to one of the Etudes, which were his last major compositions for the piano. Interspersed with these were pieces of Grieg (which was a connection of which I was not aware, and consider a little tenuous), Rameau and Chopin, whose impact on Debussy's style Cassard demonstrated graphically. He left out the Russians deliberately, acknowledging the influences, because that connection has been taken up by other performers later in this series of concerts.
Musicological considerations aside (and the lecture was certainly interesting) the interpretations were quite varied. Both the very early Debussy pieces, and the Grieg, with which they were paired, left me a bit cold. The young Debussy is a little sweet for my taste, especially knowing what was to come, and the Grieg didn't quite work for me. One piece was the famous Notturno, taken too slowly; the other, from the same collection of Book V of the Lyric Pieces, was the rather strange "Bell Ringing", which I need to hear in other versions to get something out of it, I think. The Rameau was the Gavotte and its "Doublons" (variations) from the A minor Suite, another very well-known item, and this I found too pianistic. It is possible to play Rameau on the modern piano while retaining the clarity of touch the music requires - Alexandre Tharaud is an excellent advocate, for example - but Cassard's approach is almost old-fashioned, and a little heavy-handed. However, it was followed by a superb rendition of Pour le piano, certainly the finest playing of the evening, that earned him absolution from any other faults.
His Chopin was also generally excellent, notably a lovely reading of the Berceuse. As for the final group of Debussy pieces, chosen specifically to match various traits in the Chopin selection, Clair de Lune passed a little unnoticed, and the Etude en sixtes doesn't stand up very well on its own - much better in context with its companion pieces - but the Reflets dans l'Eau and Les sons et les parfums... from the 1st Book of Preludes were both superbly evocative. It was a bit of a pity the concluding L'Isle joyeuse was so idiosyncratic. Cassard, like many good French pianists, pays a great deal of attention to the inner voices - a polyphonic approach to the piano, so to speak. Most of the time, it works very well, but in this particular instance, I found it intrusive in relation to the real melodic line of the piece. However, it was well enough received by the public, as a suitably virtuosic conclusion to a very interesting programme.
[Next: 11th August, then 20th, but internet access is getting difficult, so I'm not sure when the reports will appear. Possibly the week of the 26th.]
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