Carter: Two Diversions
(1999)
Carter: Night Fantasies (1988)
Ives: Sonata No. 2 for Piano, "Concord,
Mass., 1840-60" (1911-20)
Pierre-Laurent Aimard, piano
In an insightful comment
in John Link’s excellent program notes, a
thirty-year-old Elliott Carter denounces Charles
Ives’ Concord Sonata for being "full
of the paraphernalia of the over-dressy sonata
school, cyclical themes, contrapuntal development
sections that lead nowhere, constant harmonic
movement which does not clarify the form,
and dramatic rather than rhythmical effects."
Carter probably could not have predicted that,
sixty-five years later, in Pierre-Laurent
Aimard’s fiercely elegant recital, that his
own work would appear as a thoroughly intriguing
preamble to that of his might-be nemesis,
and further, that the audience would be packed
with those who find these attributes appealing.
(Perhaps in the succeeding years Carter has
changed his mind a bit.)
Two Diversions
was written in 1999 with "intermediate"
level pianists in mind, and their lean, Bach-influenced
terrain is immediately engaging. The second
one, with its left and right hands in competition,
speeding up and slowing down, brings to mind
one of Conlon Nancarrow’s player-piano studies
with its similar concerns. Aimard’s cleanly
done work seemed ideally matched for a piece
in which Carter speaks almost plaintively.
Mr. Carter is at his
most unyielding (to these ears) in Night
Fantasies, a monolithic evocation of sleep
and restlessness, and also tailor-made for
Aimard’s prodigious technique. If I confess
to being a trifle puzzled by the work itself,
it is only because I am a relative latecomer
to Carter, only recently beginning to find
pleasure in some of his works, despite my
intellectual admiration and acknowledgement
that he is probably America’s greatest living
composer. None of this, however, diminishes
the fabulously assured playing by Mr. Aimard,
not to mention his astuteness in placing these
two giants on the same program. Carter really
makes quite the companion to Ives (perhaps
to the chagrin of both), since each loves
to alternate blocks of sound as dense as concrete
with passages that float off into the ether.
If Carter is more economical, Ives shows us
that "more is more" can be just
as valid. If Carter is more rigorous in form,
Ives shows us that a true pioneer can create
any type of structure he damn well pleases.
But I get ahead of myself.
During the enthusiastic
applause following Night Fantasies,
the pianist bounded off the Zankel Hall stage,
walked up the side aisle to greet Mr. Carter,
and stood next to him for a good minute or
so while the two of them chatted and acknowledged
the cheering. It can only make one smile to
see the youthful 95-year-old composer running
around New York City, seemingly everywhere
and beaming with delight with the adulation.
It is a singular season
when not one, but two outstanding Concord’s
can be heard in such close proximity, and
just a few weeks ago I was fortunate to hear
Marilyn
Nonken, in
a deeply spiritual mode, traverse Ives’ masterpiece
at the Italian Academy at Columbia University.
(I hope eventually her take on it will be
preserved, as well as Aimard’s, for a different
perspective on a work that is currently under-recorded,
presumably because of its difficulty.) Ives’
bulging suitcase of a sonata is widely regarded
to be one of the most formidable pieces in
the entire canon, and presents multiple challenges
for both pianists and listeners. For musicians,
aside from just tackling a score that must
have one of the highest notes-per-page ratios
in the literature, the trick seems how to
clarify its uncompromisingly dense textures
so that a listener can perceive what Ives
did – to hear everything that he heard. And
clearly he heard a lot. For listeners,
they must try to abandon many preconceptions
about motion and structure, and then fly with
the composer’s seemingly farfetched and messy
creativity.
From the moment Emerson
began, one could sense that Aimard had
mapped out the piece with a lucidity that
might baffle some of his fellow cartographers.
As in the Carter before, one could only marvel
at the playing – whether or not one even liked
the piece. In the second section, Hawthorne,
Aimard seemed possessed by the score, almost
a manic fiend at the keyboard, and most pianos
will probably never experience the kind of
violent percussive charge that he gave to
its climaxes. In between, he brought an ethereal
hush to the sections calling for a long wooden
block, used to gently depress the black keys.
The third section, The Alcotts, is
about as pastoral as the sonata ever gets,
and Aimard provided many dreamy moments of
contemplation, with such focus that the blond
wood walls of Zankel Hall seemed to gently
darken and fade into the background. The final
Thoreau was mesmerizing all the way
through to its questioning, ambiguous ending,
with Aimard’s hands fixed, held in the air
above the keyboard as if he were recalling
a massive engineering project he couldn’t
quite believe he’d completed.
Afterward several of
us mused on a suitable encore for the occasion,
such as an arrangement of Stars and Stripes
Forever, or Ives’ own Study No. 21:
Some Southpaw Pitching. Or perhaps Aimard
might have just repeated Hawthorne
before going off to soak his overworked limbs
in a hot tub. But none was forthcoming, and
in a way, nothing in the wake of the Carter
and the Concord would have provided
any additional fire to what was by any measure,
a formidable evening by one of the greatest
pianists on the scene today.
Bruce Hodges
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