International Keyboard Institute and Festival: Mannes College of Music, Marc-André Hamelin (piano) New York City, 29.07.2006 (BH)

 

Dukas: Piano Sonata in E flat minor (1899-1901)

Schubert: Piano Sonata No. 21 in B flat major, D. 960 (1828)

 

 

On a sleepy block on West 85^th Street in Manhattan, the entrance to the Mannes College of Music is about as unassuming as one could imagine: a plain double door opens onto a modest, simply appointed lobby.  The security guards behind the desk are a friendly bunch whose most urgent daily tasks are probably telling people where to find practice rooms, or (given the recent heat wave) water and paper cups.  Last night, however, as I opened the door, some fifty patrons were swarming around a courtesy desk, with those who already had a ticket moving swiftly upstairs to the concert hall to grab good seats.  Those who were waiting for cancellations were probably disappointed, since the space seats just two hundred people. 

 

The buzz was for the final night of the International Keyboard Institute and Festival, a summer treat now in its eighth season, which draws a discriminating audience eager to focus on an array of some of the world’s most distinguished pianists.  Marc-André Hamelin has built much of his reputation on repertoire that is rarely done by anyone, and the opening Dukas Piano Sonata is a fine example of his exploratory instincts.  Most people with whom I spoke had never heard the sonata; indeed, some didn’t know Dukas had even written one.  [NB: Hamelin has just released a recording of the piece on Hyperion.]

 

It is an oddly structured, occasionally meandering piece in four movements.  The opening has perhaps the most traditional sonata form, followed by a sensitive, dreamy slow movement.  The third movement is just a little weird, causing one friend to describe it as “Liszt, Danny Elfman and Wagner.”  Soft whispers are broken by sharp accents; florid repetitions go off into the stratosphere.  The final tres lent brings further challenges but eventually brings the piece to a stirring close.  Overall, the sonata is absolutely in the overheated Romantic tradition – afterward we kept discussing Franck – but the structure keeps interrupting itself in pleasantly strange ways.  At roughly three-quarters of an hour, it is a long road, and Hamelin made no attempt to conceal a slight exhaustion after it ended.  Many in the audience responded with loud ovations, with some on their feet, applauding as the weary, smiling pianist stood for a few modest bows.

Compared to the Dukas, Schubert’s last sonata is perhaps not as fearsome technically (to be fair), but I doubt many pianists take its mysteries and ambiguities for granted.  Hamelin’s control of phrasing and wide dynamic contrasts brought out the late-in-life profundity with the grace of an artist who knows that little underlining is needed.  The first movement begins almost benignly, but with an ominous trill rumbling in the left hand, an intriguing blend of the pleasant and the sinister, which Claudio Arrau described as “…written in the proximity of death.”  The sublimely gentle second movement with its wistful theme continues the sensation that one is hearing a composer arrive at what he knows will be the end, and here Hamelin may have himself reached the pinnacle of an evening filled end to end with high points.  The mood lightens somewhat in the final two movements, as if clouds had temporarily passed, and as Hamelin charged through the final coda in the rondo finale, one could sense that happy, silent electricity of an audience that knows it has witnessed something quite special.