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Beethoven, Schumann: Lise de la Salle (piano) Wigmore Hall, London, 17.5. 2009 (CC)

Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 26, op. 81a ('Les Adieux')
Schumann: Symphonic Studies

Lise de la Salle is a highly talented young pianist who first impressed me back in 2003 with her disc of Ravel and Rachmaninov. She has had quite a career – born in 1988, entry into the Paris Conservatoire at age eleven, a string of competition wins and a contract with the esteemed French company, Naïve.

Her Sunday lunchtime concert at the Wigmore was sold out, and comprised only two works: Beethoven’s Les Adieux Sonata and the Schumann Symphonic Studies (incorporating the posthumous variations). She is a formidable player, and the Beethoven in particular seemed to be a fascinating prospect.

The Wigmore acoustic has claimed many a victim. De la Salle seemed not to be one of them in the work’s slow introduction, which introduces the “Lebewohl” motif starkly. Yet, come the Allegro, she began over-projecting. She wasn’t just projecting to the very back of the stalls (where my guest and I were sitting)  but, it seemed, to the chemist’s across the road as well. It is testament to her intelligence, though, that she adjusted this as the movement progressed, leaving the bare textures of the development to make their mark. At the very end of the first movement, Beethoven writes a strange thing – a crescendo on a held note through to the attack on the next bar (a right-hand octave). A seeming impossibility on the piano, some pianists attempt to convey it through physical gesture, some even by playing about with the pedal. Nothing from de la Salle, though.

Her detached physical stance for the slow movement echoed her interpretation. The music, skeletal anyway, was stripped to its essentials. No sense of rush at all here, just has there had been none in the first movement’s opening Adagio. The finale found de la Salle using little pedal. Some superb right-hand filigree and a technique that made light of Beethoven’s demands were the notable elements to this reading, but the excitement never quite got there.

Although the Beethoven was undeniably good, the Schumann Etudes symphoniqies was exceptional. I would hardly be doing my job if I failed to mention a few miscalculations and the odd clanger, but the fact is that de la Salle’s reading was gripping from first to last. The old argument of whether or not to include these five “extra” (posthumously published) variations still rages I’m sure, and it is true they include writing that is of a more experimental, more overtly ‘seeking’ nature than the Etudes proper. Yet, when heard like this, they only serve to open out Schumann’s expressive remit, and seem to add to the depth of the piece.

Last week over at the QEH, I heard Yuja Wang in recital. Wang used a completely different sound for each of the various composers she presented (Scarlatti, Brahms, Chopin and Stravinsky). De la Salle did the same for her two composers – her tone for the Theme of the Schumann Etudes symphoniques was far deeper, weightier than anything she had delivered in the Beethoven, far more coaxed from the depths of the instrument. In keeping with the spirit of the score, de la Salle seemed intent on unapologetically exploring all elements of the presenting theme, from Leidenschaftlich through desolation, Handelian stately grandeur through impulsiveness, en route to the finale. Her touch was miraculously varied, and she seemed to take much joy in Schumann’s harmonic explorations. Throughout all this variety  though, de la Salle never took her eye off the ball – the finale’s great outbursts were always in view, right from the start. I sincerely hope a recording of de la Salle in this Schumann will be in the offing soon. She should wait to put down the Beethoven, though.

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