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In 1976, at
the age of sixteen, Alexander Lonquich won the international
Casagrande Competition in Terni, Italy, and was quickly taken
up by the principal Italian concert societies as well as by
the RAI. For a few years he settled in Milan where he took lessons
from the redoubtable Ilonka Deckers-Küszler and his career has
remained to some extent Italian-based though appearances throughout
Europe and the United States have not been lacking. It remains
a sorry reflection on the blinkered nature of the musical world,
however, that, had he been London or New York-based, we should
have heard much more of him on record. His best known achievement
on disc to date is the cycle of Mozart sonatas with Frank Peter
Zimmermann for EMI, but it did not lead, for example, to a cycle
of Mozart concertos, of which he is one of the finest present-day
interpreters.
That he is a marvellous pianist is plain from
his “Gaspard de la Nuit”. The opening of “Ondine” is magically
“distant”, the supple melody weaving its spell over shimmering
32nd notes, swelling out at climaxes without a trace
of hardness. In “Le Gibet” the mournful bell tolls atmospherically,
always present even in moments where the texture becomes so
crowded it scarcely seems possible to bring it out clearly (and
in many other performances it gets lost or else stabbed at);
again, the big chords are always rounded and luminous. “Scarbo”
gets a fantastically fast and light performance, always clear
in texture and volatile in interpretation. As magical a performance
as one can get of this much-recorded work.
Though comparisons are fewer in the Messiaen,
I have no doubt that it is on the same level. Listen to the
way in which the chattering cascades are separated from the
more sustained melody in “Les sons impalpables du rêve” or how,
after the colossal build-up in the first part of “Cloches d’angoisse
et larmes d’adieu”, the most melting music then emerges with
a complete change of colour. I’ve complained recently about
several pianists who don’t “orchestrate” the music; let them
listen to this. By the way, if you don’t usually like Messiaen,
this was his first published work and, while it contains many
pointers to the future, it also contains much evocative writing
in a post-Debussy manner.
Reservations? Well, I haven’t mentioned the Fauré
yet, although one of the disc’s selling points should be the
way in which this composer’s five Impromptus have been neatly
used as a prelude, interlude and postlude to the recital. Unfortunately,
I’m afraid Lonquich seems to me to have got the wrong end of
the stick entirely here, adopting a dry, even aggressive style,
far from the delicate, perfumed elegance which is surely at
the base of these pieces. Perhaps he wished to get away from
this “salon” image of Fauré, but in my experience this music
actually reveals the deep feeling behind it when played with
a beautiful tone (which Lonquich has in abundance in Ravel and
Messiaen), but apparently casually, emotionally looking the
other way, as it were. The note-writer (influenced by the performance?)
calls Impromptu no.2 a “glittering tarantella” but surely something
much more sinuous than this Percy Graingerish romp is required.
The recording itself sounds very fine if you play
it much louder than I usually consider desirable either for
myself or for my neighbours, but a bit dull and plumy if you
play it at a normal level. Playbacks in the studio tend to use
high levels and this may be necessary to ensure that the smallest
defect is picked up, but before giving the sound the OK and
getting on with the recording, do they always turn it down and
hear the effect as most purchasers will hear it in their sitting-rooms?
For Ravel and Messiaen, as well as a general reminder
of an important pianist, this disc is urgently recommended.
Maybe you will like Lonquich’s way with Fauré more than I did.
I hope ECM have plans for plenty of Mozart and Schubert.
Christopher Howell
Alexander Lonquich (piano)