I have to admit to
being one of those legions of the sadly
ignorant who had, until recently, never
heard of Joyce Hatto. This great omission
from my musical world has now been rectified
thanks to the recognition she has received
through Musicweb-International and elsewhere,
and I was more than delighted to be
able to experience her playing in one
of the greatest cycles for piano solo
of the last century.
Olivier Messiaen’s
Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus
has just about everything: virtuosic
pianism, mystic beauty, demands from
and rewards for the listener in an elusive
balance to which listeners will always
have an intense and powerful response.
Joyce Hatto would have been no younger
than 75 when even the first of these
sessions were recorded, but potential
purchasers need have no fears about
this being an ‘old’ person’s performance.
Rarely have I heard such powerful and
athletic pianism in this music. This,
combined with half a lifetime’s experience
of the work and a direct affinity with
the times in which it was created, make
this a remarkable sound document of
almost intoxicating potency. Hindemith
remarked that ‘she recreates this complex
and demanding piece not in her own terms,
but with a Higher Authority that defies
understanding.’ That ‘Higher Authority’
was still there right up to these, some
of her last recordings.
A number of versions
of this great work have passed through
my CD player but only two versions remain
– John Ogdon, recorded in 1969 and issued
on Decca’s Enterprise label in 1991,
and Malcolm Troup, recorded in the late
1980s on Altarus/Continuum. Ogdon’s
recording still sounds fairly good despite
some expected tape hiss, though the
hard piano sound in the louder sections
can be a little tiring after a while.
The meditative opening Regard du
Père and the lovely Regard
de la Vierge are both broad and
timeless with Ogdon, and his definition
and characterisation of the different
symbolism-laden themes has to my mind
rarely been surpassed. I do like the
Malcolm Troup recording on its own terms
though have to hold my hand up to some
sentimental association with it, having
sat in on one or two of the editing
sessions with Chris Rice of Altarus.
The piano sound on this issue is remarkably
rich and gorgeously resonant, and while
there are some corners where detail
and accuracy are slightly wanting. Troup
has a fine touch in general, but returning
to this set after hearing Hatto’s I
do now find some of the interpretations
a little on the heavy, sometimes almost
leaden side.
Having one’s old favourites
blown away by a newcomer is what this
job is all about, and I find myself
rediscovering this music completely
and utterly. It’s as if someone was
not only giving me a master-class in
how it should be done technically, but
revealing the message behind
the notes at the same time. One of the
more difficult movements to bring off,
L’échange is a case in
point. Other versions can end up too
insistent, with the repeated thirds,
the ‘God’ figure, ending up sounding
like nagging, rather than an infinite
length of silken rope, constantly drawing
the increasingly egocentric ‘Man’ back
to the centre. When you hear Hatto it
is Man who is ultimately drawn into
unity with the Divine being, rather
than ‘God’ driving him to leap off a
cliff in sheer frustration. Another
straightforward but surprisingly intangible
quality is that Hatto’s birdsong sounds
to me more like birdsong than pianism.
The ‘joy’ which the birds represent
in Regard du Fils sur le Fils comes
over as a hair-raising truth, rather
than a technical challenge.
Joyce Hatto does of
course have more than ample opportunity
to reveal a staggering technique in
the more heavyweight movements, such
as Par Lui tout a été
fait and La Parole toute puissante
in which she somehow manages to
maintain transparency through the sheer
mass of notes. Her control; rhythmic
and dynamic, is absolute, but there
is no sense in which the sheer abandon
of this music is in any way repressed
– it’s a wild ride, and rightly so!
There is no point in
this set where I raised eyebrows or
scratched chin in puzzlement, and the
recording itself is of demonstration
quality – you can sometimes actually
feel the strings bending. Each
interpretation of this work has its
own merits, but there are few which
betray no weaknesses. Hatto’s reading
is rich both in images and emotional
associations: the indignation of the
Angels in Regard des Anges is
a genuine marvel, and the following
Baiser de l’Enfant-Jésus tender
beyond words. It is also a traversal,
a journey, a narrative – a cycle which
is more than the sum of its parts, which
parts in turn simultaneously hold strength
in both unity and individuality. The
incredible final Regard de l’Eglise
d’amour is both a struggle and an
affirmation, and we are spared nothing.
If you play this set through in one
go and are listening properly you will
arrive at the conclusion exhausted,
exhilarated and inspired, and I can’t
imagine Messiaen would have wanted more.
Dominy Clements
Jonathan Woolf
has also listened to these discs
The immense and unremitting
challenges of Vingt Regards sur L'Enfant-Jésus
are here met with comprehensive
mastery by Joyce Hatto. The digital
demands and timbral and tonal complexities
are intense. And beyond even the question
of getting around the notes lies the
way the sound is produced, and what
kind of sound world one evokes.
Hatto’s solutions are
far too complex to be reduced to a mere
sentence but uppermost among them are
questions of beauty of tone and tempo
relation. We know that Messiaen sanctioned
wide tempo divergences; these seem for
him never to have been absolutes. In
tonal matters we find that Hatto never
sacrifices tone to embrace some of the
more speculative sonorities in which
some other pianists do, from time to
time, indulge.
Having listened to
a number of those competitors during
my immersion in Hatto’s Messiaen has
served only to deepen my admiration
of her. Listztian drama is always embedded
in Messiaen, no matter how expressive
the patina may become, and it helps
that she was one of the most consistently
impressive of Lisztian players. The
fulcrum of her digital prowess in these
twenty movements is incendiary, the
balance between hands perfectly graded,
weight and sonority acutely judged,
and the maintenance of clarity as evident
here as it was in her many other recordings.
Hatto’s Messiaen is
neither becalmed nor religiose. Her
opening movement sets the marker. She
is fast, insistent and suffused with
a pressing urgency. Others find different
solutions. Peter Hill [Unicorn-Kanchana
UK DKP 9122/23] is more yielding and
pliant, Håkon Austbø [Naxos
8.550829/30] quite delicate and reserved,
Joanna McGregor [Collins 70332] is eager
to explore the tonal disparities between
treble and bass, Steven Osborne [Hyperion
CDA 67351/52] has a powerful gravity.
None are quicker than Hatto; indeed
hers is possibly the quickest opening
movement on record. It sets up a powerful
sense of momentum and tension. This
is one traversal in which one never
feels a sense of becalming or stasis.
Which is not to imply intemperance because
Hatto seems to judge internal tonal
and tempo contrasts to perfection. She
finds a certain celestial coldness in
Regard de l’étoile, a
nasality and rapid interchange between
themes. With Hatto things are coalesced
in the most imaginative and far-seeing
way. Her rapidity of articulation leaves
even a seasoned Messiaen specialist
such as Peter Hill very much in her
wake.
But she always finds
time; in L’échange despite
her implacable sense of drive the music
always has time to speak. She doesn’t
favour Osborne’s staccato or McGregor’s
halo of sound or Hill’s more cautiously
considered obsession. The jazz-tinged
rhythms of Regard de la Vierge
find a home in Hatto. And the birdsong
in her Regard du Fils sir le Fils
has a pointillist delicacy, an avian
limpidity that attests to a fabulous
control. She’s slower here than most;
not as voluptuous in her songs as Osborne
but more definite. There are distinctly
Prokofievian overtones to her driving,
insistent, spiky Par Lui tout a été
fait. She yields to none in technical
address nor her architectural acuity.
Hill sounds a touch pawky, McGregor
driving but square, Austbø’s
rather cloying recording damages the
immediacy of his playing, and Osborne
is decidedly more gimlet eyed and inflexible.
Not to belabour the
point, these are consistent features
of Hatto’s performance. She is incisive
and joyously vocalised in Regard
des hauteurs, ensuring that the
sectionality Osborne prefers is not
part of her arsenal. She is sure in
her tonal delineation in Regard du
Temps – note how she deliberately
hardens the tone and makes the most
of internal contrasts. In Premiere
communion de la Vierge with an immediately
arresting opening, Hatto proves intensely
alive and also intensely noble in her
exposition of the God theme. Others
find different solutions; Håkon
Austbø for instance on Naxos
prefers a forthcoming straightness,
Hill a more interior slowness, Osborne
on Hyperion a more measured and withdrawn
introspection. Hatto is quicker by far
than all these.
She characterises each
movement with a powerful response fusing
ferociously inner clarity with limitless
reserves of tonal subtlety – hear the
rhythmic pull and treble delicacy of
her Regard des Anges. One finds
time and again that competitors sound
distinctly more sectionalised than Hatto,
who proves masterly over the sometimes
excruciatingly long spans of intense
focus demanded in these pieces. In the
dangerous Le Baiser de l’Enfant-Jésus
she resists the cloying sweetness favoured
by others – Hill for instance. There’s
a strength in Hatto’s performance, a
refusal to linger or to sentimentalise.
As for dynamic gradients, listen to
the shades and shadows of Regard
du silence. And as for rubato, note
that she is sparing and superior in
its usage. Osborne for instance caresses
the line of Je dors, mais mon Coeur
veille with fulsome affection. It
sounds gorgeous but Hatto’s forward-moving
playing possesses both clarity and warmth
and a crucial rhythmic spine. So much
wonderful playing.
Yvonne Loriod’s performance
on an Erato set has now, apparently,
been deleted. Ogdon’s 1991 Polygram
is equally unavailable and was in any
case technically flawed in places. Peter
Serkin [RCA 62316-2] is still available
and highly impressive, despite a slightly
unsatisfactory recording - one should
note it was recorded back in 1973. Pierre-Laurent
Aimard’s utterly compelling traversal
[Teldec New CD 3984-26868-2] focuses
on the drama, some of it blistering
in his hands, and is by contrast superbly
recorded.
The two Hatto discs
come housed in a box and feature some
elucidatory though wittily agnostic
notes from William Hedley – in fact
his agnosticism frequently borders on
atheism where Messiaen’s methodology
is concerned, which is all the more
bracing to read.
Aimard, Osborne and
Serkin are in their ways outstanding
exponents. If you can find the Loriod
it’s naturally of the utmost historic
importance. But Hatto’s traversal now
strikes me as fine as any on disc. It’s
an outstanding contribution to the recorded
legacy.
Jonathan Woolf
The
Concert Artist Catalogue
Joyce Hatto (piano) 
