Cyprien Katsaris has the looks of Dan Leno and the ingratiating
charm of a boulevardier. He also possesses digital brilliance,
and demonstrates the fact in this Latin-American programme filmed
in recital at Shanghai Conservatory of Music on 2 October 2007.
What panache, what bravura! Certainly, an entire programme of
pieces by Pablo Chávez Aguilar, Augustín Barrios Mangore, Ernesto
Nazareth, Ignacio Cervantes and the like — and the like also
takes in Ernesto Elorduy and Rubén Campos and others — may not
appeal to sober sides who want their regulation three sonatas
and high-minded encores. Katsaris can do that, too, but not
here. Here the accent is on the positive, on the intriguing,
and the exotically spiced. The recital was structured around
various Latin American countries, from Peru, to Paraguay, then
onto Brazil, Cuba, Argentina, Uruguay, and finally Mexico.
Each set of pieces is prefaced by a talk to audience from the
pianist, microphone in hand, in English and then his native
French. A voiceover sometimes aids things for the viewer, and
sometimes hinders. A translator, dressed in crimson, translates
his introductions into Chinese. Sometimes they confer about
matters linguistic and hammer out an appropriate phrase. The
opening speech is long, around seven minutes, so you may be
tempted to fast forward to the music. You’d thereby lose the
intimacy and charm of those distillation introductions that
do tell one quite a bit about the music and the pianist’s thoughts
on it.
The recital was divided into two parts. In the first there was,
amongst much else by these composers, Aguilar’s fascinating
Preludios Incaicos, replete with dazzling quasi-chinoiserie,
Villa-Lobos’ stirring Coral (beautifully played) and
Nazareth’s Odeon dispatched with true virtuosity but
also a whimsical enjoyment of its charm. Highlights of the second
part include Ginastera’s haunting, and hauntingly played, Danza
Argentina No.2 and the tristesse purveyed by Piazzolla’s
Chiquilin de Bachin. Katsaris also supplies his own
free translation of Gerardo Matos Rodriguez’s La Cumparsita,
a virtuosic piece of drama. He is so taken by Ponce’s lovely
Intermezzo, or so taken by something someone in the
audience says, that Katsaris briefly banters with them. He has
a populist touch and the repertoire encourages emotional repartee
like this. Stay to the end, where you’ll find José Antonio Gomez’s
Variaciones sobre el Tema del Jarabe Mexicano distilled
and driven onward in a blur of pianistic brilliance.
He plays two encores, remarkably European: Schumann’s Arabeske
and Chopin’s Waltz in C sharp minor.
This recital combines drama, virtuosity, poetry and a highly
personalised sense of barnstorming. Some may well consider the
repertoire rather ‘samey’ but I find sufficient contrast. I
also find the playing spectacular, and often breathtaking. The
only demerit concerns the picture quality, and lighting, which
is not that well defined, and being rather grainy, lacks clarity.
If you look, and listen, beyond that, though, there is a dazzler
of a recital here.
Jonathan Woolf
Cyprien Katsaris (piano)
P21 035-N [106:00]