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SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL
CONCERT REVIEW
Brahms : Haydn Variations op.56a
Beethoven : Piano Concerto No.5, Symphony No.7
The Haydn Variations of the Munich Philharmonic under Christian
Thielemann started with a vivid whimper before turning
sluggish-woken only for the oddly charming pronounced rhythms of the
Sixth Variation (Vivace) that had elements of an Elephant tripping
over his outsized sneakers.
Hélène Grimaud's best quality is perhaps the absence of
pretentiousness.
Last heard in London, she's never really excited me in
her painfully limited concerto repertoire, but she's certainly never
disappointed me. I find her playing a bit too clunky and too
one-dimensional to compare her with the understated no-nonsense
greats à la Wilhelm Backhaus or
Clifford Curzon-but I'd rather
hear a Beethoven "Emperor" Concerto played straight than with too
much perfume and bells and whistles and ego super-glued to every
second bar. [Not that I
don't make exceptions…] And in Mme. Grimaud there is
something-although I can't quite put my finger on what it is-that
stands between her monochromatic renditions and the tediousness that
a lesser, if similar straight-forward, bland pianist would evoke.
Or so I thought.
For most of the first movement I thought that "tediousness" would
be too unkind a description for the performance… but that "boring"
would serve nicely as the adjective of choice. Nothing at all
happened-except for one and the same continuous, predictable sound
mass to emerge from the mechanical soloist and the dull orchestra.
Sometimes it was loud, sometimes louder. I would like to say that
the slow tempi of the Adagio un poco molto were justified
by a particular intense lyricism… alas: No. Not really. Not at all,
actually. At this point I toyed of damning with faint praise, call
the affair "nice", and blot it out of memory as soon as I left my
seat for intermission. But no, in the transition between the second
and third movement, Grimaud threw the last strand of
unpretentiousness over board with a mannerism of epic proportions as
she went for a horrifyingly gratuitous ritardando-that-was-none,
ground everything to a halt, and then jumped into and through the
finale as if she had forgotten an appointment, missing notes en
route. The reception was thunderous all the same-after all
we're dealing with the combination of three big ticket items
(Beethoven, Thielemann, and especially Grimaud)-but it's impossible
to think that Mme. Grimaud herself wasn't aware that this was not
her finest hour.
Would Beethoven's Seventh spell redemption? Whoooom. Thielemann
attacked the first chord with such vigor that I imagined him saying:
"Sorry about that just now… Tablua Rasa, OK?! Let's enjoy
ourselves!" And sure enough: this heavy working, variously light and
delicate, then rambunctious and hard edged Seventh was the epitome
of an interpretation with personality and musical sensibility
stamped all over it. It could of course still be perfectly possible
to dislike CT's Beethoven. But it is impossible not to find it
intriguing and interesting. He has a point, he makes it well, and
most of the players go all out in giving him what he asks for.
Thielemann's interpretations are, by and large, not narcissistic or
sloppy or both, but deeply considered and carefully executed. And
here was Beethoven operatic in its drama, extraordinarily flexible
in its tempos, rich in color, brawny and nimble, and with dynamics
that went well beyond "louder here /less loud there". It was the
quickening restorative-and more-that Mme. Grimaud had made so
necessary. Even Thielemann was happy-the third time he came on
stage, called back by the 'bravos' that instantly drowned a few
errant, possibly political 'boos', he hopped onto the rostrum with
all the delight of a gleeful, candy shop-bound young boy.
Jens F. Laurson
Jens F. Laurson is the Critic-at-Large for
Classical
WETA 90.9, Washington DC