 REVIEW
by John Bell Young
BRAHMS: Sonata No. 2; Scherzo Op. 4; Four Ballades, Op. 10 “King
Edward”
Gallo Records
The story goes that,
at an official function of wealthy aristocrats and state officials, the
young and audacious Johannes Brahms, bored with small talk, bolted for
the door. Just as he was leaving, he couldn’t resist the temptation
to tell the bejeweled crowd of well-to-do patrons precisely what he thought
of them: “If there is anyone here who I have failed to insult,”
he said, ”please forgive me!”
Given such cheekiness,
one might surmise that, had he been born a century later, Brahms might
have become instead an investigative correspondent for 60 Minutes. Fortunately,
that didn’t happen, and his musical legacy has proven the real measure
of his character.
Indeed, no one can
argue that such lively audacity informs his music, which was also tempered
by his exceptional erudition and limitless imagination. He was more than
a hot-blooded romantic, but a stalwart defender of classicism as well
as a scholar of the baroque. He was an authority, in fact, on the music
of Rameau.
It is this uncompromising,
yet firm grasp of musical decorum that informs the works on Eric Le Van’s
stunning new CD. Le Van, whose pianistic and interpretive authority of
this repertoire easily equals, and perhaps surpasses that of such great
Brahms interpreters as Julius Katchen and Walter Klien, leaves no stone
unturned. In the robust Sonata No. 2, as well as the mercurial Scherzo
Op.4, his approach is at once buoyant and austere, declining to bog the
music down, as so many do, with a heavy hand. Le Van’s is hardly
the pompous, “armchair” Brahms that equates majesty with slow
tempi. On the contrary, he grasps the music’s underlying architecture,
which Brahms rigorously modeled on baroque conventions. What Le Van articulates
with such extraordinary specificity are the smallest motivic units, which
accumulate energy as they migrate, expand, and restlessly tumble one into
the other, much as they do in a fugue of Bach.
The King Edward Ballades
are likewise affecting. These brief yet powerful pieces are too easily
distorted by less savvy pianists who extol rhapsodic languor and overbearing
sentimentality to expressive simplicity. Le Van, who knows better, runs
a tight ship with a flexible hand, lending eloquence to their unusually
transparent textures. As he plays it, the music unfolds in a lively interplay
of form and content, lending clarity to compositional trajectory while
leading the listener forward.
In this magnificent
recording, to be released shortly on the Gallo label, Mr. Le Van once
again demonstrates what a tremendously authoritative musician he is. Certainly,
he is a major pianist whose recent return to the United States after many
years abroad should come as welcome news to concert presenters.
JOHN BELL YOUNG
CLAVIER MAGAZINE,
February 2006
|
