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Concerto's U.S. premiere is executed perfectly, but fails to capitalize on Aimard's depth
By Elaine Guregian
Beacon Journal arts and culture critic
Published on Saturday, Apr 26, 2008
Three-and-a-half years have seemed like an interminable wait to hear the marvelous pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard play again with the Cleveland Orchestra.
In Aimard's performances in Cleveland and as a soloist at Carnegie Hall, I have been struck by the French pianist's deep understanding of contemporary music as well as his seasoned musicianship in more traditional repertoire. Aimard has caught on with the concertgoing public, too; his recent release of J.S. Bach's Art of Fugue jumped to the top of the iTunes and Billboard classical charts.
With such high hopes, it was especially disappointing to learn that Aimard would not perform Bartok's Piano Concerto No. 2 this weekend, due to his doctor's orders because of muscular pain. Aimard did go ahead with the Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra by Peter Eotvos (pronounced EHT-vush), who conducted the program, but this composition doesn't capitalize on what is most appealing about Aimard: his ability to reveal a score to a listener in a genuine and deeply musical way.
Thursday marked the U.S. premiere of Eotvos' concerto, which the composer originally completed in 2005 for a single pianist supplemented by a digital (MIDI) keyboard. In 2007, the composer finished the version played this week, which featured as soloists Aimard and Tamara Stefanovich.
Eotvos, 54, was born in Transylvania. He has worked with Karlheinz Stockhausen's cauldron of electronic music, the Stockhausen Ensemble, in Cologne, Germany. Eotvos also served as a music director of a leading Parisian source of new music, IRCAM and the Ensemble InterContemporain, founded by Pierre Boulez.
All this said, it's not surprising that the pianos in Eotvos' Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra created the effect of a manic, burbling computer. The piano soloists have worked as musical partners for five years and it showed. They were perfectly, relentlessly together throughout the torrents of notes rippling up and down the keyboards.
The situation was curious; I could admire the humans only for imitating the perfection of a machine. Their magnificent technique was obvious, but their interpretive skills were subservient to the mechanical demands of the piece.
The Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra owes a debt to Eotvos' artistic ancestor, Hungarian-born Bela Bartok, for percussive touches like the trio of snare drums that opens the piece. It was clever of the Cleveland Orchestra to program the work on the same concert with Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra.
Eotvos conducted with his hands, no baton, for his Cleveland Orchestra debut. The program opened with Hungarian composer Zoltan Kodaly's folkloric Dances of Galanta to substitute for the Bartok Piano Concerto. At the end, clarinetist Daniel McKelway took a well-deserved solo bow from Eotvos for his sinewy and captivating solos in the work, which the orchestra played with sweetness and fluidity.
As far as Bartok's famous Concerto for Orchestra, it gives many performers a chance to shine in the second movement, where soloists are featured in pairs. The playing in the Bartok was polished and attractive, although Eotvos' conducting created a slightly muted finish. The result was a little short of what these musicians can achieve with a conductor more adept at balancing voices. Especially in the case of Aimard, the concert left me grateful for what I had heard, but wishing for more.
Elaine Guregian is the Beacon Journal's music critic. She can be reached at 330-996-3574 or eguregian@thebeaconjournal.com.
Three-and-a-half years have seemed like an interminable wait to hear the marvelous pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard play again with the Cleveland Orchestra.
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