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Dan Coren
When Hélène Grimaud plays,
I can hear Beethoven smiling
DAN COREN
If you’re unfamiliar, as I was, with the work of the French pianist Hélène Grimaud, who played Beethoven’s Fifth Piano Concerto, the Emperor, with the Philadelphia Orchestra this weekend, I encourage you to take advantage of the resources available on the Internet and acquaint yourself with this remarkable pianist.
On YouTube alone, you’ll find a wealth of material, including performances of the second movement of the Beethoven Fourth Concerto with Christoph Eschenbach and the Brahms G minor Rhapsody, Op 79, No. 2. There’s a portrait from the New York Times describing Grimaud’s interest in wolves. And, best of all, from iTunes or Amazon you can obtain Grimaud’s recent collaboration with Vladimir Jurowski on the Emperor.
What her choices tell you
On this recording, the concerto is paired with Beethoven’s 28th Piano Sonata, Op. 101. The first movement of Op. 101 is the first of several super-compressed, minimalist sonata-form movements that Beethoven wrote in his last years. The choice of this work in itself tells you that Grimaud is nothing if not thoughtful.
One passage from this recording in particular summarizes her musical personality (for me, anyway). Here is Grimaud playing near the end of the exposition of the first movement. This is in fact the first solid resting point in the piece, even though the music long ago left the tonic A major and is in the dominant, E. In fact, Beethoven doesn’t give us a solid cadence in the tonic A major until the analogous passage near the end of the recapitulation. Here’s what Grimaud does with it.
That ritardando is not in the score, but Grimaud plays it so beautifully and with such understanding of its place in the form that I can easily imagine Beethoven smiling to hear it played that way.
In her recording of the Emperor, Grimaud never does anything quite so extreme, but she plays as if she has thought deeply about every single note in the piece, has worked innumerable hours finding the correct way to play each phrase, to articulate every single note. The result is playing that makes Beethoven’s lines take on the expressive characteristics of verbal language, as if Grimaud is hearing lyrics in her inner ear. Here’s an example from the first movement.
Of course, the Emperor is famous for its brilliance and technical difficulties, and I’ve neglected to mention the obvious: thoughtful though she may be, Grimaud is, like any other pianist on the professional circuit, more than up to the challenges it presents.
So Grimaud was up against stiff competition – herself – this weekend. How would she do in a live performance, I wondered, where there is nowhere to hide, no opportunity for retakes? I needn’t have worried.
The sexy musician’s plight
If you browse among the comments posted against Grimaud's Youtube performances, you'll notice that as a physically beautiful woman, she must contend with a kind of sexism that her male counterparts never have to worry about. Even the Inquirer critic David Patrick Stearns, who has consistently praised Grimaud’s musicianship in past reviews, found it necessary to include a critique of her outfit— which, by the way, was, more than anything else, simple and functional, allowing her the freedom of movement that an athletic event demands.
In contrast to the sexually charged performances which we’ve grown accustomed to in this era of the bombshell female violinist, Grimaud gave one of the most ego-less, no-nonsense performances you’ll ever witness, completely free of physical mannerisms or showiness. And the musicianship of her recordings was all there, from beginning to end. As far as I’m concerned, she is a full-fledged member of the current pantheon of great musician-pianists, on a par with the likes of Richard Goode, Mitsuko Uchida, and Jeremy Denk.
Conlon’s take on European culture
On this occasion, Grimaud wasn’t the only intelligent musician on the premises. Conductor James Conlon’s Introductory remarks to the second half of the concert, which paired Edgar Varèse’s Ameriques with Ravel’s La Valse, were a brilliant exegesis on the state of music and European culture just after World War I.
I found the Varèse (which, despite its use evocation of New York City with a police siren and a recorded lion’s roar, is more than anything an explicit homage to Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring) to be entertaining but quaint, like Dadaism with its mink-lined teacups. On the other hand, Conlon’s performance of La Valse nailed down what he had said about it beforehand: It’s a dark work, less an actual waltz than a meditation on the world of the Viennese waltz seen from the shattered ruins of European culture.
I can hear Beethoven smiling
DAN COREN
If you’re unfamiliar, as I was, with the work of the French pianist Hélène Grimaud, who played Beethoven’s Fifth Piano Concerto, the Emperor, with the Philadelphia Orchestra this weekend, I encourage you to take advantage of the resources available on the Internet and acquaint yourself with this remarkable pianist.
On YouTube alone, you’ll find a wealth of material, including performances of the second movement of the Beethoven Fourth Concerto with Christoph Eschenbach and the Brahms G minor Rhapsody, Op 79, No. 2. There’s a portrait from the New York Times describing Grimaud’s interest in wolves. And, best of all, from iTunes or Amazon you can obtain Grimaud’s recent collaboration with Vladimir Jurowski on the Emperor.
What her choices tell you
On this recording, the concerto is paired with Beethoven’s 28th Piano Sonata, Op. 101. The first movement of Op. 101 is the first of several super-compressed, minimalist sonata-form movements that Beethoven wrote in his last years. The choice of this work in itself tells you that Grimaud is nothing if not thoughtful.
One passage from this recording in particular summarizes her musical personality (for me, anyway). Here is Grimaud playing near the end of the exposition of the first movement. This is in fact the first solid resting point in the piece, even though the music long ago left the tonic A major and is in the dominant, E. In fact, Beethoven doesn’t give us a solid cadence in the tonic A major until the analogous passage near the end of the recapitulation. Here’s what Grimaud does with it.
That ritardando is not in the score, but Grimaud plays it so beautifully and with such understanding of its place in the form that I can easily imagine Beethoven smiling to hear it played that way.
In her recording of the Emperor, Grimaud never does anything quite so extreme, but she plays as if she has thought deeply about every single note in the piece, has worked innumerable hours finding the correct way to play each phrase, to articulate every single note. The result is playing that makes Beethoven’s lines take on the expressive characteristics of verbal language, as if Grimaud is hearing lyrics in her inner ear. Here’s an example from the first movement.
Of course, the Emperor is famous for its brilliance and technical difficulties, and I’ve neglected to mention the obvious: thoughtful though she may be, Grimaud is, like any other pianist on the professional circuit, more than up to the challenges it presents.
So Grimaud was up against stiff competition – herself – this weekend. How would she do in a live performance, I wondered, where there is nowhere to hide, no opportunity for retakes? I needn’t have worried.
The sexy musician’s plight
If you browse among the comments posted against Grimaud's Youtube performances, you'll notice that as a physically beautiful woman, she must contend with a kind of sexism that her male counterparts never have to worry about. Even the Inquirer critic David Patrick Stearns, who has consistently praised Grimaud’s musicianship in past reviews, found it necessary to include a critique of her outfit— which, by the way, was, more than anything else, simple and functional, allowing her the freedom of movement that an athletic event demands.
In contrast to the sexually charged performances which we’ve grown accustomed to in this era of the bombshell female violinist, Grimaud gave one of the most ego-less, no-nonsense performances you’ll ever witness, completely free of physical mannerisms or showiness. And the musicianship of her recordings was all there, from beginning to end. As far as I’m concerned, she is a full-fledged member of the current pantheon of great musician-pianists, on a par with the likes of Richard Goode, Mitsuko Uchida, and Jeremy Denk.
Conlon’s take on European culture
On this occasion, Grimaud wasn’t the only intelligent musician on the premises. Conductor James Conlon’s Introductory remarks to the second half of the concert, which paired Edgar Varèse’s Ameriques with Ravel’s La Valse, were a brilliant exegesis on the state of music and European culture just after World War I.
I found the Varèse (which, despite its use evocation of New York City with a police siren and a recorded lion’s roar, is more than anything an explicit homage to Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring) to be entertaining but quaint, like Dadaism with its mink-lined teacups. On the other hand, Conlon’s performance of La Valse nailed down what he had said about it beforehand: It’s a dark work, less an actual waltz than a meditation on the world of the Viennese waltz seen from the shattered ruins of European culture.
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