Even though French pianist Cédric Tiberghien revealed himself to be a master artist at his Toronto début recital at Koerner Hall on Tuesday night, he did so by shaking us up, not playing to our presuppositions.
- Classical Music 101: What Does A Conductor Do? - June 17, 2019
- Classical Music 101 | What Does Period Instrument Mean? - May 6, 2019
- CLASSICAL MUSIC 101 | What Does It Mean To Be In Tune? - April 23, 2019
Since we spend most of our time as listeners of classical music relating to interpretation rather than fresh creation, much of our experience over time becomes a dance with the familiar – in ways both good and bad.
The familiar, in the best sense, breeds comfort and contentment. Extended too far, it breeds boredom or a closed mind.
Enter the classical interpreters who put their own distinct spin on their music – people like Tiberghien, invited by Toronto Summer Music to give us a dollop of French impressionism to go with his core programme of Viennese music both romantic and modern.
It’s a stretch to compare a sonata by Franz Schubert – in this case the C minor, D958 — with Alban Berg’s lone effort from the turn of the 20th century. But Tiberghien opened our ears to various ways in which the two styles of composition really do have something in common.
There is a long, golden tradition of intimately-minded pianists who perform Schubert for the drawing room, even when in a concert hall, emphasizing the singing quality of the melodies and their delicate accompaniments.
Tiberghien did this – in Six Moments Musicaux and the Sonata — with uncommon sensitivity and grace, showing off a delicate, velvety touch that became positively otherworldly time after time during the two-hour recital.
But this approach to the Berg Sonata was an act of provocation, like adding gingerbread to a piece of brutalist architecture. But the 38-year-old pianist’s deliberate, gentle highlighting of Berg’s thematic foundations and their steady development through the piece instead came across more like placing a rare insect specimen under the microscope for the very first time.
It was revelatory — and beautiful.
The programme’s finale was the but heavenly window dressing on this theme of gossamer sound, as Tiberghien splashed about with exotic Debussian harmonies and tone colours, creating delicate, ephemeral depictions seemingly out of nothing.
None of this would have been possible without prodigious technique and what can only be an obsessive attention to detail.
That he could make us forget all the preparatory work and all of the effort to turn music into poetry that wrapped so much of what is familiar in the classical piano canon unto something intriguingly, beguilingly unfamiliar on a live stage was Tiberghien’s triumph.
We can only hope that he gets invited back for more soon.
John Terauds
- Classical Music 101: What Does A Conductor Do? - June 17, 2019
- Classical Music 101 | What Does Period Instrument Mean? - May 6, 2019
- CLASSICAL MUSIC 101 | What Does It Mean To Be In Tune? - April 23, 2019
