{"id":14173,"date":"2013-07-30T22:17:49","date_gmt":"2013-07-31T03:17:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/?p=14173"},"modified":"2013-07-31T06:49:15","modified_gmt":"2013-07-31T11:49:15","slug":"concert-review-pianist-cedric-tiberghien-shakes-up-the-familiar-in-the-most-beguiling-way-possible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2013\/07\/30\/concert-review-pianist-cedric-tiberghien-shakes-up-the-familiar-in-the-most-beguiling-way-possible\/","title":{"rendered":"Concert review: Pianist C\u00e9dric Tiberghien shakes up the familiar in the most beguiling way possible"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"C\u00e9dric<\/a>
C\u00e9dric Tiberghien prepares to play at Koerner Hall on Tuesday evening (John Terauds phone photo).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Even though French pianist C\u00e9dric Tiberghien revealed himself to be a master artist at his Toronto d\u00e9but recital at Koerner Hall on Tuesday night, he did so by shaking us up, not playing to our presuppositions.<\/p>\n

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 \u2013 in ways both good and bad.<\/p>\n

The familiar, in the best sense, breeds comfort and contentment. Extended too far, it breeds boredom or a closed mind.<\/p>\n

Enter the classical interpreters who put their own distinct spin on their music \u2013 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.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a stretch to compare a sonata by Franz Schubert \u2013 in this case the C minor, D958 — with Alban Berg\u2019s lone effort from the turn of the 20th<\/sup> century. But Tiberghien opened our ears to various ways in which the two styles of composition really do have something in common.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Tiberghien did this \u2013 in Six Moments Musicaux<\/em> and the Sonata<\/em> — with uncommon sensitivity and grace, showing off a delicate, velvety touch that became positively otherworldly time after time during the two-hour recital.<\/p>\n

But this approach to the Berg\u00a0Sonata<\/em> was an act of provocation, like adding gingerbread to a piece of brutalist architecture. But the 38-year-old pianist\u2019s deliberate, gentle highlighting of Berg\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

It was revelatory — and beautiful.<\/p>\n

The programme\u2019s finale was the but heavenly window dressing on this theme of gossamer sound, as Tiberghien\u00a0 splashed about with exotic Debussian harmonies and tone colours, creating delicate, ephemeral depictions seemingly out of nothing.<\/p>\n

None of this would have been possible without prodigious technique and what can only be an obsessive attention to detail.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s triumph.<\/p>\n

We can only hope that he gets invited back for more soon.<\/p>\n

John Terauds<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Even though French pianist C\u00e9dric Tiberghien revealed himself to be a master artist at his Toronto d\u00e9but recital at Koerner Hall on Tuesday night, he did so by shaking us up, not playing to our presuppositions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14174,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,76,19,36,47,52,59,63,1],"tags":[6451,3767,3768,1876,6468,2769,6471,6474],"yst_prominent_words":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2013\/07\/cedric1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9bakr-3GB","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14173"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14173"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14173\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14179,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14173\/revisions\/14179"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14173"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=14173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}