{"id":27598,"date":"2015-04-20T14:40:18","date_gmt":"2015-04-20T18:40:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/?p=27598"},"modified":"2016-03-26T18:10:01","modified_gmt":"2016-03-26T22:10:01","slug":"concert-review-helene-grimaud-fights-off-the-bends-at-koerner-hall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2015\/04\/20\/concert-review-helene-grimaud-fights-off-the-bends-at-koerner-hall\/","title":{"rendered":"CONCERT REVIEW | H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Grimaud Fights Off The Bends at Koerner Hall"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Pianist
Pianist H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Grimaud Photo: Mat Hennek<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

[Originally published in the Toronto Star<\/a>]<\/p>\n

Pianist H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Grimaud at Koerner Hall, April 19, 2015.<\/h3>\n

\u201cMusic expresses the motion of the waters, the play of curves described by changing breezes.\u201d \u2014Claude Debussy<\/em><\/p>\n

Toronto has always been a piano city, and we\u2019ve produced our fair share of good ones over the years, so when a virtuoso like French pianist\u00a0H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Grimaud\u00a0wings into town, people take notice.<\/p>\n

Wearing sequined boots, noir pants and a cr\u00e8me jumper, Grimaud took to the piano like a deep-sea diver ready to explore the depths below. For the first half, she pulled up works by Berio, Takemitsu, Faur\u00e9, Ravel, Alb\u00e9niz, Liszt and Debussy \u2014 each meant to represent elements of water.<\/p>\n

Grimaud plunged into Luciano Berio\u2019s peaceful \u201cWasserklavier III\u201d (Water Piano). The piece included Brahms-inspired motifs and Schubert-like sweeps, played\u00a0una corda throughout.<\/p>\n

Without pause was Takemitsu\u2019s impressionistic \u201cRain Tree Sketch II\u201d \u2014 a work composed in the memory of Olivier Messiaen (1992). Grimaud showed no signs of the bends, and pulled out high timbres evocative of raindrops and early morning dews.<\/p>\n

Deeper still, the rubato artist dove down to Faur\u00e9\u2019s stylized boat song, \u201cBarcarolle No. 5 in F-sharp minor, Op. 66.\u201d The approach was entirely romantic and included Grimaud\u2019s signature timing, a testament to her mastery of dramatic phrasing.<\/p>\n

Hitting the ocean floor with Ravel\u2019s 1901 \u201cJeux d\u2019eau\u201d (\u201cWater Games\u201d), Grimaud flaunted her seamless hand-crossings, which made the many piano students in the audience lean forward with amazement. Not unlike the inner workings of a piano, the piece is like walking through an enormous clock, with thousands of wheels and sprockets, clicking and clacking. Grimaud played through the climax with the obligatory nod to Liszt.<\/p>\n

Coming up for air was \u201cAlmer\u00eda,\u201d from Alb\u00e9niz\u2019s\u00a0Iberia<\/em>\u00a0suite, then back under for Liszt\u2019s mysterious 1877 \u201cLes Jeux d\u2019eau \u00e0 la Villa d\u2019Este.\u201d While Almer\u00eda came across a bit flat (a tad too much pedal and not enough dynamic variation), the latter recovered with the pianist\u2019s unusually fluid tremolos. Koerner Hall\u2019s Steinway never sounded so good.<\/p>\n

While Ravel\u2019s \u201cJeux d\u2019eau\u201d evokes a fountain geyser, Jan\u00e1cek\u2019s \u201cIn the Mists\u201d is more of a London fog, heavy with dour melancholy. It was composed the year Jan\u00e1cek was still making sense of his daughter\u2019s untimely death in 1912, and also dealing with the rejection of his operas in Prague.<\/p>\n

After the intermission, Grimaud returned with the score that put Brahms on the musical map: \u201cPiano Sonata No. 2 in F-sharp minor.\u201d Grimaud took to many directions, but stayed true to the larger picture cleaved with youthful and vibrant energy. Evoking Yefim Bronfman at times, her Scherzo was muscular and spontaneous.<\/p>\n

Koerner Hall rose with two ovations and Grimaud obliged with two encores: Debussy\u2019s \u201cPour les Arp\u00e8ges Compos\u00e9s,\u201d and \u201cPoissons d\u2019Or\u201d (\u201cGoldfish\u201d).<\/p>\n

Grimaud knows how to rock the boat, and through an unusual but well planned premise of water, water everywhere, this was a voyage well worth taking.<\/p>\n

#LUDWIGVAN<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Pianist H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Grimaud at Koerner Hall, April 19, 2015. \u201cMusic expresses the motion of the waters, the play of curves described by changing breezes.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":27601,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[118,76,19,47,52,63],"tags":[1541,1876],"yst_prominent_words":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2015\/04\/AVT_Helene-Grimaud_7969.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9bakr-7b8","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27598"}],"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\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27598"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27598\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27609,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27598\/revisions\/27609"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27598"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=27598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}