{"id":74820,"date":"2022-04-13T15:04:55","date_gmt":"2022-04-13T19:04:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/?p=74820"},"modified":"2022-04-13T15:04:55","modified_gmt":"2022-04-13T19:04:55","slug":"scrutiny-marc-andre-hamelin-fugally-fantastic-beethoven","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2022\/04\/13\/scrutiny-marc-andre-hamelin-fugally-fantastic-beethoven\/","title":{"rendered":"SCRUTINY | Marc-Andr\u00e9 Hamelin Fugally Fantastic In Beethoven"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Marc-Andr\u00e9
Marc-Andr\u00e9 Hamelin (Photo: Sim Cannety-Clarke)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The status among pianists of Beethoven\u2019s \u201cHammerklavier\u201d Sonata brings to mind Mark Twain\u2019s definition of a classic as a book everybody wants to have read but no one wants to read. Its greatness is undisputed, but its difficulties are many and manifest. Marc-Andr\u00e9 Hamelin\u2019s performance of the 45-minute masterpiece Tuesday in the Jane Mallett Theatre was the first for a Music Toronto audience since 2004, when the pianist was Anton Kuerti.<\/p>\n

The wait, if prolonged, was worth it. One could hardly ask for a more natural balance of forward motion and soulful lyricism in the Adagio sostenuto. Soprano and bass lines sang ardently, as in a duet, and with dignity. Stresses were gentle but firm; syncopations, pointed but natural. Momentum never flagged.<\/p>\n

After a suspenseful treatment of the transitional introduction came a fugal finale of mesmerising clarity. It is habitual to\u00a0draw attention to Hamelin\u2019s technical credentials, but there was more to this performance than precision. One had the sense of a ringmaster controlling tigers that could escape at any moment.<\/p>\n

There is less to say about the first two movements, which were pretty much by the book, though of course the first was not taken at the unreasonable tempo Beethoven prescribed. Perhaps it is not a bad thing to leave some things in so great a work undone. Footnote for \u201cHammerklavier\u201d nerds: Hamelin negotiated the opening leaps with two hands, not the left hand alone.<\/p>\n

The recital began with C.P.E. Bach\u2019s Suite in E Minor H. 66<\/em>, written the year after the death of J.S. Bach and sounding distinctly like a tribute to Dad. Lively contrapuntal chases and melancholy laments were given their due. Hamelin was willing to withhold the pedal to create a d\u00e9tach\u00e9 effect, but this was still a modern-piano interpretation. A few moments in the concluding Gigue sounded unsure.<\/p>\n

There were no problems in Scriabin\u2019s 1911 Sonata No. 7 \u201cWhite Mass,\u201d<\/em> with its sultry melodies, complex harmonies and unsettling trills. Even more impressive at a pianistic level were Prokofiev\u2019s\u00a0Sarcasms<\/em>\u00a0of 1914, a quirky suite of exercises in defeating expectation. It is tempting to say that Hamelin extracted orchestral sonority from the Fazioli grand, but I am not sure that an orchestration would do justice to the extravagant colours we heard.<\/p>\n

Whether the pianist was the first in Canada to give an encore after the \u201cHammerklavier\u201d cannot be known for certain. It was an odd decision, however softly exquisite his performance of Debussy\u2019s\u00a0Reflets dans l\u2019eau\u00a0<\/em>might have been.\u00a0Then came one of his own short works, a self-descriptive charmer called\u00a0Music Box<\/em>. The treble range of the piano had the floor in this.<\/p>\n

Listeners were enthusiastic. One hopes the high-pitched whistling sound heard during parts of the Beethoven does not play havoc with the CBC Radio recording of the recital.<\/p>\n

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Marc-Andr\u00e9 Hamelin\u2019s performance of Beethoven\u2019s \u201cHammerklavier\u201d Sonata Tuesday was the first for a Music Toronto audience since 2004.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":74823,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[39907,76,19,47,52,63],"tags":[1692,2061,2314],"yst_prominent_words":[12458,11027,8399,23035,9952,23038,6616,18534,7451,8649,11034,12491,8315,10169],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/04\/Marc-Andre-Hamelin-REVIEW.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9bakr-jsM","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74820"}],"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\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74820"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74820\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":74824,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74820\/revisions\/74824"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74820"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=74820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}