KCMETROPOLIS.org
Kansas City's Online Journal of the Performing Arts

Canadian-born pianist Marc-André Hamelin delivered a sophisticated, nuanced recital of Liszt, Berg, Debussy, and his own works Saturday evening at the Folly Theater as part of the Harriman-Jewell Series before a near-capacity audience. A virtuoso pianist, who has a reputation of continually refuting the negative connotations of such a moniker, Hamelin set out to play an elegant and refined program with skillful flourishes and did just that.  

Hamelin gave Berg’s Sonata, Op. 1 a well planned, gradiated reading, carefully respecting the composer’s intentions and making the piece an enjoyable listen. The dynamics were refreshingly subtle in such a way that moderately louder phrases and more dissonant harmonies weren’t “bangy,” leaving a long, sinewy journey to a true fortissimo later in the single movement work. Hamelin’s tone had the same clarity as the fall’s bright, crisp moon outside; a clear-toned melody shone through Berg’s expressionist harmonies even in the most strident moments.

Next, for the second time in a week, I found myself reviewing Liszt’s herculean, half-hour Sonata in B minor. In Hamelin’s interpretation, the hesitantly played, opening staccatos gave way to a dark robust theme and later furiously flying octaves. The most captivating moments were Liszt’s Liebesträume-like episodes of gentle, soulful romanticsm.

Hamelin tied the Liszt Sonata to the Berg with hints of a similar transcendental, expressionist tone color. The central hymn-like section was quite moving and beautiful; Hamelin contextualized it with the gruff stoicism of the preceding theme’s incarnation. In the recap, the piece surged with almost-too-fast octaves into a grand fortissimo climax. Hamelin’s ending was captivating; it was a different character to Jane Solose’s reading a week ago, but nonetheless moving.

In his second half, Hamelin offered four of Debussy selections from the Second Book of Preludes. The flashy “Les tierces alternées” and “Feux d’artifice” were the best. In the former, Hamelin brought machine-like evenness and precision to the alternating legato thirds, with only splashes of accentuating pedal. The latter also showed amazing precision and clear melodic riffs, which felt stream-of-consciousness without being disjointed.

Hamelin’s five excerpts from his own 12 Etudes in All the Minor Keys brought the program to a satisfying conclusion. Especially lovely were No. 7 “after Tchaikovsky (for the left hand alone)” and No. 11 “Menuetto.” The former was an arrangement of Tchaikovsky’s Lullaby, Op. 16, No. 1 originally composed for voice and piano. The beautiful melody underpinned by a dense, variegated texture of accompaniment brought to mind Scriabin’s Nocturne for the Left Hand Alone, though the harmony was quite different. The “Menuetto,” the most recently composed of the Etudes, had a carefree, dance-like theme and Germanic romantic harmonies mixed with abstracted glimpses of French folk tunes and jazz harmonic shifts. This astounding juxtaposition occurred while the left hand created a dizzying blur of subtle textures for the melody.

After several curtain calls, Hamelin offered an encore of a short Prelude by Leonid Sabaneiev, a pupil of Scriabin, he discovered “plumbing the depths of piano literature.” The piece was a lovely dessert, featuring Scriabin-like orchestration and transcendental flashes, and with the added draw of only-in-the-know exclusivity by remaining unrecorded and out of print.

The Harriman-Jewell Series production ended, as always, with an artist-audience conversation which was quite enjoyable. Hamelin was quizzed on his thoughts on the Berg Sonata, program building, his coming round to Debussy’s music, and his tongue-in-cheek Nokia Waltz. 

REVIEW
Harriman-Jewell Series
Marc-André Hamelin, Pianist
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Folly Theater
300 W 12th St, Kansas City, MO
For more information, visit http://hjseries.org 

Top Photo: Marc-André Hamelin (Photo by Nina Large)

By Topher Levin

Classical Editor and Contributor

Christopher (Topher) Levin is a composer, pianist, music theorist, and music blogger based in Kansas City, MO. His compositions have been performed at music festivals across the US and in Europe. He has spent two summers in Paris, France studying music at the Ecole Normale de Musique through the EAMA program. His trio for clarinet, piano, and percussion is published in the SCI Journal of Scores.

Topher holds degrees from the University of Missouri-Kansas City (M.M.) in music theory and (M.M.) in composition and from James Madison University in Virginia (B.M.) in composition. Primary composition teachers have included John S. Hilliard, Paul Rudy, Zhou Long, James Mobberley, Chen Yi, Claude Baker, Narcis Bonet, Michel Merlet, and João Pedro Oliveira. His piano teachers have included Patricia Brady and Karen Kushner. Topher maintains a piano studio of 22 students.

Having recently completed a Master's thesis on the beautiful complexities of Chinary Ung's trio, Spiral I, Topher turned his writing attention to the more informal blogging medium. He has taken to it quite well, sharing posts on strange and wonderful music and art found across the web with a modest but growing number of blog followers. He looks forward to writing for KCM and sharing with its readers the stories of all the amazing musicians performing in Kansas City.

More Featured Articles