By David Beech

 

The English composer, pianist and conductor Thomas Adès made a welcome return to San Francisco on Thursday, March 16, 2010, confirming his exceptional gifts in the first two of those roles in a piano recital that included the US première of his Concert Paraphrase on Powder Her Face, derived from four scenes of his highly successful opera about the scandalous life of the Duchess of Argyll.  (The Herbst Theatre was two days ahead of Carnegie Hall on the schedule, although two days later than Vancouver.) 

Playing to a full house, Adès presented a program that was full of musical allusions – his own paraphrase of a work that itself included echoes of popular music, a Liszt transcription of Wagner, violent Prokofiev beginning with tritones which Liszt had exploited in his Dante fantasia, concise Schubert in the style of his lieder, and Janáček’s simple yet profound pieces paying homage to Beethoven’s bagatelles, which themselves contain many reminders of earlier Beethoven.  

These were clearly composers who meant much to Adès, and we were treated to interpretations that offered the insights of one composer into the works of others.  As a pianist, Adès places a flawless technique at the service of the music, whether in conveying the overall structure, or exquisite detail, or inner voices, or atmospheric sonorities.  He has a fine ear, and he invites the audience to share in his listening by moving his dynamic range down a notch below that of most solo pianists.  By employing several levels between p and pppp, often with the soft pedal, he can make sufficiently dramatic contrasts of loud passages without deafening the audience or losing tone quality.  As an opera composer who is also a pianist and conductor, he is sometimes compared to Benjamin Britten, and his piano style has something in common, being very precise rhythmically, slightly dry and cerebral – elegant, profound or witty, but not luscious or sentimental.  Adès, however, also appears sympathetic to the flamboyant dimension of the more serious side of Liszt, although without aiming to compete as a crowd-pleasing virtuoso. 

Beginning with the second book of Janáček’s On the Overgrown Path, Adès quietly conveyed his fascination with these five miniatures, mostly sad or poignant, although the fourth of them has noisy bravado interludes.  Already it was possible to appreciate Adès’ profound interest in musical development of simple motifs, and the true rubato of his expressive playing, giving back borrowed time in order to maintain the flow and the sense of architectural control. 

Liszt’s transcription of Isoldens Liebestod from the tragic ending of Tristan und Isolde was taken at just the right tempo for Wagner’s endlessly inventive chromaticism to work its magic – slow enough to honour this strange exultation of love in death, but not so slow as to outstay its welcome.  A wide variety of orchestral colour was on display, ranging from delicate washes of skillfully disguised tremolos and arpeggios, to the huge brassy climaxes.  What gorgeous music! 

We were quickly brought to our senses by the start of Prokofiev’s five Sarcasms, Op.17, written in his early enfant terrible style, with almost arbitrary wrong-note dissonances and driving rhythms. But soon we were enjoying the arabesques and dazzling final scale of the second piece, and the tender center section set in the ostinato third.  The martial energy was maintained in the fourth piece, becoming even more frenzied in the precipitosissimo finale until suddenly there was silence, broken only by pairs of notes like raindrops, which were gradually strung together to sound more like an anticipation of Bartók’s Page from the Diary of a Fly.  Then there was a marvellous sonority like the tread of an army dying away in the bass, before the last few notes descended to the catacombs on a bottom C.  This was fine Prokofiev playing, with the aggression tempered by a spirit of playfulness and tenderness never too far away. 

The Schubert C minor Allegretto, D.915, is one of those deceptively simple pieces that say multum in parvo – much in little – like the Janáček at the start of this program and the Beethoven to come, which served as bookends for the varied fare between them.  Here we heard Schubert at his most economical, as in the piano parts for so many of his lieder, with never a note unneeded, or failing to exert its emotional influence.  The playing was perfect. 

Barely pausing for a moment, Adès launched into his own work, a free concert paraphrase rather than a strict transcription from Powder Her Face – his opera that is in the nature of an English Lulu.  It was exciting to hear this US première of a work that may become established in the repertoire of virtuoso pianists – the technical demands at times are considerable, but of course Adès was masterly.  The chamber orchestra scoring of the opera contains many attractive ideas to nourish the paraphrase, and some of the spiky vocal writing may even sound better on the piano.  The influence of 1930’s popular music is heard at the beginning, and echoes of the tango accompany the sad ending.  In between are sections based on the scenes “Is Daddy Squiffy?” and “Fancy Being Rich”.  Melodies have to contend with irreverent commentary, and the variety of piano styles encompasses filigree decoration as in the Liszt Sonata, and thundering as in Ravel’s La Valse, romantic ripples almost as in Chopin, and staccato as incisive as in Prokofiev, before the widely spaced lines of the sombre close.  Among the orchestral effects was a spectacular evocation of the bass clarinet – an instrument that plays an important role in the opera.  The work was enthusiastically received by an attentive audience. 

The choice of Beethoven’s late Bagatelles, Op.126, to close the program was effective in linking back to the Janáček and Schubert, and revealing Beethoven’s stature even in these six short, mostly quiet, pieces.  There was an element of homage from a contemporary composer to the great master, who himself seemed to be musing mostly over his own earlier work, although in the second piece a Bach-like toccata briefly erupts.  In the last piece, the noisy start prepares us for something like the Rage over a Lost Penny, but it immediately gives way to a gentle Andante with Schubertian triplet decorations.  The return of the noisy start showed that it was only a joke, en route to a triumphant E flat major close. 

As a first encore, Adès gave a winning performance of Liszt’s Valse Oubliée, exhibiting both the shimmering delicacy and the magnificent glamour before the final deconstruction as the memory fades.

Next, we heard more Prokofiev, the charming 11^th piece of his Visions fugitives, Op. 22, and finally Couperin, another favourite composer of Adès, with his Mysterious Barricades to provide a serene conclusion.

 [David Beech, an amateur clarinetist, pianist and clavichordist, is a frequent contributor as a guest reviewer in this column.]