A Carnegie Hall Premiere, 102 years late: Carnegie Hall Presents Marc-André Hamelin in Review
Marc-André Hamelin, piano
Tuesday, October 22, 2019 at 8pm
Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall, New York, NY
Saying that Marc-André Hamelin played an amazing concert is like saying water is wet –how does one make that sound like news? It simply cannot be a shock to anyone to hear that his Tuesday night recital at Carnegie Hall, including works of Scriabin, Prokofiev, Samuil Feinberg, and Schubert, was yet another tour de force, but it was astonishing in new ways.
Mr. Hamelin still handles unthinkable pianistic and musical challenges with the sangfroid of a neurosurgeon and the inexplicable ease of a wizard; however, for those still pigeonholing him as the pioneer of barely-known or barely-playable works, he is clearly much more than that, as one felt powerfully in his Schubert Sonata in B-flat major (D. 960) which closed the program. For the record, Mr. Hamelin has by now performed as much standard repertoire as non-standard – perhaps more – but reputations are slow to change. Fortunately, standard vs. non-standard is not an either-or proposition, and the combination of well-loved mainstream repertoire with discovery and rediscovery was one of the special beauties of Tuesday’s program.
This reviewer has for almost thirty years been grateful for performances and recordings by Mr. Hamelin, sometimes the only ones available for certain works, and though his biography modestly states that he has recorded a “broad range of repertoire” the word “broad” doesn’t begin to convey the encyclopedic range of his more than sixty albums (starting with letter A for Alkan). We had a prime example of such championing on Tuesday, with the Sonata No. 3 (1916-17) by Russian composer-pianist Samuil Feinberg (1890-1962).
Feinberg’s sonatas draw upon formidable pianistic skill, contrapuntal mastery, and a wildly adventurous tonal imagination, yet his music suffered delayed exposure in the West, as with many other Soviet composers. Even amid the pianistic bounty that is New York, Feinberg Sonata “sightings” are still rare, with the Sonata No. 3 being the rarest. So rare is the latter, in fact, that this evening marked the Carnegie Hall premiere of the Sonata No. 3, as noted in the program. Though the Sonata No. 3 was composed during World War I, it was not published until 1974, twelve years after Feinberg’s death, and beyond matters of the score, the demands on the performer are immense. Demands on the listener are considerable as well, and so even this reviewer, a Feinberg admirer (and owner of scores to all of Feinberg’s sonatas except No. 3), had trouble assimilating its sprawling scope. If Scriabin’s sonatas run the gamut from romantic outpourings to the rantings of a madman, Feinberg’s do similarly, but with added digressions, reiterations, elaborations, and intricacies of texture – and just when one thinks it has all reached a saturation point, a fugue gets thrown into the last movement! Some of it is frankly overwhelming, but the many glorious moments – including some Medtneresque patches of heaven – tell one it must be reheard, and probably by this same pianist – one looks forward to that. Complete love at first hearing is a lot to ask with such a work, but one can only be grateful to have heard it first from such an exceptional musician. It was a fitting climax to close the first half, which opened with Scriabin’s poetic Fantasy in B minor, Op. 28, given an unusually gentle unfolding, followed by Prokofiev’s biting Sarcasms, Op. 17, shot with perfect, jolting attacks.
A second half completely devoted to Schubert’s Sonata in B-flat Major, D. 960, was a dream come true after the tortuous complexity of Feinberg, and Mr. Hamelin blessed it with a patient reverence well suited to its autumnal place, from late in Schubert’s brief life. Some of it (naturally the second movement Andante Sostenuto) was glacially slow, probably slower than some are accustomed to hearing it, but this reviewer loved it, as did many Care was taken to achieve myriad gradations of sound down to the faintest pianissimo, and wonderful individual touches emerged. Especially wonderful was a seemingly improvisatory quality, as if the pianist were capturing the very moment of decision where the composer took a familiar beginning of a phrase into a new direction. Such moments are among the reasons why, even with miraculous recordings (and Mr. Hamelin did record this for Hyperion in 2018), we still need live performances.
Ardent fans brought the pianist back for three encores. We heard Fauré’s unjustly neglected Barcarolle No. 3, which positively glittered, followed by Debussy’s sixth Prelude from Book II, Général Lavine – eccentric, with all its jaunty quirks accentuated perfectly, and finally Mr. Hamelin’s own composition Music Box. Awash with pedal in a delicate haze of treble patterns – with just a smattering of piquant dissonance – it created an effect similar to that of Liadov’s Musical Snuffbox and other bonbons favored by the early twentieth century’s “Golden Age” pianists. It was good to see that spirit living on, including through such charming miniatures. Mr. Hamelin has certainly earned his place among the titans.
