Pro Musicis presents Gaspard Dehaene in Review
Gaspard Dehaene, piano
Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, New York, NY
September 25, 2019
French pianist Gaspard Dehaene played a demanding program on Wednesday night with great technical facility, keen intellectual probing, and sensitivity to harmony and color. Winner of the Pro Musicis International award in 2015, he joins a long line of illustrious pianists (and other instrumentalists) chosen for their vision beyond the mere spectacle of the concert stage. In Mr. Dehaene’s case, one can easily see this, given the thoughtful devotion to Schubert on the first half of his program.
He began with the set of twelve Ländler, D. 790. The ländler may be thought of as the country-bumpkin predecessor to the waltz (sometimes including “yodel” themes and the like), and Schubert composed dozens and dozens of them, often linked by key relationship, that could actually be used in a social dance setting—they are not as stylized as later composers’ versions of social dances. But as Schubert’s tragically short life went on, he filled these humble dances with his characteristic harmonic sidesteps and other surprises in a way that elevates them far above their genre.
Only a little earlier this month, the music world lost one of the premiere exponents of the Austro-Hungarian piano tradition, Paul Badura-Skoda. I recall hearing him many times fling a bouquet of these ländler with consummate charm and lilt. Mr. Dehaene’s set involved more intellectual, sober values, at first sounding wooden, but growing into charm. I began to worry, however, about something that clouded his entire recital: his use of a very bright, noisy piano, one whose dampers and pedal made metallic noises and actually raised the pitch of the sustained final chords of each piece, which was most disconcerting. Mr. Dehaene was most sensitive in the 3rd, 5th, 6th, and 11th ländler . Schubert’s dynamics are truly detailed, and I didn’t hear enough true pianissimo to suit me.
He followed the dances with a solid performance of the middle of the “last three” piano sonatas, the great A major, D. 959. This work embodies the “Schubert struggle,” if you will: the forces of light and dark in perpetual conflict. In Schubert’s tragic case, dark eventually overcame him, but in his music the situation is far more ambiguous.
Mr. Dehaene has an obvious clarity of grasp of these large spans that he, as Alfred Brendel says, “proceed(ed) with the assurance of the sleepwalker.” Here I found the instrument partly to blame for the lack of differentiation and, at times, mellow singing tone. At times, Mr. Dehaene intersected with the heartbreaking lyricism perfectly, at other times accents were too sharp. His treatment of the different harmonic content in the recapitulation of the first movement was superb, as was the mysterious coda, with its half-step “window” into the next sonata (the B-flat, D. 960), was particularly well done. For me, though it can be debated, the Andantino was too fast and not desolate enough. Interestingly, after the agitated “portrait of a soul coming apart” middle section, when the theme returns with triplet C-sharps over it, he was at what would have been the correct tempo for the beginning. It was all a bit “severe” for my taste, despite those moments when Mr. Dehaene gave in to a more melting tone. The same goes for the Scherzo, which lacked lightness in the staccato chords and sounded brusque and overly-bright. The songfulness of the rondo finale suited Mr. Dehaene’s organizational strengths quite well, although I wished for more mystery in the key changes and the many “wandering stops” that Schubert places. The fiercely difficult coda posed no difficulties for him. I sincerely hope that he will continue to live with this masterpiece for many decades, returning to it with new experience, and draw from the eternal spring it provides.
After intermission, both pianist and piano seemed changed. His group of the four Chopin Mazurkas, Op. 24 was stylish and offered so many of the color shifts I wished to hear in the first half. Furthermore, the Schubert/Liszt song transcriptions (Auf dem Wasser zu singen, D. 774 and Aufenthalt, from Schwanengesang, D. 957) and the Liszt Rhapsodie espagnole that followed showed his command of the instrument, which was never superficial, but always included scrupulous voicing no matter how many thousands of other notes had to be dispatched.
Mr. Dehaene favored the enthusiastic audience with sincere comments of gratitude, delivered charmingly, to the Pro Musicis committee. He then played the wistful Schubert solo arrangement known as Mélodie hongroise (adapted from the four-hand Divertissement à la hongroise, D. 818) with disarming simplicity.
