It is a rare and special concert when one senses that not only the performer, but the composer, is on stage. On February 4 at Bourgie Hall, Louis Lortie played a wealth of Ravel’s piano works, from the iconic Pavane pour une infante défunte to the highly intricate Gaspard de la nuit. He played each piece with such stunning clarity it seemed as though Ravel himself was onstage with Lortie, calmly listening to his own pieces being played just as he would have wanted them to be.
What you missed:
Lortie’s playing is particularly striking in its attention to the global structure, or form, of a piece. There is the resounding sense that the performer knows where every musical gesture is ultimately leading. In the beginning of Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit, there is a section of high, fast arpeggiated sequences, which can be best described as “watery.” Often, passages such as this one are played impressionistically, without a sense of narrative. This was not the case with Lortie. Even the most sensory and impressionistic passages of music served the greater whole. In this passage depicting a water nymph, Lortie drove the narrative forward by not letting himself rest sentimentally in what can easily sound like an impressionistic wash.
This seems to be what Ravel would have wanted. Incredibly, we do have recordings of Ravel playing his own works. In this recording of Pavane pour une infante défunte, there is a strong sense of delineation between its various sections. There are clear stops between sections, and the voicing is played more in the style of a Bach choral than with the sort of emotional indulgence we usually associate with late Romanticism. While one could certainly make a case that Ravel was not nearly as good a pianist as he was a composer, his recordings inevitably provide a window into how he thought of his own music.
Lortie’s own performance of Pavane pour une infante défunte preserved Ravel’s stylistic choices. The melody was played with stunning directness and clarity of intention. At the same time, Lortie also added a rich palette of musical colours, and made the piano sound, at times, like a resonant cello or warm clarinet. While originally written for piano, Ravel later orchestrated Pavane for orchestra. Lortie’s performance embodied the best of both worlds.
Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin is a six-movement solo piano piece based on a traditional Baroque suite. It is full of the lively, buoyant energy which characterizes dance movements. As such, I thought it was a very good idea to exchange its place in the published program with the heavier Gaspard de la nuit, and place it at the end of the concert. Lortie played Tombeau with characteristic precision. The strong, almost staccato articulation with which he embued Prelude is reminiscent of Baroque performance practice.
Gripes:
There was an announcement at the beginning of the concert that Lortie had requested to play on a Bösendorfer piano, rather than Bourgie Hall’s Steinway. Yet, the piano was not properly tuned, and the lower register sounded quite muddy. Typically, the Bösendorfer is supposed to have a deeper, richer tone than the Steinway. Any benefit we might have procured from this piano was obfuscated by the fact that it was not very in tune. Thankfully, a piano tuner came on stage during the intermission, and the issue was resolved for the second half of the concert.
