Pierre-Laurent Aimard: from Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier to Birtwistle premieres in 2014-15
Pierre-Laurent Aimard’s recording of Bach’s Art of Fugue was a phenomenal critical and commercial success that topped both the Billboard and iTunes classical charts, prompting The Times of London to wonder: “So, another Everest conquered by Pierre-Laurent Aimard. What’s the next one going to be?” Now, drawing on intensive study of the work at Berlin’s Institute for Advanced Study, the Grammy Award-winning pianist turns his focus to Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I, with the release of a new Deutsche Grammophon CD – already a hit in Europe – and a monumental international tour, highlighted by U.S. dates at Carnegie Hall, the Library of Congress, and in Chicago and Philadelphia.
In addition to his Bach tour, Aimard continues in his role as a key figure in the music of our time. This season Aimard showcases the work of three of the contemporary composers with whom he has enjoyed especially close associations, undertaking the world, UK and U.S. premieres of Sir Harrison Birtwistle’s new piano concerto with the Bavarian Radio Symphony, Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto Casa da Música, London Philharmonic, and Boston Symphony; joining pianist Tamara Stefanovich for marathon all-Boulez programs in Europe and the U.S.; and launching the Ligeti Project, a major new online resource designed to disseminate his exclusive insights into the late Hungarian composer’s piano music. To round out the season, his seventh as Artistic Director of the Aldeburgh Festival, Aimard returns to the trailblazing English festival in June 2015.
Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I: DG CD and international recital tour
An artist distinguished by a deep engagement with each of the works he interprets, Aimard devoted much of his recent season-long sabbatical to a scholarly and immersive study of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier: a pinnacle not only of the keyboard literature, but of all Western culture. As a result, his new Deutsche Grammophon recording of Book I – from which excerpts may be sampled here – has already found favor with the European press. Germany’s NDR Radio proclaimed it “a new benchmark recording.” “He has already proved himself as a connoisseur of Bach. But with this recording he goes one step further,” added Musikwoche; “Through Bach’s music, Pierre-Laurent Aimard expresses an immense human depth.” France’s Piano bleu pronounced his performance “a modern vision,” in which “in addition to differentiating all the contrapuntal voices particularly well, he exalts the purity of the music – music that is a real pleasure to listen to.” As Die Welt concluded, the disc is “a must!” with which Aimard “has earned himself a secure place among the masters.”
Over the summer, the pianist inspired similarly rapturous reviews with his live performances of Bach’s masterpiece at the Salzburg and Styriarte festivals, launching an international tour of truly epic proportions. In November, he makes main-stage appearances at four key U.S. venues, giving complete accounts of the Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I, at Chicago’s Symphony Center (Nov 9), Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center (Nov 11), and New York’s Carnegie Hall (Nov 13), besides interspersing selected Bach preludes and fugues with Beethoven’s Op. 110 sonata and Brahms’s “Handel” Variations at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC (Nov 7). Other stops on his 16-country, four-continental tour take the pianist from Beijing to Bogota by way of London, Berlin, Paris, Amsterdam, Vienna, Prague, Munich, Hamburg, Bremen, Frankfurt, Lucerne, Madrid, Barcelona, San Sebastian, Oviedo, Lisbon, Sao Paulo, Tokyo, and St Petersburg (see further details below).
World, Portuguese, UK, & U.S. premieres of Harrison Birtwistle’s new piano concerto
Sir Harrison Birtwistle is one of the contemporary composers that Aimard – as performer, programmer, and commissioner – has most consistently championed. Ten years ago, during the English composer’s 70th birthday celebrations at London’s Royal Festival Hall, it was he who gave what the Financial Times recognized as “a composer’s dream performance” of Birtwistle’s first piano concerto, Antiphonies. Now, a decade on, Birtwistle has created a second piano concerto expressly for Aimard, titled Responses:Sweet disorder and the carefully careless. As the composer explains, the subtitle is taken from an essay collection by Princeton architect Robert Maxwell, and is, he says, “the essence of what I’m doing. It’s a resonant phrase.” Aimard serves as soloist in a quartet of international premieres with the four orchestras by which the concerto was co-commissioned, giving the world premiere at the opening of the Bavarian Radio Orchestra’s Musica Viva series with Stefan Asbury in Munich (Oct 24), followed by the Portuguese premiere with Peter Eötvös leading the Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto Casa da Música in Porto (Nov 1), and the UK premiere with the London Philharmonic under Vladimir Jurowski during “Birtwistle at 80” celebrations at London’s Royal Festival Hall (Dec 6). In the New Year, Aimard and Jurowski reunite at the Boston Symphony to present the American premiere of Responses at Boston’s Symphony Hall (Feb 12–14).
All-Boulez marathons in U.S. and Amsterdam with Tamara Stefanovich
Aimard shares a long and exceptionally rich personal and professional history with his compatriot Pierre Boulez. At just 19, at the composer-conductor’s invitation, Aimard became a founding member of Ensemble Intercontemporain, Boulez’s IRCAM-based chamber orchestra, and he played with the group for many years, participating in a number of important premieres. Together with pianist Tamara Stefanovich, Aimard and Boulez were honored with a Grammy nomination for their recording of Bartók’s Concerto for Two Pianos, and when Aimard and Stefanovich played Boulez’s own piano works together in London, the Independent declared their performance “as definitive as it gets.” Now the two pianists present formidable all-Boulez programs in Berkeley’s Cal Performances series (March 12), at Chicago’s Symphony Center (March 15), New York’s Carnegie Hall (March 16), and the Carolina Performing Arts at Chapel Hill (March 18), with a preview at Cornell University (March 8), and reprises in Amsterdam, Holland (March 25) and the Salzburg Festival (August 8).
Ligeti Project goes live online
2015 brings the launch of what The Guardian anticipates will prove “a significant online resource”: a free, multilingual, interactive web site to complete Aimard’s Ligeti Project. The fruit of many years’ labor, this innovative pedagogical undertaking draws on the intimate working relationship that the pianist shared with György Ligeti from the 1980s until the composer’s death in 2006. It was Aimard who premiered and made first recordings of a number of Ligeti’s piano compositions, winning a 1997 Gramophone Award for his Sony Masterworks album of the Études, and he who inspired some of the great modernist’s most complex etudes, including Der Zauberlehrling (“The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”), which is dedicated to him. As a result, he remains without peer as an exponent of Ligeti’s music; indeed, the composer himself considered Aimard “today’s leading interpreter of contemporary piano music.” Drawing on this singular wealth of experience and expertise, the project is designed to share Aimard’s uniquely privileged insights into the composer’s piano music and its inner workings with students and performers all over the world. The interactive web site, which the pianist developed in close collaboration with Dr. Tobias Bleek, Head of Education at the Ruhr Piano Festival, offers a short film about each of Ligeti’s Études with performance notes from Aimard; a series of masterclasses with the pianist, filmed at the 2014 Ruhr Piano and Aldeburgh Festivals; and a host of interactive scores, archival source material, and additional teaching resources.
Mozart, Dvorák, Ravel, Messiaen, Elliott Carter, and Tristan Murail
Aimard rounds out the season with engagements that reflect his versatility and breadth. Highlights include his touring two French programs with the Philharmonia Orchestra and Esa-Pekka Salonen, crowned by traversals of Ravel’s Concerto for the Left Hand in London and Vienna and of Messiaen’s Turangalila Symphony in London and Paris. He juxtaposes Mozart with Elliott Carter in Salzburg concerts with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, and plays Dvorák’s G-minor concerto on a German tour with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchestra Berlin under Christoph Eschenbach. And, following acclaimed performances of the work at Aldeburgh and Avery Fisher Hall, he reprises Tristan Murail’s spectral piano concerto Le désenchantement du monde with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France under Pierre-André Valade.
Further details of Pierre-Laurent Aimard’s upcoming engagements are listed below, high-resolution photos are provided here, and more information is available at the artist’s web site: www.pierrelaurentaimard.com.
Pierre-Laurent Aimard: 2014-15 engagements
Oct 8
Tokyo, Japan
Kioi Hall
Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I
Oct 11
Beijing, China
National Centre for the Performing Arts
Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I
Kurtág: Játékok (selection)
Ligeti: Études (selection)
Oct 14
Shanghai, China
Shanghai Conservatory
Ligeti: Musica Ricercata
Ligeti: Études (selection)
Oct 24
Munich, Germany
Birtwistle: Responses. Sweet disorder and the carefully careless for piano and orchestra (world premiere)
Bayerischer Rundfunk Orchester / Stefan Asbury
Nov 1
Porto, Portugal
Casa da Música
Birtwistle: Responses. Sweet disorder and the carefully careless for piano and orchestra
Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto Casa da Música / Peter Eötvös
Nov 3
Lisbon, Portugal
Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian
Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I
Nov 7–13
U.S. recital tour
Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I
Nov 7: Washington D.C. (Library of Congress)
Also: Beethoven: Sonata for Piano No. 31 in A-flat, Op. 110
Brahms: Variations on a Theme of Handel, Op. 24
Nov 9: Chicago, IL (Symphony Center, presented by Chicago Symphony)
Nov 11: Philadelphia, PA (Kimmel Center, Perelman Theater)
Nov 13: New York, NY (Carnegie Hall, Stern Auditorium)
Nov 18–30
European recital tour
Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I
Nov 18: Vienna, Austria (Musikverein)
Also: Beethoven: Sonata for Piano No. 31 in A-flat, Op. 110
Brahms: Variations on a Theme of Handel, Op. 24
Nov 20: Prague, Czech Republic (Prague Spring Festival, Rudolfinum)
Nov 23: Lucerne, Switzerland (Lucerne Festival)
Nov 30: Paris, France (Cité de la Musique)
Dec 6
London, UK
Royal Festival Hall
Birtwistle: Responses. Sweet disorder and the carefully careless for piano and orchestra (UK premiere)
Messiaen: Oiseaux exotiques
London Philharmonic Orchestra / Vladimir Jurowski
Dec 10,
Athens, Greece
Dvorák: Concerto for Piano in G minor, Op. 33
Athens State Orchestra
Dec 13 & 14
German tour with Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin / Christoph Eschenbach
Dvorák: Concerto for Piano in G minor, Op. 33
Dec 13: Baden-Baden, Germany (Festspielhaus Baden-Baden)
Dec 14: Berlin, Germany
Dec 19–Jan 24
European recital tour
Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I
Dec 19: Sacile, Italy
Jan 9: Oviedo, Spain
Jan 11: San Sebastian, Spain
Jan 13: Madrid, Spain
Jan 15: Barcelona, Spain
Jan 17: Amsterdam, Netherlands (Concertgebouw)
Jan 24: Munich, Germany
Jan 29
Salzburg, Austria
Elliott Carter: Quintet for Piano and Wind Instruments
Mozart: Quintet for Piano and Winds in E-flat
Chamber Orchestra of Europe / Pierre-Laurent Aimard
Feb 1
Salzburg, Austria
Elliott Carter: Instances
Mozart: Concerto for Piano No. 27 in B-flat
Eliott Carter: Epigrams
Mozart: Concerto for Piano No. 26 in D, “Coronation”
Chamber Orchestra of Europe
Feb 12, 13, 14
Boston, MA
Boston Symphony Hall
Birtwistle: Responses: Sweet disorder and the carefully careless for piano and orchestra (US premiere)
Boston Symphony Orchestra / Vladimir Jurowski
Feb 17–20
UK tour with Philharmonia Orchestra / Esa-Pekka Salonen
Ravel: Piano Concerto for the Left Hand in D
Feb 17: Leicester
Feb 18: Basingstoke
Feb 19: London (Royal Festival Hall)
Feb 20: Cardiff (St. David’s Hall)(Ravel Piano Concerto in G)
Feb 24
Bremen, Germany
Philharmonische Gesellschaft Bremen
Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I
Feb 26
Hamburg, Germany
Hamburg Laeiszhalle
Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I
Messiaen: Vingt regards sur l’enfant Jesus
Kurtág: Játékok (selections)
March 2
Frankfurt, Germany
Alte Oper Frankfurt
Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I
March 6
Paris, France
Tristan Murail: Le désenchantement du monde
Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France / Pierre-André Valade
March 8
Ithaca, NY
Cornell University
Barnes Hall
Boulez: Sonata for Piano No. 1
Boulez: Structures, deuxième livre for two pianos (with Tamara Stefanovich, piano)
Messiaen: Visions de l’Amen
March 12–18
U.S. all-Boulez recital tour with Tamara Stefanovich, piano
Boulez: Douze Notations
Boulez: Piano Sonata No. 1
Boulez: Piano Sonata No. 3 (Formant 3: Constellation-Miroir; Formant 2: Trope)
Boulez: Piano Sonata No 2
Boulez: Incises
Boulez: Une page d’éphéméride
Boulez: Structures, Livre II, for Four Hands
March 12: Berkeley, CA (Cal Performances)
March 15: Chicago, IL (Symphony Center, presented by Chicago Symphony)
March 16: New York, NY (Carnegie Hall / Zankel Hall)
March 18: Chapel Hill, NC (Carolina Performing Arts)
March 25
Amsterdam, Netherlands with Tamara Stefanovich, piano
Muziekgebouw aan’t IJ
Boulez: Douze Notations
Boulez: Piano Sonata No. 1
Boulez: Piano Sonata No 2
Boulez: Incises
Boulez: Piano Sonata No. 3 (Formant 3: Constellation-Miroir; Formant 2: Trope)
Boulez: Une page d’éphéméride
Boulez: Structures, Livre II, for Four Hands
April 6
Saint Petersburg, Russia
Mariinsky Theatre
Ravel: Piano Concerto for the Left Hand in D
Ravel: Piano Concerto in G
April 8
Saint Petersburg, Russia
Mariinsky Theatre
Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I
April 23
Bogota, Colombia
Teatro Mayor
Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I
Kurtág: Játékok (selection)
Ligeti: Études (selection)
May 3
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Teatro Colon
Ligeti: Musica ricercara
Ligeti: Études (Books 1-3)
May 5
Sao Paulo, Brazil
Sociedade de Cultura Artistica
Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I (selection)
Messiaen: Vingt regards sur l’enfant-Jésus (selection)
Kurtág: Játékok (selection)
May 6
Sao Paulo, Brazil
Sociedade de Cultura Artistica
Debussy: Études (selection)
Ligeti: Études (selection)
Chopin: Trois nouvelles études
Bartók: 3 Études, Op. 18
Scriabin: 3 Etudes
May 27–June 2
European tour with Philharmonia Orchestra / Esa-Pekka Salonen
Messiaen: Turangalila Symphony
Ravel: Piano Concerto for the Left Hand in D
May 27: Paris, France (Théâtre des Champs-Elysées): Messiaen
May 28: London, UK (Royal Festival Hall): Messiaen
June 1: Luxembourg (Philharmonie): Ravel
June 2: Vienna, Austria (Konzerthaus Vienna): Ravel
June 12-18
Aldeburgh Festival
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© 21C Media Group, October 2014