Pierre Laurent-Aimard: “The Liszt Project,” “Pianomania,” & more
Pierre-Laurent Aimard launched what promises to be another extraordinary season with appearances at Germany’s Weimar and Berlin Festivals, and the resounding success of the “Exquisite Labyrinth” festival at London’s Southbank Centre, where he served as both Artistic Advisor and performer. Described by the Guardian as “a generous, weekend-long tribute to Pierre Boulez,” this major retrospective “made for a fitting celebration of the Frenchman’s music” (MusicalCriticism.com). As for the pianist’s own Boulez performances, the Independent judged them to be “as definitive as it gets.” Next on Aimard’s itinerary is this week’s release of The Liszt Project on Deutsche Grammophon. Marking this year’s bicentennial of the great composer-pianist’s birth, Aimard’s double album features more than two hours of music, not only by Liszt but by composers from Wagner to the present day. The pianist is also one of the stars of Pianomania, a new film that has captured the imaginations of audiences and festival juries in Europe and the U.S., and comes to screens in New York and Los Angeles in November. Aimard’s typically busy global concert schedule features Liszt Project recitals in the U.K. and Germany this winter, as well as concerts in Japan and China. He joins frequent collaborator Pierre Boulez to perform Bartók with the Cleveland Orchestra and Schoenberg with the Chicago Symphony in February 2012. March brings a four-date U.S. recital tour with a program of Debussy, Schumann, and Kurtág, followed by two Lincoln Center recitals in April, when Aimard will showcase The Liszt Project repertoire. In summer 2012, he returns to the U.K.’s Aldeburgh Festival for his fourth season as Artistic Director.
The Liszt Project on DG – Aimard’s fourth release for the august Yellow Label – combines the penetrating lucidity of his art as a recording artist with his vision as a programmer. Aimard honors Liszt’s bicentennial in a characteristically personal way, the release very much offering a full album experience: one that, as the pianist explains, aims to “illuminate dimensions” of the forward-minded Liszt that aren’t often fully considered, from the dark and concentrated to the colorful and open.
The focal point of the first half of The Liszt Project is Liszt’s monumental Piano Sonata in B minor. For comparison, Aimard includes other single-movement sonatas by Berg, Wagner (the rarely heard Piano Sonata in A-flat “from the album of Frau Mathilde Wesendonck”), and Scriabin (his ever-startling “Black Mass” Sonata). The other Liszt works included are a selection of late piano pieces, many as harmonically daring as any of his time or of the decades to come.
The second program pairs works by Liszt with those of other composers, the sequence tracing an arc from dark to light. The disc opens with Liszt’s atmospheric “Cypresses” Threnody from Années de pèlerinage III, juxtaposed with a selection from Bartók’s Four Dirges, in which “Liszt’s harmonic influence can be felt everywhere,” as the pianist explains. The set also pairs Liszt’s music with that of Ravel and Marco Stroppa (one of Aimard’s associates from IRCAM), before twinning works by Messiaen and Liszt that, in Aimard’s words, “examine nature and time from different angles.” Again, Messiaen’s descriptive writing builds on Liszt’s pioneering evocations of extra-musical ideas. The New York Times’s response to an Aimard recital that juxtaposed Bach with Elliott Carter is equally applicable to The Liszt Project: “Aimard likes breaking down compartments and making the works interact.” A 23-minute YouTube video from DG that shows Aimard at the piano, discussing the The Liszt Project in more detail, is available here.
Pianomania presents master piano tuner Stefan Knüpfer in his work with Aimard, as well as with other Steinway pianists such as Alfred Brendel. Opening on November 4, the film shows for one week at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center in New York’s Lincoln Center; from November 11, Pianomania shows for two weeks at Laemmle’s Royal Theatre in Los Angeles. More information is available at www.pianomania.co.uk, and the trailer is available here.
After multiple European concerts in the autumn and winter with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, plus numerous solo recitals worldwide, Aimard returns to the United States. One of his closest performing relationships in America has been with the Cleveland Orchestra. He served as the orchestra’s artist-in-residence for the 2007-08 and 2008-09 seasons, and recently recorded Ravel’s piano concertos with the ensemble under Boulez’s direction. Aimard returns to Cleveland in February 2012 to perform Bartók’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with Boulez. After Aimard’s account of Bartók’s ever-challenging Piano Concerto No. 2 at Lincoln Center two years ago, Anthony Tommasini of the New York Times remarked: “Without any facade of virtuosic showiness, the intensely focused and technically prodigious Mr. Aimard played it with ease.” After his run in Cleveland, the pianist will join the Chicago Symphony for Schoenberg’s Piano Concerto and Pierrot lunaire. Next March, Aimard’s four-date U.S. tour of solo Debussy, Schumann, and Kurtág includes his recital debuts in Denver and Santa Barbara, along with dates in Detroit and San Francisco.
The Wall Street Journal has described Aimard as “a brilliant musician and an extraordinary visionary” not only for his playing but for the insight, scope, and appeal of his programming and recorded projects. Winner of Grammy and Gramophone awards, the French pianist signed an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon in 2007, and his first DG release – Bach’s Art of Fugue – scored critical acclaim and a double debut at number one atop both the iTunes and Billboard classical charts. As a concert artist, Aimard has curated his own “Perspectives” series at Carnegie Hall, was pianist-in-residence with the Berlin Philharmonic and “artiste étoile” at the Lucerne Festival. He was given “carte blanche” at Vienna’s Konzerthaus, invited to curate a “Domaine privé” by Paris’s Cité de la Musique, and took part in an Auftakt residency at the Alte Oper Frankfurt, in addition to his role as Artistic Director of the Aldeburgh Festival since 2009. Aimard returns as Artistic Director of Aldeburgh on June 8-24, 2012. Covering the festival last summer, the Financial Times had glowing praise for his directorship:
“Quaintness is part of Aldeburgh’s charm, but it gives a misleading impression of the festival, which is as sophisticated and up-to-the-minute as the town is endearingly behind the times. That distinction has become black-and-white since Pierre-Laurent Aimard arrived as Artistic Director two years ago. …Aimard, a French pianist with a gift for creative programming, has virtually turned the festival on its head. Suddenly Aldeburgh feels less parochial, less precious – and very international.”
Pierre Laurent-Aimard, 2011-12 engagements
October 16
Chamber Orchestra of Europe (playing/directing)
Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 5
Dijon, France
October 20
Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg / Volkov
Brahms: Piano Concerto No.1
Strasbourg, France
November 1
Schloss-Elmau
Recital
Klais, Bavaria, Germany
November 5
Cappella Amsterdam
Liszt: Via Crucis
Concertgebouw
Amsterdam, Netherlands
November 8
International Piano Series
Queen Elizabeth Hall
Recital: Liszt, Bartók, Stroppa, Ravel, and Messiaen
London, UK
November 18 & 20
Recitals: Toppan Hall
“Collage-Montage”
Liszt program
Tokyo, Japan
November 25
Shanghai Concert Hall
Recital: Liszt and Debussy
Shanghai, China
November 27
Recital: Liszt and Debussy
Beijing, China
December 1
Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum
Recital: Kurtág: Játékok; Liszt: Sonata in B minor
Salzburg, Austria
December 4
Staatsoper unter den Linden
Recital: Scarlatti, Beethoven, Schumann, Bartók, Schoenberg, Cage, and Boulez
Berlin, Germany
December 5
Gewandhaus
Recital: Liszt, Wagner, Berg, and Scriabin
Leipzig, Germany
December 7
International Piano Series
Queen Elizabeth Hall
Recital: Liszt, Wagner, Berg, and Scriabin
London, United Kingdom
December 14
Bayerischer Rundfunk
Recital: piano works by Boulez
With Tamara Stefanovich
Munich, Germany
December 17
Théatre de Champs-Elysées
Recital: Liszt, Wagner, and Scriabin
Paris, France
January 10, 2012
Turner Sims Concert Hall
Recital: Debussy: Préludes
Southampton, UK
January 26 & 27
Scottish Chamber Orchestra / Ticciati
Brahms Piano Concerto No. 2
Edinburgh, Glasgow, UK
January 28
Scottish Chamber Orchestra
Aberdeen, United Kingdom
February 2
DeSingel
Recital: Debussy, Schumann, and Kurtág
Antwerp, Belgium
February 4
Casa da Música
Recital: Debussy: Préludes
Porto, Portugal
February 16-18
The Cleveland Orchestra / Boulez
Bartók: Piano Concerto No. 1
Cleveland, OH
February 24-26 & 28
Chicago Symphony Orchestra / Boulez
Schoenberg: Pierrot lunaire
Chicago, IL
March 1-3
Chicago Symphony Orchestra / Boulez
Schoenberg: Piano Concerto
Chicago, IL
March 19
Recital
One Finger too Many with Alfred Brendel
Toulouse, France
March 22-27
U.S. recitals: Debussy, Schumann, and Kurtág
Denver, CO (March 22)
Detroit, MI (March 24)
Santa Barbara, CA (March 26)
San Francisco, CA (March 27)
April 12
Concert: with Asko Schöenberg Ensemble / Etienne Siebens
Benjamin; Birtwistle
Concertgebouw, Amsterdam
April 13
Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra /Brabbins
Ligeti Piano Concerto
Concertgebouw, Amsterdam
April 17, 2012
Recital: Liszt programme
Slovenia
April 21-22
Lincoln Center
Recitals: both programs from The Liszt Project
New York, NY
June 8-24
Aldeburgh Festival (Artistic Director)
Suffolk, United Kingdom
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© 21C Media Group, October 2011