PIERRE-LAURENT
AIMARD
St
James’ Church, Chipping Campden *****
Charlie Bennett’s legacy lives on!
During his long tenure as Artistic Director of the Chipping
Campden Music Festival he developed an impressive roster of visiting international
artists, not least those renowned as exponents of his own beloved instrument,
the piano. If you can attract the likes of Alfred Brendel and Elisabeth
Leonskaja to this off-the-beaten-track Cotswolds village, then you ain’t doing
too badly.
Now Charlie has retired, but the future is safe in the
hands of Thomas Hull and Jessica May, and the visits of the world’s greatest
pianists continue. It was my privilege to be present at the absorbing,
life-enhancing recital given by Pierre-Laurent Aimard.
His was a programme stimulating both intellectually and
emotionally, beginning with Bach’s B-flat Partita, maintaining a forward
rhythmic flow whilst allowing all the neatly-turned ornamentation to tell. The
tone of the magnificent Steinway instrument was perhaps too dense for optimum
articulation, but Aimard managed to create a wonderful atmosphere of confiding
intimacy.
Schoenberg developed his 12-note serial system in order to
protect the textures and forms he loved so much from the sagging overloading of
Wagnerian harmony, and in his Suite Op.25 he succeeded magnificently in these
aims. Each movement has a baroque title, and Aimard’s insight characterised
each one with clarity, wit and affection. My only quibble is at Schoenberg
himself: how can you write a Musette without the drone bass your system
precludes?
We moved from the cerebral to the sensual with a selection
of Schubert Landler and Valses, delivered by Aimard with a subtlety of dynamics
and phrasing, and, bringing a huge surprise to me, making a huge centrepiece of
the traditional Grossvatertanz, which I never knew Schubert had set.
And which of course provides the huge climax to the finale
of Schumann’s ineffable Carnaval, with which Aimard concluded this memorable
programme. This was an account not entirely accident-free (Aimard following the
Alfred Cortot line of delving to the essence of the music instead of mere
typewriting), but bursting with spontaneity and engagement in these charming
evocations of Schumann’s friends and Commedia dell’Arte inspirations.
He made of the mysterious, austere “Sphinxes” something
chilling along the way before moving on with an exhilarating sense of inevitability
towards the proud finale.
I don’t like encores, and I so wished we could have finished
with this. But the enthusiastic audience was implacable, and Aimard acquiesced
with some more Schubert dances, ending with the most exquisite fade into the
night.
Christopher Morley