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The "Best" Ravel Gaspard de la nuit? · The Piano Maven with Jed Distler

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  This is Jed Dissler and welcome to the Piano Maven, your friendly podcast guide to piano
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  recordings.
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  We spoke about Ivo Pogorelich a few episodes back and I wanted to talk about one of his
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  most influential studio recordings.
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  But let me give you a little bit of background about him.
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  He is a Serbian born pianist, born in 1958, and he came to international attention in
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  1980 when he was eliminated during that year's Warsaw Chopin competition.
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  And when he was eliminated, one of the jury members, Martha Argerich, resigned in protest
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  and her attitude was something like, how can you not recognize genius when you hear it?
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  And this created a kind of scandal and the news went around the music world like wildfire.
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  You have to remember that this was long before social media and home computers and the internet.
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  Anyway, word got around about this amazingly talented yet understandably controversial
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  and fiercely individual pianist.
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  And Pogorelich really had everything in those days.
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  He had youth, he had great looks, he had nerves of steel, he had a very outspoken personality
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  and also remarkable pianistic ability.
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  I really can't think of a pianist who aroused greater awe and antagonism than Pogorelich.
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  Anyway, Deutsche Grammophon wasted no time putting Pogorelich under contract.
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  He recorded a Chopin recital for his debut solo disc with that label and then his next
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  solo recital was a Schumann disc that had the symphonic etudes and the tacata.
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  The third of his releases came out in 1983.
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  This was a coupling of the Prokofiev Piano Sonata No. 6 and Ravel's Gaspard à la nuit.
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  And it was the Ravel triptych that mainly caught the piano world's attention.
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  Some critics were turned off by certain idiosyncrasies of articulation and phrasing.
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  But then, you know, Pogorelich was every bit as polarizing as Glenn Gould was in some ways.
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  However, over time, the Evo Pogorelich Gaspard à la nuit has come to be regarded as a reference
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  version or at least something very close to the top.
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  This is a recording that several generations of pianists have scrutinized very closely.
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  So I thought it would be interesting to revisit this performance and just to see what's there.
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  Let's take the opening Andine movement's opening figuration, you know, the one, you know, of
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  course I can't sing it.
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  Anyway, many pianists used to play that as a kind of impressionistic blur with more suggestion
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  than definition, I guess.
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  But Pogorelich is crystal clear in how he plays this.
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  But he still manages to convey color and atmosphere.
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  And there are certain times when all of a sudden he releases the pedal and the sound
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  becomes super dry at a moment's notice, almost like a fish jumping out of water for a split
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  second.
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  But the sheer control and the extraordinary textural differentiation that Pogorelich displays
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  throughout this movement always manages to enhance the music's dark undercurrents.
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  Pogorelich also arguably raised the technical bar for that difficult final movement scarbo.
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  Listen to the cutting accents and notice his audacious decisions about when to use the
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  pedal and when not to use the pedal.
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  And these do draw attention to themselves in a way, but they also draw attention to
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  Ravel's very subtle harmonic maneuvering.
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  And I think it's because Pogorelich jacked up the basic tempo more than most pianists
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  had been able to do at that time that many pianists today feel that they have to treat
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  scarbo like some kind of Olympic stunt or a big sprint.
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  You only have to listen to Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli's amazing 1959 BBC broadcast
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  that's been on CD.
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  And you hear a pianist who doesn't try to set speed records, yet every note has a meaning
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  in a place.
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  And the dynamic gradations are precise beyond belief and nothing is garbled at all.
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  Nothing is waywardly balanced or arbitrary.
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  Nothing is vague.
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  And you can say exactly the same for Pogorelich, although he is faster and more capricious
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  than Michelangeli or even Martha Argerich for that matter.
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  But I have heard way too many ridiculously fast and musically harebrained scarbos from
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  competition participants in the last decade or so.
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  I don't know what they're thinking.
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  And it's completely different from Pogorelich where there is really no barrier between intention
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  and execution.
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  But I suspect that it was how Pogorelich played the central movement, les gibets, that mainly
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  ticked a lot of critics off.
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  Many years ago I did this panel discussion with my gramophone colleagues, Bryce Morrison
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  and Jeremy Nicholas, and Bryce was understandably taking issue with the expressive liberties
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  that Pogorelich imposed throughout les gibets.
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  However, I really studied Pogorelich's performance with the score in hand and I made comparisons
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  with other recordings.
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  And I personally think that Pogorelich's way with this movement is generally misunderstood.
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  I think his liberties actually illuminate rather than detract from Ravel's intentions.
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  I'll try to explain what I mean and you can check out these specific examples on the recording.
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  I wish that I could have included recorded examples here, but you know, I can't do that
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  on this podcast.
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  But at least I can guide you toward where to listen and what to look for.
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  So I'm looking in my score of gibets at bars 20 through 25.
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  If you have access to the score, try to take a look at it.
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  And the chiming bass notes in these measures are played by Pogorelich much louder than
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  Ravel marks them.
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  But I think that the effect helps to create a three-dimensional perspective from which
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  one really can perceive the processional-like effect of those gorgeous steady chords in
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  this passage.
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  And let's go to the beginning of the movement actually, because here Pogorelich subjects
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  the main theme to all kinds of little rhythmic distortions and distensions that at first
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  hearing you wonder if he had imported his phrasings from the Liberace Museum.
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  However, over repeated listenings, I finally came to realize that these rhythmic liberties
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  help to illuminate the textural and emotional contrast between the melody, you know, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da,
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  you know, whatever that is, and those mantra-like repeating B flats, boom-boom, boom-boom.
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  I'm not sure if that's a B flat or not.
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  My perfect pitch is shot to hell.
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  Anyway, these B flats persist very consistently at the same dynamic level throughout the movement.
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  But what I think Pogorelich is trying to do here is to create a quote-unquote expressive
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  frame of reference, because look what happens later in the movement when this theme comes
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  back.
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  That theme, when it comes back, Ravel writes in the score sans expression, I don't think
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  I pronounced that right, without expression.
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  Now he doesn't write sans expression at the movement's outset.
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  So when the theme returns and it's marked without expression, Pogorelich plays it absolutely
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  straight in almost a deadpan neutral kind of way.
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  And because of that, when you hear the melody in the recapitulation, it sounds like something
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  completely different.
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  The melody is now cast in a more desolate light that is further enhanced by Ravel asking
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  you to also use the unacorda pedal.
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  So in other words, Pogorelich is truly orchestrating the music at the piano for maximum meaning
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  and contrast.
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  Now some listeners may insist that, oh, Pogorelich is basically striving for effect.
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  However, in Ravel's music, the surface is very often the style.
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  And as such, in the hands of Ivo Pogorelich, his almost hyper scrutiny of details makes
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  it possible for him to penetrate below that very surface.
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  Now I hope I didn't get too technical in my discussion of this interpretation, but it's
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  something that I really have thought a lot about.
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  And I hope that if you have the score and you can get hold of the recording that you
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  can follow along with what I'm saying.
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  And maybe you will agree with me or maybe not.
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  In any case, this is an absolutely absorbing Gaspardet en Nuit.
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  This is Jed Disler, and you've been listening to the Piano Maven, your friendly podcast
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  guide to piano recordings.
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  Until the next episode, please take care and stay safe.