For Marc-André Hamelin, Charles Ives’ Concord Sonata is virtually a calling card. One of the first works he recorded in his now vast discography, it was significant enough to record again some years later and it has continued to be a regular fixture in recital. Among the most innovative of piano sonatas, its full subtitle reads “Concord, Mass., 1840-1860” and, accordingly, each of the four movements portrays a New England writer from that fertile period of American literature. It’s an essay that embodies Ives’ unique musical language, uncompromisingly innovative and fearsomely complex – a work that all but demands Hamelin’s legendary technique.
Commanding and with bracing intensity, the opening Emerson drew a wide-ranging portrait of the transcendentalist, and one was struck by Hamelin’s singular concentration, totally engrossed and in service to the music. The four-note motif inherently familiar from Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony recurs throughout the sonata, first surfacing as thundering bass octaves, and acts as a binding element amongst the bristling complexities. Contrast was had when matters were distilled to barren texture colored by piquant dissonances, and the impressive first movement found resolution in fading to silence, as if lost in thought.
Hawthorne took flight, mercurial and unpredictable. A series of tone clusters were of ethereal effect; in its eclecticism, a march theme was given with rambunctious energy and syncopated passages raced by like Scott Joplin on stimulants. The Alcotts offered relative simplicity in its plaintive use of the motif, taking the shape of a fervent hymn. The closing Thoreau was richly meditative, almost impressionistic as it painted a contemplative scene at Walden Pond.
The latter half of the recital was devoted to Schumann and Ravel, rather more ordinary by comparison, and while the performances were effective, it seemed that less of Hamelin’s personality shone through in this standard repertoire. The nine arboreal vignettes that comprise Schumann’s Waldszenen were each shaped with individual character. Eintritt opened with a gentle, singing tone, and crystalline voicing to yield a rippling effect. The two hunting songs were sprightly and fiery, though perhaps the deeply-felt Herberge or the enchanting Vogel als Prophet made the strongest impact.
Ravel’s remarkable Gaspard de la nuit closed the afternoon, beginning with a shimmering Ondine in evocation of the titular water sprite. Nuanced and intricate, it built to a sweeping climax. Le Gibet was by contrast music of stasis, ominously tolling. Famous for its difficulty, Hamelin sailed through Scarbo with panache and rhythmic snap. Ferocious rumbles in the bass made a particularly striking effect. The pianist offered a pair of encores beginning with CPE Bach’s Rondo in C minor. Elegant ornamentations and punctuations of silence bore the composer’s individual stamp, shaded by dark hues of Sturm und Drang, and Debussy’s Reflets dans l’eau complemented Ondine in the loveliest way.
