Just as you can’t judge a book by a cover, you can’t normally read much by looking at the face of a pianist. But then Adam Laloum isn’t a normal pianist and he doesn’t have a normal face. Watch the 36-year old’s youthful features and a world of feelings become visible: humour, pathos, passion, concentration. Piano playing is a three part process – consider the notes on the page, internalise the emotions they can provoke and then turn them into sound. Laloum turns emotions into sound so persuasively that you almost feel he’s a medium between the composer and you.
Undoubtedly, it helps to have a congenial environment in which to do this. The Ancien Couvent des Augustines, in the small Normandy town of Orbec (population 2,000), has been turned into a cultural centre which seats around 200, bringing audience into intimate contact with pianist. The concert was part of the "Promenades musicales du Pays d’Auge", which brings music to a handful of villages in this rural area far from a major metropolis. It was a “Carte Blanche” for Laloum, meaning that he was free to choose whatever music he wanted to play – and indeed, the programme appeared to be changing up until the day of the concert.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the pieces that communicated most directly were the French ones. Every movement of Debussy’s Suite bergamasque, which opened the concert, was a delight to the ears. The Prélude was debonair, full of charm, Laloum apparently unfazed by someone turning his stage lights off a minute into the performance. The Menuet started as an elegant dance and then transported me into the realms of fantasy. The celebrated Clair de lune swaddled me in a comfort blanket of sound, while the Passepied wrapped me into the arms of a dancing partner who whirled me without letting go. The closing work, Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin, explored similar extremes, setting out at quite a lick and moving between cascade-of-pearls brilliance to elegy to wicked good humour to a hyperactive finish.
The Chopin Fantaisie in F minor, Op.49, was more ambiguous in mood, with apparent good cheer interrupted by moments of angst which eventually exploded into full romantic Sturm und Drang, a pattern taken further in the Polonaise-fantaisie where the stress turned into near-military violence.
On the piano, of course, moods and emotions don’t just happen. Laloum has formidable reserves of technique at his disposal, of which the most impressive is how well he can control the weighting within a phrase. It’s not just that he can explore extremes of dynamics; he can add a few percentage points of loudness to a few notes in order to shape a phrase, or to hold the notes just a fraction shorter or longer to adjust the thickness of sound, even in the most complex trills and scales. The opening of Le Tombeau de Couperin was played with high speed evenness of touch of a harpsichordist – a proper tribute to the old master – while the Rigaudon moved with its daring key changes and blue notes, each one emphasised just enough to make my ears take notice but never overdone.
An encore of the second of Schubert’s Moments musicaux moved between wistful and dramatic, sending the audience happily into the cool evening. You’ll probably need to come to France to see Laloum – but it will be well worth the trip.
David's accommodation in Normandy was funded by Les Promenades musicales du Pays d'Auge.
