Pierre-Laurent Aimard is a musician of capabilities that run far beyond establishing himself as a master pianist. Those who have not heard him may still know him through the major role he played in Pianomania, the documentary by Lilian Franck and Robert Cibis that closely tracked the activities of Stefan Knüpfer, Chief Technician and Master Tuner for Steinway & Sons. In that film we saw Aimard preparing for both concert appearances and recordings. We also saw that he was one of Knüpfer’s most demanding clients.
However, he does much more than give piano performances. He has just signed for another three years as Artistic Director of the Aldeburgh Festival, where he has maintained the prestige of the event without simply following the path that the Festival’s creator, Benjamin Britten, had originally conceived. He is also currently serving as Artistic Advisor to the Southbank Centre for the festival they are planning to celebrate the music of Pierre Boulez. In spite of all of these commitments, Aimard is about to come to the United States, where he will be giving performances through the end of April.
His tour begins in Cleveland, where he will appear as guest soloist with the Cleveland Orchestra in a performance of Béla Bartók’s first piano concerto at their subscription concerts for the week of February 16. Those who follow Aimard closely may recall that, almost exactly a year ago, he performed Bartók’s first concerto on a tour that the Cleveland gave. He then moves on to Chicago for two weeks of performing the music of Arnold Schoenberg with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. For the subscription concerts beginning on February 24, he will serve as pianist in a performance of Pierrot Lunaire; and the following week he will present Schoenberg’s piano concerto.
Aimard then shifts his attention from the orchestral concert hall to the recital stage. He has prepared a program that features two Hungarians from two different centuries, Franz Liszt and György Kurtág, both of whom will be represented by several short selections. For Liszt this will be two of his late works, “Unstern” (evil star) and “Les jeux d’eaux à la Villa d’Este” (the fountains of the Villa d’Este) from the third “year” of Années de Pèlerinage (years of pilgrimage). The Kurtág offerings will be “Splinters” and selections from Játékok (games), an ongoing project which may be viewed as the composer’s personal diary. The program will also include selections from Robert Schumann’s Bunte Blätter (colored leaves) and the second book of preludes by Claude Debussy. The recital will be given on the following dates at the following cities:
- March 22: Denver, Colorado
- March 24: Detroit, Michigan
- March 26: Santa Barbara, California
- March 27: San Francisco, California
Finally, Aimard will conclude his tour with two recitals at Lincoln Center on April 21 and 22 showcasing the repertoire from his recent double album for Deutsche Grammophon, The Liszt Project, which features the music of Liszt in the context of not only his fellow Hungarian Bartók but also Alban Berg, Maurice Ravel, Alexander Scriabin, and Olivier Messiaen, as well as the contemporary composer Marco Stroppa.
Comments