Transcription - tribute or desecration?
Marc-Andre Hamelin's prize-winning discography leaves no doubt as to where his vote lies and the capacity audience for his lunchtime concert of piano paraphrases was clearly behind him, but in other quarters, the genre is still regarded with something like disdain.
Hamelin's performance of Leopold Godowsky's infamously demanding elaborations on Chopin's ...tudes was most definitely one to convert sceptics.
His selection of nine (from a total of 53) was well chosen to reveal lyrical and even tender facets of the writing as well as set-piece displays of scarcely credible virtuosity, most obviously in stunning deliveries of Godowsky's lefthand take on the Revolutionary ...tude and his ebulliently pyrotechnic re-working of the first Op.10 ...tude.
It's untrue to say this was achieved without breaking sweat on this sweltering Tuesday, but Hamelin's body language was so demure, his technical control so absolute, that it was the music and not the performer's prowess that was projected from the stage.
His dexterity was flawless, power tremendous and responsiveness breath-taking, but his truly distinguishing quality was to reveal the clarity and coherence in Godowsky's textures and pick out thematic material with unerring certainty.
Hamelin's quiet dignity and lightness of touch suited Liszt's transcription of Schubert's Trauermarsche too and the opening of the Grand March was vividly rhythmic, but even Hamelin couldn't find anything beyond volume in some of its later, more thunderous passages.
There were more notepacked histrionics in Liszt's paraphrase on Verdi's Ernani, but Liszt's other operatic transcriptions benefited from Hamelin's ability to make melody sing on the piano, and he positively revelled in the buoyant theatricality of Bellini's Norma.
Clare Mackney
