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This is a blog effusion, so proper reviewers’ rules do not apply. If that doesn’t work for you, stop reading and no one will know.
The following started as a review of a Carnegie Hall recital by the excellent, interesting French pianist Lucas Debargue. But the things to be reviewed just lost their way in a thicket of money issues. For starters, the event was presented not by Carnegie Hall, but by the Cherry Orchard Festival Foundation. Cherry Orchard, anybody? That’s a Russian reference, like the Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition, which in 2015 netted Debargue its fourth prize, plus the Moscow Music Critics prize.
The concert might have worked better had it been in the smaller Weill Recital Hall, removing the need for papering with audience members who tend to arrive late, and to allow, maybe, for a vase or bouquet of flowers, or a program proofreading. (And the repertory might have attracted the big-boy critics.) Something about this undertaking recalled a group of concerts and operas from Russia some years ago, with their shoddy sets and general ambience of money shortfall.
Debargue performed a program of Scarlatti sonatas, Ravel’s “Gaspard de la Nuit” (a signature suite for him), a Chopin group. and Liszt’s murderous “Apres une Lecture de Dante.” He took a macho approach to the Scarlatti pieces, and while many passages were indeed light-fingered and delicate, just as many were puffed up and too fat.
His virtuosic piano-plowing in the Ravel and the Liszt thundered and twinkled and sped, in the style of Yuja Wang. That’s a big compliment. His pedaling was smooth and able throughout.
But piano-plowing had no place in Chopin’s final C sharp minor prelude (other than that nasty cadenza in the middle), and the dreamy middle melody should have been dreamier.
There were two encores, apparently chosen for the pianist’s specific taste without regard for the break--not to say fun--that recital audiences crave at that moment. The first was another Scarlatti but not famous enough to let listeners relax, and the second was composed by the artist. That one sounded as if he had stuck his long spoon into the kettle of the concert’s later selections, and stirred it around like anything.
Debargue has made several recordings for Sony Classical, and his next will be Mozart concertos and the complete works of Fauré.
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