In Western classical music, the iconic composers disappeared sometime midway through the twentieth century, with Dmitri Shostakovich the final contributor to the symphonic canon. Such things happen. But a plethora of inspired interpreters – conductors, singers, instrumentalists – played and sang on, sustaining the lineage of composers Russian, German, Italian, and French. When I began attending concerts in the 1950s, the supply seemed inexhaustible.
No longer. Today’s important young pianists, however sensitive and sincere, may evince no performance tradition whatsoever. And that can work, too. (In a recent blog, I explored the consequences when Yunchan Lim broaches Tchaikovsky without attempting to sound “Russian.”) That said, to encounter a ripe exponent of the Russian piano school nowadays is an event – and so it was when I’ve experienced Sergei Babayan performing Rachmaninoff (cf a couple of blogs here and here).
Which brings me to Jean-Efflam Bavouzet’s triumphant traversal of the complete solo piano works of Ravel – a mega-program he’s widely touring, and which arrived at New York City’s Tully Hall earlier this evening. Bavouzet is a supreme embodiment of a keyboard species perhaps nearly extinct: the French Pianist. His attributes align with the French language: tactile articulation, precise rhythm, clarity of texture. French pianism can seem a cerebral acquired taste. But for Bavouzet, it’s memorably empowering. He excels in Haydn (has recorded the complete sonatas). He adores Bartok. He knows jazz. He has ventured into Boulez. His Ravel sounds right to me.
Here is a composer mired in paradox and enigma. Ravel the man will forever remain a mystery. His musical aesthetic combines classicism with a heady aroma of evanescence. One result is an omnipresent patina of sadness. Though himself a pianist of limited technical ability, he expanded the instrument’s sonic possibilities with clairvoyant assurance.
Bavouzet’s mega-program (with two intermissions) chronologically tracks a subtle evolution of style and sentiment. Early on, in the Sonatine (1903-05), Bavouzet discovered in the coda to the minuet a moment of sublime levitation forecasting the composer to come. In Scarbo (1908), every virtuoso’s Ravel test piece, he calibrated the elemental surge with miraculous precision. In the Menuet from Le Tombeau de Couperin (1914-1917), Ravel’s sadness – now resonating with the horror of the Great War — is intensified by acrid harmonies and austere textures. Bavouzet rose to the occasion with harrowing intensity, then finished off the printed program with a blazing rendition of the ensuing Toccata. More beautifully “expressive” readings of Le Tombeau, sans Bavouzet’s aesthetic rigor, yield mere decoration.
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I first met Jean-Efflam Bavouzet at the 1989 Van Cliburn Competition, about which I wrote a book: The Ivory Trade (1990). Disregarding the jury, I picked my own favorites – including Bavouzet, who failed to make the final round. I wrote: “Of four renditions of Prokofiev’s curt, violent Third Sonata, Jean-Efflam Bavouzet’s is on every level the most gripping. The Allegro tempestoso main material is both superpowered and precisely sardonic; the bittersweet moderato second subject is the most poignant for remaining taut. In two movements from Schumann’s F minor Sonata, Bavouzet confirms what his phase-one Schumann Toccata intimated: if his crystalline sonority is not conducive to an idiomatic tenderness, he conveys this composer’s psychological instability with unusual authority, and also a paradoxical Gallic poise. His playing is mercurial and elegant, forceful and specific. . . . In conversation, Bavouzet evokes the actor Jean-Pierre Leaud. He is small, pale, and fine-featured; clever, quick, and sincere. The main surprise is his eyes, which are huge and lucid under high, dancing eyebrows. A shock of black hair [today white] falls over his forehead, a la Napoleon. He can juggle and imitate the sounds of cars. He knows about miniature trains. . . . He has chosen the astringent Bartok Second as one of his concertos – even though he has never performed it. . . . ‘I know it is a completely crazy idea for a competition. But I thought: The day I will play it will be one of the best days of my life.’”
I also wrote, in my Introduction: “At the Cliburn competition Jean-Efflam Bavouzet was my Ping-Pong partner. Rather than attempting to neutralize this intervention, I let him win a few games just before the chamber music round, in which he excelled” – a claim he vividly recalls and disputes (also vividly).
Over the years, I have enjoyed the privilege of playing piano duets with Jean-Efflam – and experiencing first-hand his dismissal of music he does not find “musical.” His musical discoveries, however, are tidal. When I introduced him to Schubert’s Lebensturme – for me, the summit of the entire four-hand literature – his incredulous delight at the unlikely modulations ensnaring the recapitulation impelled him to insist that we play this passage again. And again. And again. And again. And again.
Jean-Efflam’s joy in performance includes flamboyant verbal sallies. Had his Ravel program been a little shorter, he surely would have succumbed to the temptation of sharing with the audience his exasperation at Ravel’s instruction espressiv. And yet Ravel is ever the classicist. “How much espressiv???” he exclaims. “Should I slow down? Should I use rubato?” (An act: he knows the answers.)
I once had occasion to accompany him to a recital at the 92nd Street Y by my great friend, now deceased, Alexander Toradze. Jean-Efflam could barely endure Lexo’s heroically expansive rendition of Gaspard de la nuit. But his encore – Oiseaux triste from Miroirs – was simply too much. “I cannot recognize this piece!!!” Bavouzet exclaimed. Loudly.
At Tully Hall Tuesday night, the happiest person in the room, following a searing encore rendition of La valse, was Jean-Efflam himself, beaming pleasure, parading across the lip of the stage. It had to be the piano event of the season.
Dear Joe,
I love this piece about Jean-Efflam Bavouzet and couldn’t help but think about my father Beveridge Webster, the non-French “French pianist.” He arrived in Paris with his family – father, mother, brother, sister – in Sept. 1921 at the age of 13. His first strong recollection was St. Saens’s funeral cortége in Dec. He went on to play the keyboard (a lutheal) at the premiere Paris performance of Tzigane with Samuel Dushkin in 1924 when he was 16. Subsequently, he became the only American ever to win first prize in piano at the Paris Conservatory, He continued to have friendships with Ravel and Stravinsky until their deaths. I attended his complete works of Ravel recital in NYC c. 1960, possibly at Town Hall. I could probably find exact info with some research. On YouTube, Beveridge Webster Ravel will pull up Tombeau, Gaspard, and Jeux d’eau. Let me know if you ever head to Houston again. I’d enjoy reuniting,
Michael
It is a crime of our conservatories not to teach style and context, especially in Europe. The first French singer I encountered who had no French style at all, Natalie Dessay, was a major star despite that. I had more knowledge simply from attending classes by Thomas Grubb. With the intrusion of DEI politics into conservatories, we can expect the complete destruction of classical music, as it devolves into either sterile accuracy, or laissez-faire self-indulgence. The invasion of the Chinese is no help, even though there was Soviet influence in China. The Koreans have done better because their folk music is very similar to Western music. The Japanese specialize in cultural transformation, but the Chinese bend classical music (and art) to their will, and their emphasis on appearances, surface, is wholly incompatible with the art of classical music. Yes, these are cultural facts.