Rameau
fans who have picked this CD up in a hurry to catch their
plane at the airport without looking properly at the label
or having had a chance to read the booklet notes are in
for a surprise. Piano versions of harpsichord classics
are of course not unheard of, but with one’s Rameau ears
accustomed to the likes of Sophie Yates and Christophe
Rousset, it is something of a shock to hear something that
sometimes makes you wonder if you’ve wandered into a Keith
Jarrett concert.
The
great Wanda Landowska told us that we’d be very naughty
boys if we compared the piano with the harpsichord on equal
terms, and Tzimon Barto’s attitude is also grounded in
such sound common-sense. The booklet notes contain little
information about Rameau – neatly sidestepping our lack
of knowledge about this particular composer. We can of
course get what biographical information there is and a
blow-by-blow account of each movement elsewhere. The notes
take the form of an interview with Barto, in which he refers
to the differences between harpsichord performing and the
piano. All his teachers said ‘never try to play the piano
as if it where a harpsichord’, and Barto approaches the
music ‘from the standpoint of a singer, who seeks a variety
of colours and phrasing,’ and priding himself on having ’36
dynamic colours between ppp and fff!’ He
does respect the performing standards of early music specialists
however, and with William Christie being mentioned more
than once I felt it would be churlish not to reach my copy
of his Harmonia Mundi recordings down from the ‘awkward-to-get-to
cupboard behind the sofa’, where I was delighted to find
them sounding much richer and more fun than I’d remembered.
The
opening Prélude is so sustained and improvisational
sounding that the Keith Jarrett reference will, I hope,
be understood by many. His occasional grunts later in the
disc will complete the effect, but here the music is transformed
into something rich and strange. Unadorned with excessive
ornamentation, the piano’s sostenuto qualities are
allowed free rein in the introduction, and the dancing
second section comes almost as an afterthought, adding
only about a minute to the total timing. I like the bounce
and rhythmic pulse of Barto’s playing in the dance numbers,
although he has an inclination to push the dynamic extremes
on occasion, with clunky accents sometimes poking through
the generally elegant textures like a spoke through your
inner tube.
With
the piano’s supposed superior ability to sustain and stretch
you might expect timings to be generally far beyond those
of a harpsichord version, but not so. Comparing Barto’s
gentle opening to the Allemande of the ‘Nouvelles
Suites’ we find William Christie coming in a few seconds
over Barto’s timing, but as predicted, filling the essence
of the music with elaborate ornamentation. I like both
versions. Christie is authentically authoritative, but
Barto has a way of luring the listener into accepting his
take on these pieces as natural and self-explanatory. Comparing
American pianists, Barto’s is a journey into a musical
narrative whose carrot is invariably juicier than, for
instance, the almost puritanical Glenn Gould. His performances
are quite often filled with a kind of joyous abandon which
is quite infectious. His version of Les Trois Mains is
a good deal shorter than Christie’s, taking off in a flight
of lines chasing each other like a Paul Klee drawing. His
ornamentation is light and subtle, allowing the principal
notes of each piece to speak in an uninterrupted directness
which I find wholly refreshing. The great Sarabande has
all of the majesty implied by Rameau’s score, and Barto
chases the spread chords as if they are mice on the keyboard,
all the while keeping a check on too lugubrious a dynamic – his
lightness of touch rarely going beyond mf.
Tzimon
Barto correctly links Rameau’s music to the entire culture
of the time in which these pieces where written, relating
paintings by Watteau and Fragonard to certain pieces. Those
wondering where the title for the CD comes from need look
no further than the cover painting by Jean Siméon Chardin,
with whose work Barto compares the Prélude and the Musette.
This
recording has been compiled in much the same way that Barto
would programme a recital, and as such it works superbly,
contrasting character pieces with dance-like movements,
the impossibly restrained and slow with the infectiously
rhythmic and Joyeuse. His approach is very much
related to the character of the piano, and this instrument’s
ability to extend the range of expressive possibilities
in Rameau’s work. Early music buffs will probably run miles
to avoid such a disc, but as a fan of quality music in
all its wondrous variety I must say that such Calvinists
will be missing a treat. We can look at ancient music and
attempt to re-create how the ‘last musician standing’ might
have played it before the revolution put paid to such fripperies,
or we can drag the notes into the light of the 21st century
and see what they have to offer our over-privileged ears.
While a part of me will always be curled up on the back
seat of the car listening nocturnally and nostalgically
to harpsichord recitals through a crystal earpiece while
the 1970s orange streetlamps whiz by, an even greater part
is picking his way through the incredibly mountainous debris
of fatherhood, delighted to find genuine renewal and escape
in an area of music once thought to have become terminally
fossilised.
Dominy Clements
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Tzimon
Barto (piano) 
