Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Marc-André Hamelin

Going to see Hamelin tonight in Philly! I am so excited. Haven't been to Philly or a recital there in about 3 years! If any PW members are going I would love to meet up with you.

P.S. Will post a review to PW tomorrow.

Have fun....

I wanted to go to this performance, but no decent seats were remaining.

I saw him in San Francisco one month ago. I'm looking forward to your review. It will be interesting to compare.

-Jason

Enjoy!

what is he playing?

Berg: Sonata No. 1
Liszt: Sonata in B Minor
Debussy: Preludes, Book II (excerpts)
Hamelin: Twelve Etudes (excerpts)

I'm going too. Pretty excited, and I hope it inspires me to have a great first piano lesson, tomorrow (after a long hiatus).

Lucky! I much prefer your program to the one I heard. (Haydn F minor variations, Mozart A minor sonata, Liszt Venezia e Napoli (the highlight), Faure Nocture #6, Alkan Symphony)

I'm jealous... grrr... but have a great time!

-Jason

I'll be there too! It should be great. How do you guys want to meet up? Let's say, at intermission we'll go to the doughnut shaped couch just outside the Perelman concert hall?

Thats what he played in Melbourne when I went. He put on a GREAT performance. The Liszt was incredible.

Take a digital recorder and post it.

Just watched the documentary I got on him "No Limits" for Christmas... again. Can you tell us about how fast he plays General Lavine tomorrow? I am SURE he'll slow it down, but can you tell us by how much?

Although he never ceases to amaze me with recordings, I REALLY want to see him live. SO bad. Tell us how it goes!

I see you're learning the first movement of Op. 111. Hamelin's recording of that movement is for me, the very best. It's floating around out there on a bootleg disc.

I was also there for his SF recital. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the Haydn (I confess to not being really familiar with his piano works), and was mesmerized by the Liszt. He makes it all look so effortless - truly one of those who plays the music instead of the piano. I also thought his encore rendition of Chopin's D-flat Nocturne was the best I'd ever heard, and a fittingly serene finish considering the sheer immensity of the Alkan.

Sorry MarkH and sorstudy, I posted this but because I was staying overnight (2 hour drive from where I live), left before your posts. I hope you two did get a chance to meet. I actually bumped into two people I knew, so that was very exciting. I had wanted to meet Mr. Hamelin, but I don't know how it's done. Great recital..I'll post details later.

I'd love to hear that. He played Op. 111 when my wife and I saw him play in Philly three years ago, and it was particularly memorable b/c it was during that performance that my wife first felt our daughter kick. I guess my daughter liked the sounds that were filtering down to her and had to make her presence known.

The concert last night was great. Sorry I didn't meet up with anyone. We were up on the 2nd balcony and ended up staying up there during intermission, talking to some friends we had bumped into.

No problem DameMyra and sorstudy, I posted when the concert was rather soon, so it's no shock that you didn't see it in time.

I chatted with Marc after the concert - all you have to do, at any venue, is wander about on the side of the hall that the performer comes out from (usually stage right), and watch for a line of people. Sometimes the groupies actually just wait on stage and enter through the same doors the performer came through to play, and other times, the line is outside the hall in the one of the back hallways leading to keyboard-side seating and the green room. He talked about his excitement about finally finishing writing his etudes. They'll be published in print form next November, and a CD that he's already recorded of his performances of them will be released at the same time. He also mentioned his excitement at seeing occasional youtube performances of other pianists playing his etudes. And he said that he's working on (or has already finished?) a third double-disc set of Haydn pieces.

As far as the performance I'll post my thoughts, and hopefully DameMyra's promised review will complement them:

Berg Piano Sonata

I've heard Hamelin perform the Berg Sonata within the last year, and I don't really care for the piece, so I don't really have any major comments. He of course played with ravishing tone, but I wasn't following closely enough to see whether his architecture was well planned like it was the last time I heard it.

Liszt Piano Sonata

The Liszt Sonata was wonderful! My reference version is still Horowitz from the 70s, but this one does very well in comparison. I suppose there could have been a little more drama in the opening descending b scales, but once the big sounds began, they were very big and impressive. In the first quiet section a couple minutes into the piece, the guy behind me started choking on his lung, and continued to clear his throat, AND mumble to himself about the key changes and what a "freight train" Marc is, so I was a little distracted through parts of the work, but the big demonic sections were wonderful. I thought the statement of the fugue subject was a little bit facile and overly fast, but it developed wonderfully. I very much hope that he records this work, and it seems likely considering the work required to bring it up to speed. After the performance, he got about a half standing ovation. Pretty impressive for intermission!

Debussy Preludes - La puerta del vino, Les fees sont d'exquises danseuses, Les tierces alternees, and Feux d'artifice

The Debussy I also don't really care about - I'm not an impressionist. As always happens, I enjoyed the first 2 minutes or so of La Puerta del Vino and then my mind wandered through the lack of actual themes in his writing.

Hamelin Etudes - No. 8 Erlkonig, No. 2 Coma Berenices, No. 7 after Tchaikovsky, No. 11 Minuetto and No. 12 Prelude and Fugue

These were interesting. I'd heard 8 and 7 on bad youtube pirates before, and it was obviously much more pleasant to hear them live. Erlkonig is a resetting of the text to the poem, but is not musically based on Schubert's Erlkonig at all. It is interesting, with some late romanticism mixed with some modern harmonies here and there. It didn't immediately grab me, but I'm very interested to sit down with it and analyze it's adherence to the text. I think it'll be interesting with more exposure. The Tchaikovsky was nice but not hugely interesting to me. It's for the left hand alone, and he composed it well - it sounds like two hands playing without grabbing too much technical attention like some of the Godowsky LH transcriptions do (not that I object to that). Coma Berenices was very interesting - it sounded a lot like there was some Chopin Black Key Etude hidden away in some of the sections. I asked Marc after the performance, and he said if there is any it was unintentional. Finaly, the Minuetto and the Prelude and Fugue make an interesting pairing. He said in his program notes that he just recently finished the Minuetto, while the Prelude and Fugue was his first substantial compositional work. The Minuetto has some shared harmonic sequences and I think is in the same key as the Prelude, so he explicitly stated that the two of these etudes would go well together as a set. And finally, the Prelude and Fugue was wonderful. He wrote that he was working on the Busoni Piano Concerto at the time of the work's composition, and the fugal subject is somewhat evocative of it. He again got a partial standing ovation, and after a few curtain calls he played Haydn's Fantasy in C, which is, unsurprisingly, a very playful, humorous work, with lots of overly dramatic pauses and cute, bouncy themes. Towards the end, he held a dramatic pause exceptionally long, eliciting the laughter he was looking for from the audience.

All in all, a wonderful performance!

I was at the concert last night too. A great performance by such a talented pianist!

Here are some impressions I sent to my email list. I wrote this before reading any of the comments above:

It was in the mid-1990’s that I first heard about Marc-André Hamelin. On-line discussion groups were just in their infancy, and a few participants posted comments mentioning a phenomenal pianist who dared to tackle—and conquer—the piano music of Alkan and other obscure, but technically daunting composers. I heard Hamelin on the radio for the first time playing one of those Alkan works, and then I heard that he was playing in Philadelphia at an unusual venue—Tower Records Classical Annex on South Street (now closed, along with the rest of the Tower Records chain). So my wife and I ventured there on June 9, 1996 and heard (and watched up close) his magical playing of Scriabin, Rachmaninoff and Liszt.

I mention this event from over 13 years ago because my wife and I turned to each other during intermission of Hamelin’s Wednesday evening recital in Philadelphia, saying almost the same thing—do you remember the first time we saw him play in that record shop? Since that time, I have eagerly awaited the next opportunity to hear this great pianist in concert.

Although Hamelin began with a well-crafted performance of Alban Berg’s Sonata, Opus 1, and this was my first hearing of this work, I must admit that my interest was somewhat diminished in anticipation of the next work on the program—Liszt’s Sonata in B Minor. This is one of the great masterpieces of the Romantic piano literature, a veritable tone poem for the piano, orchestral in its sweep and a mighty technical and musical challenge for the performer. I was anxious to hear Hamelin ascend this Mount Everest of the piano repertoire, and my expectations were more than fulfilled—it was one of the best performances of this thrilling work that I have ever heard.

After intermission—during which I exchanged expressions of awe with several fellow concertgoers—Hamelin turned to four Debussy Preludes from Book II: La Puerta del Vino (The Wine Gate), Les fées sont d’exquises danseuses (The fairies are exquisite dancers), Les tierces alternées (Alternating thirds), and Feux d’artifice (Fireworks). Hamelin presented a more “muscular” Debussy than some other pianists, but that was entirely appropriate—according to the program notes, Debussy intensely disliked being labeled an “impressionist.” The gauzy, dreamlike approach is actually contrary to his intentions. The last of these pieces in particular not only depicts fireworks, but calls for pianistic fireworks, which Hamelin readily supplied.

Hamelin concluded his announced program with five of his own Etudes: Erlkönig (based on the poem by Goethe, but not on the Schubert song), Coma Berenices (named for a constellation), After Tchaikovsky (an exquisite piece for the left hand alone, based on Tchaikovsky’s Lullaby), Minuetto, and Prelude and Fugue (which is the only one of these I had heard before—an astonishing tour de force for the piano). All of these pieces displayed great originality and were performed, of course, with breathtaking virtuosity. And just for the record, virtuosity does not equate to “loud and fast.” The etude for the left hand, for example, was delicate and sublime, but clearly required superb control.

After a prolonged, mostly standing ovation, Hamelin rewarded us with one encore: Haydn’s Fantasy in C Major. The notes (I suppose) were all Haydn, but the execution was uniquely Hamelin. The audience chuckled at one point during an especially lengthy pause between sections, clearly not in keeping with a traditional Haydn performance, but it worked in this case, and at the conclusion, roared its approval.

So when is his next concert??

I know I promised a review of Hamelin's recent recital at the Kimmel Center and I apologize for my tardiness in getting this posted.

First, I have to admit I'm not a Hamelin groupie. In fact, to be honest, the reasons I attended were as follows:

- In December I got an e-mail offering a one day sale on a select group of PCMS upcoming concerts. ($10 per ticket, not bad.)
- Hamelin's recital was during winter break.
- I had a free night stay available from Hilton Honors. (Makes it easier to stay overnight, rather than driving almost 90 miles after 10PM.)

I haven't listened to a lot of his CDs or watched a lot of his videos online. I guess I've always thought of him as a super-virtuoso technician rather than a musician (sorry, I know!). And much or his repertoire just doesn't really appeal to me. (Apologies to all of you Alkan fans.)

So to say what I expected and what he delivered were quite different is a huge understatement. It was an incredible recital from start to finish.

His Berg was a revelation. I have always loved this piece (and hope to learn it one day) and Hamelin played it beautifully. His architecture was fabulous, the whole piece sounded so organic building from those first couple of gestures of the opening measure. His tone, his voicing, were unbelievable. It reflected back on the Liszt sonata which was to come and yet also showed the modernity that the Liszt would employ. I don't know why these two pieces aren't always programmed together.

As wonderful as the Berg was, the true highpoint of the evening was the Liszt Sonata, a piece, if I am to be really honest, I have never really liked. I have heard it many times on CD and the radio and usually I start fading out somewhere in the middle. This was the first time I ever heard it in a live performance. I can only say I was rivetted from the very first note. Hamelin sense of architecture (which he already showed in the Berg) was even more pronounced here. This is a piece that can fall apart, that can feel overly long with long stretches of "filler" till the "good parts". Not in this performance. Hamelins tone was fabulous, his crescendos extraordinary and his lyricsm truly breathtaking. Every note seemed like it belonged. The "filler" now had musical importance.

The second half of the program did not quite reach the level of the first half and how could it. The Debussy Preludes were beautifully played with a muscularity and clarity you do not hear in a lot of Debussy playing. His colors were marvelous and I felt a connection with the Berg which was composed almost at the same time as these Preludes.

His set of Etudes were wonderfully entertaining. I would love to see the music when it is published. Hamelin's technique is so formidable you wonder what is "etude-like" in these studies since he makes everything look so easy. I especially liked the left-handed etude and the final fugue which reminded me a great deal of the Barber fugue.

The encore was delightful, even if the one very long puase was perhaps a little over the top. (I will admit that I do have a couple of his CDs of Haydn sonatas which I love.)