Increasingly in this 21st century we are experiencing highly exciting times in Melbourne’s concert halls with the music of contemporary and newly emerging Australian composers being featured regularly in both stand-alone programs or in mainstream festivals. Our musical lives are also truly rewarded by the commitment of eminent musicians and educators such as Australian legend Stephen McIntyre, who promotes rarely performed works of almost-forgotten composers, giving them deserved recognition and exposure.
French composer Charles Valentin Alkan (1813-1888) was a significant colleague of Chopin and Liszt, so it is not surprising that he was a virtuosic pianist, who composed many distinctive and technically challenging piano works. McIntyre chose 25 Preludes for Piano Op 31, an astonishing variety of intense and colourful pieces that cycled through all the major and minor keys. How many of us are overwhelmed by choosing colours in a commercial paint shop, looking at a sample colour strip and being astonished just by the many shades of white! McIntyre is a supreme master of colour, and he delivered a myriad of colourful shades and sonorities essential for this program. Through a score of 50 plus pages of varied musical portraits, McIntyre held the audience spell-bound, taking us back in time, immersing us in perfectly timed changes of sonorities and silences as we felt the intense spirit and detail in Alkan’s imaginative work.
There was a clear silvery tone in the slow resonant chords of Prelude No 1 – Lentement, as if some mystical bells were inviting us in to Alkan’s spiritual world. From this opening key of C major, Prelude No 2 in F minor typified an immediate contrast, as a short melancholic voice alternated with assertive, staccato marching rhythms, announcing Alkan’s frequently used device of changing rapidly between major and minor key sections. Prelude No 3 detailed further the intellectual designs and spiritual contrasts in this program, as a poetical and lyrical melody stepped gently and gracefully above a continuously moving chordal accompaniment. Most interesting was the setting for No 5 Prelude in D (Psalm 150), with the instruction “to be played with enthusiasm” as rising chord passages and changing time signatures described a new design and sound. Perhaps Alkan’s most extraordinary musical language came in Prelude No 8, Song of the Madwoman Beside the Sea, a dark and disturbing piece in Ab minor. The pianist’s left hand was anchored onto the lowest bass notes of darkly textured, soft but dense chords, repeated with gentle repetition but foreboding intent. Strange, bare melodic shapes were high on the piano, almost incomplete, finding a separate path, sad and disturbing. Even changes of texture with the contrasting major key episode added little comfort, and we were moved as this extraordinary portrait faded to nothing. Many of the preludes ended with softly sustained fade-outs, the favourite Romantic coda when passion is spent, so beautifully felt in the colours and acoustic from the fine piano in Athenaeum 2. In Bb minor, Prelude No 12, Time Past, created a misty, dreamy and reflective sweetness, with repeated chords in gorgeous smoothly flowing quintuplets.
Technically striking was prelude No 20, effectively a study in staccato, fortissimo double octaves with a surprising unfinished cadence. McIntyre always demonstrates such an air of ease and grace through the most impressive technically challenging passages, even when exact athleticism required both hands to regularly rise and fall in opposite directions on the keys with incessant power and excitement. Once again Alkan’s use of parallel key changes from D minor to D major added richer colour but no change of feeling, as the intensity of the mood and spirit of each prelude was still effectively retained.
The perfect ending came with the last two Preludes. We held our breath through No 24 in E minor, Etude de Virtuosité, with its streams of unbroken delicate chromatic flights of fancy, precision driven staccato leaps, growing dramatic crescendos and cascades of rising and falling arpeggios. Had McIntyre exhausted all the colours in his palette? Not quite. Alkan returned us to the opening key of C major for Prelude No 25, Prayer, and McIntyre showed us his palette of the many shades of white. The colours of peace and harmony were felt in Alkan’s calm, reassuring rhythms and gentle translucent chords, sensitively expressed by McIntyre’s deep respect for the composer and his mastery of the piano.
There was lengthy audience applause for Stephen McIntyre’s accomplished and engaging performance, the many magical moments of his piano playing and his inspiring interpretation of Alkan’s fascinating compositions.
Photo supplied.
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Julie McErlain reviewed Kawai Piano Series – Stephen McIntyre: ALKAN – 25 Preludes Op 31, performed at the Athenaeum Theatre 2 on March 11, 2022.
