The French pianist Jonathan Fournel on stage at Antonine University. (Credit: Antonine University.)
The program of Jonathan Fournel's piano recital at Antonine University on May 26 featured Bach's Italian Concerto; Brahms' "Three Intermezzi op. 117," Karol Szymanowski's "Variations sur un thème populaire polonais" (Variations on a Polish Folk Theme) and finally, Franz Liszt's "Sonate en si mineur" (Sonata in B minor)
Bach's concerto in the Italian style remains one of the most popular keyboard works. Fournel approaches this famous piece with a distinctly French sensibility. Moving on quickly, Brahms' piano music is anti-virtuosic.
To some extent, it follows the tradition of Robert Schumann’s piano music, yet it diverges in significant ways. Unlike the young Schumann, who reveled in dazzling piano techniques, Brahms deliberately avoids such flourishes. It also shows a stronger sense of structure, which Schumann lacked, allowing Brahms to blend Romantic emotion with Classical form more effectively.
Brahms' piano work comprises about 50 pieces, including sonatas, variations, ballades and various "Klavierstücke."
It is like a diary — the most revealing, most significant part of the musician's genius. Brahms' first and last spoken words in the history of music were at the piano. The first "Intermezzo" carries an epigraph: "Sleep peacefully, my child, sleep peacefully and calmly. I am so troubled when I see you cry."
This Opus 117 is perhaps the darkest Brahms ever composed. "Paysage d’automne," (Autumn's Landscape) it has been said. But it goes beyond that: despair and regret.
Our interpreter felt it well. His pianistic technique is of the highest order, powerful yet supple. Nothing appears to trouble him. He leads us imperiously into the realm of pure music with "Szymanowski's Variations." A perfect piece bristling with pitfalls, especially the eighth variation, titled "Marche funèbr," (Funeral March) a magnificent page shaken by the terrible tolling that resonates deep within the keyboard, where Fournel was admirable.
Liszt's "Sonata in B Minor" is a high synthesis musical work that completely revolutionizes piano writing and projects far into the future. Nonetheless, it remains a work anchored in romanticism.
This Sonata, emerging from silence on the support of two mysterious notes struck offbeat, re-enters it after traversing, "from cradle to grave," its brilliant trajectory, marking one of the essential events in the entire history of music with the mark of uniqueness. All young pianists are keen to measure themselves against Liszt's Sonata, a formidable score.
Fournel, who can summon sound from the depths of the piano without relying on artifice, knows how to swell with agitation, to shift from grandeur to contemplation without breaking unity — and without dodging the storm, or the explosive passages that, with lesser pianists, might lead the listener's mind to wander elsewhere.
Here again — and throughout — the presence of the performer is astounding, without being intrusive, and it is with regret that one hears the last chords dissolve into the shadows.
This article was originally published in French in L'Orient-Le Jour.
