Programs
Pascal Dusapin: Etudes for Piano
"Classical music is a formal music, and the repertoire is packed with works that are based on a structural plan or with a specific purpose. That also means that creative subversion of forms is important in keeping long standing ideas vital.
Pianist Taka Kigawa gave a stellar display of this subversion Tuesday evening at (le) poisson rouge, when he played the seven Etudes by Pascal Dusapin.
Etudes—literally “studies”—are meant to highlight specific technical challenges and possibilities, and are usually full of impressive fingerwork and flourishes. Think of the most foundational examples for the piano, those by Chopin, Debussy, and Ligeti, and one will imagine this vividly.
But Dusapin’s set is almost completely the opposite of that purpose and aesthetic. Born in 1955, Dusapin is a French composer who mixes pure sound in the manner of Varèse with a natural, emotional communication. There are two Etudes that are fast and active, and so the immediate concern is technical, but most of the music is slow, quiet, full of space and specific but subtle varied in rhythm and texture. The music is also quite spare and there is nothing to hide behind. These Etudes are a challenge to the depth of a musician’s thinking and understanding, and their ability to play with meaning.
Kigawa has always impressed with his hands and mind, exceeding in music, like Boulez’ Piano Sonatas and John Cage’s Etudes Australes, which is not just hard to get the hands around but to play with a conception that the audience can hear. Dusapin’s Etudes, with a foundation in tonal harmony and statements with clear beginnings and conclusions, have a mysterious sound, atmospheric but not foggy, like if one takes a long stroll on a familiar route and lets muscle memory take over while the mind wanders.
The danger for the player is getting lost in the sound and losing the details of the music. Kigawa was on top of everything. His dynamics were carefully and gracefully delineated, and his articulation was full of subtle variety. That last is probably the most challenging aspect of the music, and though quiet to the ears it is fiendish; how does one play a repeated pitch that has both slight, but specific, changes in rhythm and also is marked legato? How many ways can a pianist press a key, how many grades of speed and force are there within the confines of tempo and rhythm?
From the first Etude, Kigawa drew in the listener with these small, clear changes, all within both the overall flow of the music and the sound of the piano—each change in articulation produced a small, intriguing change in the decay from the instrument. It is these details that make these Etudes so fine.
The performance was full of unexpected drama. This music has few real technical challenges, though Kigawa did sound a little clotted in parts of the fast Etude No. 2.
But throughout Kigawa brought out all the details, the romantic arc and a sense of a journey. The experience was something like viewing Fellini’s Nights of Cabiria, where a seemingly random sequence of events doesn’t make complete sense or have full effect until the final moments. Tuesday night, Kigawa began Etude No. 7 while the sound from No. 6 was still decaying—he played inside the one that had just passed. Then, at the end, he produce a magical effect of letting the atmosphere he had conjured disappear, delivering the final page with a kind of warm dryness, like wrapping up a dream with the first moments of waking."
- George Grella, New York Classical Review
"'No one should be allowed to make music as if he were made of wood. One must reproduce the musical text exactly, but not play like a stone.'
Olivier Messiaen
Who knew that Pascal Dusapin had so many ardent fans?? I had never heard of the French composer. But apparently New Yorkers have a special affection for him. Le Poisson Rouge was packed solid, those sitting at tables nibbling at cupcakes or sipping ale, Elizabethan groundlings. Latecomers were turned away.
Pascal Dusapin obviously has either fervent acolytes or an underground cult!
Or–far more likely–tonight’s concert pulled in its ardent audience from the presence of that astonishing pianist, Taka Kigawa.
Astonishing, yes, first for his choices. An evening of Bach under his fingers has the same fascination as an evening of Pierre Boulez... or Pascal Dusapin. More important, because Mr. Kigawa brings not only unerring fingerwork, but an understanding. He never needs to “introduce” his music, or play down to his audience. His perceptions are those of a painter, whose colors or patterns don’t always make sense, but which inevitably draws a non-verbal emotion from the unprepared listener.
An hour of Pascal Dusapin’s Etudes deserved three modes of concentration. First, from the audience, forced to hang onto each note. Second, from Mr. Kigawa’s presence and care. I was sitting on the non‑keyboard side of the Yamaha, and Mr. Kigawa seemed to be playing the pedals like the keyboard itself. Every note deserve a half‑press, a quarter press, all the way down.
And third, Dusapin’s music itself. A student of both Messiaen and Xenakis, a one‑time jazz pianist–yet his music seemed to have no resemblance to either. We had no line, no continuo, variation nothing to which one could relate. Each etude was about eight minutes long. Yet orthodox patterns were either invisible or ephemeral.
In fact, the piano score (on YouTube) is as mesmeric as the music. Virtually every note had its own extreme dynamic. Two grace notes could be played together, one marked pppp, the second marked ffff. Yet listening, one felt a complete tapestry–though lacking warp or design.
These were not Webernian patterns. Nothing seemed serialized. Rather, Dusapin gave the impression of improvising these colors. For colors they were. If one looks at a Pointillistic painting from afar, it represents far more than their single points. Mr. Dusapin gives the points–but we rarely see the full picture.
We had a few exceptions. Etude 4, one of the only two virtuosic pieces, had a semblance of jazz rhythm, a scintilla of extemporization, But even the freest avant‑garde jazz is based on some kind of motifs. Perhaps not a melody, but a recognizable cell. Not here. The sliding fast notes, the trills, smacked of Tatum–but Tatum warming up looking for something interesting to play.
Dusapin was not drawing auditory pictures. But he came close in the Sixth Etude, with a single measure of...well possibly...a Middle Eastern mode. It lasted less than a second, but was so vaguely familiar (Whew!! A little life‑saver) that the rest of the etude appeared in my imagination as clothing on that Arabic cell, as if the composer took three notes, made them disappear and then pretended the notes were still there.
The end was surprising. The trills, the “shouts”, the quiet, was like the last measures of Sacre. Again my imagination.
But nothing is wrong with that. As Mr. Kigawa so carefully gave us whispers and shouts, the replica of bells (which were quickly vaporized), the facsimile of ostinatos, he never bothered to create a blatant pattern.
The only possible similitude to these Etudes would be the Játékok, the “games” of Győrgy Kurtág. But these bijoux had their own forms and recognitions. Pascal Dusapin and his executant Taka Kigawa never gave away these games.
In ordinary music, one can recognize constellations and solar systems. Last night, we heard quarks and beams and particles. And perhaps in their own cosmic way, perhaps that sufficed. Some music needs cries and whispers. Mr. Dusapin gave a fragmentary pretense for both."