A striking intelligence marks everything Hélène Grimaud does. It informs the uncommonly literate way the pianist, performing in Denver this weekend, speaks about music and has a good deal to do with her focused, much- praised style of playing.
It can even be seen in her repertoire choices, such as the seemingly unlikely yet ultimately successful pairing of the second sonatas of Chopin and Rachmaninoff on her latest recording.
The 35-year-old French native, who moved to the United States in 1997, plays in three performances with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra and principal guest conductor Peter Oundjian.
She will be the soloist for Maurice Ravel’s Concerto in G for Piano and Orchestra (1929-31). For most French pianists, who tend to focus on their country’s musical patrimony, that would be unremarkable.
For Grimaud, who has emphasized primarily German works during her career, it is extremely out of character. In fact, the concerto is the only French work in her repertory.
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“It was something that I didn’t really have to work on,” she said from her home in New York. “I was really lucky that I seemed to have a very deep affinity for the German repertoire from the very start, and that seemed to be accepted and pretty much recognized from early on.
“So I didn’t have to try and fight and be allowed to play what I really felt closest to instead of the French repertoire.”
Grimaud started off in traditional French fashion. She studied with Jacqueline Courtin at the conservatory in her hometown of Aix-en- Provence, later enrolling at the Paris Conservatoire. But soon she took off in her own direction.
In 1987, she took lessons with famed American pianist Leon Fleisher in Paris and shortly thereafter fell under the spell of violinist Gidon Kremer and pianist Martha Argerich. It is no coincidence that they are two of the most independent-minded figures in classical music.
Her own bid to do things her way, whether in repertoire choices or her boldly distinctive interpretations, has proved highly successful.
She regularly performs with the world’s top orchestras and conductors, and in 2002-03 signed an exclusive contract with the Deutsche Grammophon label.
Grimaud is widely enough known that her 2003 memoir, “Variations Sauvages,” has sold more than 100,000 copies in France and has been translated into Japanese, Dutch and German. An English version is due in 2006.
She describes the book as what the French call a traité, a kind of reflection (she insists it is not an autobiography). She alternates
chapters of personal history with thoughts on composers and our relationship to art, nature and religion.
At the same time, Grimaud writes about the ability to turn demons into allies, something she constantly felt compelled to do growing up.
“In my case as a child, there were a lot of obsessive-compulsive traits of character that didn’t have an outlet,” she said. “And, of course, music is the perfect thing. You have to be almost obsessively perfectionist to be in this sort of discipline.
“So to have that in your character, and find no productive way, no creative way to channel that, then of course you’re turning against yourself.”
She also writes about wolves, as much a passion for her as music. In 1999, she co-founded the Wolf Conservation Center in South Salem, N.Y., a little more than an hour outside New York City.
Even before the memoir, Grimaud already had thought of herself as a writer.
“I don’t know if I’ve consciously tried to develop it,” she said, “but it’s from how much reading I did as a child and then kept up. I was very interested in the etymological root of words and how we don’t always really know what the words that we use mean.”
If writing has gained a more significant place in Grimaud’s life, the piano remains her focus.
She recently began work with the Staatskapelle Dresden on a recording project devoted to works by the members of perhaps the most famous love triangle in the history of classical music: Robert Schumann, Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms.
Grimaud has long studied the great pianists of the past, and few loomed larger in the 19th century than Clara Schumann, who managed exhausting performing tours while still raising children and taking care of her ailing husband.
“There are so many connections between so many of those pieces,” Grimaud said, “be it motivic connections or literary connections. So the story can be told in many ways with many different choices of works, but hopefully it will speak for itself.”
Fine arts critic Kyle MacMillan can be reached at 303-820-1675 or kmacmillan@denverpost.com.
Hélène Grimaud, pianist; Peter Oundjian, conductor
Colorado Symphony|Boettcher Concert Hall, Denver Performing Arts Complex, 14th and Curtis streets; 7:30 tonight and Saturday and 2:30 p.m. Sunday|$12-$60 |303-623-7876 or 877-292-7979 or www.coloradosymphony.org.
