Denver is not exactly a classical-music center, but Sunday afternoon, it got the jump on New York City.
Three days before he is set to present it at Carnegie Hall, French pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet performed a rare all-Franz Liszt program marking the 200th anniversary of the composer’s birth in October.
We usually think of Liszt’s music as big, fiery and even bombastic. While all those qualities were certainly in evidence at times during Sunday’s Friends of Chamber Music recital, Thibaudet sought to show a more reflective and profound side of the composer.
The result was a complex and utterly absorbing musical portrait. Thibaudet seemed completely at one with this repertoire, infusing it with freedom, refinement and depth.
Setting the stage for everything that would follow was “Consolations,” S. 172, a wistful work tinged with echoes of Frederic Chopin, who died around the time of its creation. The pianist brought an organic, unforced feel to this work, allowing it to breathe and flow from within.
Next came the Debussy-like “Les Jeux d’Eau u la Villa d’Este” from “Annees de pèlerinage,” and then with hardly a break, “St. Francois d’Assise: La predication aux oiseaux,” the first section of “Legendes,” S. 175.
Both of these performances were marked with an airy gentleness and improvisatory spark, especially at the beginning of “St. Francois,” where Thibaudet vividly evoked the delicate, chaotic movement of birds’ flitting wings.
Though Chopin and Liszt were opposites in many ways, the former exerted a strong presence on this program, with “Consolations,” and then to start the second half, “Meine Freuden,” a transcription of a Chopin song with typically Lisztian flourishes.
Although glimpses of the virtuosic explosions expected of Liszt emerged earlier, the composer’s well-known thunder and lightning pervaded the Ballade No. 2 in B minor, S. 171, and Thibaudet responded with a powerful, emphatic take.
Here and in the concluding mad-dash Tarantella from “Venezia e Napoli,” S. 162, he put his prodigious technique on full display, but it was always at the service of musical expression.
Sunday’s recital was Thibaudet’s first in Denver, and it will not soon be forgotten.
Kyle MacMillan: 303-954-1675 or kmacmillan@denverpost.com
