It was billed as a concert by French pianist Elodie Vignon, introduced by Italian musicologist Andrea Malvano, both experts on Debussy. Dbut that didn't happen.
Malvano had to cancel, but Vignon showed up and decided to speak about her great idol herself. And why not, after all, when you've just released a double CD titled "Monsieur Debussy". You must know everything about that composer and want to share it.
For the performer in a CD review, superlatives are often pulled out all the stops, but for the composer a mere honorable mention usually suffices. But that's far too little for Claude Debussy. What didn't that Frenchman mean for the evolution of music in his time? We often hear it claimed that Stravinsky, particularly with his "Sacre du printemps", was the trailblazer of modernism in music history. But wasn't it rather his contemporary Debussy who, with his new, unexplored sounds, caused the real break in that history? Absolutely, says our pianist: "The Sacre was 1913, but Debussy with his "Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune" was already in 1894. For Boulez, that's the first piece in the rise toward modernism. With that, music took a different turn, music became intuitive, you're immersed in a new universe, there's no story anymore, his music awakens all the senses and challenges your imagination, you smell the scents, you feel the waves gliding over you, the snow crunching beneath your feet, mist and fog embrace you, you hear nature..." You hear Elodie Vignon play it that way too, very concentrated, without sweeping gestures, almost unmoved, yet with great intensity and virtuosity.
Although it's still afternoon in the intimate hall of the Musical Instrument Museum, "The sounds and perfumes that drift through the evening air" are indeed brought wonderfully to life on the piano. Vignon scatters almost improvisationally and languidly, loose notes into that evening atmosphere. It comes from the first book with "Preludes" whose title is borrowed from a a line of verse by Baudelaire. A real gem lasting just a couple of minutes. There are other pearls that sparkle and shimmer, such as "The Golden Fish" from his " Images". A brilliant piece, performed with brilliance. You don't need imagination to immediately feel yourself submerged like a playful fish in turbulent water. It's also one of many miniatures from her newly published double album "Monsieur Debussy".Her concert program included two other composers. First, a piece by Chopin, whose sensitive piano music was often an inspiration for Debussy: pure sound poetry with that immediately recognizable Chopin idiom. Vignon plays it very restrained, without any exuberance. Then came a tribute to Albéniz, both professionally and personally an intimate friend of Debussy. It was also wonderful to see and hear how subtly the pianist handled the pedals to make all those beautiful sounds resonate. She couldn't illustrate this diversity better than by letting us hear the range of possibilities from his "Children's Corner": harsh syncopations, quiet nuances, cheerful little melodies, and that lively "cake-walk" of compositions.
Finally, of course, came that well-known "
Clair de Lune" from his "Suite bergamasque". A "hit" that you find and hear everywhere? Yes, but hits are successful pieces, a real crowd-pleaser, in short, among the best. But what a credit to Madame Vignon to also draw attention to all that lesser-known solo piano work by "Monsieur Debussy", the first album of a complete edition of his oeuvre.
