Wigmore Hall (live stream), 09/03/2021

Fauré : Thème et Variations, Op. 73
Debussy : Cloches à travers les feuilles
Fauré : Nocturne No. 6
Ligeti : Etude II/7 - Galamb borong
Ligeti : Etude I/5 - Arc-en-ciel
Mussorgsky : Pictures at an Exhibition
Beach : Sous les étoiles

Danny Driver, piano
It has probably become obvious over the last year that I don't really like watching concerts via streaming.  Staged productions are one thing, a concert or a recital, to me, is another, and it takes a special programme to  get me into a virtual concert hall.  Danny Driver offered exactly that with an intriguing mix of works, not quite rare, but not over-exposed either.

Fauré's Theme and Variations, a mid-period work, is one of his most substantial piano pieces, but it's not one I've ever felt much sympathy for.  I've mentioned before the idolatry vowed to Schumann by French musicians; that goes for composers too, and here, Fauré is in it body and soul.  In consequence, it's a piece I find a bit dry, and Driver did not succeed in persuading me otherwise.  The Nocturne No. 6, possibly the best known of the complete set, was much more rewarding, lovely fluid playing, maybe just a little hard in tone at the top of the piano's range.  In between came one of Debussy's Images, the delicately evanescent "Cloches à travers les feuilles", which immediately lightened the atmosphere after the stolidity of the Theme and Variations.

I've only discovered the Ligeti Etudes quite recently and don't know them nearly as well as I intend to, because they are well worth it.  In an echo to the Debussy, the first played tonight, a study in complementary scales, had faint suggestions of gamelan.  Ligeti encouraged this notion with his title for the piece, which looks like Javanese but apparently is actually Hungarian meaning (roughly) 'melancholy pigeon'.  'Slightly manic' pigeon might be more appropriate, there's nothing much melancholy about this piece, but the clarity of play, in such a complex texture, was admirable.  The second etude chosen was the more reflective "Rainbow", from the 1st Book, calm, rising and falling arcs.

Pictures at an Exhibition was a magnificent, flamboyant contrast to all fairly quiet, thoughtful music of the first half of the recital.  Driver did not indulge - his Promenades were measured and direct, even the quieter fourth Promenade.  The cycle of pictures built progressively, however, as if the 'viewer' of the exhibition was increasingly impressed as the pictures go by.  I thought "Gnomus" lacked a little bite, but by the time Driver reached its opposite number, at the other end of the piece, "The Hut on Hen's Legs", there was the ferocity I had been looking for, and the sharp, rhythmic snap.  Of the earlier pieces, "The Old Castle" had a beautiful lilt to it, and the contrasts of "Samuel Goldberg and Schmüyle" were evocatively drawn, and after the thunderous triumph of the conclusion of Pictures, Driver gave us a soothing encore in the form of a short piece by Amy Beach, drawn from the piano suite "Dreams of Columbine".  

This was a well chosen and well delivered programme, and a pleasure to experience.


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