So when Thibaudet came to study this music, the answers to all his questions – the key to unlocking its myriad colours – were there in black and white. The slow movement of the concerto was to be played “as simply as possible – a pure, singing line”. No rubato, “no butter in the sauce”, as Poulenc might have had it (he, of course, liked plenty of butter in his sauce). And it was this clarity and transparency, this coolness of expression that came to typify the French sound It’s all in the pedalling, says Thibaudet. “Ravel was the most classical of French composers, much more restrained emotionally than, say, Poulenc, who for me is so typically Parisian – an extravagant, decadent personality. Ravel was meticulous about detail; he hated pianists who obscured that detail by slamming down their foot.
Debussy mixed his colours and his harmonies more – in that sense he was much more of an impressionist – but clarity is still the major factor Not dry, just clear.” Limpid is a good word. Thibaudet’s Decca recording of Ravel’s solo piano music is limpid. So, too, his Debussy.
It’s this relating of sound to style, and vice versa, that is at the heart of all great pianism. “I know that the process is working when I’m no longer conscious of it working,” says Thibaudet.
“Brahms, for instance, has its own sound – a deep, warm, resonant, meaty sound. When you play Brahms, you feel your way much more deeply into the keys With Ravel, you can ride the surface of the keys A forte in Ravel is quite different from a forte in Brahms. Even `Scarbo’ [the most fiendishly virtuosic movement in all Ravel] is never really full-on It plays all kinds of tricks on you. It comes and goes…”Rather like the so-called “golden age” of pianism.
Did we really see its passing with the likes of Rubinstein, Horowitz and Cherkassky? Whatever happened to the great individualists? Or are we simply succumbing to nostalgia here? Thibaudet thinks not. Rubinstein was for him “the complete artist”, a man whose joie de vivre could be felt in every aspect of his playing. “He was typical of a whole generation where music-making was personal. Whether you liked them or not, each of these players had a strong identity of their own. I can put on a record, and after only a couple of bars I can tell you who it is: they had a sound, these players, their sound. How many pianists can you say that of today?”You see, we live in a competitive age. Conservatoires train their students to win competitions, and in order to win competitions you can’t be too personal.
Because, in that situation, one judge will love you and another will very likely hate you And that’s a no-win situation. So what we’re really talking about here – if we’re not very careful – is a kind of `standardisation’, a whole generation of brilliant musical robots.”One’s mind goes back to the 1980 International Chopin Competition in Warsaw, when Martha Argerich stormed off the jury after Ivo Pogorelich failed to make the final rounds. Maybe she had glimpsed the future and didn’t like what she saw?Maybe. Even so, young musicians like Thibaudet are determined to buck the trends Take recording.
