Jan 31st 2021

Interview with Vincent Larderet – arresting freshness brings Liszt back to life

by Michael Johnson

Michael Johnson is a music critic with particular interest in piano. 

Johnson worked as a reporter and editor in New York, Moscow, Paris and London over his journalism career. He covered European technology for Business Week for five years, and served nine years as chief editor of International Management magazine and was chief editor of the French technology weekly 01 Informatique. He also spent four years as Moscow correspondent of The Associated Press. He is the author of five books.

Michael Johnson is based in Bordeaux. Besides English and French he is also fluent in Russian.

You can order Michael Johnson's most recent book, a bilingual book, French and English, with drawings by Johnson:

“Portraitures and caricatures:  Conductors, Pianist, Composers”

 here.

 

A new recording of Franz Liszt’s piano compositions presents ten carefully balanced pieces in a double-CD album aptly titled Between Light and Darkness, launched by Piano Classics. The pianist, the veteran French virtuoso Vincent Larderet, breathes new life into some of the often heard pieces and introduces several that have been neglected. Larderet brings an arresting freshness to Liszt, so personal that the music seems to acquire new life.

He writes in an erudite accompanying essay that these works “evoke the conflicting duality or romanticism and ascetic abstraction… passion and despair, Hungarian sentimentality and religious mysticism – of darkness and light.”

Larderet opens his CD with a moving exploration of Après une Lecture de Dante with a tortured lyricism unmatched by many of his contemporaries who play it. I was stunned the first time I heard his performance.  In our interview below, he describes lyricism as “an essential facet of my musical conception. The piano must be able to sing like the human voice.”

An exceptional artist with an intellectual approach to these complex works, Larderet tackled the literature from which Liszt drew inspiration. He studied Victor Hugo’s Après une lecture de Dante poem and the Divine Comedy by Florentine poet Dante Alighieri to help inspire his interpretation.

larderet
Vincent Larderet photo by Karis Kennedy

Some of the darker pieces in this album are “stripped of all artificiality” he writes, including Funérailles, La Notte, La Lugubre Gondola N°II, Unstern– Sinistre, Nuages gris, R.W. Venezia and Schlaflos!

In our interview, he explains the wide range of repertoire and how he attempts to recreate the musical environment of the time it was composed. He considers it essential to go beyond playing the notes on the page, and to “master the stylistic shadings of each period”.

Larderet analyses his musical foundations, his development as an artist. I asked him how true it is that French teachings are resistant to outside ideas. “Absolutely true,” he said. “French music education is very narrow. I suffered in my younger years from these constrictions. I chose another way and have never regretted it.” In amongst “other ways” he included gaining recognition through international piano competitions and concerts.

Audiences at his performances might be surprised to see him pull out his tuning hammer and adjust a few strings. He has studied piano tuning, an experience that made him “much more attentive to tone”.

I spoke to Larderet by telephone and he followed up with several pages of written reflections, explaining his origins as a musician and where his career might take him next – to the orchestral podium. He does not see this as a great leap. “For me, the piano is an orchestra,” he says.

 

Edited excerpts from our conversation:

Michael Johnson: Were you born into a musical family?

Vincent Larderet:  Yes, my father was a Doctor of musicology, a Professor at the University of Lyon II. I lived in the constant presence of music, listening to recordings and following them in printed scores – for piano, chamber music and full orchestras. What was most important was that I realized that I loved music from the very beginning, and not with a career in mind.

What’s wrong with careerism?

So many young artists today think of music as their future career but that is not enough. True love of music implies more -- a willingness to sacrifice oneself for music without selfish aims.

How old were you when the piano became important for you?

I came to the piano at about age 8, in the beginning as an instrument for improvisation. My parents did not at first find a teacher for me. But eventually I worked with a private teacher, then I entered in a regional conservatory, aiming to become a composer. I explored composition from age 10 to about 15, producing my Sonatine Op. 1 and short pieces in post-Schoenberg style -- Berg and Webern. I then gave up composing as I realised what difficulties I would encounter later on.

Weren’t you also a serious art student?

Yes, I had a passion for drawing. At age 12 I was awarded First Prize in the European competition “Artists in Color”. But shortly thereafter I completely abandoned drawing.

Back to the piano, when was your first public recital?

At age 14, my first public recital was at a music festival – actually playing for a fee. It was my first serious engagement and it really propelled me into the piano world. This was the moment I decided to become a professional pianist.

Which recorded pianists influenced you at this age?

I must mention Michelangeli, Pollini, Arrau, Brendel, Gilels and Horowitz. Even today I remain fascinated by my ‘Holy Trinity’, Michelangeli, Arrau and Gilels, perhaps more so than by any of my teachers.

When did your serious piano studies begin?

My studies took on more importance after I won a first prize at the conservatory at age 16. After that I studied with Carlos Cebro in Paris, one of the favorite pupils of Vlado Perlemuter, who had studied with Ravel and Fauré, among others. I thus had the privilege of studying Ravel works on Perlemuter’s annotated scores. Cebro instilled in me a very healthy technique in such facets as the weight of the arms and the relaxation of tension, as in the style of Arrau and even Liszt himself. Cebro’s teachings included Chopin’s 24 Etudes.

Where was your repertoire taking you in this period?

I worked on a wide range of music – from Scarlatti to Boulez without favoring any particular era. But I had a predilection for the major Romantics (Chopin Liszt, Schumann, Brahms etc.) and the major 20th century composers (Bartok, Prokofiev, Rachmaninov, Scriabin, etc.)  To develop as a pianist, it is essential to master the stylistic shadings of each period.

Where did your advanced studies lead you?

I worked with the great Argentine pianist Bruno-Leonardo Gelber at the Musikhoschule of Lübeck in Germany. This enabled an immense progression, especially in the Austro-German repertoire (Beethoven, Brahms and Schumann). He specifically transmitted to me the art of sound and phrasing.

Your background doesn’t sound very French.

Correct. My progress has been highly non-conformist by French standards. Most young musicians study in the French Conservatoires Supérieurs in Paris or Lyon. I did not take that route, and so through my international competitions I was able to maintain a greater independence of spirit and develop an international outlook.

Isn’t it true that French teachings are less open outside ideas?

Absolutely. French music education is very narrow. I suffered in my younger years from these constrictions. French institutions can be quite rigid. I chose another way and have never regretted it.

When were you identified as an exceptional talent?

The first recognition came from the international competitions. I was competing with pianists from throughout the world and had to prepare a repertoire to the highest standard. I was a prize winner at competitions such as Maria Canals in Barcelona, A.M.A. Calabria in Italy (under the jury Chairman of Lazar Berman), Brest (France) among others.

What are the roots of a true interpretation?

My philosophy consists of serving the composer and his score. By this I mean the performer must understand and feel what the composer intended. This requires a great deal of humility and detailed attention to the markings for expressiveness. Also it is essential to be curious and to bring to bear a musical culture. One must know a composer’s entire output to explore a better approach of his work. Brahms Piano Sonata Op. 5 is a good example. Schumann called it a “symphony in disguise”. One must be familiar with Brahms’ symphonies and quartets. Indeed, the symphonic dimension in Brahms’ compositions is innovative and reveals special attention to the colors of sound.

How does a pianist adapt from style to style?

I modify all my playing parameters according to different eras or composers. For example, Chopin uses a rubato and a sonority totally different from that of Ravel. And so I have to become a kind of chameleon to serve the variety of styles in the repertoire.

Do you have models of interpretation that come from specific pianists?

I look to Michelangeli and Arrau for purity of tone, phrasing and the respect for the score …

And your favorite composers?

Brahms, Liszt, Ravel, Scriabin are among my favorites in piano writing but I also include composers who wrote nothing for the piano, such as Mahler, Bruckner, Wagner. Or some who wrote very little for the piano, like Berg, another of my favorites, who composed the sublime Sonata op. 1. When I was composing as a younger student I was influenced by the Second Vienna School, primarily its atonal and serial styles.

You have a reputation for admiring lesser-known composers. Is this happening more with age?

No, I have always had a wide and diversified repertoire in piano, chamber or orchestral music. True, I am very interested in some of the lesser-known composers, such as Florent Schmitt, whose works I have recorded, including the world premiere of The Tragedy of Salomé (piano version) and “J’entends dans le lointain…” (version for piano and orchestra). He was a French composer banned in France for his German sympathies in World War II but who is enjoying a real international renaissance today.

What are your work habits?

At home I have a magnificent Steinway A (1986), a very expressive but fragile instrument. Depending on travel obligations, my preparation can vary from two hours a day to six hours of practice. I remember working eight hours a day on La Valse of Ravel, and three straight weeks to learn the Berg Sonata by heart.

How do you keep a fragile “old” piano in tune?

I have taken courses in piano tuning and now can do it on my own. I can even install strings. I consider it essential to know one’s instrument. Since I started working with piano technicians I am much more attentive to tone. And in concerts I always have my tuning hammer with me and can adjust a few notes at the intermission if necessary.

In daily practice, what areas mean most from you – fingerwork, tone, lyricism, virtuosity?

One never loses real technique once it is acquired. Lyricism is an essential facet of my musical conception. The piano must be able to sing like the human voice. Pure virtuosity is a means but not an end. I am a virtuoso but always in the service of the music.

How do you maintain your musical memory?

I visualize the score and even the fingering. I always know exactly where I am in the score, ever the page numbers and the fingerings. This is something I have developed over time and with a lot of effort. One must master the score but obviously nobody is infallible and a lapse is always possible.

How do you grow your repertoire? Finding new material by serendipity?

Much depends on my personal desire or the demands of a recording or a concert. I always have a list of works that I am planning to learn. I have to love a piece in order to learn it, so I refuse to take on pieces that don’t interest me. I apply to myself the sentence by the great conductor Giulini who said: “When a work needs you, it will knock at your door !”

When you build a program for a recital, do you try to please yourself or your audience?

At the beginning, age 14, I was very concerned by audience reactions. But over time I have learned to play for myself. Too much dependence on the audience leads to seeking success above everything. Personally, I strive to serve the music and the composer. In a way, I guess I am a “Puritan”.

You seem quite active in chamber music. What a change from solo work !

The only basic condition for playing chamber music or concertos is to have a fusional rapport with the other musicians. It’s a kind of exchange and sharing of music and can be highly stimulating. But it can be terrible if the collaboration is not working.

Your career seems focused on Europe.

Not exactly. I work regularly in the US, Russia and Asia with a preference for Japan where I have made regular tours. In Europe, I was perhaps more focused in the past with Germany for its great tradition for music, but I have now connections everywhere. I am also drawn to Britain for its intense musical culture and well-known orchestras (even if the UK is no longer part of Europe). Indecently my current General Management is based in the UK. 

How are you surviving the Covid-19 virus crisis?

It’s catastrophic for many of us – so many concerts are canceled – and it’s going to be difficult to regain the confidence of the public. People will continue to avoid concert halls for fear of the virus.

Are you aware of the young Asians who work so hard on Western music?

Yes, in my master classes in Europe, the USA and Asia I have taught with Asian pianists. Some are quite talented but I am often shocked by two things – their lack of musical culture and their attitude that music is a kind of competition, not an art form.

What is next for Vincent Larderet?

I hope to have the opportunity to conduct an orchestra. I love orchestral music which I listen to much more than piano recordings. For me, the piano is an orchestra !

In this CD, Larderet discusses Lizst and plays excerpts from his new CD:

 

 

 


This article is brought to you by the author who owns the copyright to the text.

Should you want to support the author’s creative work you can use the PayPal “Donate” button below.

Your donation is a transaction between you and the author. The proceeds go directly to the author’s PayPal account in full less PayPal’s commission.

Facts & Arts neither receives information about you, nor of your donation, nor does Facts & Arts receive a commission.

Facts & Arts does not pay the author, nor takes paid by the author, for the posting of the author's material on Facts & Arts. Facts & Arts finances its operations by selling advertising space.

 

 

Browse articles by author

More Music Reviews

Sep 8th 2019
Extract: "David Fray looked surprisingly alert when he arrived for a 7:30 a.m. breakfast interview at a comfortable inn outside of La Roque d’Anthéron in the south of France. We had both been at a midnight dinner following his performance at the famous piano festival. I left the dinner early with a colleague but he stayed till 3:00 chatting and laughing with the violinist he had just performed with, his friend Renaud Capuçon. Their Bach sonatas and a Bach piano concerto were the highlights of the evening. Over breakfast (David ate a bowl of chocolate-flavored cereal sweetened with ample spoonfuls of Nutella) we indulged a few minutes of smalltalk, then got down to business. He responded lucidly in French to some heavy questioning. He only stumbled once, at the end, when I asked him,  “What does music really mean to you?” His reply, ”That’s a big subject for so early in the morning!” But he continued searching for the words, and he found them."
Aug 31st 2019
François-Frédéric Guy was just finishing his 20th performance at the piano festival of La Roque d’Anthéron in the south of France. The 2,200-seat outdoor amphitheater was almost full as Guy displayed his love of Beethoven –playing two of his greatest sonatas, No. 16 and No. 26 (“Les Adieux”). After intermission, Guy took his place at the Steinway grand again and rattled the audience with the stormy opening bars of the Hammerklavier sonata. It was like a thunderclap, as Beethoven intended. The audience sat up straight and listened in stunned silence. There were more surprises to come. Guy’s first encore was the little bagatelle “Letter for Elise”. A titter ran through the amphitheater. Was he joking? He looked out over the crowd and smiled back. A few bars into the piece, total silence descended once again on the crowd as Guy brought out the depth and beauty of little “Elise”. Everyone thought they knew this piece by heart. They were wrong. No one had heard it quite like this. Huge applause erupted a few seconds after the last note. Several spectators near me wiped away tears from their eyes.
Aug 3rd 2019
Combining “telepathic improvisation” plus original instrumentation, two adventurous Australian musicians have just launched a digital album of 12 new pieces brimming with sounds never quite captured before in recordings. The pianist plays two expanded keyboards simultaneously while his partner meets his ideas on an 18th century cello. The result is a marriage of the new and the old with echoes ranging from Bach to Arvo Part. 
Jul 20th 2019
Extract --- Question: What is your view of stage antics of ambitious pianists – the swoons and hair-flicks (Khatia Buniatishvili), the miniskirts and six-inch heels (Yuja Wang), the eye makeup and winks to the audience (Lang Lang)? --- Answer: It’s all show-biz. All three of those pianists, though, really CAN play (though in varying degrees of success in varying repertoire). No matter how short Yuja Wang’s vestigial swath of skirt becomes, no matter how vertiginous her high heels, she knows her way around the ivories (I especially like her Prokofiev), and I think she makes music more fun for a wide variety of listeners. If she couldn’t play, all the short skirts in Christendom couldn’t save her career. Same goes with the emoting of Buniatishvili, and, of course, most of all, the ultimate showman, Mr. Lang, the classical world’s answer to Liberace.  
Jun 9th 2019
Australian pianist Shaun Hern Lee, 16, took first prize on Saturday in the final round of the Cliburn International Junior Piano Competition following 12 days of eliminations and associated activities in Dallas, Texas.
May 25th 2019
  In a rare combination of artistic talents, pianist Jack Kohl offers seven erudite essays on great classical music compositions and his favorite readings, merging both to make an exciting volume of fresh ideas. Bone over Ivory: Essays from a Standing Pianist (Pauktaug Press, New York) puts on display Kohl’s background as a classical pianist and his lifelong obsession with Ralph Waldo Emerson. Along the way, we encounter Gershwin, Fitzgerald, Thoreau, Dickens, Beeethoven and Master Yoda of Star Wars fame, among others.
May 9th 2019
"On the day before he was to play his marathon concerts, Maestro Buchbinder sat down with me in the 'Teddy Bar' of the Grand Théâtre de Provence to discuss his love for Beethoven. He was relaxed and cheerful and spoke freely......An edited transcript of our conversation follows."
May 6th 2019
One of the more exciting piano experiences of recent years is the development of a 108-key grand piano in Australia, built by Stuart and Sons and expanded with additional octaves at bass and treble extremes. The sound is new and audiences who have witnessed it tend to erupt in standing ovations.  If you don’t live in southern Australia, you probably will not hear it in all its glory but it’s worth a detour. I have recently had the privilege of listening to a high-definition recording, at 96 KHz, to be exact, of the inaugural concert performed a few months ago. The effect of the expanded keyboard, known as the Big Beleura, is stunning to mind and body. I sat with a friend in his music room in Bordeaux, listening for an hour, flabbergasted.
Apr 16th 2019
It’s heresy to say this, I know, but the great masterpieces of the 19th century piano composed by Liszt, Schumann, Schubert and Beethoven sometimes leave me exhausted. The complex structure and concentrated emotion, the moods, the arpeggios and stunning fingerwork demand an effort to reach true appreciation.  And so when I first heard the new CD “Musiques de Silence”  -- interwoven selections of Frederico Mompou, matched with Maurice Ravel, Erik Satie, Henri Dutilleux, Frederic Chopin, Toru Takemitsu, Claude Debussy, Enrique Granados and early Alexander Scriabin – I felt a surge of relief. (Eloquentia EL1857).  The repertoire is selected and beautifully braided together by the rising young French pianist Guillaume Coppola. 
Mar 1st 2019
The lingering resonances and extreme bass and treble notes are new to the piano world and the premiere audience knew it, rising at the end for a standing ovation. This was the recent premiere of Big Beleura, a 108-key grand piano built by the prestigious Stuart and Sons firm, the only practicing piano maker left in Australia. Some say the piano world will never be the same.  "It's important," explains the designer-developer of the instrument, Wayne Stuart of Tumut, not far from Canberra, "to realize that we perceive sound not only through our ears but all of our body."  That’s how Big Beleura gets to you. 
Dec 12th 2018
The work ethic among young piano students in China shows no sign of abating as their tiny fingers fly up and down the keyboard ten or twelve hours a day. Competitions are welcoming the new Asian talent and European concert halls are filled with admiring fans.  Some of us don’t quite know what to make of it.  It’s not all about Lang Lang, Yuja Wang or Yundi Li. Potential new superstars are emerging every year. Brace yourself for more in the years ahead. Some 20 million young Chinese are said to be practicing madly as our European and American kids diddle mindlessly with their smart phones and iPads. 
Nov 28th 2018
French pianist Bertrand Chamayou [in the drawing by the author, Michael Johnson] plunges into major composers one by one, reading works by and about them, traveling to their favorite haunts, and absorbing their art almost into his blood.  As he told me in an interview, he tries to immerse himself in the era of the composition, and to think of it as “new” for its time. In the past ten years he has done this with Liszt, Ravel and Saint-Saëns. 
Sep 24th 2018
The rich culture of the proud and ancient Basque people is sadly underexposed outside their homeland, a remote bi-national region where Southwest France meets northern Spain. Their language, Euskara, is a world in a bubble with no relationship to other living languages. Most outside interest in recent decades has sprung from the sometimes-violent Basque independence movement. Basque music, however, does travel well across cultures, and is worth a detour. The French sisters Katia and Marielle Labèque, born in Bayonne, grew up with Basque melodies and lyrics in their ears. Now an established two-piano duo, their new CD (KML Recordings) Amoria” groups14 disparate pieces of Basque music they researched over several years. It is a departure from their usual classical repertoire.
Sep 11th 2018
I know several professional pianists who will admit under pressure that they find their work ultimately unsatisfying. Not because of the crowded marketplace, the dreary practice rooms, the clapped-out pianos or too many exhausting tours. No, they are tired of something more basic — the endless repetition of notes penned by someone else. True artists seek self-expression, artistic adventure. They feel the urge to “own” their work. But written music places strict limits on all but the most marginal departures from notation. Some musicians eventually realize they are mere messengers whose teachers steer them relentlessly back to the page. This may explain why so many pianists and other professional musicians also paint.
Sep 7th 2018
With a large cast, full orchestra, and incredible jazz-inflected music, “Porgy and Bess” stands alone as the one American opera that is recognized around the world. Written by George Gershwin and premiered in 1935 on Broadway, it had to wait until mid-1980s to become a standard of the operatic repertoire. The jazz idiom that Gershwin used was surely one of the reasons that “Porgy and Bess” was adopted slowly by the operatic world. But another roadblock was the story, which told about the love between a crippled beggar, Porgy, and a drug-addicted woman, Bess, who live in an impoverished African-American community in the South.
Sep 5th 2018
Frederic Chopin left detailed markings of tempo, dynamics, phrasing, pedaling, even some fingerings, for his 21 Nocturnes to guide interpreters. Yet no two versions – and there are dozens of them -- are anything like the same. The essence of playing Chopin today is deciding how far to veer, how sharply to swerve, from the master’s ideas today without losing sight of his artistic intentions. The player must ask, “When does Chopin cease to be Chopin?” Now comes the rising French pianist François Dumont with a stunning new version that sets him apart (Aevea Classics). PICTURE: Dumont by Johnson.
Sep 5th 2018
Princeton University in the United States is best known for its big thinkers, top scientists and heavyweight historians but now is embarking on a determined effort to make a splash in the arts. Princeton’s new Lewis Center of the Arts is going about it in the most American manner, with millions of dollars upfront investment and a business plan to attract young talent into its music program. Nothing is left to chance. This fall, a new crop of music students have full access to 48 freshly minted Steinway pianos, a large enough stock to attract global attention among pianophiles.
Jul 19th 2018
San Francisco Opera’s revival of its Ring Cycle got off to a rousing start with a top notch performance of “Das Rheingold” at the War Memorial Opera House on June12. The production featured outstanding performances from top to bottom by an exceptional cast and new video projections that were even better than the ones used back in 2011.......
Mar 26th 2018

Johann Sebastian Bach’s B Minor Mass, performed at Symphony Hall on Friday (March 23) and again on Sunday (March 25), was delivered in impressive Baroque style by the Handel+Haydn Society orchestra and chorus.