MIKHAÏL PLETNEV
A multifaceted artist — conductor, pianist, and brilliant arranger — Mikhaïl Pletnev offers a recital of great intensity featuring Schumann’s Kreisleriana, rarely heard pieces by Grieg, and, to open the program, four of Bach’s Preludes and Fugues, of which he is today one of the most fascinating interpreters.
Programme
JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH (1685-1750)
Prelude and Fugue in D major BWV 874
Prelude and Fugue in G minor BWV 861
Prelude and Fugue in G major BWV 884
Prelude and Fugue in B-flat minor BWV 867
ROBERT SCHUMANN (1810-1856)
Kreisleriana Op. 16
Interval
EDVARD GRIEG (1843-1907)
Lyric Pieces, Excerpts
Mikhaïl Pletnev plays Chopin: Nocturne No. 14 in F sharp minor, Op. 48 No. 2 at Verbier Festival
Over a period of almost forty years, Edvard Grieg composed some sixty pieces for piano, borrowing from the worlds of opera, popular song and fantasy. Like Bartók’s ‘Mikrokosmos’, some of these pieces are classics for young pianists, such as the famous ‘March of the Trolls’. Others, such as ‘Arietta’, have entered the collective imagination through the subtle balance they strike between playful naivety and muted nostalgia.
In this, Grieg builds a bridge with Schumann, who also had a taste for melancholy. But the pieces of his ‘Kreisleriana’ cycle have a similar structure in two contrasting parts, like the character in Hoffmann’s novels to which the composer refers.
To complete the programme, Mikhaïl Pletnev chose four of the most complex ‘Preludes and Fugues’, such as the G minor, which unfolds in the ancient rhythm of the anapest. This is an opportunity for Mikhaïl Pletnev to demonstrate his knowledge of sound planes, as he has become a specialist in revealing an entire orchestra in the palm of his hands.