Search - Hélène Grimaud :: Hélène Grimaud ~ Brahms - Pieces Op118

Precise, dutiful and a little dull

John Grabowski | USA | 02/15/2004

(3 out of 5 stars)

"I returned to this CD after an absence of many years, and after about a half dozen more recordings and one incredible live performance of the work entered into my consciousness. I used to like this performance a lot, but now I find I have to temper it quite a bit. In fact, after I finish this review, I think I will head to the local used shop and sell it--how's that for tempering it? Young (and beautiful) Helene Grimaud plays with great attention to detail, bordering on fussiness, but somehow it feels too dutiful. I don't feel as though she has her own voice in these works, especailly in Brahms' deep, subdued Op. 118. It's interesting how such a young person seems to gravitate towards the more "interior" works of Brahms and Beethoven--the late piano music of Brahms, Op. 58 and 109 of Beethoven. Yet despite her earnestness, she has not yet impressed me with a natural affinity for this music. The dynamics, coloring (what little their is) and phrasing all seem calculated ahead of time rather than originating from deep feelings within. I miss the emotional logic and phrasing that connects ideas in these works. It's almost as if the voice in her head says "You've reached measure 24, slow down...you've reached measure 30, softer here." Her technical control is commendable in this difficult music (that paradoxically has to sound simple and easy), but the heart is missing.(I know Grimaud made a second recording of the Op. 118, as well as much of the rest of Brahms' late piano works, just a few years after these early recordings. I remember not being jazzed by them either, but having grown with the works over the years, I'd had to see what I think of them today.)Maybe I'm wrong about Grimaud and this is subjective. But I really have tried hard to be swept away, as this CD is among the best *sounding* recordings I have of these works. But she's performing in a hyper-competitive field, and she's going to be graded with the best of them. Who are the best of them, in my opinion? Anatol Ugorski bangs up a passionate (yet always crystalline) storm on the third sonata, and Katchen is wonderful. Kovacevich performs a compelling and engrossing Op, 118; depite taking some of the movements at very brisk tempi he conveys a good deal of the emotion. I can only wonder what he could have achieved if he'd taken a little more time with some of it. Katchen here is also very fine; despite being highly regarded, I wasn't deeply moved by Kempff, but maybe I need to listen more. The most amazing performance I have ever herad of Op. 118, however, and one that made me want to consign all my CDs to the fire place, was a live reading by Krystian Zimerman in Berkeley last year. The entire concert was an event that will be remembered for years (and it had better be, since Zimerman doesn't perform much and travels even less), with the pianist showing relationships between the individual pieces I'd never heard brought out before. Between then and now I listened to no Op. 118 performances, because I knew nothing would compare. I only hope Zimerman comes out with a CD soon--from one of his live recitals, preferably. Until then, I can't really recommend one definitive Op. 118 *or* Third Sonata."

A sweeping Brahms Third Sonata from the gifted young Grimaud

Santa Fe Listener | Santa Fe, NM USA | 01/30/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Helene Grimaud's playing is so charismatic and arresting that I'm happy to protect the lady's honor from the grouchy lead reviewer. Aided by Denon's ravishing piano sound -- almost worth the price of the CD -- Grimaud's account of Brahms's huge Sonata #3 sweeps one away with its abundant energy and authority. This is a very discursive work. Player and listener alike can easily get lost in its byways, so it's rare to find total mastery outside a few famous recordings. Grimaud manages to avoid empty rhetoric; she never pounds; the soundscape she creates is grandly symphonic but with personal, spontaneous phrasing. To possess these virtues at such a young age is phenomenal. I like her early style better, in fact, than her current one, which tends to be tough and at times quite arbitrary in its phrasing.



The six short pieces of Op. 118 are often intimate, melancholy, and self-reflective. The young Glenn Gould made an indelible impression in this repertoire, which is often quite elusive, as so much of late Brahms tends to be. The G minor Ballade is the showpiece of the group, with its passionate outcry followed by a tender Chopinesque melody. The inner stirrings of the four Intermezzos also recall Chopin in their improvisatory moments. Here Grimaud is poised and artful. It's hard to believe that she's not an experienced artist, and altogether we get very appealing readings that, in the end, aren't as memorable as the sonata. That performance gave me a high regard for a pianist whom I haven't always enjoyed."