Mar 8th 2020

When Granados meets Scarlatti, musical sparks fly

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.

 

It was a strange and beautiful alchemy that brought Domenico Scarlatti and Enrique Granados together in the mind of pianist Jean-François Dichamp a few years ago. In our interview (below) he recalls strolling along the boulevards of Barcelona one evening humming Granados’ music when a Scarlatti sonata took over. In a flash, he realized how much they had in common.

Building on that experience, Dichamp has produced a fascinating “opera for piano” suite linking specific Granados pieces to Scarlatti sonatas where he found echoes and resonances.  He has captured the beauty of both in his new CD “Granados Goyescas” (Goya by Granados), from the Brilliant Classics label. The Granados pieces are each inspired by a Goya painting.

Both composers, Dichamp writes in his excellent historical liner notes, produced an oeuvre of “refinement and elegance”. To me, the connections of Spanish tradition, contrasted to Scarlatti’s 18th baroque style, make musical sparks fly. Dichamp’s keyboard touch is masterly, covering the full range required by these two opposites – the rich, blinding Iberian colors of Granados and the somewhat arid feel of Scarlatti’s harpsichord creations.

 

Excerpts from the CD are available here:

 

 

Although the two composers were from separate musical cultures, the Italian Scarlatti was not entirely alien to Spain. Indeed, he composed his 555 sonatas while living in Portugal and Spain and he studied flamenco in Seville. Eventually he became musician to the Royal Court in Madrid.

I met Jean-François at the Barcelona School of Music (Escola Superior de Musica de Catalunya) a few weeks ago where he teaches piano. Our conversation began informally and we followed up with a more formal interview by email. An edited account of our verbatim transcript follows:

 

 

MJ Dicamp
Jean-François Dichamp by the author Michael Johnson

Question. When did you have the idea of matching up Scarlatti and Granados ?  Was this a long-term interest or was it a flash of lightning?

Answer. It was an accident. When I started to learn the Goyescas, I recall that during a walk in town I was humming a phrase from “Fandango de Candil”. And a few seconds later, unconsciously, I found myself singing Scarlatti’s sonata in D minor, K 141. I have no idea why these two themes came to me, but they did. Maybe it was because of the very Spanish character of the Scarlatti sonata. It had been in my repertoire for several years and now I realized these two pieces could be played together, with Scarlatti pieces between the Goyescas. I read all the background I could find, and listened to many recordings.

 

Q. What were you looking for in the Scarlatti works?

A. Sonatas that reflect a dancing quality, a refined elegance. I needed pieces that I loved passionately because my idea was to create a marvelous imaginary journey to the Court of Madrid during the Golden Era. And so I discovered Scarlatti’s sonata in G minor K. 8, a slow, funereal sarabande. It fit perfectly, programmed after the ballade “El Amor y la Muerte”.

 

Q. It seems you wanted to create a feeling of opera?

A. Yes, I realized that incorporating these little Scarlatti marvels into the Granados cycle, I was getting closer to the idea of an opera that developed in Granados’ time – a grand theatrical work and after each act an intermezzo from another era, not so far removed from the spirit of the Goya characters that Granados intended. We can even surmise that in the salons of the time, the Scarlatti sonatas were included in programs.

 

Q. You have a Paris background. What do you bring to Granados to ensure Spanish flavor? Delicacy? Momentum? Singing and dancing undertones? Rubato?

A. First, I am profoundly European. I have tried to apply the “French touch” to the Granados style. I have found in his work a great deal of influence from the 19th century masters.  In “Los Requiebros”, for example, I hear echoes of Schumann’s “Carnaval”. In "Coloquio en la Reja" et "El Amor y la Muerte" there are the chromatic passages and something of Wagner’s intensity, or sometimes even Franck. I attempt to bring a delicacy of touch but also an illumination of tone. I seek a “sunny” but also refined pianism – Romantic outbursts but also retention and the nobility of a pasodoble (two-step dance). One finds this fascinating duality in Spanish dance in which a partner seems to say, “Take me, but don’t touch me.”

 

Q. You first trained as a dancer.  Was that an important first step for you in the arts?

 

A. I studied classical dance from the age of 7 to 12. I loved the dance. I had already played the piano in public but the magic of dancing onstage was something completely different. I had to stop my ballet lessons in order to accept the Mozart role – I had to make a choice. I remember crying a lot when I had to give up dance. This worried my parents. I cried a great deal when I was a child, not from sadness but because I had an emotional nature.

 

'Q. How did dance affect your piano style?

A. Dance training helped me enormously in my piano work, to keep a certain suppleness and flexibility. When I play “Goyescas”, for example, I think of my ballet scenes, my movements of arms and legs, always seeking that supple quality.

 

Q.  Why is this superb Granados music so rarely performed ?

A. The Goyescas cycle in its entirety can sometimes intimidate a musician in recital, and the public might find it overly intense and not sufficiently varied. These pieces are rather improvisational in style and there is always the chance of getting lost. It’s very difficult to memorize. Themes appear, are transformed, and reappear in different form. Of the pianists who have recorded the suite, very few have run the risk of playing them in concert. 

 

Q. What are your favorite recordings of the Goyescas?

A. Alicia de Larrocha et Nikita Magaloff did them magnificently, including in recital. Their versions are my favorites. I remember as a young student working with Magaloff on a Schubert piece when, at the end of our lesson, he sat down and played “Los Requiebros”. It was magic. I still have a vivid memory of that experience.

 

Q.  You indicate in your notes that you have done other pairings with unrelated composers.

A. True, I like to create connections between composers from different eras, to show the parallels. And I ask the audience to hold their applause until the end. I have always felt that one hears a work differently when comparing it to the music that precedes it. It’s a way of inviting the audience to seek and find the esthetic connections. And they are more frequent than one might think.

 

Q. What other pairings have you discovered?

A. I sometimes play a program that compares Rameau and Chopin, or another that matches Couperin and Schumann. Presently I am at work on another one using the Chopin Polonaises and a “mysterious” work by Scriabin. I’ll say no more at this point except to add that it might be the subject of a future CD.

 

Q. You have been known earlier in your career for your Chopin and Liszt.  Are you in an Iberian phase of your repertoire expansion now?

A. Not really. I am a passionate admirer of the Romantic repertoire for piano, and Las Goyescas is a great romantic cycle. The themes, the character, the lyricism, the fevered bursts, the harmonies, the writing --- everything is Romantic in this work. Albéniz and Falla sought the very essence of the Spanish soul, but Granados turned his attention to the past, the splendid heritage of the 19th century.

 

Q. You spent four years under the direction of Maria Curcio in London. What did you learn from her?

A. I lived four years in London for my studies with Maria Curcio and I continued working with her for several years afterward. What I learned from her was that music, for her, was a source of light, and she projected this light around her. I remember that in our lessons she would demonstrate a passage on the piano and at the end would raise her head and, with a marvelous smile, would say, “How beautiful that is.” Her face was illuminated with pleasure and by the beauty of the music. And she had the power to transmit these feelings magnificently.

 

 

Q. Was she a tough, no-nonsense teacher, like so many seem to be

A. Well, she was quite demanding behind that smile. She insisted on adopting a composer’s style – the Chopin tone, or the Mozart tone. Emotional commitment was also at the basis of her teaching. She would devote a lot of time to a student, sometimes several hours in a row. I don’t think teachers like Maria exist any more. Today, everything must be accomplished very fast.

 

 

Q. You played the young Mozart in a celebrated French TV series some years ago. How were you selected for the role and what did you learn from the experience?

A. I was 12 years old when a school friend showed me an ad in a newspaper calling for applications to play the role of Mozart in a television film directed by Marcel Bluwal. He wanted applications of 8 and 12 years who could play the piano. We had to send in a photo and a CV. At the age of 12, you can imagine the CV! I played part of the Mozart Concerto No. 23, which I had been working on, and he said to my mother he liked the way I sat at the piano. The next day we were surprised that he called us and asked me to come back and read for the part, a serious scene and a light one. When he finished, he gave me a kiss and said, “I have my Mozart !” The adventure began, and what an adventure ! The shooting continued over several months in France, Hungary, Austria and Italy alongside such great cinema artists as Michel Bouquet and Jean-Claude Brialy.

 

 

Q. Where did your acting career go from there?

 

A. There were no interesting offers for more cinema, and as I grew up I was no longer the little Mozart. Soon after, I entered the Paris Conservatory for serious piano study. Something new had begun.

 

 

Q. What is your impression of young players in general? Has the level of playing evolved over the past ten years or so? We hear so much dark speculation about declining enthusiasm for piano studies among the young.

A. My impression is that today’s young musicians are a reflection of society in general. Everyone wants to go very fast because it’s possible to do that now. I remember as a student that when I wanted a particular recording I would go to a record shop, perhaps order it specially and wait several weeks for it to arrive. But this waiting period was also part of the pleasure, and when the record arrived it was a big event! Today there is no waiting. Everything is just a click away. Is the pleasure the same? I don’t think so.

 

 

Q. What has been the effect on young people’s psychology?

A. I would say that in the young musician there is a sense of disillusionment – that great pleasure is unattainable. Of course each student is different in his or her enthusiasms but one thing is clear – learning to interpret music demands a lot of time and maturity. It seems the new generations are not prepared for this kind of patience.

 

END

 


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 11th 2022
EXTRACT: "When I try to understand my life as a critic in the dazzling world of piano music, I am at a loss. We have inherited so much over 300 years that I feel overwhelmed. There is no obvious focal point. What is at the heart of piano world? -- Personally I could not make it through the day without the stimulation of piano performance. My home resounds with music all my waking hours, constantly renewed from the thousand-odd CDs I have accumulated." ----- Picture: The author, Michael Johnson.
Jun 21st 2022
EXTRACT: "This novel is nothing short of a Tolstoian epic.   Author Lawson, a true polymath, is up to the task. He is an accomplished pianist and composer, retired archdeacon of the Church of England and author of some 14 books." ---- "Rounding out his career, Lawson is also a trained psychotherapist who has worked with several pianists, including child prodigies." ----- "I know of no other writer who can draw on such a varied and pertinent background and weave them into a single tale."
Dec 18th 2021
EXTRACT: "......, I read all the time in Russian, French and English. Right now I’m finishing the new book of my favorite Russian author Ludmila Ulitzkaya. Of course, I have read most of classics to Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Bulgakov, Pushkin, Akhmatova. I think it’s important to read Russian literature to understand Russian music, to understand the suffering and the spirituality of the characters of Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and Bulgakov in order to feel the depth of Rachmaninov’s music. I also read a lot in French and English. For me, it’s important to go from contemporary writers to the classics and back."
Dec 9th 2021
EXTRACT: Q: "Your new CD is a turning point. Why is it so important to you?" ----- "A: It is all Brahms. I really wanted to do it this way. It is very important to me because it is my first solo CD. I’ve been spending a lot of my time working on Brahms, especially the Brahms Paganini Variations and the Handel Variations. I almost grew up with them. "
Dec 3rd 2021
EXTRACT: "A musical theatre legend has died. Stephen Sondheim, the greatest composer-lyricist of his generation, passed away on November 26 at the age of 91. His dramatic genius combined a rare blend of elements, that of an astonishingly versatile and sophisticated composer, and an incredibly witty wordsmith. His extraordinary output includes a staggering 16 musicals as composer and lyricist, a further three as lyricist alone, as well as four musical revues featuring compilations of hit songs from his shows."
Nov 27th 2021
EXTRACT: "Most important  to him, he explained, is maintaining his individuality in interpretation. He feels it was a mistake in his past to pick and choose bits from different teachers and combine them into a finished performance. He has decided to create his own perspective, and 'go for it'."
Oct 28th 2021
EXTRACTS: "The 16th International Beethoven Piano Competition came to a rousing climax in Vienna on 21 October with first prizewinner Aris Alexander Blettenberg’s lyrical rendering of the Beethoven Piano Concerto No 1." ---- "The other two finalists, Austrian Philipp Scheucher and South Korean Dasol Kim, played Beethoven’s Fourth and Fifth Concertos respectively."
Sep 21st 2021
EXTRACT: "Top prize, worth 22,000 euros, went to Jae Hong Park, a flamboyant, emotive player with and a firm grasp of Rachmaninov, and second prize went to Do-Hyun Kim, who played Prokofiev’s second concerto with some considerable verve. Placing third was Lukas Sternath, a young Austrian who performed Beethoven’s Fifth Piano Concerto with cool charm -- the opposite of Park’s style."
Jul 9th 2021
EXTRACT: " .....I have to give everything in these concerts,.... "
Jun 26th 2021
EXTRACT: What do you want to be known as? --- As “Stewart Goodyear, composer and pianist”.
Mar 15th 2021
EXTRACT: Denis Pascal, founder of the French Trio Pascal: ".....recording studios began working again. We recorded our Schubert trios at the end of September. And musicians everywhere are finding that the crisis allows time for a certain introspection and questioning into the way music is performed. Music will play a much more important role after the crisis."
Feb 12th 2021
EXTRACTS: "She began her piano training rather late in life – age 8." ..... "I want to contribute a sense of joy by discovering atypical works that might surprise an educated public. I have great experience and am inclined to share them with anyone who can appreciate them, or as André Gide wrote, anyone “who has an open mind”."
Jan 31st 2021
EXTRACTS: "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 .... 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.” "
Jan 16th 2021
EXTRACT: "Jack Kohl is an American pianist and writer with three novels and two essay collections to his credit. His new collection, From the Windows of Diligence: Essays from a Standing Pianist, has drawn critical acclaim in the U.S. and Europe. In these reflections, he examines the power of ‘hack pianism’, the metaphor of running vs. the piano, and the ‘hidden gift’ of the Covid virus pandemic on solitary practicing. Robert Beattie spoke to Kohl about his music training and how he made the transition from pianist to author. (This edited interview was first published on www.Seenandheard-international.com and is reproduced with permission.)"
Dec 17th 2020
EXTRACT: "Freedom in Beethoven’s music takes many, frequently overlapping forms. There is heroic freedom in the Eroica (1803), freedom from political oppression in the Egmont Overture (1810), artistic freedom and innovation in the Ninth Symphony (1824). Today, Beethoven’s music remains deeply connected with a true humanism, which has the principles of freedom and self-determination at its heart. The composer’s music grew out of the age of European Enlightenment, which located human reason and the self at the centre of knowledge......"
Nov 27th 2020
EXTRACT: "One of the most durable tales in Western civilization – the legend of Faust – is brilliantly rendered in a piano adaptation, performed this week by the multi-talented Australian musician of German/Slovenian parentage, Ashley Hribar. A new recording of the music, now available digitally, will appear as a CD in the New Year. Hribar calls his recording, “Faust: A Mortal’s Tale”.  It is a personal musical reflection on the Faust story, loosely based on the 1926 silent film by Wilhelm Friedrich Murnau."
Aug 6th 2020
EXTRACT: "For 60 minutes, my mind was clear, the air was clean and the sound heavenly. It was my honor and privilege to have been there."
Jul 25th 2020
EXTRACT: "Scarlatti sonatas are enjoying a popular surge in recent years, tempting pianists –Europeans, Americans, Asians -- to try to master their broad range. Margherita has some advice: “Don’t be afraid to slow down, to speed up, to play the truly singable melodies with a quasi-Romantic feeling.” "
Jul 18th 2020
EXTRACT: "The dizzying output of John Cage the musician, the poet, the writer, the thinker, the artist, was so prolific that one of his sidelines – his interests in wild mushrooms -- has been almost overlooked. A new a two-volume set of books, beautifully designed by Capucine Labarthe, packaged in an elegant slipcover, seeks to fill this gap."