Salzburg Festival (4) - Stefanovich, Lečić, Widmann, SWR: Debussy, Boulez, and Stravinsky, 20 August 2025

Grosser Saal, Mozarteum

Debussy, arr. Bavouzet: Jeux. Poème dansé
Boulez: Dialogue de l’ombre double
Stravinsky: Concerto for two pianos
Boulez: Piano Sonata no.2

Tamara Stefanovich, Nenad Lečić (pianos)

Jörg Widmann (clarinet)

SWR Experimentalstudio

Michael Acker, Maurice Oeser (sound direction)

Images: © SF/Marco Borrelli

The most radical of Debussy’s orchestral works, perhaps the most radical of all Debussy’s works, Jeux held a special place in Boulez’s conducting repertory. He even served as Myriam Chimènes’s co-editor for this instalment in the critical edition, incorporating several of the revisions Debussy made following the 1913 premiere. Jean-Efflam Bavouzet’s transcription for two pianos, published in 2005 and taking up the memory of a lost version Debussy mentioned in a letter to his publisher, was given here with further modifications from the performers, Tamara Stefanovich and Nenad Lečić. One piano (Lečić), then the other, then two pianos, quickly dissolving into the sound of one, equally swift in sonic reinstatement as two: this brought different, at least equal challenges to the performers as the magically elusive orchestral score. At times, pitch seemed to gain a certain priority among parameters (as Boulez’s generation would know them) but other substitutes, complements, and contrasts vied for position too, not least the fascinating distinction between piano touch and orchestral timbre. It flickered in different ways, inevitably sounding closer to the piano works, both solo and En blanc et noir, in some ways akin to a continuous suite of études. The narrative was there too, though, both in detail and mood, often insouciant, sometimes languorous, infinitely malleable, always unhurried, yet precise and directed (if neither in a Boulezian nor a Beethovenian way). Seemingly as overflowing with melody as a work by Schoenberg, the piece and its harmonies could barely have registered more irresistibly in a performance both responsive and responsorial (to borrow from the Boulezian future). Sly, ineffable seduction led to a nonchalant closing shrug as perfectly prepared as it was delivered. 

Dialogue de l’ombre double was dedicated to Berio for his 60^th birthday, coinciding precisely with that of Boulez, in 1985, thus neatly combining this year’s two great musical centenaries. Although the most recent performance will well-nigh inevitably stand freshest in one’s mind, I think I can safely say I have never heard a better performance than that from Jörg Widmann, doubling with his recorded self, courtesy of Michael Acker and Maurice Oeser of the SWR Experimentalstudio (another important Boulez link). In some ways – it can probably only ever be some – it may also have been the most faithful to Boulez’s conception, originating in Paul Claudel’s Le Soulier de satin in which a double shadow of the central pair Rodrigue and Prouhèze is projected onto a wall, yet surely also inspired by Antonin Artaud’s idea of the glimpse of uncorrupted reality afforded by theatre’s ‘double’, and indeed to the ‘double’ variation form of the French eighteenth century, as well. as the doubling and shadowing in the relationships of work/composer and performance/performer characteristic of all notated music. All were certainly present, from the lighting that created Widmann’s silhouette on the wall to the continuation of Jeux’s responsorial two-piano elements with new means, transforming in the hall around us, more than hinting at the work’s relationship to Boulez’s own Répons. There were surprises too, such as the plunge into darkness at the beginning, the first notes we heard being the double rather than Widmann, who must have come onstage during those magical first arabesques. Perhaps one could see him, perhaps not; my mind’s eye and ear where rightly elsewhere. Unending melody, punctuated and structured in highly visible as well as audible form, created a form of music theatre that yet remained above all music. 

Stefanovich and Lečić returned to the stage after the interval for another outstanding two-piano performance, this time of Stravinsky’s Concerto for two pianos: not the most Boulez-friendly Stravinsky, and thus arguably all the more welcome in this context. Scènes de ballet might have been provocative; this, the more one listened, was thoughtful and productive, complementing as well as contrasting, whatever the two composers might have thought (or said). It would make a fascinating companion piece to Structures one day, perhaps alongside Stockhausen’s Mantra—Mozart or Schubert too. Its quietly ferocious regularity – ‘who me? igniting a debate?’ – made for an opening contrast of equal intelligence and beauty, not least in the chiaroscuro of this performance. The first movement’s surprising yet undeniable approaches to Shostakovich registered with startling clarity, and then Stravinsky pulled another rabbit out of the hat, then another… Much could be learned – in my case, was – from simple observance of the pianists’ body language and again that responsorial quality. The hollowed-out quality of Stravinsky’s tonality shone keenly, even brazenly in the second movement. At the same time, so did its undeniably ‘Russian’ roots, for instance in Petrushka. The final two movements, increasingly involved, offered ever more radical complement and development the more closely one listened. There was play too, of course, categories slyly undermined as soon as they were established. Perhaps this was not so distant from Boulez, even from his Second Piano Sonata, as we might have imagined. 

Thus to Stefanovich’s thrilling, astounding climax. I have heard fine performances of this work but none finer. Indeed, I think it may well have been the most all-encompassing, red in tooth and claw, white in heat, and both desolate and bracing in numerous aftershocks, I have heard, whether live or on record. The work’s beauty and violence were dialectically present from the opening of the first movement. How Stefanovich had the piano yield, melodically and still more harmonically, brought a surprising yet welcome touch of Brahms (perhaps via the unstable ‘model’ of Beethoven). Phrasing too was just as crucial—and revealing, every bit as much so as in Mozart or Beethoven. Artaud was more palpably, viscerally to the fore than in the Dialogue: ‘organised delirium’ (the title both for Caroline Potter’s recent study for Boydell and for Stefanovich’s still newer Pentatone CD tribute: grab both!) As Messiaen recalled his young pupil, ‘like a lion that had been flayed alive’, so not only was the work, not only was the performance, but so were we in audience response. There was a quasi-religious fervour to a fire that also signalled Beethovenian concision (the Fifth Symphony’s first movement, for instance). It was over before we knew, yet remained with us. 

If the first movement in some sense prepared us for the second – the first moment of aftershock – it also could not, given the new paths taken. Given the enormous challenges of communication, Stefanovich’s command of line proved close to incredible. It built on unerring power and a sense of ‘rightness’, that it could not be otherwise. Doubtless it could be; there are always alternatives. In the moment, though, one should (generally) feel otherwise. The third movement, unsurprisingly given its earlier origin, connected most obviously with Boulez’s earlier piano music, yet only as a starting point. Once again, the clarity and direction of what we heard, work and performance, was striking. Reconstruction and annihilation on seemingly endless, yet soon ended, repeat were the hallmark of the fourth movement, at least its beginning, all at once—and yet with Mozartian clarity. Ever transforming, ever bewitching, it stretched mind and ears, inviting them to repay the compliment. It scalded, it froze, liquid extremes imparting simultaneous life and death. The final, undeniable aftershock offered, if not peace, then a sense of human spirit in varied abundance.

 

Bavouzet/Shishkin: Debussy, Liszt, Bartók, and Ravel, 13 January 2022

Wigmore Hall

Debussy, arr. Ravel and Kocsis: Nocturnes
Liszt: Concerto pathétique, S 258
Bartók, arr. Kocsis: Two Pictures, op.10
Ravel: La Valse

Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, Dmitry Shishkin (pianos).

A difficult choice, this: Jean-Efflam Bavouzet and Dmitry Shishkin in a fascinating programme of two-piano music at the Wigmore Hall, or Lise Davidsen and Leif Ove Andsnes in Grieg, Strauss, and Wagner at the Barbican. It is difficult to imagine those attending the latter having been disappointed; at any rate, having tossed a coin in favour of the former, I was not. 

First, we heard Debussy’s Nocturnes. I honestly would never have guessed the opening of ‘Nuages’ had not been written for two pianos, rather than transcribed by Ravel, had I not known: testament, surely, both to arrangement and performance. (I am not sure we need worry in this context about differences of meaning between ‘transcription’ and ‘arrangement’.) We heard a wonderful freedom within metre. Darkness of ambiguity seemed, if anything, enhanced by the sound of two Yamahas rather than orchestra. Dynamics, tempo, balance, shaping: all convinced and had one think they could not have been improved on. ‘Fêtes’ sounded more different from the original, more ‘transcribed’, but that was surely the nature of the material, rendered into piano monochrome. It was a sharp, lively performance, occasionally percussive, having me think at times of Bartók. ‘Sirènes’, which Ravel also transcribed but which he admitted to having found especially difficult, was here given in a transcription by Zoltán Kocsis. I did not realise this until afterwards, but I admit to having first found the arrangement sound closest to Ravel himself (so much for my ears!) and thereafter the most enigmatic of all, which is doubtless as it should have been. In performance, there was languor enough, though it always sounded directed. 

The genesis of what we heard from Debussy, Ravel, and Kocsis was not entirely straightforward. Essentially, Ravel transcribed ‘Sirènes’ first, to accompany the first two movements, as already transcribed by Raoul Bardac. Then, eight years later, Ravel added his own versions of ‘Nuages’ and ‘Fêtes’, whilst Kocsis’s ‘Sirènes’ dates from seven decades later. However, Liszt’s Concerto pathétique is arguably more complicated (not atypical, for a composer who tended to move on quickly, creating multiple versions, rather than chiselling away at a single work). At any rate, having passed through two solo piano workings of this material, the latter far closer to the two piano version than the first, Liszt rightly settled on two pianos as offering the superior medium for the concerto contrasts of this material. Such was clear from the grand, even grandiloquent, virtuosic opening dialogue; but it was also readily apparent in melting towards more tender sounds. The sheer weight of sound impressed at times, though even then it was never monolithic. Bavouzet and Shishkin imparted a strong sense that Liszt’s music might readily have been orchestrated, but also kept one happy that it had not. It sang too, as only Liszt can. If the roulades sometimes stand on the edge of absurdity when heard for two pianos, they were despatched with conviction, glitter, and crucially, heart. Sometimes, it was difficult to credit that there were only two pianists at work. From a pianistic standpoint, this was little short of stupendous, Liszt’s rhetoric harnessed and sublimated. 

Bartók himself arranged his Two Pictures, op.10, for solo piano. Kocsis extended the idea to two pianos. It was quite a revelation to hear: imaginative and faithful, above all pianistic. ‘In Full Flower’, the first picture, sounded, just as much as in orchestral guise, as though it were well on the way to Bluebeard’s Castle, in a performance of sad nobility. Both muscular and tender, often both, it did Bartók and Kocsis proud. ‘Village Dance’ was thrillingly responsive—and responsorial. This performance captured to a tee so many facets, melodic, harmonic, metrical, and more, of Bartók’s style and meaning. Lisztian and other inheritances were refracted, remoulded, even bent to new ends. ‘New wine demands new bottles,’ as Liszt once put it.

La Valse rumbles in a different yet no less ‘authentic’ way in its two-piano version. It was fascinating to hear that opening in the aural light of Bartók. Bavouzet and Shishkin conveyed with relish Ravel’s inflections of Viennese lilt, not necessarily as one would expect with an orchestra, but on their pianos’ own terms. Perhaps there was greater extremity here; there were certainly different sounds and implications. And what a feast, again, of pianism. As an encore, we heard Ravel’s early Sites auriculaires in two short movements. A slinky ‘Habanera’ prefaced a barnstorming ‘Entre cloches,’ its spatial qualities splendidly realised.

Bavouzet - Haydn, Schumann, Boulez, Ravel, and Prokofiev, 10 Feburary 2019

Wigmore Hall

Haydn: Piano Sonata in E-flat major no.49, Hob. XVI/49

Schumann: Piano Sonata no.3 in F minor, op.14

Boulez: Twelve Notations

Ravel: Jeux d’eau; Miroirs: ‘Une barque sur l’océan’ and ‘Alborada del gracioso’

Prokofiev: Piano Sonata no.3 in A minor, op.28

Jean-Efflam Bavouzet (piano)

Any half-decent performance including works by Haydn and Boulez will prove a success. This Wigmore Hall recital from Jean-Efflam Bavouzet was no exception and was rather more than half-decent. If I am unsure that I discerned a guiding thread in the programming, the ear and mind in any case always make their own connections; mine certainly did so here.

Haydn’s late-ish (1790) E-flat major Sonata, Hob. XVI/49 (not to be confused with that of four years later) retained some of the composer’s early quirkiness under Bavouzet’s hands: not in a self-conscious way, but seemingly through letting notes, phrases, paragraphs speak for themselves. (That may be an illusion, but more often than not, it is a necessary illusion.) A fastish yet flexible tempo for the first movement probably helped in that respect; this was a living, breathing performance, not Haydn as a classical or classicising monument. The first repeat – Bavouzet took both – was anything but a mere ‘repeat’; reinvented in the light of experience, the music sounded closer to a first development. The counterpoint of the development proper spoke clearly, beautifully of Haydn’s recent interest in Bach – until, of course, the writing changed. Whatever the discontinuities, they were, as in Beethoven (and Bavouzet’s Beethoven) predicated on and communicated with a sense of underlying continuity. One experienced rather than simply heard – or knew – different elements of construction, above all motivic. A grand, passionate, not un-Beethovenian Adagio e cantabile followed: Romantic without anachronism, close to Beethoven because Beethoven stands so close to Haydn. Bavouzet showed himself equally alert to the vocalism of the right hand part and to what ensures that this is unquestionably keyboard music. The third and final movement was boldly sculpted, anticipations of Schubert relished without exaggeration. Again, whatever the illusions and delusions of the claim, the sense was of Haydn’s score speaking for itself – quite without pedantry, very much in the moment.

There was, by contrast, rightly an element of Romantic classicism to Bavouzet’s Schumann sonata (mostly given in its 1853 revision, but with a few elements retained from the first, 1836 edition). The sound – not just the Yamaha’s sonority, but harmony, attack, everything that combines in our eyes and ears – was indefinably Schumann’s from the outset: a very different world from Haydn’s, even if not so distant chronologically. How much changed so quickly during this time! The first movement, as elsewhere, showed no want of flexibility, but structure sounded more given – a nineteenth-century ‘received’ sonata form – than created. Such was the challenge of writing in such forms after Beethoven – or, for that matter, Haydn. Technical virtuosity required was of a different order too, not that that was any problem for Bavouzet. In the scherzo, rhythms were nicely sprung, vehicles of harmonic motion that rightly placed us somewhere between Mendelssohn and Brahms. This may not present Schumann at his most fantastical, but there was still a keen element of that quality: winning and highly convincing, in a work often thought problematical. The third movement variations flowed like a wayward, yet ultimately directed river, their transformations surprising yet never arbitrary. Of all four movements, the finale stands most clearly in the line of the original publication title (in three-movement form), ‘Concert sans orchestre’. It certainly sounded so here; indeed, one might have been forgiven for suspecting three hands at work, two for orchestra, another – or should that be another two? – for solo instrument. Once more, virtuosity unleashed a flow of unmistakeably Romantic poetry.

After the interval came Notations, treated to a spoken introduction by the pianist, who had worked with Boulez both on this work and others. (I recall hearing him give three of these twelve-by-twelve jewels as an encore to the three final Beethoven sonatas, shortly after Boulez’s death in January 2016.) An impression of thinking and rethinking, of taking no mere ‘tradition’ for granted – very much, be it noted, in Boulez’s own line, or day I say, tradition – was once again present. The first piece was full of contrast, yet perhaps warmer than expected; the second and other toccata-like pieces dazzled with all the éclat one could imagine – and then some. Bavouzet clearly relished Boulez’s craftsmanship and pent-up, post-expressionist emotion alike. For there was inwardness too, as in the third and fifth pieces; in the former, I even cast an aural glance back to the Bachian counterpoint of the Haydn first movement, heard as if through a Debussyan gauze. Number play was vividly communicated; so too was a highly-developed – even at this age – sense of instrumental theatre, especially at the close.

Three pieces by Ravel followed. The opening figures of Jeux d’eaux seemed to emerge, even if they did not, from Boulez. Voicing was exquisite yet purposeful – never a mere diversion in itself – both here and in the two pieces from Miroirs. ‘Une barque sur l’océan’ sounded related to the former piece, yet whereas in that, we were the beholders of a static scene, the water glistening according to the sun, now one sensed movement – of that boat – upon the waters. Post-Lisztian virtuosity effected a volatility subtler than that required for Gaspard de la nuit, yet no less for that. ‘Alborada del gracioso’ was taken quite without indulgence, its hauteur suggestive of the lands south of the Basque country, whatever the provenance of composer and pianist. It was precise, yes, but meaning lay in that precision and in its unspoken connections and connotations.

Integrative and disintegrative qualities were held in equal account in the closing performance of Prokofiev’s Third Piano Sonata. In context, it sounded as if risen from the ashes of the music heard earlier in the evening as much as from Liszt and Scriabin, though their presence was also undeniable. Diabolicism suggested the Fiery Angel to come. Side-slipping melodies rose from the material when least expected, yet with an inevitability in retrospect that brooked no dissent to their often surprisingly ‘white’, diatonic twists and turns. Virtuosity was again a necessity as starting point, but only as that. Here was to be experienced a stream of consciousness in the proper, modernist sense, inexplicably (as yet) coherent.

Bavouzet - Beethoven, 26 January 2016

St John’s, Smith Square

Piano Sonata no.30 in E major, op.109

Piano Sonata no.31 in A-flat major, op.110
Piano Sonata no.32 in C minor, op.111

Jean-Efflam Bavouzet (piano)

 

A performance of Beethoven’s final three piano sonatas that was not in some way special would be a very peculiar thing indeed. That was not, I am pleased to say, the case in this instalment of the Southbank Centre’s International Piano Series, many of whose concerts have decamped across the river to St John’s Smith Square, whilst renovations take place at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. Jean-Efflam Bavouzet’s way in general with these woks was perhaps the most brazenly modernistic, both in sound and often in interpretative strategy, I have heard. It seemed light-years distant from, say, Kempf, Gilels, or Schnabel, perhaps a little closer to Pollini, especially of old, but even in that case hardly similar. One might not always want to hear Beethoven like this, but there is no need to; I, for one, found the experience refreshing and, in the best sense, provocative.

It was the glistening tone that I noticed first in the E major Sonata, above all in the high treble. But the notes could also ‘dissolve’, Debussy-like, which I do not think was a reaction owed only or even principally to Bavouzet’s renown as an interpreter of that composer’s music. Especially during the Prestissimo second movement, the fractures of the music came very much to the fore, in as unsentimental a reading as one might imagine. There was, though, consolation to be heard in the finale, its theme certainly Gesangvoll, and almost Bachian in its dignity. A sense of proliferation, for me bringing Boulez to mind, but also of grander, perhaps more ‘Romantic’ style (Chopin?), characterised the first variation, whereas an almost pointillistic approach to the outer material of the second variation contrasted both with its predecessor and to echoes of the Liszt of similar times (the 1840s) in the second. There was continuing variety but also a strong, challenging impression of unity as the movement progressed, as if propelled by some centrifugal force (not, perhaps, entirely unlike Boulez’s conception of serialism). The counterpoint of the fifth variation struck me both by its concision and by something approaching the difficulty of the Missa solemnis. The return of the theme, dignified as before, perhaps inevitably had me think of the Goldberg Variations.

The opening theme of the A-flat Sonata initially seemed to signal a potential similarity to that of its predecessor, before going its very different way both in itself and its development. Bavouzet’s clarity and modernistic tone seemed to make this music strange once again. Icy fire characterised the Allegro molto. Again, there was no attempt to paper over the cracks; the cracks seemed almost to be the Adornian thing. There was real violence in the music’s contrasts, seemingly although perhaps not entirely unmediated. The opening of the third movement seemed to strain towards simplicity, without ever quite attaining it. There was great sadness to the arioso, without the pianist ever feeling any need to underline, let alone to milk, it. Then the fugue built up convincingly, perhaps in a little more conciliatory fashion than we had heard earlier in the sonata, although certainly not without harshness. The arioso’s return sounded all the more sad, even hopeless, yet hope was in a sense, although only in a sense, restored by the fugue in inversion. If that sounds enigmatic, then it was, which is surely as it should be. And yet, again just as it should, Beethoven’s profound humanity shone through the enigmas, even the fractures. Has there ever been a time when we need him more than now?

 

With the first movement of the C minor Sonata, we again seemed to look forward to Liszt, its opening downward leaps hinting perhaps at the later composer a semitone lower (and often in inversion). Likewise the ensuing dissonances, although with them it was perhaps the Liszt of old age, but a stone’s throw from Schoenberg. It was furious, without a doubt; equally, it was possessed of great integrity, if anything still more uncompromising in its modernity than what had passed before. I could not help but think that this was a performance Boulez would have admired. The clear-eyed opening statement of the second movement rendered me anything but clear-eyed. As the music progressed, there seemed an increasing sense that Beethoven was only just keeping things together. The strain was apparent; most important, it was moving. It seemed to me that Bavouzet had as complete an understanding as one could hope for as to how rhythm here is liberated by harmony. This was, I thought, a Beethoven performance of undeniable greatness: not different for the sake of it, but asserting its – and Beethoven’s – difference through a Pollini-like re-examination of the material. It shocked me but also made me smile, as absorbing as it was elevating. All Beethoven performances should, if only briefly, restore one’s faith in humanity; this one did. After which, the encore – surely something one would only risk here in very particular circumstances – was utterly apposite: Boulez’s Notations, nos 7-9.

 

Bavouzet/Philharmonia/Ashkenazy - Dukas, Ravel, Falla, and Debussy, 11 December 2011

Royal Festival Hall

Dukas – L’apprenti sorcier
Ravel – Piano Concerto in G major
Falla – Noches en los jardines de España
Debussy – La mer

Jean-Efflam Bavouzet (piano)
Philharmonia Orchestra
Vladimir Ashkenazy

All too often, one witnesses a thoughtless reflex reaction directed toward pianists-turned-conductors. Maurizio Pollini suffered considerable hostility on beginning to conduct; the experience appears to have put him off for good, save for directing Mozart concertos from the piano. One sometimes still hears people say they wish that Daniel Barenboim would concentrate upon the piano, apparently oblivious to how much his conducting has enriched his performances at the keyboard, and vice versa. Vladimir Ashkenazy presents a more difficult case: clearly he is not a bad conductor, as some instrumentalists or singers have proved, but it would be difficult to argue that he has enjoyed similar success in that role as he did as a pianist. One can imagine, though, how much a pianist might value having him as a concerto ‘accompanist’, knowing so many works as a pianist himself. Ashkenazy presents such a genial, collegiate personality on the stage that one cannot help but wish him well; however, my experience on this occasion, as in the past, turned out to be mixed.

Dukas’s scherzo, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, received a disappointing performance. Following slight rhythmic hesitancy at the opening – on Ashkenazy’s part, rather than the Philharmonia’s – the conductor seemed to over-compensate, imparting thereafter a frankly brutal drive, which never relented. The mechanical entirely supplanted the fantastical; a smile was nowhere to be heard.

Jean-Efflam Bavouzet then joined the orchestra for two works, the first being Ravel’s G major Piano Concerto. The elegant ease with which Bavouzet despatched the opening piano flourishes was something to savour. Throughout the first movement, he remained alert to Ravel’s twists and turns – and, crucially, to their motivations. Ashkenazy’s handling of the orchestral music was less sure: there were a few minor imprecisions. More seriously, he was often too much the mere ‘accompanist’, following but never really leading. There was nevertheless a great deal to enjoy in the bluesy solos so evidently relished by various Philharmonia principals. The lengthy opening piano solo to the slow movement was not just exquisitely shaped but intriguingly alert to darker undercurrents, Bavouzet bringing the mood a little closer to that of the Left Hand Piano Concerto than s generally the case. Here and later on, his playing was full of subtle shading and phrasing. Again, there was some very fine woodwind playing, not least from Jill Crowther on English horn. The finale I found more problematic. It received a brisk, no-nonsense reading that rather lacked charm: Bavouzet’s delivery, followed by Ashkenazy’s, seemed at times closer to Prokofiev than to Ravel in its muscular approach. There were no such problems, however, with his encore, a darkly atmospheric account of Debussy’s ‘La puerta del Vino’ from the second book of Préludes. Rhythmic insistence was somehow combined with subtle and supple variation.

That ‘Spanish’ piece also offered a good link to the two pieces in the second half: Falla’s Nights in the Gardens of Spain and Debussy’s own La mer. Ashkenazy’s conducting seemed much sharper in the Falla: full of energy and with a considerably broader colouristic range, those two facets well integrated. Indeed, both he and Bavouzet moved convincingly between languor and biting precision in the first movement, ‘En el Generalife’. The Philharmonia’s cello section was on especially fine form, but all the strings, indeed all the orchestra, contributed to a tremendous climax. The second movement, ‘Danza lejana’, was equally well judged: atmospheric, yet not at the cost of melodic and rhythmic definition. There was a true sense of dialogue now between piano and orchestra, similarly in the final movement, ‘En los jardines de la Sierra de Córdoba’, though occasionally I wondered whether it was a touch on the driven side. I am not sure that the movement presents Falla at his most distinguished, but it received a fine performance nonetheless.

La mer had much to offer too. The outer movements received for the most part eminently musicianly readings, though I have heard saltier accounts. No matter: there were some beautifully hushed moments and Ashkenazy conveyed an impressive degree of quasi-symphonic logic throughout, which, if anything became more pronounced during the course of the first movement. I do not recall a performance in which the presence of Franck has been so pronounced. Ashkenazy reinstated the brass fanfares at the conclusion of ‘De l’aube à midi sur la mer’. (I approve, though some do not.) ‘Jeux de vagues’ offered glitter but purpose too, precision but not too much, its mystery retained. What I missed, and this registered most strongly in the final movement, was a sense of Debussy’s modernity. This was, broadly speaking, Debussy emerging from the nineteenth century – Liszt, Tchaikovsky, and Borodin all sprang to mind – rather than the progenitor of Messiaen and Boulez. There is room for both approaches, of course, and doubtless for others too, though the final climax proved surprisingly brash. A little more refinement there would not have gone amiss.