Cover image: Inon Barnatan, piano (Photo: Marco Borggreve)
It wasn’t a capacity audience for pianist Inon Barnatan’s recital at Benaroya Hall Wednesday, but it was an informed one—one which recognized what it was hearing and responded appreciatively.
At the start, Barnatan explained his premise for putting this program together. In his mind, he said, he titled the program “Variations on a Suite.” He put together short works of four different Baroque composers to create a suite such as were written by individual composers in the 18th century, and followed these with short works from four more composers, these from the 20th century. All of this he played with brief hesitations between works, and the audience without exception allowed all eight composers’ pieces to continue uninterrupted by applause until intermission. This gave the audience a chance to understand what he was trying to do, to get the continuity, and the whole succeeded.
The four Baroque composers were Bach, Handel, Rameau, and Couperin, all of them contemporaries though Couperin was a bit older. The Bach Toccata in E Minor, BWV 914, opened the program and immediately Barnatan’s musicianship was clear. Although composed for harpsichord which has no volume control, pianist Barnatan judiciously used louds and softs and shaped the tempos with phrasing beautifully suited to the music. (Bach is one composer whose music translates to almost any instrument, any genre, successfully, from steel band to vocalization.)
Inon Barnatan, piano (Photo: Marco Borggreve)
As in all Baroque suites, the music of the other composers he chose alternated between fast, slow and different moods. Thus, Handel’ s “Allemande” from his Suite in E Major, Rameau’s “Courante” from his Suite in A Minor, and Couperin’s “L’Atalante” from “Pièces de clavecin, Douzième ordre,” contrasted each with the ones before and after and all meshed with each other to make the suite Barnatan intended.
His intention, similar in the four 20th century composers and harking back to early styles, also succeeded, though the composers were far more dissimilar: Ravel’s “Rigaudon” from “Le tombeau de Couperin,” Thomas Ades’ “Blanca” Variations, Ligeti’s two pieces from his “Musica ricercata”, and Barber’s Fugue from his Sonata in E-flat Minor.
In all, Barnatan’s style was one of a clear exposition of the music, using his exceptional technique to showcase the composer’s intent rather than the performer. In the Baroque works, it was one of elegance and restraint, and in the later pieces, a more contemporary approach.
He planned only one work for post-intermission: Brahms’ Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, not nearly as well-known as his Variations on a Theme by Haydn, but again, clearly related to what had gone before in the program, the ending fugue particularly feeling Bach-like in its approach.
After the applause, Barnatan gave one encore: an exquisite, quiet rendering of Bach’s “Sheep may Safely Graze.”
