A review of the concert on October 14, 2012 by Gary Lemco.
With her third Gottschalk encore, this the Souvenirs d’Andalusie with its swaggering malagueña rhythms, pianist Cecile Licad concluded an explosive program of Liszt and Chopin at San Jose’s McAfee Center, Saratoga, Sunday, October 14, under the auspices of the Steinway Society the Bay Area. She had concluded the second half of her recital with one piece, Chopin’s B-flat Minor “Funeral March” Sonata, Op. 35 for a small but enchanted audience, when she announced that Louis Moreau Gottschalk would provide her first encore, the unidentified Pasquinade caprice. She then proffered some intricate variants by Gottschalk on the famous “La Folia” tune of 16th Century Spain, another string in the harp of Gottschalk, an American composer of Creole extraction whose astonishing gifts never cease to dazzle.
We in this select audience spent the first hour in the grips of Liszt’s Première année (Suisse) des Années de pèlerinage, the “Years of Pilgrimage: Swiss” by Franz Liszt. Liszt and Countess Marie d’Agoult toured Switzerland as expatriates from France, as lovers in exile, 1835-1842, and the first book of “pilgrimages” appeared in 1855. Borrowing from history, literature, and bucolic landscapes, Liszt arranged nine pieces as Year One, arranging the first and last pieces as “bell” studies, _Chapelle de Guillaume Tell_ and _Les cloches de Geneve_. The ravishing harmonies Liszt employs typify his fascination with ecstatic states, good and evil, Dantesque descents and Empyrean ascents into Paradise. Given Licad’s stunning technique, which could be both percussive and sensuously diaphanous — with riveting sforzati of astonishing power — we soon felt enthralled by the specters of “holy and enchanted” spots of greenery and fire, Blake’s marriage of Heaven and Hell.
Licad evoked the grand gestures in Liszt, his wonderfully flamboyant gestures and rhetoric. The liquid pieces, _Au lac de Wallenstadt_ and _Au bord d’une_ source, could be somewhat metronomic, but their sensuous wash could not be denied. Licad loved her sustaining pedal throughout the evening, and the rapturous, even profound _Vallee d’Obermann_ after the writer Senancourt traversed the full spectrum of emotions, from declamation to rarified visions. The most amazing moment may well have been the furious realization of _Orage_, the evocation of a mountain storm, whose etude virtuosity rivals the C minor _Wilde Jagd_ from the Transcendental Etudes. Liszt may have had Byron in mind, but the colossal strokes of creation and destruction rang like a piano equivalent of Shelley’s “West Wind” Ode. If Licad’s _Pastorale_ sounded overly “feminine,” her _Le mal du pays_ (Homesickness) invoked the angst of Debussy’s later _Des pas sur la neige_. The final Bells of Geneva rang in hazy, mystical chords, a pantheistic reconciliation of Man and Nature, as full of repose as the stormy pieces had hurled the lightning.
Chopin’s fateful 1839 B-flat Minor Sonata rang a bit sharp to these ears, which found the Steinway’s tone somewhat piercing. But the rendition Licad proffered — without even a hint of audience acknowledgement — was true Chopin: a real Doppio movimento, repeat included, set the frenetic tone of the first movement. No less brilliant, the Scherzo had tremendous momentum and power, offset by a legato quite serene in its middle section. A momentary memory lapse did not seriously mar the emotional fury of the outer sections. The Funeral March itself embodied poise and regal dignity, a walking tempo without bathos. Its own trio section, rife with nostalgia and bittersweet pathos, might have evoked a tear or two. And lastly, that malevolent, grotesque Finale: Presto that grumbles and shivers and undulates a most untamed spirit. A scintillating concert, whose occasional moments of uncanny virtuosity testify to a real tigress, likely Blake’s, behind the fingers.
