Helene Grimaud, piano
Carnegie Hall, New York.
November 8, 2006
The French pianist Hélène Grimaud hails from Aix-en-Provence,
and her relationship to time—nurtured in a town where
following the sun from café to café is the generally
accepted way to spend one’s Saturday afternoons—may explain
why her Carnegie Hall recital debut began at
twenty past the hour. Her Mediterranean pace may also
account for why this internationally established pianist
took until the age of thirty-seven to make her debut,
though a more tangible
factor may be Grimaud’s
dedication to wolves, namely, her Wolf
Conservation Center in South
Salem, New York.
Grimaud did ultimately make an entrance, strolling
confidently onto the stage in a T-shirt, headband,
and a pair of culottes, as though heading to the
living room for a light practice—or a slumber party.
The program was Romantic, and began with Busoni’s
arrangement of Bach’s Chaconne from the D-minor Partita for
violin. It is viewed by many as the greatest piece of
music ever composed for solo violin: arrangements and
orchestrations have been numerous and
largely ineffective, save for the piano arrangement by
Brahms, which both captures the transparency and translates
the difficulty of the masterpiece in a modest, note-for-note
transcription for the left hand. Busoni’s arrangement
takes a nearly opposite tack, fleshing out chords, adding
counterpoint, arpeggios, and, frankly, bombast. That said,
the Busoni has been in Grimaud’s repertoire for years,
and one hoped that she had
found something in the arrangement that lies