Ravinia 2019, Issue 3, Week 6

16 RAVINIA MAGAZINE | JULY 1 – JULY 14, 2019 After Jean-Yves Thibaudet (left) makes his fifth appearance with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at Ravinia on July 13, he will return for a duo recital with cellist Gautier Capuçon (below) on July 22. “With Gautier Capuçon, you could call me todayand say, ‘We need youtomorrow to playaduo recital,’ and we could do it.” —Jean-Yves Thibaudet Daniil Trifonov (below) and baritone Matthias Goerne (right) will bring their duo program to Ravinia on July 29. But keeping up three different phases of a piano career is enormously chal- lenging. It means careful scheduling of appearances and taking varied ap- proaches to rehearsals and performanc- es depending on the kinds of repertoire involved. “I’m like most musicians,” Parker says. “I take most of the concerts that come my way, because I like to stay busy.” But he has his limitations. While he might be willing to take a detour during a recital tour and perform a concerto he knows well, he would never interrupt a concerto tour to give a recit- al. Such a solo concert requires upwards of 90 minutes of memorized material— too much to juggle on top of an already demanding series of orchestral dates. “I used to just play everything in any order, whatever,” Thibaudet says, “and I had no problem playing two concertos and then running out and doing a recital.” But those days are over. In recent years, he has begun to carefully organize his schedule, making a point of only performing recitals every two years or so. That said, he is open to tucking in chamber concerts here and there, because he can play from sheet music and doesn’t face the pressure of having everything memorized. He is particularly willing if it is a collaborator he knows well, like Capuçon. “With him,” Thi- baudet says, “virtually you could call me to- day and say, ‘We need you tomorrow to play a [duo] recital; some- one canceled,’ and we could do it. We could probably go onstage without rehearsing as long as we know our parts, because we play so much together and we have such an incredible chemistry and intimacy in our playing.” About the only concessions pianists have to make in performing solo recitals are adapting to the keyboard instruments they encounter at each stop and adjusting to a hall’s acoustics, perhaps adding a bit more pedal if the sound seems dry. Even so, Trifonov, Gramophone magazine’s Artist of the Year in 2016, argues that such concerts are the most demanding because the pianist has total responsibility for sustaining a high level of playing for a concert’s entirety. “When one is alone on stage,” Trifonov says, “it takes a lot of concentration to build atmosphere and create a certain special environment and to keep the concentration of the audience on the music. It takes more psychological energy in recitals—more than any other type of music making.” When he switches from the recital hall to the orchestral stage, Parker subtly alters his playing style and makes a point of overcoming his “natural reticence” to demonstration. “If I’m playing a piano concerto,” he says, “I believe that part of my job is to actually show off a little bit. A piano concerto is very different than a piano sonata or a trio, let’s say, in the same way that a blockbuster film is different than a TV series.” Virtuoso cadenzas and octave passages might not advance the musical narrative of the work much, but they deliberately draw attention to the pianist. Parker compares such keyboard PATRICK GIPSON/RAVINIA (THIBAUDET); GREGORY BATARDON (CAPUÇON)