Jan 11th 2014

The very classical Labèque sisters in modern mode

by Michael Johnson

Michael Johnson is a music critic with particular interest in piano. 

Johnson worked as a reporter and editor in New York, Moscow, Paris and London over his journalism career. He covered European technology for Business Week for five years, and served nine years as chief editor of International Management magazine and was chief editor of the French technology weekly 01 Informatique. He also spent four years as Moscow correspondent of The Associated Press. He is the author of five books.

Michael Johnson is based in Bordeaux. Besides English and French he is also fluent in Russian.

You can order Michael Johnson's most recent book, a bilingual book, French and English, with drawings by Johnson:

“Portraitures and caricatures:  Conductors, Pianist, Composers”

 here.

When Katia and Marielle Labèque, the French piano duo, brought their New York minimalist avant-garde show to Bordeaux recently (Jan. 10) I was afraid for them. True, their act was sugar-coated with some Arvo Pärt and an accessible piano composition by Philip Glass but it also included pieces by Brian Eno, Terry Riley, Radiohead and Glenn Branca’s “monstrously loud and audacious” Lesson No. 1, the program notes warned.

The audience, dominated by the usual gray-haired season-ticket holders, at first looked irritated, then mystified, then curious and intrigued by such unsettling sounds. This was not the Bach-Brahms-Beethoven diet of dead Europeans they were used to.

The Labèques and their band finally won them over, though, eliciting enthusiastic applause and scoring one more point for contemporary sounds in a traditional environment. Only a few walked out.

The concert was performed in Bordeaux’s new 1400-seat concert hall, a hollow, cave-like structure of blond wood and perfect acoustics.

The three-hour program lulled the traditionalists into acceptance by easing them into Erik Satie’s le Fils des Etoiles and Cage’s rather mild-mannered (for him) Experiences No. 1 pour Deux Pianos and other quiet pieces. The women performed to perfection, with the tranquility and precision that minimalism often calls for.

After an intermission, the mood changed radically.  The mischievous sisters brought on four casual rockers: Nicola Tescari on keyboard and electronics, David Chalmin on guitar, Raphaël Séguinier on percussion and Alexandre Maillard on bass. Chalmin, Tescari and Séguinier contributed their own boundary-stretching pieces to the program. Séguinier’s percussion work brought cheers from the audience. 

Marielle disappeared from stage for most of this phase, leaving her enthusiastic twin sister Katia to carry the piano part alone. Katia’s stomping, hammering attacks reflected her commitment to the untamed near-rock blasts from the band.

Katia helped sway the audience with a charming explanation of the 1950s-1960s minimalist movement and how important it is to accept experimental music today. She warned that part three of the evening was going to be even more experimental, and it was. The evening wrapped up with pieces by James Tenney, Henry Flynt the band’s own Tescari and in conclusion an electronic conceit by La Monte Young himself  (The Tortoise, His Dreams and Journeys), available here:

The program was titled “Minimalist Dream House” after Young’s concept for financing and developing avant-garde music. Also prominent in promoting the movement was Yoko Ono, prior to meeting John Lennon. Young, often cited as the creator of minimalist music, remains an active evangelist for it.  He would approve of Katia’s presentation. As he once said in an interview, “People don’t know what to think. You have to help them. You have to make work available to them in such a way that you give them keys that unlock doors.”

The program will be on the road this year, appearing in Antwerp and Los Angeles, worked in among a busy calendar of traditional music.



 


This article is brought to you by the author who owns the copyright to the text.

Should you want to support the author’s creative work you can use the PayPal “Donate” button below.

Your donation is a transaction between you and the author. The proceeds go directly to the author’s PayPal account in full less PayPal’s commission.

Facts & Arts neither receives information about you, nor of your donation, nor does Facts & Arts receive a commission.

Facts & Arts does not pay the author, nor takes paid by the author, for the posting of the author's material on Facts & Arts. Facts & Arts finances its operations by selling advertising space.

 

 

Browse articles by author

More Music Reviews

Mar 15th 2018

The Brahms Scherzo Op. 4 opens with a delicate and playful theme, then carries us along on waves of emotion swinging from the filigree, to the lyrical, the thunderous, and back to the delicate.

Mar 9th 2018

Perhaps enough time has passed since the death of the famous French pedagogue Nadia Boulanger to step back and question her musical sainthood. After all, she was only human. 

Feb 21st 2018

A new “electronic opera” from Ireland, “Heresy”, broke new ground in contemporary opera a couple of years ago, bringing together Irish vocal talent and the synthesized music of much-decorated composer Roger Doyle.

Feb 4th 2018

Elegant, poised and deeply musical Ran Jia has brought a new freshness to the Franz Schubert piano sonatas, a phenomenal achievement considering how often they have been performed by the greatest pianists of the past 75 years.

Jan 31st 2018

American expat pianist David Lively found happiness in Paris as a teen-aged piano prodigy and got so busy performing and studying  -- with an Alfred  Cortot associate -- that he ended up making his life in France, a “different planet” culturally, he says, compared to that of his native land. 

Jan 26th 2018

When young French pianist François Dumont appeared at the Salle Gaveau in Paris recently, the critics embraced him without reserve. One wrote that his recital “confirmed his place in the family of the best musicians in France”.

Jan 13th 2018

Nearly two hours of Debussy’s solo piano music at one sitting can be, for some, too much impressionistic color to digest. And indeed a woman beside me fell asleep during the twelve Préludes, Book One.

Nov 29th 2017

In the world of classical music trios, there are few combinations as natural as the cello, guitar and piano. Operating mostly in the same register, attacking and retreating equally, the instruments can blend beautifully if played with discipline and heart. 

Nov 3rd 2017

A California polymath has electrified the music world with his images of classical music in visual form, capturing more than 165 million hits on his Internet postings in just a few years.  Only pop singers or weird videos do better. 

Oct 30th 2017

Ukrainian-born Evgeny Ukhanov, based in Australia for the past 20 years, is an established performer of new music originating in his adopted homeland. Now he has teamed up with friend and Melbourne composer Alan Griffiths on a new CD of selections regrouped under the title “Introspection”. 

Sep 9th 2017
 

If music makes you happy or sad, you are probably an average listener. If it leaves you indifferent, you might be considered insensitive. But if it gives you goosebumps you are in a very special group with connections in your brain anatomy that others may never feel.

Aug 31st 2017

Lake Como, known as the “magic lake” of Italy, has inspired writers and composers for centuries with natural surroundings so conducive to creative expression.

Aug 16th 2017
File 20170815 15219 g8geue

Much of the mythology that surrounds Elvis Presley, who died 40 yea

Aug 2nd 2017

Katia and Marielle Labèque -- the glamorous French keyboard siblings -- have achieved a solid legacy of exuberant performances in the two-piano repertoire, ranging from experimental contemporary works to traditional classical-romantic composers.

Jun 24th 2017

I was flipping through my copy of Prokofiev’s Piano Sonata No. 6 recently and spotted his two “col pugno” markings. My memory took me back many years to the day I first encountered these violent directions. At the time, I didn’t know what to think.

Jun 21st 2017

One of the world’s greatest living violinists, Maxim Vengerov, accompanied by an equally accomplished pianist Roustem Saïtkoulov, dazzled a full house at the 18th century Grand Théâtre of Bordeaux Sunday night (18 June) with a faultless concert.

Jun 17th 2017

A classical-trained German pianist working in a range of musical disciplines has just launched his most audacious experiment yet – an original piano sonata consisting almost entirely of creations from his unconscious mind.

Jun 5th 2017

The Orchestre National de Bordeaux Aquitaine added another feather to its cap last week (June 1-2) with the engagement of a leading international guest conductor, Michail Jurowski, who led the ONBA in two demanding orchestral pieces, the Shostakovich Symphony No.

May 24th 2017

Taking a break in gaps between a Mozart piano concerto in Izmir, Turkey, (No. 9, “Jeunehomme”), a recording session of three Mozart concertos in Rennes, France (Nos.