Kevin Tamanini | Piano Recital
April 7, 2024, Church Street Studios, Camperdown NSW
Church Street Studios is a working recording studio in Camperdown, very close to the Sydney CBD. It’s a quirky, casual and intimate performance space, which has an eclectic and prolific schedule of events. It was here I attended a piano recital by Melbourne based French pianist Kevin Tamanini. The recital included two Australian composers, Paul Moulatlet and Alan Holley, both of whom were at the concert, and Claude Debussy, who was not – but I think he would have definitely appreciated the performance.
Moulatlet’s Pax Fictus opened the concert and it was clear from the start that we were watching a world-class talent. Tamanini had complete control of the piano in this short work and demonstrated great musicality. The work was composed in 2018 to mark the centenary of the end of the Great War, according to Paul‘s notes, Pax Fictus “attempts to convey a sense of exasperation and sadness caused by the unrealised hope of an end to war.” It certainly conveyed this to me, with my untrained ear I heard a halting melody of seemingly half finished phrases and truncated (or even at times ‘missing’) notes which was fascinating to listen to and to watch. A powerful start.
Alan Holley’s music is often inspired by nature, and in particular bird song. Water Pieces, composed in 1993, draws on imagery of seascapes local and further afield. The first movement is very peaceful, evoking a summer day on Sydney‘s gentle Pittwater, the familiar sounds of insects and birds are apparent but this work was also particularly filled with light. Closing my eyes I could see bright sunshine literally sparkling off the water’s surface. The second and third movements merged together as recollections of Lady Elliot Island on the Great Barrier Reef. The music was marked by complex rhythms, almost imitating the sounds of squawking sea birds and crunching and squeaking footprints in the sand over a constant background droning of.. cicadas? the ocean? It ended with an evocative story of a past lighthouse keeper’s wife who, driven by her extreme isolation, it is said walked into the sea to her death. Alan says “I imagine that in the last seconds of her life, she saw prisms of light, caught in drops of blue green water”, and in this music, I too could imagine.
Next was the rare treat of hearing all 12 Préludes from Debussy’s ‘Book 1’ live in a single sitting. Holley reflected prior to the concert how Debussy was such an influential figure for composers in general, and while the music styles in this concert were very different the various composers’ aims, to describe events and scenes that inspired them through the medium of music, was quite similar. Tamanini’s playing was beautiful. He used the full pallet of musical sounds available from the instrument and was perfectly dramatic, even using an occasional flourishing page turn to enhance the visual aspects of his performance. The short silences between the pieces were particularly effective.
Debussy is just so, so evocative – closing my eyes I could almost feel the soft soft snowfall and the heavy deep blanket of white it leaves, the whispering of a zephyr growing to full window-rattling gusts, and the chattering busyness of an Italian island streetscape. The titles of the works such as ‘Le Vent dans La Plaine’ (Wind on the Plain), ‘Les Collines d’Anacapri’ (The Hills of Anacapri) and ‘Des Pas sur la Neige’ (Footsteps in the Snow) certainly help you ‘see’ these scenes in your mind’s eye but a good pianist brings them to life. Tamanini’s sense of timing is sublime, even when playing prestissimo the music feels somehow languid under his hands. It is hard to choose a favourite from the 12 (so many good things here) but I think ‘La Cathedrale Engloutie’ (The Sunken Cathedral), with its initial sense of quiet transparent reverence that builds to a depiction of a grand and imposing place of worship, was my pick.
The final work was Holley’s Piano Sonata composed in 2001. The sea, in all its diverse states, is a constant presence in all four movements of this 15 minute work. From the musical depiction of peaceful shimmering silver sparkled water to the violent crashing of waves breaking on rocks and the constant drone and hum of the ocean, this is what Holley does so well. I was taken by the pianistic interpretation of the swells and drops of waves, the dawn breaking – a quiet time interrupted by chattering birds disrupting the peace with their comings and goings. This is not formulaic music. It is complex, with many, many notes and Tamanini approached it with virtuosic energy.
There was a certain shimmer to the music presented in this evening’s concert and the piano sang under Tamanini’s masterful touch. A very satisfying end to my weekend. I’m looking forward to hearing more of this pianist as he develops his career in Australia.
