Rarely one gets the opportunity to experience something truly wonderful, mesmerizing, and overwhelming in public. But that's what happened this afternoon at Hertz Hall on Berkeley campus, when Christopher Taylor performed Olivier Messiaen's Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant-Jésus .. from memory.
Now, I'm sure others have performed this seemingly impossible task, but this was a first for me. I've attended a good number of performances, and even once saw Yvonne Loriod perform it in New York City many years ago. But always with the score and the required page turner. To play it, all two hours plus, from memory still seems to me, a non-pianist, flatly impossible.
I have a copy of the score, and it's one of those objects that I deeply revere. I also have many recordings of the piece and have spent many hours following along while listening. And I am certain that there is no way a mere human could enter all that information into their brain and still be able to live. And yet, there it was. I am still in a curious state of mind, as if I had just seen someone fly, or walk on water.
Chris Taylor is an incredible pianist. That is a known fact. We saw him at Other Minds 12 in December 2006 performing with the Feinsmith Quartet, and he was back with them last October. And in November 2005 he managed another incredible performance, this time with György Ligeti's complete Piano Etudes. His performance today, which got a (well deserved) lengthy standing ovation, was truly amazing.
Of course, I brought my score and followed along. This only heightened my amazement. So many many notes. I've read that pianists mention how well these complex and fast chords fit the hand -- so to an experienced player it's not quite as hard as it looks in the score. But the score is also without time signatures to indicate how many beats per bar are to be counted (e.g. four quarter notes per bar, or 5 eighth notes, etc.) And in many cases the number of beats varies while the bar lines only indicate phrasings. This makes it easier to notate odd rhythms without having to force all the beats to add up nicely at the bar line. But seeing rapidly changing bars with 12, 15, 9, 11, and 17 eighth notes with complex counter rhythms seems impossible to play even with the music in front of you.
Of course, playing anything from memory is risky, and committing 2 hours to memory is bound to result in some sticky spots in live performance. And there seemed to be a couple such sticky spots this afternoon, but that could also have been my getting lost in the rapid pace of the music. I did notice that he tended to arpeggiate chords often where no arpeggios were indicated. Nonetheless, the acheivement was spectacular.
I walked out of the hall and into the rainy Berkeley streets with the feeling that I had just been levitated and brought back to Earth. Now that's the sign of a great concert!
I hope Chris gets a chance to record and release a CD of his performance of this work. There are already many many recordings. My three current favorites are Yvonne Loriod's mono 1956 recording (of course) originally released on Adés (Paris) in 1987, Pierre-Laurent Aimard's 2000 Teldec release, and local pianist Jacqueline Chew's 2004 recording. Together they demonstrate, perhaps, Trois Regards du Vingt Regards. Of these, the Aimard is the best recorded sound and most exciting, altho I think he takes some liberties with the tempos. But there are many many others and probably more to come. I wish I could listen to them all.
