This recital was a major event in Tanglewood’s celebration of the 150th-anniversary of Maurice Ravel’s birth, Seong-Jin Cho playing Ravel’s works for solo piano in the chronological order of their composition, taking nearly three hours. The highlights – for me – were the works that concluded each of the groupings: Sonatine; Gaspard de la nuit; and Le Tombeau de Couperin; however, Cho’s interpretations and superb technique informed every piece played.
Sérénade grotesque lives up to itstitle, Cho then providing bright charm in Menuet antique, a sweetlycontemplative melody in Pavane pour une infante défunte, and the sparkle of water in Jeux d’eau. Ravel worked the lovely theme that opens Sonatine into each of its three movements, Cho making each of these iterations memorable. His gentle touch in the second-movement Menuet was especially delicious, and he attacked the Finale with bubbly enthusiasm.
The middle third of the concert paired Miroirs, five portraits in sound, and Gaspard de la nuit. In Miroirs, Cho brilliantly depicted Ravel’s sonic images of the flutter of night moths (‘Noctuelles’), sad birds (‘Oiseaux tristes’), the rocking of ocean waves (‘Une barque sur l’océan’), and the pealing of church bells (‘La vallée des cloches’). ‘Alborada del gracioso’, with its striking Spanish dance rhythms, was alternately explosive, percussive and dreamlike.
Gaspard de la nuit is the most dramatic and powerful of Ravel’s solo piano works, Cho giving it a virtuosic, showstopping performance. Each of its three movements was inspired by a poem by Bertrand, who was known for the gothic and macabre subject matter of his writings, and who regarded “Gaspard” as a nickname for Satan himself. Cho’s traversal of ‘Ondine’ aptly reflected the shimmering presence of the eponymous water sprite whose offer of marriage to a mortal man is refused. ‘Le gibet’ (the gallows) was inspired by Bertrand’s scene of distant bells tolling as a corpse hangs from the gallows, reddened by the setting sun. Cho created an appropriately eerie and somber aura to depict this grisly and desolate tableau, and then, in the Liszt-influenced ‘Scarbo’, he brought explosive energy and brilliant rapid-fire dexterity to the depiction of that loathsome gnome, yet deftly managed the pianissimo ending.
The final part began with four short pieces that surrounded Valses nobles et sentimentales, a collection of waltzes of varying character that reflect the influences of Schubert (to whose Valses nobles, D969, and Valses sentimentales, D779, Ravel’s title alludes) and Johann Strauss II. Cho played the dreamy ‘Epilogue’ with an exquisitely soft touch. Finally, a rousing rendition of Le Tombeau de Couperin that exhibited the same intense level of energy with which the evening had begun. The ‘Prélude’, with its grace-note figurations, rolled along briskly, and the intricacies of the ensuing ‘Fugue’ were managed flawlessly. The ‘Forlane’ was played with great delicacy, strongly contrasted by the rough-and-tumble of the delightful ‘Rigaudon’. Grace notes again abounded in the graceful ‘Menuet’, and the rapid-fire, percussive ‘Toccata’ brought the evening to a shattering conclusion. The audience’s enthusiastic applause brought Cho back several times before he closed the piano’s lid.
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