Retired University of Toronto professor William Aide, one of this country’s finest collaborative pianists, threw himself a recital on Monday night at Walter Hall in honour of his 75th birthday. He played a programme of Debussy, Brahms, Buczynski and Chopin to a small but devoted audience.
- Classical Music 101: What Does A Conductor Do? - June 17, 2019
- Classical Music 101 | What Does Period Instrument Mean? - May 6, 2019
- CLASSICAL MUSIC 101 | What Does It Mean To Be In Tune? - April 23, 2019
It had been several years since I’d heard Aide play, and wanted to catch up with this supremely elegant pianist.
I can’t think of another word than suave to describe Aide’s playing on Monday. His performance of two pieces by Debussy — “Les sons et les parfums tournent dans l’air du soir” (Sounds and scents swirl in the evening air) from his Préludes and “Reflets dans l’eau” (Reflections in water) from Images — was magical, capturing the elusive shapes and colours in fleeting figures and harmonies so delicately as to make us forget that the piano is a percussion instrument.
But the vagueness of purpose (which was, of course, all artifice) that suited Debussy’s music so beautifully made the two Op. 118 Intermezzi (Nos. 3 & 6) by Johannes Brahms a bit dull, almost cursory. They were interwoven with two poems of Aide’s that fellow Torontonian Walter Buczynski had set to music.
Baritone Douglas MacNaughton did a fine job of making something of the composer’s awfully dull songs, which contain a quote or two from Brahms in their atonal sound world.
But it was Aide’s poetry that affected me the most of all on Monday evening.
I’m a longtime lover and admirer of Brahms’ music while also being perpetually intimidated by it, and Aide’s verses in “Why I Like Brahms” perfectly expressed what makes this composer so special.
His poem encapsulates all the things performer and listener alike need to be aware of when approaching the music:
Because he admired married sopranos
and was too scarred to misbehave.Because his adoration of the Kaiser
escaped the notice of Hermann Goering.Because his first piano concerto broke
a certain sound barrier in Timmins, Ontario. [Aide’s birthplace]Because his genius moved forward
By reconstructing the past.Because he was a smooth looker when young
and a dumpy trotting silhouette when old.Because he went to a lunatic Robert Schumann
when Clara couldn’t or wouldn’t.Because his frugal bourgeois life remained
gregarious and lonely.Because he buried his beloved Clara
and saved her husband’s symphony while she lived.Because he loved intelligent contraltos
and never wrote an opera.Because as any donkey can see he follows
the giant behind him.Because his fourth symphony
is worthy of King Lear.Because he wanted to be
better than his music.Because he never ceases to defy, exalt, console
our helpless mortality.
There is nothing more anyone can add.
John Terauds
- Classical Music 101: What Does A Conductor Do? - June 17, 2019
- Classical Music 101 | What Does Period Instrument Mean? - May 6, 2019
- CLASSICAL MUSIC 101 | What Does It Mean To Be In Tune? - April 23, 2019
