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Pierre-Laurent Aimard’s Fantas(y)ic recital New York
Zankel Hall, Carnegie Hall
05/04/2025 -
Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck: Echo fantasia in Dorian, SwWV 261
Elliott Carter: Night Fantasies
Frédéric Chopin: Polonaise-Fantaisie in A‑flat Major, Opus 61
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Fantasia in C Minor, K. 475
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach: Fantasia in C Major, Wq 59/6
Ludwig van Beethoven: Fantasia in G Minor, Opus 77
Charles Ives: The Celestial Railroad
Pierre-Laurent Aimard (Pianist) 
P.-L. Aimard (© Alexander Savin/Wikipedia)
“Is not beauty in music too often confused with something which lets the ears lie back in an easy chair?”
Charles Ives
“My entire life has really revolved around music that was written about the time that I was born, 1908, to just before the First World War and shortly after it. This music I’ve always known, and it is that music that’s most important to me.”
Elliott Carter
Since Pierre-Laurent Aimard can play absolutely everything unerringly, Sunday afternoon he gave us everything. And more.
A quick look at the program, and we imagined him jumping or leaping or soaring from the 16th Century to the 20th Century to the 18th Century to the 19th Century and back to the 20th Century again. That salmagundi was true up to a point.
What held it together was fantasy. Every piece was titled with a variation of fantasy. And musically, fantasy can cover endless styles. Whether Beethoven’s variations (after a bagatelle or two) or Ives’ mythical train ride or Elliott Carter’s fitful sleep (which made Gilbert and Sullivan’s Nightmare Song seem like Brahms’ Lullaby), fantasy simply means freedom.
Mr. Aimard is reputed to essay every 20th or 21st Century work not with the ease of a Hamelin or the grandiosity of a Trifonov–both worthy of adoration–but of attention to the inner workings of the music itself.
Having heard Elliott Carter’s Night Fantasies before, I expected a half‑hour of smashingly difficult technique. But no, Mr. Aimard paid special attention to the “story”. Of spasmodic sleeping interrupted by dreams, by quiet, by nightmares, by lighting‑quick thoughts, a fraction of placidity Mr. Aimard did, of course, go through the virtuosic challenges. Yet, more than rhythmic jolts, he jolted us with changes, alterations, the irrational quantum time-values of sleep itself.
(Much as I loved it, I’d hate to sleep in the same bed as Elliott Carter through his nights.)
Carter’s own fantasy was reflected by the six-minute fantasy of his unofficial mentor, Charles Ives. An equal virtuosic challenge (with homage to Pacific 231), with a story (fantastic, of course) and quotes from the usual songs.
This was Pierre-Laurent Aimard in his element. Except that same element went back 500 years to the Dutch organist Jan Sweelinck. Here, the pianist had the touch of a harpsichordist. Not imitation, but an unceremonial staccato. Rather than bouncing off the keys, the pianist’s seemed to press each key halfway, with no pedal, allowing the sounds to sound venerable rather than archaic.
Closer to home. C.P.E. Bach’s Fantasia was bold, jolting yet always expressive.
Essentially, this is Pierre-Laurent’s particular genius. One expects this expressivo to be an innate part of his Chopin, Beethoven and futuristic Mozart. (Had he lived 120 more years, the opening of the Rondo would have been a dodecaphonic tone row!)
What is always unexpected, and what made his recital so exciting, was how deeply he transfigured himself into the inspired mind of the composer.
We may associate music with images of scowling Beethoven, wunderkind Mozart or the fierce Ives. The reality is that each were ruled by that same wondrous inspiration. The same inspiration which allows this wondrous pianist to inhabit, transfix and reveal that inspiration to ourselves.
Harry Rolnick
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