At the Adelaide Festival
Cédric Tiberghien, the French classical pianist, started learning to play the piano at age 5, which may explain his masterful rendition of Mozart’s Sonata K331 in the concert he gave in the magnificent Adelaide Town Hall as part of the Adelaide Festival.
Mozart also began playing the piano at the same age. The programme was billed as “A seemingly simple hour of solo piano which contains incredible musical riches.”
As he addressed the audience, Tiberghien lovingly stroked the Steinway concert grand piano, explaining that Brahms loved Bach’s mighty Partita for violin No. 2 in D minor so much that he worked it into a showcase, his Chaconne in D minor for left hand alone, dedicated to Clara Schumann. His performance of that difficult piece was masterful, with sounds normally associated with two-handed works.
Cédric Tiberghien. Photo:
Cédric Tiberghien. Photo: Frances Marshall
We were next treated to an astonishing performance of Mozart’s Piano Sonata in A major K331 (last movement of which is the well-known Rondo a la Turk). Before he commenced the work, he sat, hands by his side, head bowed for ten long seconds, seemingly communicating with the instrument.
As he launched into the exciting first movement, I was reminded of computer scientist Ray Kurzweil’s 2008 treatise “The singularity is near” in which he predicted that human and artificial intelligence would mesh seamlessly in the 2030s resulting in vastly increased thought processing. Tiberghien and the piano became one unit. His body moved with the music, as has soundlessly sang the melodies, with the machine (piano) providing the sound, treating the audience to a unique rendition of the well-known work.
His first movement was so outstanding that he had to wait for the rapturous applause to end in order to move to the slow movement. His rondo finale was equally exciting. After a brief pause, Tiberghien returned to the piano, sat silently for 5 seconds before placing his hands silently on the centre keyboard. The silence continued for 4 minutes and 33 seconds, during which he changed posture and hand location three times.
Before his first two pieces, Tiberghien talked to the audience, giving brief histories of the works and explaining how it fitted into the theme of the concert. He gave his talk after the silent performance, explaining John Cage’s “composition”, 4’33”, as being an exercise in listening. Fortunately, his final offering did provide the audience with something to hear. Beethoven’s Eroica Variations were another tour de force, although he did seem to battle with the piano on some of the louder variations.
Cedric Tiberghien showed himself to be a masterful technician of the keyboard and well-deserved of his numerous international awards. After four curtain calls (although the stage was devoid of curtains), he played a sensitive, albeit unnamed French composition which some audience members thought was Debussy and others Faure.
