When Lucas Debargue shot to fame, winning fourth prize at the 2015 International Tchaikovsky Competition, he took many listeners by surprise. He had followed an unconventional route and was a late starter to formal musical training. But there was… something about him. At Wigmore Hall last night, we had a chance to hear what it is.
This 34-year-old French musician’s refreshing, even startling artistry sometimes reminded me of the old story of the bumblebee that according to aerodynamics shouldn’t be able to fly. It shouldn’t work, yet he makes it convincing. Even the odd juxtaposition of Fauré, Beethoven and Chopin (both halves of the concert offered the same three) became a kind of Heston Blumenthal approach, the unusual contrasts casting new perspective on even the most familiar pieces.
Debargue undoubtedly was most at home in the music of Gabriel Fauré, which opened each half: first the nine Preludes Op. 103 and later the Thème et Variations Op. 73. In the supremely rarified sensibility of the Preludes, full of the harmonic mystery unique to Fauré’s late style, Debargue’s minute shadings of sonority proved nothing short of mesmerising. This is a pianist who seems most alive deep within the essence of the sound he creates. (He has recorded Fauré’s complete piano music. Do have a listen.)
The performance was mesmerising (Photo: Darius Weinberg/Wigmore Hall)He seemed a less natural Beethovenian, with a slightly anxious-sounding account of the two-movement Sonata Op. 90 in the first half. And in the second – well, no conventional pianist would get away with playing the first movement of Beethoven’s Sonata Op. 27 No. 2, the “Moonlight”, quite so slowly. Yet Debargue managed to sustain atmosphere and melody alike and to fill them with genuine feeling. The central movement was a brief shaft of sunlight before the bristlingly explosive finale; and the whole interpretation certainly fulfilled Beethoven’s subtitle, “quasi una fantasia” (like a fantasy).
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Similarly, most pianists treating the rhythms of Chopin’s Scherzo No. 4 and Ballade No. 3 so freely might risk accusations of undue contrariness. But such sumptuous, luminous sound quality, glittering touch and unfailing sense of heartfelt creativity could quickly win one round.
Debargue’s trump card is that he is also a composer and, indeed, an improviser. As encores he presented his own adaptations of more Fauré: first a transcription of the song “Après un rêve”, and then a “paraphrase” of the chorale gem Cantique de Jean Racine. Again, there’s that bumblebee: Lisztian virtuoso pianism would seem an unlikely match for Fauré’s demure perfectionism, yet inexplicably it worked.
Finally Debargue improvised for us, magicking up a short piece inflected with north African-ish harmonies and the same attention to sound colour that he had applied to his beloved Fauré.
A bit Marmite? Find me any genuinely creative musician who is not. Debargue, to my ears, is the real deal.
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