nombrilisme - Ivan Ilić

For those of an eclectic bent, pianist Ivan Ilić’s Friday recital at San Francisco’s Old First proved a delight. The program was an adventure in learning as well as a brilliant display of technical prowess, all free of clichés.

Ilić was technically flawless, offering lots of color plus an uncommon sensitivity to Debussy’s expressive little tone paintings.

In the 44th of the Studies, Godowsky manages Chopin’s “Aeolian Harp” étude using only the left hand, and without loss of the sense or harmony of the original, while also sustaining the whirligig of Chopin’s notes.

I must say that Ilić’s performance left me agape. He just tossed off Godowsky’s keyboard torture chamber, and this in a piece most pianists find difficult enough with two hands.

Ivan Ilic, an American pianist of Serbian origin and currently based in Paris, is virtually an unknown compared with the many performers whose recordings of the Preludes are still in the catalogue, so his decision to join them with this cleanly-recorded CD on the French Paraty label, which holds the piano in just the right place, is brave.

However, as those who have heard him in recital will testify, he has made thorough preparation, not least revising the order in which these miniatures are played, leaving the Danseuses de Delphes, for example, to number eight in the first set and opening with an exhilarating account of Les Collines d’Anacapri.

His linear progress is interesting and not a little revelatory and fully justifies the shuffling of parts. That ‘General Lavine’ - excentrique rises to the surface to open Book Two is a response to the need for a witty wake-up call rather than the mystery of Brouillards (however superbly that is played, as it is here).

The playing throughout this disc is colourful and confident and marked by a rigorous approach to phrasing and dynamic that embraces the extremes of Debussy’s sound world.

Ilic has arrived on the scene with impeccable credentials and this recording will surely lift his career, illustrating as it does a performer who refuses to flinch when deciding to essay a work that will, almost by definition, never be definitively set down.