An unusual but inspired program proves entirely different and unfamiliar.

Melbourne Recital Centre
April 14, 2015

French-Canadian pianist Louis Lortie has been a regular and much-welcomed visitor to Australia in recent years, and on this occasion presented his Melbourne audience with an unusual but inspired program consisting entirely of preludes. It was rather like seeing a selection of short films instead of a feature, and, with the absence of a developed and sustained narrative, had the effect of being somewhat disjointed. Thrillingly, this made the concert experience an entirely different and unfamiliar one.

Cycles by Gabriel Fauré, Alexander Scriabin, and Frédéric Chopin were performed in reverse chronological order, ending with Chopin and underscoring the significance of his model to the later composers. Chopin’s cycle of preludes in all 24 major and minor keys looked back to the blueprint of JS Bach’s Preludes and Fugues, but while Bach moved through keys in rising semitone order, Chopin worked through the circle of fifths, with the relative minor following each key. This has a completely different effect; instead of a gradual ascension in pitch, we are slowly drawn into a deeper and increasingly complex harmonic vortex. The arc of intensity plateaued beautifully at...