infotext:
THE »PIANIST'S VOICE« Does a pianist play differently when he is also a composer? Yes, says Gilead Mishory, since he began composing his perspective on playing the piano has changed. Composing – this is above all an art of translation, namely translating what the composer hears inwardly into notes in such a way that the result corresponds to what he had in mind. For Mishory, interpretation – i.e. »translation« in the broadest sense – is the reverse process: finding the sound idea again in the writing of the other. Gilead Mishory began composing works for piano in 1994. But the voice soon joined the piano, initially the pianist's own in the melodrama bury the moon from 1997. Soon after, also based on texts by the Yiddish poet Abraham Sutzkever, Gilead Mishory wrote his one-hour cycle Lid Togbuch, again »for piano and pianist's part«. Music and language belong together for Gilead Mishory, as in the escape pieces for piano solo based on the novel by Anne Michaels. In 2005, on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, they premiered at the SWR in Baden-Baden. Together with the two Psalms for string quartet and for cello and piano they were released on CD by NEOS in 2011 ( NEOS 11022 ). Whether with biblical material, Virgil, Gogol or Celan - Gilead Mishory has constantly dealt with the relationship between language and music, as in the large-scale cycle of the Hebrew ballads after Else Lasker-Schüler for soprano and piano ("from time to time with a pianist's voice"), dem water psalm for chamber choir or the Chagall setting my distant home for tenor and orchestra from 2007. No wonder that at the end of this development there is an opera Isaac's youth for eight soloists and chamber orchestra from 2010. The piano piece with the title dates from 2006 Cloches de joie et l'armes de rire (»Joyful bells and tears of laughter«) – as if it were another prelude by Messiaen, or by Claude Debussy… The titles of his preludes like …Danseuses de Delphes or …Brouillards has left Debussy almost hidden, putting them very small with three dots at the end of each piece, as if the player should only find out afterwards what the piece might mean. Perhaps also in order not to be led astray and tempted into so-called "freedoms," as Gilead Mishory almost warns. For him as an interpreter, discipline is the top priority, especially with Debussy. Losing them in a frenzy of color is a well-known danger. So at the beginning there is a look at the overall structure with all the questions between the important and the unimportant, the whole and the detail, construction and nuance, color and sound, tempo and line. For Mishory, the most difficult piece of the cycle in terms of the relationship between tempo and line is the Prélude …Des pass sur la neige (»Steps in the Snow«) from the first volume. Where does a rubato belong and where not? How does pulsation create connection? And above all: the rhythmic structure. Least of all should it be »clouded«, especially in the Prélude …Brouillards to open the second volume. "Impressionism" - misunderstood - can easily become a caricature. Mishory makes no distinction between a Beethoven sonata and the Debussy Préludes, for both composers are similarly precise in notating the music and their playing directions. Mishory must have felt like the writer in front of the blank sheet of paper when he describes the development of the preludes with the words: »I sit down and start with the first note«. All interpretative decisions serve Gilead Mishory an "experienced reality". And here we are back to the language. Because the pianist has such a vivid idea of the individual preludes that one could actually paint them directly from his words. And he also discovered some "genetic similarities", for example between the Préludes …La fille aux cheveux de lin (»The girl with the flax hair«) from the first and …Bruyères (»Heather«) from the second volume with their similar sound processes and a common association with the pastoral world. Every single Prélude means a whole world to Mishory. He looks at it like in a kaleidoscope, shaking up its tonal, rhythmic and emotional layers until he gets the "Sunken Cathedral" (...La cathedrale engloutie) even upside down. He loves Debussy's sharp contrasts and his almost grotesque drawing of the male protagonists (…General Lavine (eccentric), …Homage to S. Pickwick Esq. PPMPC) and at the same time his warm, quiet, discreet tonal language in the landscape paintings and the fairy-like portraits of women. And he admires Debussy's ability to set up a stage in a minute, as in the Spanish-inspired Prélude …La sérénade interrompue (»The disturbed serenade«), a piece that for Mishory has to do above all with human weakness. And already he tells how a knight tunes his guitar and starts singing under the balcony of his beloved, and how annoyed this Donna is: instead of a smile she throws down a flower pot, and how suddenly - in a strange key - from another street another suitor approaches with a serenade... to end with pity: "The knight is poor". The fact that Debussy's Préludes is always about people, how they see, hear, smell, taste, love, dance, walk and finally stage a grandiose firework display is conveyed in every tone of Gilead Mishory's recording. Even more: Mishory gives the imaginary protagonists in Debussy's cycle a voice, he makes them speak, to tell their stories. They become Gilead Mishory's "pianist's voice" themselves. Lotte Thaler |
program:
| CD 1 First book [01] I …Danseuses de Delphes 02:48 total time: 42:20
CD 2 [01] I … Brouillards 03:09 total time: 41:35
Gilead Mishory piano Klassikinfo.de – The CD of the week Klaus Kalchschmid |
Press:
 06.02.2015 100 years have passed since the second book of the eminent Préludes by Claude Debussy was first performed. Gilead Mishory celebrates this anniversary with a recording that amounts to a dignified homage. A living event Pleasant serenity Silvan Habenot
Klassikinfo.de Klaus Kalchschmid
intimate head-to-head
Gilead Mishory's account of Debussy's Preludes is very intimate and pure. With an uncompromising attention to detail in terms of color, articulation, phrasing, tempo and dynamics the pianist is very close to Debussy's idea of a quite sensual but never sentimental or suave tête-à-tête. Born in Jerusalem in 1960, pianist Gilead Mishory, formerly with Tudor, is now making his second production with Neos - following one of his own - proving himself to be a premier Debussy interpreter. Debussy's two volumes of 'Préludes' are not program music, nor are they cyclical. Each piece stands on its own, and the subtitles that the composer gave to the 24 miniatures are, at best, intended to help the listener imagine something under the music, just as he imagined something under individual pictures or verses of poetry, which he probably did not set to music, the but inspired him. The 'Préludes' consist, as he himself said, "of color and rhythmic time". Seen in this way, they are often just an echo of his impressions. This becomes very clear in Gilead Mishory's interpretations, which emphasize the 'thoughtful' aspect without the music ever stopping. His art of rubato, his sense of invigorating rhythm even in the slowest piece and his play of colors are much too sophisticated for that – without ever appearing intellectualistic. But Mishory was certainly also aware of the danger that the 'Préludes' could become anecdotal if the performer does not maintain a certain distance from them and consequently paint them simply rather than with firm brushstrokes. With great attention to detail in the coloring, the articulation , phrasing, tempi and dynamics, with him these pieces become exactly what Debussy intended, an intimate 'tête-à tête' between himself and the pianist.
http://www.br.de/radio/br-klassik/sendungen/leporello/cd-tipp-debussy-preludes-mishory100.html
"La fille aux cheveux de lin" ... "The girl with the hair of linen" - certainly one of the best-known preludes from Claude Debussy's epochal collection and despite its simple structure far more than a musical genre picture. Sensitively, but presented without false sentiment, the music unfolds a space of weightlessness; the notion of a time suspended in the timeless.
Gilead Mishory, himself a composer of remarkable metier, but above all an internationally outstanding pianist because of the culture of sound and accuracy of his playing, impresses in his recently presented complete presentation of Debussy's compendium. Whichever world the individual Prélude opens up – and Mishory audibly gives each of the pieces its own worldliness – it unfolds an unparalleled inner breadth. The titles of the pieces, which Debussy communicated almost en passant at the end and in brackets, function like the reverberation of either a tender impression or bursting eruptions.
Thoughtful and controlled rubati
“Ce qu'a vu le vent d'0uest” – from the highly virtuoso cascades of what the west wind saw. Gilead Mishory, born in Jerusalem in 1960, studied in Munich with Gerhard Oppitz, among others. He teaches at the Freiburg Music Academy, gives master classes worldwide and maintains an extensive repertoire. What makes his interpretation of the Debussy Préludes so precious has to do with a special sense of balance. This pianist's ability to let iridescent timbres blossom, to transform them synesthetically and dissolve them into foreboding scents, does not come at the expense of a clear drawing of the compositional textures. Mishory knows how to breathe life into even the tiniest rhythmic detail - but always in accordance with its importance in the overarching breathing process of the music. All rubati are thoughtful and well controlled - never sloppy or carried by false sentiment. In a music in which highly artfully staged tendencies to dissolution are inscribed (both in the individual miniature and in the large arcs of the double opus), lyrical contours and dynamically stabilizing lines of force maintain a wonderful balance. Gravitation of the moon: the finale of “… La terrasse des audiances du clair de lune”.
Helmut Rohm
http://www.mdr.de/mdr-figaro/musik/take-five490.html
Like Frédéric Chopin before him, Claude Debussy wrote a cycle of 24 Préludes: compositions that reflected the contemplative attitude of Impressionism. There stood the sun-drenched image of the hills of Anacapri alongside that of a dancing leprechaun or a sunken cathedral; there Debussy let the moonlight wander over the imaginary terrace of his audience; he played recklessly with intervals of thirds or imagined sounds and scents rotating in the air. A collection overflowing with ideas, which the Israeli pianist, composer and native of Breisgau Gilead Mishory interprets on his new CD. Mishory stated that it was about not letting the music sink into the nebulous cliché of impressionism. He plays with rhythmic precision, and this is exactly what allows him to incorporate small surprises; he clarifies the structures of the music without falling into the coldly analytical. Gilead Mishory also brings out the soft facets of a grand piano that has a hard sound to offer in the forte; with his delicate touch he knows how to play the quiet preludes so forcefully that these 84 minutes never get boring. |
Awards & Mentions:
| Klassikinfo.de – The CD of the week The composer and pianist Gilead Mishory has repeatedly dealt with the 24 Préludes by Claude Debussy. The double CD that was released on the NEOS label in co-production with SWR - the label has also released compositions by him - is his third (the first two CDs were also created for radio stations). It offers a maximum of play of colors and illumination of the harmonic structures of these very different pieces with precise characteristics and the greatest rhythmic accuracy at the same time. It is often no longer necessary to know the titles deliberately placed by the composer at the end of the pieces. A reference shot! Klaus Kalchschmid |