COMMANDING CHOPIN FROM CHARLES RICHARD-HAMELIN
Charles Richard-Hamelin (piano): Works by Chopin, Debussy, Ravel and Poulenc, Vancouver Playhouse, September 28, 2025.
Canadian Charles Richard-Hamelin has returned to Vancouver far too little since his splendid debut concert that celebrated his Silver Medal at the 2015 Warsaw Chopin Competition. Nonetheless, his career has been progressing strongly and his most recent CD ‘Échos’, featuring music of Chopin, Granados & Albéniz, has received very strong reviews internationally. The current concert celebrated the pianist’s appointment as Artistic Director of the Vancouver Chopin Society, and offered a programme that combined Chopin with Debussy, Ravel and Poulenc. His traversal of the 4 Chopin Scherzi was outstandingly fine, each piece navigated with strong architecture and compelling emotional cohesion. Though the style emphasized thoughtfulness and detail over sparkle and luminosity, I have seldom heard these pieces done with a more natural interpretative line. The approach to the French composers was intriguingly different, providing even more food for thought.
The outstanding feature of Richard-Hamelin’s Chopin Scherzi was their poise, balance and emotional depth. The artist has clearly thought about these four pieces over the years, and really succeeds in communicating all the complex tensions within them. The turbulence and animation in the music is wonderfully contrasted with its aching tenderness and poetry, often finding wonderful glimmers of joy. While virtuosity as such is not central to this approach, it is always there, the composer’s strongest statements etched in stone, with a passion and dramatic resilience underlying it all. The concentration of the playing and the pianist’s eye for both detail and structure make one feel that each piece is a lovely jewel unto itself, and the rich-toned warmth that hovers over the pieces is a wonderful invitation for the listener.
In the popular B major (#1), the sense of journey was immediately apparent, probing the skittishness of its opening perfectly, moving through a compelling lightness of touch to a more rhapsodic posture, where the depth of the tenderness and joy was unearthed in lovely cantabile lines and subtle shading. For all the stormy moments in the B-flat minor (#2) – presented strongly indeed – it was the Schubertian depth that that stood out, fragile and infinitely feeling yet still able to realize joy at the end. The shorter C-sharp minor (#3) is the whirlwind virtuoso piece, and Richard-Hamelin captured its intense animation and overwrought character splendidly, leaving just enough room for a contrasting repose. The final E-major (#4) was equally articulate, capturing both its power and depth of feeling in warm, rich tones with remarkable cumulative strength. Overall, this pianism was commanding and individual, drawing one in from beginning to end. The enticing encores were two Chopin Waltzes: in A minor, Op. posth. and C-sharp minor, Op. 64, No. 2.
The French pieces came first on the programme, and these brought a different experience than one might be used to: more analytical and deliberative than evocative and impressionistic, but exhibiting much of the same clarity and insight as the Chopin. It was also a little different sonically, since the venue’s acoustic did not respond very well to the pianist’s pedaling, often projecting extra resonance and not allowing enough really soft playing. I did not notice this at all in the Chopin.
There was definitely a ruminative feeling in the opening of Debussy’s Suite Bergamasque, structurally probing but not aiming for much Gallic charm or caprice. I noted the pianist’s attempts to highlight contrasts between top and bottom notes, isolate harmonic synergies, and leave more space in the music. The approach seemed deconstructive in the sense that it tried to reduce the piece to its basic structural components, and then build it back up again. The Menuet had fine rhythmically pointing at a deliberate speed, but with less of a whimsical quality than usual. The famous Clair de Lune was distinctive, very slow and distilled, with a remarkable sense of detail and suspension, but not given to opening out with a strong romantic push or sweep. It was kept as a very personal, almost secret, dream. I did think that softer volumes would have made this traversal even more special. Of course, many love this music when played with a coaxing charm, but it was equally fascinating to hear a pianist interpret it in a more objective way, especially when he is French-Canadian.
The opening of Ravel’s Sonatine was also more strongly argued and faster than usual, less given to its airiness and sense of wonder, and the following movement seemed simpler and less adorned, only partly suggesting an innocence or bittersweet quality. However, the closing Animé was fully successful in revealing its architectural strength and sculpted shadings. The pianist seemed more sensual and uninhibited in the brief Suite Napoli by Poulenc, finding plenty of energy in the opening movement, and capping it off by drawing allusions to Chopin’s style in the lyrical lines of the finale. I do think that these interpretations are still something of a ‘work in progress’, and I’ll be intrigued to hear the pianist’s final thoughts. The Chopin was the magnificently-finished product.
© Geoffrey Newman 2025