Javier Perianes crowns in Just music! to the colossus Beethoven

Pianist Javier Perianes must be the happiest man in the world today. On Saturday, he starred in the seventh concert of the " Just Music! " project at Madrid's National Music Auditorium, with which the National Center for Musical Diffusion (CNDM) celebrates the European Music Festival, which coincides with the summer solstice every year. Perianes has been the soloist and conductor of five Beethoven piano concertos, performed in company with the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana (Orchestra of the Valencian Community ), and distributed in two concerts separated by just forty-five minutes. At midnight, a fireworks display outside the auditorium brought the feat to a close, which had been completed shortly before with the entire audience on their feet, applauding and cheering for the man who, at this point, is easily considered the leading Spanish pianist.

Courage, technique, and competence are fundamental elements of these proposals, which don't come about by chance. Perianes is a long-distance runner , who has become convinced of his mission and, after striving to achieve a privileged position, has led him to intelligently select the best options at all times.

The talent that emerged from her early performances, which focused more on reflective musicality than on the display of overwhelming pianistic power, has grown toward a maturity that combines a false sense of ease with a substance laden with eloquence . Her performances exude personality, emotion, and an undeniable poetic sense that, when contrasted with Beethoven's music, serves to highlight very particular and not always obvious profiles.

But we'll see this a little later, as we revisit the experiences of these concerts. For now, suffice it to remember that Perianes is like the "quiet man" (albeit without the guilty conscience of a past to regret): a conqueror who today appears and leaves the stage a little less hastily than before, but without losing his bonhomie with the audience.

So it was barely midnight, and while the applause from everyone on their feet continued inside the auditorium, Perianes pointed to the clock and indicated the exit door. He should have held on, getting the orchestra back on its feet again and again, forcing himself to go in and out as many times as necessary , because that's what the spectacle is all about, the success of everyone on stage, and the essence of this day in music from which so many consequences can arise.

For example, the reflection on current musical events, aside from the wear and tear suffered by initiatives such as the 'Just Music!' project, which at one time were absolutely multitudinous and which today breathe an air of conventional survival because in themselves they have lost the fuel of fervor , aside from their strictly artistic interest and that their consequences endure thanks to the projection granted to it by the recording made by Televisión Española , the live transmission by Radio Clásica , the gastronomic delights placed in the foyer of the Auditorium and the projection on a giant screen in the plaza that opens in front of the main façade of the building. The empty seats at the second of the sessions is a symptom to be taken into account.

At 7:30 p.m., Javier Perianes appeared ready to tackle Beethoven's Second Concerto, highlighting tensions that would eventually be smoothed over thanks to that sort of sixth sense certain performers possess for knowing how to find themselves in a suitable acoustic environment, breathing together. The presence of the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana was fundamental, along with the fact that Javier Perianes had the opportunity to work with them some time ago. It should be remembered that this is one of the leading Spanish orchestral groups, and here, by maintaining a similar basic lineup for all the concerts, save for the explicit differences in each composition, he once again demonstrated the importance of playing in favor of the work.

The OCV's personality can be subtle but also impetuous, as demonstrated in the "Second" concert and the "Fifth" that closed the evening. First of all, because there was still much to be fine-tuned and because Perianes is, at this point, much more of a pianist than a conductor. In the orchestra's favor is its ability to listen to the soloist, who from the very beginning infused Beethoven with the destiny of a mysterious and concentrated "adagio" with incredible pianissimos. Perianes transformed the slow tempos into gems of a sublime romanticism, a kind of fin-de-siècle decadence that no one can deny when expressed with such conviction.

The "Fifth Concerto," the finale of the day, arrived with the instrument itself showing signs of fatigue, and with it, Perianes was forced to sacrifice the beauty of his pianism while trying to find the right proportion of planes, the balance of midrange, and his own physical exhaustion in a work whose complexity explores another symphonic dimension. In reality, the second session of the day lacked perfection in its assembly. It began with the first concerto, presented with strong contrasts that served as a prologue to a particularly personal rondo, with tempo changes difficult to understand beyond the effort of trying to place the orchestra in the fold of a continuation that was becoming lax. The ear already knew by then that another dimension was possible.

The second work of the first session was the "Third Concerto," whose reception brought the first bravos of the evening and whose musicality smoothed over the rough edges that had been previously left open. The immediate and formidable execution of the "Fourth" was something to be taken into account : it became the pinnacle of the day even from its geographically epicentric position. Once again, the cadence was a substantial part of the message, in addition to the airy sense with which the "Andante" was approached, with dazzling control, and the formidable "Rondo," whose rectitude tinged with subtle flexibility gave meaning to the introverted character, to the sorrowful emotionality about which César Rus writes in the commentary published in the program. The recently deceased pianist Alfred Brendel points out in his small book, 'From A to Z of a Pianist', translated into Spanish, that "there are still prejudices against which we are forced to react, such as the idea of ​​an absolutely heroic and titanic Beethoven," but "let us not forget that he could be graceful in his own way, and that his 'dolce' tenderness is a distinctive feature of his personality, as are his vehemence and his haughtiness." Javier Perianes, director of the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana, understands it this way and has similarly ratified it in the marathon 'Just Music!' Not with the intention of achieving a feat that would remain as something exceptional in his career, but as a consequence of a trajectory that remains open to an artistic horizon that promises interpretive syntheses of unpredictable emotion.