I've seen a lot of really good classical concerts recently. Marc-André Hamelin playing Gershwin's Rhapsody Blue with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra was as good as you'd expect it to be. Shostakovich's 8th symphony with the same orchestra was excellent too.
Last Wednesday I saw a pianist I'd never heard of before playing at a half-full Salle Bourgie. I don't know why my wife bought the tickets, and she couldn't really remember either, but it seemed like a pleasant way of spending a Wednesday evening. Elisabeth Brauss was young, twenty-nine according to the notes, but she looked much younger. The program included works by Bach, Beethoven, Schumann, and Prokofiev. She came out on stage, all smiles, paused for a moment and began to play.
Holy crap.
There was a palpable moment in the hall when everyone came to the same realisation - something special is happening here. Her playing was mesmerising, a scarcely believable combination of energy, lyricism, and precision, with each of those attributes turned up to maximum. And unlike some other artists I've seen recently, the pianist herself seemed to be enjoying every moment of the performance. The audience was so caught up in it that they stopped coughing (!) and the silence between each movement was total, charged with anticipation, almost radioactive. Montreal audiences are always pretty generous with their standing ovations, but the enthusiasm in this one was off the scale. It was the concert of the season for me.
I'm really looking forward to seeing Elisabeth Brauss in concert again, but next time I'll have expectations. This was an one off, the sort of thing that can only happen in a live performance where you have no preconceptions of what you're about to see.
Anyway, you had to be there I guess. But thanks to a user on BlueSky, I found this video of her playing the same program at the Gilmore festival, just three days before her concert in Montreal. It's an exceptionally good video with close-ups of her hands. For example, see her playing of the Beethoven Sonata that begins at 27'15", so lyrical and so moving, followed by the explosion of energy as she moves into the second movement at 31'20".
