Having reached the middle of her life, pianist Hélène Grimaud is thinking about Time; that Mighty Sculptor evoked by Marguerite Yourcenar, the thing that weaves our destinies and gets us all in the end. Exploring the past to better understand the present, Hélène Grimaud finds some answers in pieces by Mozart and the Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov. You can feel the time passing like a gentle breeze, creating a dreamlike nostalgia-filled atmosphere.
On top of these existential thoughts, there’s the pandemic that hit the world in early 2020 - when Hélène Grimaud started recording this album. The crisis is having ramifications in all parts of society. It’s affected each and every one of us. It’s weakened the economy. It’s provoked questions and reactions within artistic communities who are pretty good at expressing emotions.
It took Hélène Grimaud a little time to tame Mozart’s music, settling for nothing short of perfection. Performing either alone or with the Salzburg Camerata in the dark minor tones of the two sublime Fantasias surrounding Concerto No. 20, she chose to perform K. 466 – one of Mozart’s most burning, rebellious compositions, full of lightning and foreboding atmospheres. Grimaud praises the dishevelled Romanticism by drawing from Beethoven (whose cadenzas she uses for this concerto). The result is radical and seems to relieve her anxiety… and seemingly ours as well. © François Hudry/QOBUZ