Paul Lewis is among the very few pianists today who possess the interpretive authority to convincingly interpret the music of the Austro-German classics. His recordings of Beethoven and Schubert, like those by Artur Schnabel and Alfred Brendel before him, have become discographic touchstones, justly praised across the world. So the thought of Lewis playing anything else might raise an eyebrow or two from some listeners, even though his earliest recordings include such seemingly atypical repertoire like concerti by Shostakovich and Schnittke.
Audiences in Southern California this Sunday will have the opportunity to hear Lewis outside his typical Teutonic ambit. He’ll be at Zipper Hall playing music by Mozart and Poulenc, with Debussy’s L'Isle joyeuse as pivot.
The program is a personal homecoming, Lewis said in an interview earlier this week. “I was obsessed with Poulenc’s Improvisations”, he continued. “I used to play them a lot when I was a teenager in school and haven’t since.”
Some of the first works that Lewis played after he began formal piano lessons were by French composers.
As I matured, I went more in the direction of the Germanic repertoire. That was around the time [I met] Alfred Brendel. Now that I’m in my 50s, I want to revisit this music that I once was very close to. I know nobody expects me to play this kind of music, but it’s been living in me, it’s stayed there.
At the heart of the program is Debussy’s L’Isle joyeuse, a piece that requires a completely different interpretive approach and technique from the music Lewis has built his reputation on.
“Beethoven is a great teacher, his structures tell you what to do”, he said. “With Debussy, whose music needs characterization and pacing based on its mood and color to give it cohesion, it’s totally different”.
Between Mozart and Debussy, Lewis admitted, there is little stylistic connection. That’s where Poulenc, whose music contains both the Mozartian “sad smile” and the clarity of 20th-century French music, comes in.
You really need Poulenc to tie that path [between Mozart and Debussy]. Otherwise, it’d sound strange and not something I’d do. The program is designed to feel like a gradual development, of starting in one place, wandering away, then returning home. There’s also something about the way Poulenc writes; the transparency, precision, discretion, and layering within his idiom which I think connects beautifully to Mozart.
These Debussy and Poulenc works, along with the former’s Children’s Corner, will be included in a forthcoming CD release.
Mozart’s C major, K330 and C minor, K457 sonatas, which frame Sunday’s program, also have connections to the recording studio. They’re scheduled to be among the first works Lewis will record later this year in a multi-year Mozart project for Harmonia Mundi. A 2-CD installment will be issued each year until the cycle is completed.
Lewis noted that while it is tempting for listeners to compare Mozart’s K457 sonata with Beethoven’s works in C minor, there are important distinctions between the two composers.
Beethoven makes drama overt in a way that invites resolution. It’s more internalized in Mozart’s music. Indeed, in this C minor sonata, as in his C minor concerto, there isn’t a true resolution to the tensions and the questions he poses. It’s more of an interior journey.
Does the inclusion of Debussy and Poulenc signal a deeper turn for Lewis as a recording artist? Perhaps. Lewis talked about his love for Bartók and especially Janáček, whose 1. X. 1905 sonata he has scheduled to play in 2028.
Whatever repertoire Lewis sets out to play, he is guided foremost by personal belief in it.
“Otherwise why play it?”, he laughed.
***
Paul Lewis will be playing Mozart, Debussy, and Poulenc this Sunday, February 15, at Zipper Hall. Program starts at 3:00 p.m. and will last approximately 1 hour, 40 minutes, with intermission. Tickets start at $30. For more information click here or call the Colburn School at (213) 621-2200.