Washington Classical Review

Jean-Yves Thibuadet performed Debussy’s Préludes Thursday night for Washington Performing Arts. Photo: Andrew Eccles

Jean-Yves Thibaudet is still scaling virtuosic mountains. His most recent Washington-area appearances included the Khachaturian Piano Concerto with the National Symphony Orchestra last year and the Turangalîla-Symphonie with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in 2019. The French pianist, now 64, played both books of Debussy’s Préludes Thursday night in the Music Center at Strathmore, for a solo recital presented by Washington Performing Arts.

The more challenging pieces in Book 1 inspired Thibaudet’s most colorful responses, like the whirring sextuplets of “Le vent dans la plaine.” This rushing wind swept across the keyboard, growing to shattering volume at times and then returning to its quiet beginning, only to be interrupted by the ring of a phone, the first of several cellular audience mishaps. A similarly bold approach marked “Ce qu’a vu le vent d’ouest,” with great rhythmic flair in the guitar-like writing of “La sérénade interrompue,” an evocation of Spain.

In some of the simpler works, the pianist often focused on minute details, as in the rather fussy articulation notated in “Danseuses de Delphes” and the plodding pace of “Des pas sur la neige,” a depiction of an impressionist snowscape. Humor enlivened other stretches of the less technically formidable pieces, especially the flighty “La danse de Puck” and the gamboling “Minstrels” with their sentimental popular songs.

Thibaudet made a savvy sketch of the architecture of “La cathédrale engloutie,” differentiating the layers of sound from murky bass up to bell-like treble. A heavy use of the sustaining pedal blurred the whole-tone scales of “Voiles,” an exotic allusion to the shining veils swirled by the dancer Loie Fuller. But the most unpresuming prelude of them all, “La fille aux cheveux de lin,” sounded too plain and unsentimental to capture the fervor of the poem that inspired it.

Similarly, “Les sons et les parfums tournent dans l’air du soir” felt a little rushed and drab, including the imitation of distant horns in the coda, as did the Italian dances and songs of “Les collines d’Anacapri.” There were no technical issues, to be sure, but in some of the less virtuosic pieces, Thibaudet found less material to create a compelling sonic tableau.

Book II, written a couple years after Book I, revisits many of the same themes, in a way that can sometimes feel derivative. Thibaudet, on the other hand, responded with greater variety because of the increased technical and musical challenges. His soft, pearly touch at the keyboard gave a delicacy to the ambiguous, often unresolved harmonies of “Brouillards.” More Spanish flavor came in “La puerta del Vino,” with its sultry Habanera rhythms. Quicksilver airiness pervaded the heady trills and runs of “Les fées sont d’exquises danseuses,” a counterpart to the Puckian dance in Book 1.

Wry humor returned in “Général Lavine – eccentric,” with its touches of ragtime and clownish effects played to the maximum, along with a tongue-in-cheek pompousness brought out in “Hommage à S. Pickwick Esq. P.P.M.P.C.” The climax of the two-book cycle, rarely attempted as a whole, comes with the final two preludes of Book 2, the technically daunting “Tierces alternées,” which seems to have wandered off from Debussy’s Études, and the pièce de résistance, “Feux d’artifice.” No surprise, given Thibaudet’s strengths, that these two Préludes provided the necessary fireworks to cap the evening.

Still, as in Book 1, the simplest pieces often eluded Thibaudet, who rendered “Feuilles mortes” and “Bruyères” much as he had their parallels in Book 1. Most disappointing, “Canope” lacked the chthonic sense of mystery its subject implies. Fortunately, the enigmatic “Terrasse des audiences du clair de lune” and especially the darting, aquatic slipperiness of “Ondine” more than made up for these occasional interpretative shortcomings.

Two encores reinforced this impression of the pianist’s personality. The toccata showcase of Villa-Lobos’s Polichinelle displayed more steely-fingered fortitude. Thibaudet then offered Elgar’s sugary Salut d’Amour in a heartfelt tribute to his friend, the esteemed conductor Michael Tilson Thomas, who left this world the previous day.

Pianist Vadym Kholodenko plays Beethoven’s “Hammerklavier” Sonata, Lyatoshinsky’s Three Preludes, and Liszt’s Grandes études de Paganini 7:30 p.m. May 5 at Sixth & I. washingtonperformingarts.org