With Bertrand, there’s no banging the keyboard, no bouncing around on the piano bench, no wet hair with sweat pouring off to try to impress shallow people, no Dracula-looking facial expressions like he’s going insane the way Trifonov does (with his cult following), and no ridiculous gazing at the ceiling with quivering lips and all the other ludicrous antics that some of today’s circuit pianists engage in to impress shallow people who apparently know nothing about music or the art of piano playing. These pianists who engage in needless theatrics refuse to let the music speak for itself or stand on its own, so they put all of this energy — and their antics do take a lot of energy that could better be directed into their music — into these needless theatrics to impress stupid, ignorant and shallow people who are easily impressed by such nonsense and who apparently know nothing about music. And this seems to work for them. They get this cult following. Trifonov ended one of his piano concerto performances with staring at the ceiling. I had wondered whether the First and Second Concertmasters seated directly behind him looked up there to see what he was looking at. I remember that Horowitz said, “I’m probably not that interesting to watch because you won’t see me gazing at the ceiling with quivering lips” so he, too, had noticed this nonsense. I mean, how could you not? It seems that every circuit pianist does it as if they think they are required to, otherwise they won’t be taken seriously (roll eyes).

Music is the International Language

A commenter on YT mentioned Trifonov and the Russian School of Piano Playing in the same breath, as a positive thing. Well, I guess the commenter does not know that the Russian School has this — unfair? — reputation for producing “banging pianists.” Well, some do bang the keyboard and some don’t. It depends upon the pianist. I avoid ugly nationalism whenever possible when discussing music because music is the international language, crossing all silly and arbitrary human-made geographic borders. A pianist born in Brazil can play Rachmaninov just as well (if not better) than some pianists born in Russia. Where one was born is irrelevant, although those into rank and septic nationalism will disagree with that.

Bertrand was trained as I was trained. Our playing styles are identical.

Well-trained pianists are taught to “make it look easy” no matter how difficult the piece is, and that’s exactly what Bertrand does in the pieces he plays, particularly here in the Saint-Saëns PC #2. Check out those fast double-octaves in the first movement where the Orchestra has the melody at 6.55. Whereas the circuit pianists who engage in all of those energy-consuming needless theatrics make their playing look difficult in order to “WOW” the audience, which is the opposite of what they’re supposed to be doing. Unfortunately, audiences do seem to fall for those antics, the needless and energy-consuming theatrics which are absolutely unnecessary for an excellent performance of the piece. But audiences don’t seem to know any better.

This is a beautiful concerto and beautifully performed here.

My personal history with the piece: I’ve played around with it but have not seriously learned it. I first heard this concerto — well the first movement — was for the Conservatory’s Symphony Orchestra’s Annual Student Soloist Competition where winners played one movement of a piece for their instrument and orchestra. The Concerto Swine on campus (that was her nickname that some of us gave her on campus because she hogged all the local and regional concerto opportunities) played the first movement of the Saint-Saëns PC #2, unfortunately with a major memory slip. She was a Performance major with a rather large head and with sort of a bullying personality, at least the way she approached me. She resented me when I would sight-read or play around with any of the concerti she had performed. Why would she care what I worked on? She made snide remarks to my face about “all the wrong notes” she had allegedly heard me play in the practise rooms. She had nothing better to do with her time than to stand outside my practise room and listen to me play/practise? (Well, perhaps I was sight-reading at the time, but the Dean of the Conservatory had chosen me to accompany people — I served as pianist (sight-reading) for Freshman Day auditioners who didn’t bring an accompanist to their audition — wanting to audition for entry into the Conservatory because the Dean considered me to be an excellent sight-reader, which I appreciated). As for the Concerto Swine, she sounds like a lovely person, doesn’t she? [sarcasm intended] She was a piece of work, at least to me. I kept distance from her. Nevertheless, I tried to ignore all of these flaws about her and I told her I enjoyed her performance when that was the case, but I don’t remember her having the courtesy to say “thank you” at any time. In hindsight: Was she jealous of me for some reason? I don’t know what was wrong with her. I was doing most of the piano accompanying on campus — I had something like 11 students I was accompanying and piano majors were only required to have 3 students to accompany — and she was doing most of the concerti things. These days? She’s doing piano accompanying and not piano performance. Maybe she preferred to do accompanying at that time but her piano professor was pushing her to do concerto work since she was a Performance major. I don’t know what her head trip was to be honest, but I do know these days she’s doing what I was mostly doing at the Conservatory in those days. Maybe she was jealous or envious of me for that. I would say the girl had issues.

Well here is the Saint-Saëns played superbly by Bertrand Chamayou with the Orchestra dell’Accademia di Santa Cecilia and Andris Poga conducting. It’s a live performance from the Auditorium Parco della Musica, Rome (2017).