July 7-8, 2001

Festival opens on high note

By James J. Gillis, Daily News staff

If Friday night's performance is any indication, French pianist Lydia Jardon could become a fixture in these parts.

Jardon wowed a packed house gathered at The Breakers for the opening of the 33rd Newport Music Festival with a series of Chopin pieces. Jardon deftly performed the preludes, maneuvering easily through a variety of tempo changes. Her elegance was a contrast to the theatrical performance by Russian pianist Andrei Gavrilov, who came off as part rock star/part Phantom of the Opera.

The preludes Jardon performed were by turn melodically bright and ominously dark. Her tone was at times flourishing white understated. With her face covered by a mane of brown hair, Jardon leaned back at times during the slower portions and hunched over the keyboard to handle the more intricate sections.

Jardon, one of five performers making American debuts at the festival, played Prelude in C-sharp Minor as well as Prelude in A-flat Major ending the first portion of the program with Twenty-four Preludes, Op. 28 three pieces that include some of Chopin's more familiar work.

In 1982, Jardon won two first prizes in piano and chamber music at the Conservatory National Supérieur de Musique de Paris. She has captured numerous honors since.She has performed regularly in France, Germany, Austria, Brazil and a variety of eastern European countries.

She has spent most of her time in recent years performing concerts. Her most recent recording features 26 preludes by Chopin.

The pianist was scheduled to perform pieces by Vuillemin and Rachmaninoff for the second part of the performance, not covered here because of newspaper deadline restrictions.

July 8, 2001

CONCERT REVIEW
French pianist Jardon opens Newport festival
with boldness, flair

By Channing Gray, Journal Arts Writer

The Newport Music Festival opened its 17-day musical marathon Friday with the American debut of French pianist Lydia Jardon. To say thanks for being picked for such an auspicious occasion, Jardon treated a packed house at The Breakers to a heartfelt rendition of an American standard, an excerpt from Rhapsody in Blue.

The Gershwin score was one of two encores that capped off a wonderfully satisfying evening. Jardon, who is all but unknown in this country but has a respectable concert and recording career in Europe, is a thoughtful, almost meticulous pianist who makes every note count.

But that's not to say her playing is fussy or mannered. She has a fondness for the grand gesture, for long, sweeping phrases. Her Rachmaninoff, the brooding B-Flat Minor Sonata, was about as bold and daring as it gets.

Jardon, who looked to be in her late 30s, perhaps 40ish, cuts quite a glamorous figure, with her vast mane of chestnut locks, high cheekbones and cat-like eyes. She seemed a bit standoffish at first, however, shooting an icy stare at listeners settling into their squeaky chairs.

That happened as she opened her program with the Chopin Preludes, the familiar set of 24, as well as the two miscellaneous ones in C-Sharp Minor and A-Flat Major. Jardon has recently recorded the Chopins, and it showed. They were beautifully etched, with careful attention paid to harmonic changes and inner voices, especially in the popular Raindrop prelude, where she made the left hand sing.

And in the C Minor Prelude, another Chopin chestnut, Jardon used understatement to make her point, holding back on the opening theme, then letting the melody fade to breathtaking silence.

After intermission, the soloist returned with Louis Vuillemin's Soirs Armoricains, a set of three pieces that sounded like Debussy meets jazz great Bill Evans. The first two pieces were the more interesting, with haunting sonorities that sounded like chimes. The third was all fluff.

Still the Vuillemin gave Jardon a chance to show off her gifts as a colorist and her flair for lush, layered writing, the kind of pianism she would have to wade through in the Rachmaninoff Sonata.

There was a time when almost no one played the Rachmaninoff. Now it's standard fare. Turning in a convincing performance is another matter. It's a wild, unruly piece, and lacks the kind of to-die-for tunes that seemed to pour from the composer.

But Jardon managed to make sense of it all, keeping phrases taut and maintaining the momentum. As an encore, Jardon returned for a stunning performance of one of the 20 vignettes from French mystic Olivier Messiaen's Vingt Regards sur l'enfant Jesus.

The Newport Festival continues today with music by Dvorák and a 9 p.m. recital by Latvian soprano Inessa Galante. Tomorrow night at 9, Russian pianist Alexei Skavronsky tackles both books of Chopin Etudes, along with music by Scriabin.