Lydia Jardon

The press speaks about it

Between the release of her latest CD, Igor Stravinsky's "The Firebird", and her recital on 11 December at the Goethe Institute, pianist Lydia Jardon was happy to meet us. Portrait of a gifted pianist and an unforgettable woman.
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"It's a direct lineage after Rachmaninov, Scriabin and Miaskovsky that I recorded, but, at the beginning, L'Oiseau was not my choice. It was a commission from Jean-Claude Casadesus for the Lille Piano(s) festival". Pianist Lydia Jardon worked for many months to come up with "her" score of the piano transcription of Igor Stravinsky's Firebird.
A demanding text, but she who has "played the complete Scriabin Sonatas several times", refuses to practice "extravagant pianism with guaranteed tendonitis": "I'm not interested in rodeo pianism! People have to understand the work, it's not about settling scores!

A LABEL AND TWO FESTIVALS
The disc has just been released. It includes the second part of Le Chant du rossignol, another transcription that also required a very large investment. The record company deserves a mention: it is the cornerstone of Lydia Jardon's large garden. The Catalan-born musician can pride herself on having created in 2002 the "first women's label", "Ar Ré-Sé" ("Celles-là" in Breton). A majority of female performers have recorded "unborrowed repertoires" (catalogue on www.arre-se.com). As she likes to accomplish "somewhat titanic things", Lydia created in 2001 the festival "Musiciennes à Ouessant". Ouessant, "the island of women"... which she is madly in love with. Another challenge: last May, the first edition of the "Musiciennes en Guadeloupe" festival took place. In May 2013 a tribute will be paid to the Mexican Consuelo Velasquez (to whom we owe the famous "Besame mucho"). A springtime coronation of sorts!
L'Est républicain, 13 December 2012, Frédéric Menu

Tutti Magazine, 29 December 2012, Philippe Banel

" A Bird and a keyboard of fire!
INTERVIEW WITH LYDIA JARDON, PIANIST.
To hold an audience spellbound for forty minutes without interruption is the challenge taken up by pianist Lydia Jardon with her version of Stravinsky's incredible transcription of The Firebird at the Goethe Institute on 11 December. It is enough, moreover, to see a single page of her annotated score to realise the difficulty of the undertaking. A disc has just been released that testifies to the formidable energy and artistic dimension of this unusual performer. But Lydia Jardon cannot limit herself to concerts and recordings. A passionate teacher, she is also in charge of a record label and artistic director of two festivals: Musiciennes à Ouessant and, since 2012, Musiciennes en Guadeloupe. When we met her, she had just returned from Guadeloupe that morning. Despite the tiredness of the journey, her passion was there, perceptible in her words, as she spoke to us about her many musical involvements and this Oiseau de feu, initially commissioned in 2010 by Jean-Claude Casadessus for the Lille piano(s) festival... "
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INTERVIEW WITH LYDIA JARDON
Director of the Musiciennes à Ouessant and Guadeloupe festivals, Lydia Jardon is also the founder of the Ar Re-Se label. She is passionate about transcriptions and has just recorded Stravinsky's "The Firebird" and "The Nightingale Song".
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What is most appealing in listening to The Firebird is first of all the perfect understanding of the orchestra's polyphony and its transposition to the piano. The instrument is by definition reductive. However, in this piece, it can also help us to deepen the original structure of the work. Lydia Jardon's interpretation is based on cues, sometimes even details, that make the musical message clearer. This minimalist approach requires an intimate knowledge of the orchestral work. It is a kind of "composed commentary", as in a literary work. It is a kind of "composed commentary", as in a literary work. It goes beyond the musical value of the notes. The result is more than surprising: it renders the piece in all its magnificence and complexity, without the 'tricks', the pianistic effects, the cache-misère of an invasive pedal. Such an approach requires an effort of concentration on the part of the listener. The Song of the Nightingale, in its syntactic nakedness, belongs more to sonorist experimentation, the piano announcing the harmonic language of Messiaen. A titanic task for a fascinating result.

"Apart from the Three Movements of Petrushka and a few short pieces, Stravinsky wrote little for solo piano. But he did make transcriptions of orchestral pieces, including the Firebird. In fact, the work was written down in 1910, first in a piano version, probably to help the dancers in their preparation. His son Soulima also transcribed three of the ballet's movements for the instrument in 1973. Lydia Jardon drew on these two sources and combined them in her own version, intended for concert performance. Emboldened by the interest generated, she then recorded it. The result is, beyond the tour de force, truly revealing. "Solar and regenerative music," she says. It certainly is. And it is a quasi-orchestra that we hear, with incandescent lines or inhabited lyricism. The use of the widest possible spectrum of the piano translates, with a rare accuracy of tone, the various moods of the piece, the fluidity of the discourse, as well as the abrupt changes of sequences or the almost fusional transitions. The polyphony, so dense, of the orchestral version is restored, not by using the re-recording technique, but by the two hands alone, through a compression of the material and an extremely modulated use of the pedal. This leads to a necessary shift, slightly reducing the timing of the piece. In what the performer describes as "solar and regenerative music", the spellbinding magic does not lose its rights. The 'Danse infernale', in Soulima's version, preferred to that of Igor Stravinsky, is incandescent, with wonderful left-hand work (as demonstrated in a recent concert at the Goethe Institute). And the final chords of the 'Allégresse générale', with its judicious swinging of bell volleys, are uncommonly strong. Lydia Jardon has chosen to add Le Chant du rossignol, again in Stravinsky's transcription of the orchestral version. The experience is just as fascinating, or even more astonishing, so much so that the mastery of the rhythmic mechanics in perpetual change is subjugated to an extreme rigour of tempo. Here again, the sonic gleam is no less than in the orchestra. The poetics of the melancholic theme of the bird takes on a disturbing colouring. The "mechanical nightingale game" is a strenuous gymnastics, and the peroration, so well sung, is filled with mystery. This is an almost ideal complement! One is subjugated by what Lydia Jardon humbly calls "a serene virtuosity", eminently highlighted by the instrument played, a Japanese piano by Shigeru Kawai, clear in the midrange and devoid of thickness in the bass, far from the flashy sound of the Hamburg firm's keyboard. A rare record!

" Stravinsky's Rare Birds by Lydia Jardon."
This is rare enough to be noted: failing to have produced essential and original scores for the piano, it must be acknowledged that Igor Stravinsky's most remarkable works for the keyboard are his own arrangements of the orchestral masterpieces Petrushka, The Firebird and The Rite of Spring. It will not be long before we realize that these versions are not mere disorchestrated clones of the original versions. They have a remarkable interest that allows us to plunge into the heart of the structures, harmonies and rhythms that are the hallmark of the great Russian.
In the particular case of the Firebird recorded here, the accompanying booklet tells us that Lydia Jardon chose to merge two existing transcriptions: the one, obviously, by Stravinsky, made in 1910, to which very long passages from her son's version for three pieces, dated 1973, have been incorporated. The 'danse infernale' is thus essentially due to him. By her own admission, Lydia Jardon has rewritten or completed certain passages from the orchestral score on her own initiative. But don't let this fiddling frighten you: the result is quite successful as far as the text itself is concerned, since you can hear nothing but fire in it!
As far as the performance itself is concerned, this version for solo piano of an instrumentally charged score in its orchestral version occupies the musical space well. We never had the impression of a hollow or void created by the reduction of the physical means of execution - the two hands alone - and instrumental - a single keyboard. This shows that the artist, who had already matured his disc in a series of concerts given previously, is fully committed. However, one can discern a constant cerebralization that tends to restrict and perhaps over-control his playing at the expressive level. But the clarity of the reading and the subtly controlled use of pedals (including the harmonic) ensure an impeccable setting of the sound levels.
In the end, the successful interpretation of such a score means succeeding in the whole paradox of a luxuriant music that requires the performers to be absolutely rigorous in their setting, a rigour that must serve as a basis for the development of a subjectivity that is constantly under control, otherwise the edifice will crumble. The complement to the Nightingale Song is in the same artistic vein. Technically, one can hear here and there a few parasite noises that are difficult to identify (pedal squeaks, internal rattles of the instrument?).
Would too much freedom of intention have ruined this Firebird? Better not to find out and enjoy this interesting and hardly serious production.