There are so many cities and latitudes of the concert tour that he undertakes tomorrow at the Villamarta Theater in Jerez that Javier Perianes (Huelva, 1978) is not sure what to put in his suitcase. “The question is not so much what as where,” the pianist resolves with his usual self-confidence for interviews. «Experience has taught me that what is important should not be invoiced…». He is referring, of course, to the arsenal of scores, several volumes littered with pencil notations during long hours of study, which he now keeps in the shimmering, reduced form of an iPad. “Traveling forces you to temporarily get rid of the role,” he clarifies. “Also in literary matters.” For this reason, “for idle moments in airport waiting rooms”, it has been downloaded in the eBook My Young Years by Arthur Rubinstein.
The nonagenarian and already blind Polish pianist insisted on dictating the details of his busy life in the form of a sonata. According to this typification, Perianes would find himself in the midst of an interpretative maturity that, after the youthful scherzos that astonished Daniel Barenboim and Zubin Mehta, now allows him to entrust himself to the repertoire with the serene obstinacy of someone who aspires to the “perfect synthesis between technique and emotion. The tour program, which includes 22 European cities (15 of them Spanish, with a mandatory stop at the Granada Festival) and culminates in the City Recital Hall in Sydney, is entitled Crossroads and includes a very original selection of works by Brahms, Clara and Robert Schumann, as well as the well-known Goyescas suite by Granados, which he will record in May at the Zaragoza Auditorium.
The first part will focus on “the admiration and sincere affection that three great romantic composers professed for each other beyond the usual speculations”, that is, in a strictly musical field. «Played consecutively, the two Variations on a Theme by Schumann, written by Clara and Johannes as a tribute to their Bunte Blätter cycle, and Robert’s Andantino by Clara Wieck acquire a special sonority that, without the need to enter into comparisons, closes an intimate circle of affinities and influences back and forth ». The recital will then enter a “tunnel of nostalgia, gazes and reflections”, which leads directly to “the sound evocations with which the Catalan composer confessed to the world his admiration for Goya’s paintings and engravings from the bitterness and humor of his style.”
In his latest record for Harmonia Mundi, dedicated to Chopin, Perianes once again flaunts his natural immunity to fashions in a recording context as prone to integrals as it is prone to dusting off rarities of dubious quality. «In it I address sonatas number 2 and 3, not the first, which I consider a superb exercise in harmony and composition, but not a masterpiece». Nor are the sounds of his time alien to him. After participating, under the orders of maestro Klaus Mäkelä, in the world premiere of the piano concerto ‘Ephemerae’ by the Peruvian composer Jimmy López, Perianes has already begun to practice with a work of the same format signed by the Spanish Francisco Coll and directed by Gustavo Gimeno in London next season. “An appointment, another one, to mark in red on the calendar,” he celebrates.
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