About three-fourths of this recital devoted to French piano music constitutes an auspicious debut for the young Canadian pianist Naida Cole. The opening selection, Fauré’s Ballade Op. 19 is a particularly impressive piece of work in Cole’s clear-cut, scintillating hands. She balances the busy background filigree and foreground solo material in a way that suggests two pianists are at work, in tandem. In fact, this composition is perhaps more familiar in its piano and orchestra incarnation, which is sometimes performed as a two-piano piece. Chabrier’s Scherzo-Valse is breathtakingly articulated, replete with hurling strummed chords, gutsy, multi-colored staccatos, and plenty of swagger. Similarly, Cole “orchestrates” the same composer’s Idylle with pinpoint aplomb, but her pellet-like repeated notes throughout Bourrée Fantasque can barely breathe (let alone dance!) at such a fast tempo. Still, her sheer digital control is nothing to sneeze at.
On the other hand, her static, overly worked-out Satie First Gymnopédie flows not one bit. She telegraphs the climactic points in Ravel’s Jeux d’Eau, and treats some of the arpeggiated figures too brusquely for comfort, evoking not so much a fountain as a hailstorm. The Pavane, by contrast, is perfectly paced, and again cannily “orchestrated” in terms of dynamics, voicing, and registral balance. These very virtues, however, are largely absent from Cole’s Gaspard de la Nuit. Ondine suffers from spongy rhythm and uneven articulation (Cole’s blurry right-hand patterns at the movement’s outset cannot compare to Argerich’s unshakable clarity). Le Gibet’s textural levels are not as sufficiently differentiated as they might be, and the insistent, tolling B-flats fall in and out of focus rather than maintaining a steady dynamic level. Cole’s lightfingered, super-fast romp through Scarbo lacks the dynamism, high voltage, and demonic edge needed to make this movement stick in your subconscious like a scary movie. Who wants a G-rated Scarbo when you can get Argerich’s or Pogorelich’s R-rated features? Hell, make that Triple X!
