Marc-André Hamelin’s bracing Ives anchors memorable Cleveland recital
By Sam Jacobson
For Marc-André Hamelin, Charles Ives’ Concord Sonata is virtually a calling card. One of the first works he recorded in his now vast discography, it was significant enough to record again some years later and it has continued to be a regular fixture in recital. Among the most innovative of piano sonatas, its full subtitle reads “Concord, Mass., 1840-1860” and, accordingly, each of the four movements portrays a New England writer from that fertile period of American literature. It’s an essay that embodies Ives’ unique musical language, uncompromisingly innovative and fearsomely complex – a work that all but demands Hamelin’s legendary technique.