PALM DESERT, Calif. — “Jean-Yves, when did you begin enjoying the piano?” Michael Feinstein requested from the stage of the McCallum Theater right here on a current Friday night time.
“I began after I was 5 years previous,” stated the star pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet, whose instrument was interlocked with Feinstein’s for his or her cabaret-style present, “Two Pianos: Who May Ask for Something Extra?”
“Oh, me too,” Feinstein responded.
“We each took a unique path with our strategy to the piano,” Thibaudet continued, studying from an iPad on his music stand. “I studied classical music——”
“And I,” Feinstein stated, dealing with the viewers, “studied nothing.”
There was laughter all through the auditorium, whereas onstage, Thibaudet regarded tickled. Talking throughout a live performance, past introducing an encore, was new for him. However he was warming as much as it rapidly.
Even when he was dipping into the unfamiliar on that first of many “Two Pianos” performances to return (together with subsequent season at Carnegie Corridor), that’s enterprise as normal for Thibaudet, 61, an artist who has, unusually for a classical musician, made a profession of doing no matter he needs.
Overtly himself — overtly homosexual earlier than lots of his colleagues, abandoning conventional live performance apparel for couture — he has lengthy been an eminent interpreter of classical music, but additionally a prolific collaborator and a soloist on film soundtracks like Wes Anderson’s “The French Dispatch.” By all of it his tastes have been eclectic; he’s as prone to tackle lieder as he’s the Nice American Songbook and the jazz of Invoice Evans. Characteristically, he’s following “Two Pianos” with one thing like its reverse: Messiaen’s thorny, monumental “Turangalîla-Symphonie,” with the New York Philharmonic, starting on Friday.
“There are soloists who solely play one or two concertos a season,” Thibaudet stated throughout one among three interviews. “I couldn’t try this. I might cease training. I at all times wish to attempt issues.”
THIBAUDET WAS BORN in Lyon, France, in an setting he described as “lucky.” His mother and father had been music lovers who supported him by the conservatory system — together with research on the storied Conservatoire de Paris — and didn’t make a lot of his popping out.
In school, he realized a Mozart sonata, however would additionally experiment with one thing else if it him. That open-mindedness is mirrored in his 2021 album “Carte Blanche,” which begins with a brand new suite from the “Satisfaction and Prejudice” soundtrack and continues with works from the Baroque interval by the twentieth century. The recording’s program, Thibaudet stated, was “like going to a restaurant and having all of your favourite dishes in a single meal — with lots of desserts.”
Such a broad scope, and a willingness to offer virtually something an opportunity, is crucial to Thibaudet’s artistry. “Clearly if I don’t prefer it I received’t do it once more, however I a minimum of tried it,” he stated. “My life has been so enriched by all that. Your mind is like a pc — you’re always feeding it. So if I play some jazz after which some Chopin, the jazz provides the Chopin a sure freedom and leisure.”
Rest, sure, however Thibaudet can be a proud Virgo whose lack of pressure in efficiency could be inconceivable with no perfectionist’s rigor. “He’s an exquisitely gifted technician,” Feinstein stated. “And but it’s at all times the overarching intelligence behind an interpretation that makes his enjoying for me so particular. He understands methods to make any sort of music residing and respiration, and by no means scientific.”
Thibaudet received competitions as an adolescent, and early in his 20s signed a recording contract with Decca. Younger artists typically face stress from diversified competing pursuits: managers, directors, label executives. Even then, although, Thibaudet insisted on making essential choices himself.
He didn’t need his first concerto recording with Decca to be of French music — “It’s not your passport that makes your repertoire,” he stated — so, he programmed Liszt. He traveled together with his companion on the time, and declined dinner invites overseas, irrespective of how outstanding the corporate, if he couldn’t deliver him. “I used to be pondering,” Thibaudet recalled, “if I had a spouse, in fact they might invite her.”
Hiccups like that, although, had been uncommon, and total, Thibaudet stated, being open about his sexuality has made him a contented, open individual. Maybe extra remarked upon, again then, was Thibaudet’s style. “I made a decision greater than 35 years in the past that I used to be not going to put on tails,” he stated. “That was a battle.”
Thibaudet’s clothes assortment — rivaled solely by these of his effective wines and Champagnes — is wealthy with museum-quality items. He had a fruitful relationship with Gianni Versace, and an particularly prolific one with Vivienne Westwood earlier than her current dying. For a few years, although, writers typically couldn’t resist a disapproving remark about his outfits.
That cooled over time. There was one critic — Thibaudet wouldn’t identify names, saying solely that the newspaper was from a serious metropolis — who, after reviewing his concert events for greater than 20 years, wrote one thing alongside the traces of: On the finish of the day, when you’re enjoying so nicely, you possibly can put on no matter you need. “And I used to be like, there you go,” Thibaudet stated. “It took you 25 years. Lastly.”
ANOTHER PILLAR of Thibaudet’s profession has been collaboration. In movie, one companion has been Dario Marianelli, who featured him on his Academy Award-winning soundtrack for Joe Wright’s “Atonement” in 2007. Extra well-known is their work collectively on Wright’s adaptation, two years earlier, of “Satisfaction and Prejudice,” which opens with a sublime piano solo redolent of the Classical period, “Daybreak.”
“Everywhere in the world individuals know that rating,” Thibaudet stated. “Then they go to listen to Chopin or Debussy, and so they inform me, ‘That is my first classical live performance.’ I may play ‘Turangalîla,’ however they nonetheless come. It’s nice.”
A few of Thibaudet’s most treasured partnerships have been with singers. “The human voice produces one thing that you simply can’t do with any instrument,” he stated. “It touches your soul.”
He has recorded with Renée Fleming, the famous person soprano, with whom he turned quick buddies within the Nineties. She recalled that when she purchased an condo in Paris, he supplied to take her to Ikea to assist her furnish it; what she didn’t know till he pulled up was that he drove a Maserati with no trunk.
“Jean-Yves is a perfect collaborator,” Fleming stated. “He has great character and allure, each on and offstage, that he brings to the music, however he’s additionally extraordinarily versatile and delicate.”
Delicate, however unwilling, she added, to “put one thing earlier than the general public except it’s ready to the very highest customary.” That a lot has been evident in his undertaking with Feinstein, the reigning, de facto keeper of the Nice American Songbook. Thibaudet and Feinstein already knew one another’s work once they met a few many years in the past as neighbors in Los Angeles. What began as dinner-party enjoyable — Richard Rodgers waltzes on the piano, and a few improvisation — turned a proper program impressed by their mutual love for Gershwin and his contemporaries.
As a mannequin in addition they regarded to Yehudi Menuhin and Stéphane Grappelli’s classical-meets-jazz collaborations, Feinstein stated, through which Menuhin’s elements had been exactly notated whereas Grappelli’s left room for improvisation. To drag off one thing related with two pianos, Feinstein turned to his music director, Tedd Firth, who wrote a lot of the preparations.
“I actually needed to give attention to what they do greatest,” Firth stated, including, “I didn’t wish to make Jean-Yves right into a jazz participant or Michael right into a classical participant, or water down both to create a impartial territory.”
The result’s a fantasia-like program of Lisztian virtuosity. Firth’s preparations have orchestral heft, with the melodies of every piece flowing freely between the 2 pianos. Typically Feinstein sings; generally Thibaudet performs alone; at all times, the music has the vitality and showiness of an encore.
They rehearsed in Los Angeles earlier than the McCallum Theater exhibits, placing within the hours of a full-time job within the days main as much as the premiere. Throughout a type of classes, Thibaudet behaved for a second like a fan: He simply needed to listen to Feinstein sing “Pure Creativeness,” from “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Manufacturing unit.” When the 2 fell out of sync throughout a Gershwin medley, Thibaudet stated to observe the French nationwide anthem, “La Marseillaise,” as a result of at roughly 120 beats per minute, it was almost the identical tempo. (“My entire life is in that piece,” he added.)
By the sound test on opening night time, each artists had been visibly nudged out of their consolation zones. However as soon as the present began and the viewers heard a well-known melody from Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue,” the auditorium resounded with applause. “That was the best reward that both of us may have,” Feinstein stated. “It confirmed how excited they had been to listen to this music.” Feeling the vitality of the home, Thibaudet stated, he turned “dangerously comfy” with talking onstage — much more so on the extra assured efficiency the next night time.
“Two Pianos” seemingly has a protracted life forward of it, with dates nonetheless being booked a minimum of two seasons forward. An orchestrated model will play this summer time with the Boston Pops at Tanglewood, the Cleveland Orchestra at its Blossom Music Pageant and elsewhere. However earlier than that, its two stars will proceed with their separate careers. Feinstein has a Judy Garland celebration at Zankel Corridor in New York later this month. And Thibaudet, in fact, has “Turangalîla.”
“Possibly I would like per week to readjust, however this is me,” Thibaudet stated, including with a giggle, “It’s completely regular for me.”
