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Austbø is God
Performances in the quality
class 'unsurpassed to historic' are rarities. Messiaen qualified the way in
which Håkon Austbø performs his music as ideal. And that was evident on Monday evening:
not only because Austbø studied with Messiaen's wife Yvonne Loriod.
The music of Olivier Messiaen is full of symbolic meaning. Sounds refer to
colours, colours to significations and numbers to the Creation.
In other words: whoever can interpret this music the way its (earthly) creator
meant it to be, is in some way a prophet himself.
Håkon Austbø is a skinny fjordman with a blond moustache and a watery gaze. But
when he takes his place behind the piano something changes. Gaiety disappears
in a deliric trance, rigidity in a luminous, sheer inhuman stream of
concentration. Austbø takes the role of a medium and becomes an intermediary of
the music's significance. This requires an unconditional abandon to the music,
to be met exclusively with unconditional approval. When Austbø plays, another
interpretation is absolutely unthinkable.
The piano cycleVingt regards sur l'enfant Jésus consists of twenty movements
about, roughly, the Creation of the Universe and the Jesus child. Austbø
performed the 120 minutes of structurally and psychologically involved music
without a single flaw, in itself an almost unfeasible accomplishment, since all
pianistic qualities have to be constantly available. Big bangs of the old
testament (fortissimo) suddenly but smoothly transform into sweetnesses of the
new testament (pianissimo). And all colours of the rainbow need to find their
musical counterpart in one single instrument, requiring the pianist to conjure
up an orchestral sound from his instrument.
Håkon Austbø bended effortlessly to all musical turns, from the emphatically
erotic to the celestially sereen, but in exchange he had to hand in his soul..
with the last note the trance broke and Olivier Messiaen and the Jesus child
again became simply Håkon Austbø, an introvert pianist, somewhat bewildered
receiving his ovation.
Mischa Spel - Het Parool (Amsterdam)
(Festival Musica Sacra)
The culmination of the festival,
though, was not all this gorgeous old music. Pianist Håkon Austbø played
Messiaen's Vingt Regards in a marathon session from eleven to one thirty
at night he played out these emotions in all their gradations, he established
musical connections and brought unity into Messiaen's vivid style. For the
chosen ones present, this performance probably came closest to the sacred
experience aimed at in this Maastricht festival.
Paul Luttikhuis - NRC Handelsblad (Amsterdam)
Austbø opens all registers
Performed anywhere in the world
the concert would have brought about a sensation. And so it was, indeed, for
those present on Sunday evening when Håkon Austbø played Messiaen's two hour
cycle Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant-Jésus.
I heard the work myself at several occasions and with first class musicians but
never experienced anything close to what Austbø achieved on Sunday.
Already the colour of chopinesque melancholy in the beautiful opening movement,
followed by ravelian refinement in the second, signalled something unusual, in
a business where the specialists of each composer easily lose their grip on the
personal recreation and end up resembling each other completely.
But not Austbø. We heard him playing with all registers open, relying upon a
lifetime's musical experience and concentrate this with violent force into an
unequalled performance.
The appearance of the frail, birdlike figure was a fairy tale in itself, as it
gathered all its energy into producing sounds you would hardly consider
possible on a concert grand. Thus he didn't just play up to the extasy of the
work, a term worn out by its overuse referring to Messiaens cascades of notes.
He also managed to get these back to the finest nuances of the music and sing
them with restrained force, intensely beautiful and stretched into infinity.
There is much talk about the joy at the rich accretion of Norwegian musicians
in the last years. However, this joy is substantially deepened through the
secret jubilation at performers of Austbø's stature, repeatedly setting a
standard that others may reach for.
Ståle Wikshåland - Dagbladet (Oslo)
King Håkon of the keyboard
Strangely enough, until Sunday
night, he never performed the entire cycle of Messiaen's twenty meditations.
Late, but in return, magnificent! For years to come, this royal performance
will stand as something of a reference for the happy ones present. For me it
joins up with inextinguishable memories of Austbø at his sovereign best -
Ravel's Left hand concerto in 'Konserthuset' a couple of years ago, or Carter's
Night Fantasies at the Bergen Festival in '89.
Austbø's virtuosity was dazzling, total. But it never became a goal in itself.
It was fascinating to hear how, at the dizzying heights of technical bravura,
he still kept control and completely realised the subtlest gradations of rhythm
and tone. The performance was a fabulous synthesis of boundless virtuosity and
musical uprightness, and the enthusiasm of the audience was accordingly.
Harald Kolstad - Arbeiderbladet (Oslo)
This is one of the finest sets of Vingt Regards available: Austbo can be
hypnotic with his rhythmic control of these very difficult pieces, but he is
not a show off either, and his slow phrases 'breathe' very naturally and
patiently.
American Record Guide
Several complementary virtues conspire to make this recording by the
Norwegian pianist Håkon Austbø by far the most satisfying Vingt regards sur
l'enfant Jesus in the current catalogue
Classic CD 'Collector's Choice'
Austbø's gentle intensity catches the music's extraordinary atmosphere and
his moments of percussive boldness get the dramatic writing a grippingly strong
profile Recommended without reservation
Classic CD
An extremely impressive achievement, in short, and an essential part of any
Messiaen-admirer's collection.
MEO - Gramophone
Hier erlebt man das Klavier als Instrument der Bekenntnis: Eine der wenigen
mitreißenden, gleichwohl detaillierten Aufnahmen eines großformatigen Zyklus,
bei denen man nicht den Eindruck hat, es würde ornithologische und spirituelle
Schwerarbeit verrichtet.
Peter Cossé - Fono-Forum
Messiaen: Catalogue
d'oiseaux
Austbø interprets master Messiaen
Austbø has gone a long way in
his approach to Messiaen's musical spheres. The painstaking exactness in
Messiaen's notation enables Austbø to create an interaction between temporal
aspect, timbre and dynamics that gives a comprehension of space and movement.
Austbø embraces the listener; the distance between podium and hall is minimized
and contributes to a lasting intimate contact that holds one spellbound.
Idar Karevold - Aftenposten (Oslo)
What else can be said about Austbø's playing than that he lets time and
space constitute a higher unity? _ Austbø takes possession of the entire
instrument like an eagle sustained by the air currents, and with his enormous
wing-span paints landscapes which carry you up and far away from the little
venue_ By means of resonances out of this world, Austbø totally released the
poetry of this music and thus fortified his position as the foremost
interpreter of this monumental work.
Hjalmar A. Kjelsvik - Vårt Land(Oslo)
Austbø on excursion through Messiaen's bird paradises
The pianist Håkon Austbø is a
great Messiaen player but few people know this except maybe those who know his
performance of the Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant-Jésus on the budget label
Naxos.
Austbø, a Norwegian living in the Netherlands, plays the same cycle on Tuesday
in Utrecht and there is reason to have high expectations to that performance.
Austbø was coached long ago in the subtleties of Messiaen's piano works by
Messiaen himself and his first interpreter, the pianist Yvonne Loriod. His
performance - of greater contrasts than that of Loriod - makes evident that
Austbø isn't content with imitation but keeps up his own, distinguished style.
Of equally great interest is the result of Austbø's excursion through the bird
reserves of Messiaen, named Catalogue d'oiseaux and Petites Esquisses
d'oiseaux. Certainly when you consider the fact that this is one of the
most problematic segments of Messiaen's work.
It is a world of sounds as intriguing as that of the Stockhausen Klavierstücke,
and as hard for the pianist to penetrate. Austbø seems to do that with the
greatest ease, separates the primary from the secondary, transverses the entire
skyline during half an hour with La rousserolle effarvatte and at that
gives a strong profile to the sonorous possibilities of the piano.
Roland de Beer - de Volkskrant (Amsterdam)
Håkon Austbø plays formidable Messiaen
Håkon Austbø is working on an
impressive Messiaen cycle. After the Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant-Jésus
now the release on three cd's the monumental, more than two hour lastingCatalogue
d'oiseaux, in which the composer transcribed bird calls to piano sounds. It
is a striking recording that easily matches those of the large companies.
Thiemo Wind - de Telegraaf (Amsterdam)
My disc of the year: Definitely a three-disc Naxos set of Olivier
Messiaen's mighty piano cycle Catalogue d'oiseaux, 13 movements based on
the calling-sounds of different birds, which together constitute one of the
undoubted maserpieces of twentieth century keyboard literature. Håkon Austbø is
the soloist, and his great achievement was to vividly project the extraordinary
range of touch and colour in these pieces without ever over-advertising the
extremities of their virtuosic demands.
Terry Blain - Classic CD
...ainsi la somptuosité de la sonorité de Håkon Austbø, grâce à une
utilisation magistralement conduite de la précision des attaques et des
prolongements harmoniques de la pédale, offre-t-elle aux modelés
"decrescendos" des nuances nimbées d'une aura sensuelle quasi
magique. Et tout cela cependant dans la clarté d'un discours savamment
construit. Ainsi n'est pas oublié mais magnifié le côté charnel profond de
Messiaen. Le climat de La chouette hulotte ou de l'Alouette lulu
par exemple en porte témoignage.
Jean Hamon - Répertoire
A further recording from a master Messiaen interpreter, Haakon Austbo, in a mixed programme that calls for all his colouristic control
Discussing previous volumes in this series, I've mentioned Austbø's subtle
palette of keyboard colour, and his sensitive feeling for Messiaen's
characteristic silences. I should have remarked - and it's evident here
throughout the Préludes especially - upon his ability to produce
different degrees of dynamic simultaneously, without the quieter elements ever
being overwhelmed. It adds an almost three-dimensional quality to his sound.
Which is not to say that his playing is ever austere or dry; indeed its primary
characteristic is sheer tonal beauty, emphasised by what sounds like a very
fine piano in a pleasing acoustic (that of St Martin's Church, East Woodhay).
More spectacular pianism is called for in the vivid colours and juxtapositions
of Cantéyodjayâ, of course, and Austbø provides it in fine measure, but
even here sheer beauty of sound seems to have been a high imperative.
Messiaen has been very fortunate in his keyboard interpreters. Austbø is among
the best of them, and to have such playing available at such a low price is a
cause for grateful rejoicing.
Michael Oliver - Gramophone
Miscellaneous
(Mozart K.V.453)
Austbø belongs to the very
foremost of Norwegian pianists, which in spite of this national reservation
means quite a lot. It is rare to hear such richness of touch and sonority as
with Austbø, where everything is at the service of the musical expression.
Pianissimo passages are played around with in a way that only the the best can
achieve. The concerto is in fact quite complex in its expressiveness, and this
was rendered maximally_Such things generate music. This magic shading was not
less present in the encore (Schoenberg).
Trond Arne Pettersen - Adresseavisen (Trondheim)
The year's best - but where was the audience?
30 years ago the teenager Håkon
Austbø made his debut as a pianist. Long shall last the talking about the
jubilee yesterday in Aulaen.
It was beyond comparison the best concert I heard this year. Not because it was
technically polished but because it never was about music as show-off.
Where others don't surpass surface finishing, Austbø penetrated far beyond
production of sound. The music turned into what it should be: a statement. From
thought to soul, from podium to audience, from another time to ours. Here
common figurations in Olav Anton Thommessen and Debussy mingled effortlessly -
while Schumann sounded more modern than the Frenchman.
Debussy requires all but percussive touch - the result may be monotonous but
not with a variety of sound like Austbø's. Just as he is leading us to the
innermost meditation, like the light streaming through a church window, the
left claw may strike so suddenly as to give you a thump in the diaphragm. Or he
conjures up fragments and reminiscences of Brahms like a sail extended in
universe. Or, like in the seventh Prelude where the vision debouches into four
wandering, lighting bell-tones, as a mirror of the rune structures in
Thommessen.
It is rather rare for twelve preludes to cause continuous breathlessness.
"Fireworks", often played with virtuoso splendour à la Liszt, was now
rendered in vibrating tension. On the other hand Austbø put silence to those
who disdainfully characterise the most improvisatory, fragmented preludes as
empty formulas. "Feuilles mortes" as well as "Canope" now
became lighting summits, preceding an almost shockingly subtle Schumann after
the interval.
Yngvild Sørbye - Dagbladet (Oslo)
Schumann: Kreisleriana op. 16. Fantaisie op. 17. Arabesque
op. 18.
Vanguard.
Hakon Austbö nous avait éblouis
jadis à travers des microsillons Saravah (Janacek, Scriabine). Ce disque confirme
l'excellence de cet artiste. L'interprétation d'Hakon Austbö supporte la
comparaison avec les plus grandes. Dans la 4e pièce, il vous transperce le cur
de ses plaintes à 1'égal de M. Argerich, et dans la 6e, il sidère par ce ton
tour à tour intime, incantatoire, fantastique, visionnaire, torturé...
Le jeu d'Hakon Austbö est simple: sans afféteries, il va droit à l'essentiel,
de l'emportement grandiose aux plaintes déchirantes des sections Adagio
du mouvement initial... son jeu est toujours juste, d'un ton vraiment
schumannien, et toujours émouvant, même dans le moindre passage apparemment
secondaire du "Moderato", qui prend des allures d'épopée 1égendaire.
Et que dire de son toucher aérien, poétique, qui fait chanter les premières
pages de l'Adagio final comme presque personne avant lui, qui en fait
jaillir une mélodie profonde et bouleversante, là où d'autres ne déroulent que
des mornes arpèges?
Philippe van den Bosch - Répertoire
Reflection and ecstasy
A sigh went through the Grieg
hall on Thursday as Håkon Austbø put his fingers on the keys and opened the
third Bartok piano concerto. Everyone knew something great was about to happen,
that this was going to be one of those rare evenings when the soloist doesn't
just render the music but creates it anew, whereas we - the audience - are
taken into the process and may experience the work from inside.
In the performance of Bartok's ultimate piece Austbø put himself on the edge of
the knife, in a breathtaking balance between strong control and generous freedom.
He has transcended all technical problems, he knows and masters this complex
piece, and his playing possesses a translucent clarity. But it is also
constantly trembling with high tension, almost nervously strained. The
sovereign mastery of all details gives him the margin to undertake a continuous
dialogue with the work - and with the orchestra and the hall: He listens
intensively to every little nuance, the most minim change of mood, ready to
correct and to give shape, to counteract and to consolidate. And he moves
unhindered, with unyielding musical logic, from the breathless prayer in the
Adagio religioso of the second movement to the rhythmical ecstasy in the fast,
stamping third.
Peter Larsen - Bergens Tidende (Bergen, Norway)
Rare artistry leaves listeners spellbound
It is not often that one gets to
hear a pianist whose performance leaves a lingering impression upon the
listener's senses. Haakon Austbo is just such a pianist.
From the first note that he struck. he held the listener spellbound. His
charisma and intense personality infused even the pauses within the music,
accordingly now dramatic, now dreamy, now waiting, now tense. And then
galvanised by some hidden, inner energy, his hands would encompass the entire
keyboard in the fast and furious passages as well as coax the sweetest of
sounds in the most delicate of music phrases.
Flavia De Souza - New Straits Times (Kuala Lumpur)
(Gewandhaus Leipzig)
Das Griegsche Klavierkonzert
gehört längst zu den Publikumsfavoriten und löste strürmischen Beifall aus,
auch dank der musikalisch erfüllten und technisch überlegenen Gestaltung mit
dem Norwegischen Pianisten Hakon Austbö. Er begann mit elementarem Zugriff und
stellte der virtuosen Eröffnung das elegische Hauptthema mit zarter Klanggebung
entgegen. Diese Differenzierung zeichnete die Aufführung insgesamt aus.
Überlegen führte Paavo Berglund als gern willkommen geheißener Gastdirigent das
Orchester.
Leipziger Volksblatt
(Messiaen: Turangalîla Symphonie, Köln)
Vor dem Hintergrund der weit
ausschwingenden Linien im Orchester steht vor allem der virtuose Klavierpart
für das Moment der Bewegung ein. Hakon Austbö versah ihn mit diskreter
Brillianz.
Stefan Rütter, Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger
Un interprète raffiné
Scriabine et Messiaen, une interprétation magistrale de
Håkon Austbø à Bogliasco
lnterprète de profondes et très
raffinées recherches introspectives sur Skrjabin, protagoniste de
l'affleurement pur et vierge du tissus constitutif (ce qui permet d'entendre de
nouvelles sonorités insoupçonnées), il met méticuleusement en évidence la
complexité architecturale des écritures scriabiniennes.
(Messiaen) Rendre avec cohérence, avec une pareille solidité technique, une
lucidité explicative et totale, avec un engagement émotif poussé (sans que ce
dernier ne prenne le dessus sur 1'exécution) est une réussite artistique rare,
qui place le pianiste Austbø aux sommets de l'interprétation des maîtres du
vingtième siècle.
G.D.M. - Il Secolo XIX (Genova)
(Stavanger chamber music festival)
There were performances which
one will remember for years to come: .. revelatory, flaming performances of
Scriabin by pianist Håkon Austbø
Hilary Finch, The Times (London)
