Lone wolf

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O23tQPJ9ZbY

I found this documentary on Youtube last night, watched it right through and cannot recommend it highly enough. For some days now I have been more and more fascinated by Helene Grimaud having chanced upon her recent Mozart recording in the Mediatheque on Saturday. Perhaps 'chanced' isn't the right word, more inexorably led - first the Paul Lewis recordings, then Brendel's essays and now her. There's a sort of logic. However, it was the liner notes (by HG herself) to an earlier CD Resonances that convinced me that something else was going on. In an anthology of pieces by Mozart, Liszt, Berg, Beethoven and Bartok she traces a geo-political evolution of music from the late 18th to early 20th Century. Pure Deleuze & Guattari.

Starting to research her recordings, work and background I then find out that she has a parallel career running a ... you guessed it ... wolf sanctuary. I haven't yet got hold of her autobiography but the little I've gathered from snippets suggests a clear affinity between her own unbelongingness (living and studying in France, yet feeling un-French; sublimely gifted in classical piano, yet frequently flying off in directions of her own; delivering interpretations of the monoliths of the concert repertoire while defying conventions) and the wolf's wanderings. It's hard not to think of D&G's lines of flight, nomadism, & her very technique as a form of stammering within the orthodox language of the piano. Not so much of the press pack more a lone wolf carving out a territory of her own.

& that's the point. Take a look at the covers to her CDs and you'd be forgiven for thinking she is simply one of the many confections of the Classical music industry. Even the album titles can at times flirt with ghastly dumbed-down product (Resonances, Reflection ...) until you read what lies behind the project and actually listen and then the titles justify themselves.

Watching the documentary it's impressive to hear how Grimaud expresses herself - such intelligence, precision and lucidity. In an age where celebrities with a fraction of her talent and disicipline sound off at length it's really refreshing to witness. She gives me hope.

A few posts back I wondered who would merit the Jonathan Miller accolade he awarded to Susan Sontag ("the cleverest woman in America''). Given Grimaud now lives in the US, I reckon she's high up on the short list.

Go & listen to her.