 Une quarantaine d'années séparent les deux seules pièces pour piano imposantes composées par Bernstein ouvrant ce programme. La Sonate (1938) en deux mouvements est celle d’un jeune homme de vingt ans témoignant déjà d’une maîtrise et d’un sérieux affirmés. La pièce « Touches » (1981) écrite pour le concours Van Cliburn renvoie à l’écriture raisonnée du jeune homme des années trente avec une légère touche de couleur jazz, écho des rythmes syncopés du premier mouvement de la sonate et rappelant l’intérêt qu’il portait à cette musique. Suivent ensuite de nombreuses miniatures pianistiques. La judéité de Bernstein sera sobrement évoquée dans les « 4 Sabras ». Certains aspects populaires ainsi que des thèmes repris dans des œuvres d’envergures à venir se retrouveront dans les nombreux « Anniversaries » dédiés à des personnes existantes connues ou non dans l’entourage du compositeur. Leur écriture alterne caractères contrastés et ambiances en demi-teintes, parfois lunaires, entre délicatesse et accents nerveux. S’il est difficile de rester captivé par cette succession de pièces, l’album a néanmoins le mérite d’apporter un complément rare à la discographie sur Bernstein. (Laurent Mineau) Bernstein's piano output reflects the various strands of his multifaceted personality, in works as different as Touches (1981) – influenced by Aaron Copland’s thorny Piano Variations – and , at the other end of the scale, his often tender, sentimental Anniversaries, miniatures written in commemoration of important people in his life. Taken together his piano works form a musical diary tracing the breadth of his experiences and ideas. Smaller piano pieces often preview bigger things to come. Four of his Five Anniversaries (1949-51) appear as themes in his violin concerto, the Serenade after Plato’s “Symposium.” The personal commemorations he created were not portraits so much as selfportrayals, revealing different aspects of his own multi-faceted personality. To play these works well requires an understanding of the various elements that made up the Bernstein persona. The Italian pianist Michele Tozzetti brings out the heartfelt tenderness of most of these tributes, the Jewish elements and the dance rhythms. In the Anniversary dedicated to Aaron Copland (in Seven Anniversaries, 1943), Tozzetti captures the sound and spirit of the man Bernstein called ‘my first friend in New York, my master, my idol, my sage, my shrink, my guide, my counselor, my elder brother, [and] my beloved friend.’ The pianist reveals a delicate sense of sonority along with fine dynamic control in For Paul Bowles, and brings an idiomatic edginess to For Sergei Koussevitzky. He also injects youthful vigour into Bernstein’s Sonata (1937), a probing work rich in counterpoint, written when the the composer was still a student. Also on this recording are Non Troppo Presto, a manuscript discovered in the Leonard Bernstein archive at the Library of Congress; and Touches: Chorale, Eight Variations and Coda, commissioned by the Van Cliburn Piano Competition in 1981. Its bluesy chorale is identical to Virgo Blues, written for his daughter, Jamie on her twenty-sixth birthday in 1978. Bernstein dedicated this work ‘to my first love, the keyboard’. In Michele Tozzetti’s hands, that love is beautifully realized.
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