It’s no secret that the performance of the classical repertoire today is very different from what it was in the past. Although it is not easy to summarise the activity of the modern-day performer in just a few sentences, particularly if we wish to avoid getting bogged down in technical discussions, four essential points emerge quite clearly:

1) A separation between the performer and the composer.
2) The almost total absence of improvisation.
3) The distancing between “classical” music and other musical traditions.
4) A repertoire that is confined to a small number of composers, all of them from the past.

From time to time, there are performers who attempt to open the debate on these questions. Among the pianists, for example, Daniel Barenboim has explored other traditions (the tango, Brazilian music, Duke Ellington’s swing); Fazil Say is a pianist, improviser and composer, in the same tradition as so many 19th century performers; Maurizio Pollini has played a great deal of music by living composers and Vladimir Ashkenazy commissioned and recorded Rautavaara’s 3rd Concerto. But these are mere exceptions, which almost always occur in isolation from one another.

This week, however, Francesco Tristano Schlimé gave a concert in Barcelona. Schlimé is a young pianist from Luxemburg who subverts the four categories. What is more, he subverts them all at the same time. Francesco Schlimé is a performer and a composer; he is an outstanding improviser; he makes use of styles —both in his own compositions and as a performer of other composers’ works— that are rich in experiences drawn from other musical traditions; and he performs with rare frequency contemporary works, often composed in the last few years. His phrasing throbs with qualities unknown to the vast majority of classical performers: an intense activity in the field of jazz, collective improvisation with other musicians from numerous different groups, and above all electronic music, which has made such a mark on his performance style, even when he is playing Haydn or Bach.

Assuming that there is such a thing as an “authorized” performance style bequeathed to us by tradition, any concert by Francesco Tristano Schlimé is an opportunity to realize that it is possible to do without it. His performances are unusual, and yet they are strange only in terms of the sound, because the format, at least when he performs in conventional halls, adheres to the norm. It’s another matter when he performs in different settings, such as a discotheque, for example, because Francesco Tristano has worked with top DJs in extraordinary sessions which are beginning to flood the Internet. The world of classical music today is anything but dull…

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