Luminous qualities that can be appreciated in the virtuosity of pianist, Helene Grimaud are self reflection and intuition. Grimaud's piano provides an intimate portrayal of her feminine psyche and an intensity of feeling that belongs to the archetypes of dreams and introspection.
These same qualities can be disturbing to some people and would explain the unreasonable criticism that is at times directed towards her. Perhaps her music is too personal, too close to the source for those who are afraid of "the fire within."
I see Grimaud's interpretive music as being in the tradition of Anne Sexton or Sylvia Plath in that she takes the "other" into an interior and purely subjective realm of intense feeling.
The Kiss
My mouth blooms like a cut.
I've been wronged all year, tedious
nights, nothing but rough elbows in them
and delicate boxes of Kleenex calling crybaby
crybaby, you fool!
Before today my body was useless.
Now it's tearing at its square corners.
It's tearing old Mary's garments off, knot by knot
and see - Now it's shot full of these electric bolts.
Zing! A resurrection!
Once it was a boat, quite wooden
and with no business, no salt water under it
and in need of some paint. It was no more
than a group of boards. But you hoisted her, rigged her.
She's been elected.
My nerves are turned on. I hear them like
musical instruments. Where there was silence
the drums, the strings are incurably playing. You did this.
Pure genius at work. Darling, the composer has stepped
into fire.
Anne Sexton
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