Hamelin’s Presence Makes Awards the Winners

Grammy’s got a new groove. Marc Andre Hamelin, a cool Canadian pianist with fingers that fly and an insatiable taste for the most flamboyantly virtuosic keyboard music of the 19th and 20th centuries, has been nominated for two recordings. And he, rather than a classical superstar, will perform at this year’s ceremonies.

How likely his two nominated recordings will win is, of course, another story. In the solo category, he is nominated for his awesome performance of Leopold Godowsky’s nutty “Studies on Chopin’s Etudes,” which are vertigo-producing exercises in gilding the lily by covering Chopin in extravagant new layers of knuckle-busting tracery. In the concerto category, Hamelin offers something truly of value--a sensational performance of Busoni’s Piano Concerto, the finest recording ever of a great spiritual epic of a concerto.

Still, whether he wins or loses, Hamelin’s Grammy presence is a sign of the increasing credibility of the classical award. Indeed, the strongest contenders for the best classical album are the Emerson String Quartet’s psychic journey through the tortured world of Russian composer Dimitri Shostakovich’s 15-string quartets and Simon Rattle’s earth-shaking and heaven-rattling reading of Mahler’s Symphony No. 10. --MARK SWED