Pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard is a specialist in contemporary music and in its relationship to the traditional repertory. Emerging from the circle of Olivier Messiaen, he has focused on the music of the European avant-garde of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Aimard has often recorded for major labels and has had a notable level of success in bringing contemporary music to their catalogs. In 2024, he issued an album of Schubert's Ländler.
Aimard was born in Lyon on September 9, 1957. He studied at the Conservatoire de Lyon and then moved on to the Conservatoire de Paris, where his teacher was Yvonne Loriod, Messiaen's wife. He also knew Messiaen well and began to specialize in his music. As a student at the Conservatoire, Aimard took four first prizes. He later studied with Maria Curcio in London and took composition lessons in Budapest with György Kurtág. A first prize at the 1973 Olivier Messiaen International Competition launched Aimard's performing career, and three years later, he was invited by conductor and composer Pierre Boulez to join the new Ensemble InterContemporain as pianist. Aimard remained in that position for 18 years, touring the U.S. with the group and often performing Boulez's works. In 1984, he made his recording debut, appearing on the album Boulez Conducts Zappa: The Perfect Stranger. He also performs traditional concerto repertory and has appeared in that capacity with such major ensembles as the Cleveland Orchestra, the Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, and the St. Petersburg Philharmonic. His recitals, often held in Paris and Lyon, have included a series called Piano in the 20th Century, and they often pair contemporary and traditional works inventively. In the later parts of his career, Aimard has also appeared as a conductor.
Aimard has a large catalog of some 130 recordings, mostly but not exclusively devoted to contemporary music. In 1996, he recorded an album of György Ligeti's piano music on Sony Classical, and he has also appeared on other major labels, including Warner Classics, Teldec, and Deutsche Grammophon. In 2017, he signed a new contract with the PentaTone Classics label, releasing several albums there, including a recording of Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 29 in B flat major, Op. 106 ("Hammerklavier") in 2021. The following year, he joined pianist Tamara Stefanovich on the duo piano recital Visions on PentaTone Classics, and in 2023, he recorded the Bartók pianos concertos with the San Francisco Symphony and conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen for that label. He returned in 2024 with the album Schubert: Ländler, featuring rapid-fire performances of large numbers of Schubert's small dances. ~ James Manheim, Rovi
