E-Mail This Article to a Friend Concord and discord Pierre-Laurent Aimard plays American BY DAVID WEININGER

When György Ligeti talks, people listen. So when the eminent Hungarian composer called Pierre-Laurent Aimard "the leading performer of contemporary piano music today," the pianist’s modernist qualifications were sealed. Aimard is routinely celebrated as one the most talented and imaginative exponents of music of today and the recent past.

Not that Ligeti’s endorsement was the only testament to Aimard’s skills. Born in Lyon, he forged bonds with two of the leading lights in French music: Olivier Messiaen and Pierre Boulez. He absorbed Messaien’s music from such a young age that he calls it his "mother tongue." Boulez recruited Aimard to be a founding member of the pathbreaking Ensemble Intercontemporain when he was 19 years old. Consider his avant-garde cred unimpeachable.

The pianist he resembles most is probably Maurizio Pollini. Like his Italian colleague, Aimard plays in a style that makes precision and lucidity into paramount virtues. And though he’s often regarded as a new-music specialist, like Pollini he has a broad, eclectic repertoire from which to fashion fascinating programs. For his Carnegie Hall recital debut — recorded and released by Teldec in 2002 — he combined the Berg Piano Sonata and études by Ligeti with the warhorse of all warhorses: Beethoven’s Appassionata Sonata. Everything on that release was beautifully played, but it also felt like the live event it was, bristling with electricity at all the right moments. And like Pollini, Aimard is usually viewed as a quintessentially European artist. In addition to Ligeti and Messiaen, he’s also worked with such paragon modernists as Karlheinz Stockhausen and György Kurtág.

Which is why his latest release is something of a surprise, and a pleasant one at that: he performs the quintessential piece by America’s own quintessential avant-gardist, Ives’s Concord Sonata. Written largely between 1911 and 1915, this imposing, 50-minute masterpiece was the composer’s attempt to channel the spirit of Transcendentalism into pure sound. It’s prototypically Ivesian: long stretches of dissonances give way to reminiscences of hymn tunes, marches are bent marvelously out of shape, and the whole thing is haunted by the opening motto of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. It might sound utterly unbound by convention at first, but give it a few listens and you’ll start to hear intimations of sonata form, development, and scherzo. The piece doesn’t erase tradition so much as broaden and reshape it, making customized forms accommodate new forms of experience. Of course, that’s what the Transcendentalists were shooting for as well.

Like a good many iconic works, the Concord is performed and recorded all too rarely (it is stunningly difficult to master). Aimard’s (also on Teldec) is the first major recording to come along in a few years, and it’s a worthy addition to the list: his precise playing allows a wealth of detail to come through. Although his performance may not sound as untamed as earlier versions by Alan Mandel and Gilbert Kalish, he creates a graceful flow that is unexpected and welcome. And when the music goes off the rails — as in the "Hawthorne" movement — Aimard can get as wild as anyone. He even sounds as authentic in the marching-band quotes as in the tone clusters.

An added bonus is the inclusion of 17 of Ives’s songs. Like the sonata, they embrace the full range of his musical imagination, from sentiment to experiment; "The Housatonic at Stockbridge" and "A Farewell to Land" are among the many highlights. Aimard accompanies the wonderful mezzo-soprano Susan Graham. The recorded sound lacks a bit of presence, but no matter: it’s a laudable entry in the all-too-brief Ives discography.

Short of Concord itself, there would seem to be no better place for a live performance of the sonata than amid the open woods at Tanglewood. Next Thursday, July 15, Aimard plays the Concord on the second half of a program whose first half comprises Elliott Carter’s Night Fantasies — itself no slouch when its comes to harmonic complexity — and Beethoven’s Tempest Sonata. It starts at 8:30 p.m. in Seiji Ozawa Hall, and tickets are $15 to $45; call (617) 266-1200.