The physical connection between pianist and piano takes varied forms. Some pianists press deep into the keyboard for an organ-like sonority; some seem to pull the vibrations of the strings into their hands. But in Lise de la Salle’s excellent Celebrity Series concert on Saturday - the French pianist’s Boston recital debut - the focus of energy was the point of contact between finger and key. The effect was both vintage, foregrounding a clavichord-like primacy of touch, and modern, clarity as an illusion of objectivity.
Maurice Ravel’s “Miroirs’’ was bright, busy, transparent, less a wash of sound than a precisely crosshatched etching. The moths’ wings in “Noctuelles’’ rustled close-up and percussive; “Une barque sur l’océan’’ evoked the busy glint of light off the wave’s surface more than its deep roll. Relying on fast, even passagework, de la Salle often eschewed the sustain pedal; “Alborada del gracioso’’ had a guitar’s dry jangling. But elsewhere, the pedal was held down for the illusion of echoing distance, faraway birds’ cries in “Oiseaux tristes’’ or the tolling in “La vallée des cloches.’’
