Huizi Zhang Presents Hreizleriana in Review
Huizi Zhang, piano and toy piano
Marc A. Scorca Hall, The National Opera Center,
New York, NY
May 26, 2018
The National Opera Center was the setting this weekend for a fascinating program by excellent young pianist, Huizi Zhang (www.huizizhang.com). Five recently composed works by four young composers with whom I’m not familiar – including three premieres – preceded a performance of the deservedly familiar Kreisleriana, Op. 16, one of Robert Schumann’s great masterpieces. It was a thoroughly stimulating evening, pairing discovery with rediscovery.
The program’s title Hreizleriana, and its subtitle, “…a journey into madness and music,” made reference to two works of art, the E. T. A Hoffmann novel, Kreisleriana, about a mad genius conductor named Kreisler, and Kreisleriana, Schumann’s magnificent piano work which the Kreisler character inspired, heard as this program’s finale. Ms. Zhang’s program subtitle was fitting for a concert that would have touches of madness throughout (beyond those of the Schumann’s own mercurial qualities). As for Ms. Zhang’s spelling of Kreisleriana as Hreizleriana, one can only guess that it was a way of including her own initials – a playful touch which Schumann, cryptogram devotee, might have appreciated.
Beyond the interesting program concept, the execution is naturally always paramount, and Ms. Zhang’s playing was nearly uncriticizable. She conveyed a firm belief in each piece, honoring the composers with her thoroughness and interpreting their music with vibrancy and sensitivity. Her Schumann was exemplary, capturing all the fluctuations of Schumann’s widely contrasting moods and with rarely a glitch. With such a pillar of the standard repertoire beautifully in hand, Ms. Zhang could build many similar musical journeys “into madness” using this Schumann as the foundation and finale. Though her emotional projection was never “over the top” into the realm of madness, itself, she demonstrated expert control as the vehicle for the madness of others.
Four Movements for Solo Piano (2016) by Jacob Wilkinson (www.jwiki222.wixsite.com/jacobwilkinson) opened the program. Born in 1997, Mr. Wilkinson was the youngest of the composers presented. His four movements, entitled Prelude, Incantation, Lullaby, and Circle Dance, offered expressive and intelligently crafted writing, idiomatically written for the piano. Some of it sounded like a Scriabin-inspired improvisation (with hints of Messiaen), though the last movement, with its short, repeated dance motives, brought to mind the brilliance of Ginastera (also Villa-Lobos, a thought possibly triggered by its name, Circle Dance). Invoking names of famous composers, by the way, is not an implication that this music is derivative, but rather a shortcut in characterizing what can take too long to describe; that said, if one were to be derivative, one could do much worse than to have such composers as models! As for the Scriabin similarity, there are similarly craggy and urgent impulses felt in the middle and late work of the Russian master, sometimes attributed to encroaching madness – again fitting right in with Ms. Zhang’s theme. In sum, Mr. Wilkinson is a promising young artist, and he is fortunate to have attracted the advocacy of such a fine pianist as Ms. Zhang.
Following came Six Preludes for Piano (2013) by Colombian-born Fabian Beltran (www.fabianbeltranmusic.com). These were direct, communicative pieces showing a strong ability to capture varied emotions in fluent and vivid pianistic writing. The nocturne-like movement Grave e dolente was particularly captivating in its lyricism, and the set was rounded out with brilliant, though occasionally strident, performances of the two final movements, Vivace and Con brio. Brash major triads concluded the set rather incongruously after some of the tonal complexity which had preceded, and one could only guess that they were meant to be summarily facetious. As the comments from the pianist onstage were not quite decipherable, one missed that extra bit of guidance that might have informed the experience – one could make out from the introduction that these pieces were composed each in a single night during a period of emotional instability, but not much more. Luckily, the work stood on its own merits. It had wide dramatic range, and on a madness-and-music-themed program, it was another well-placed work. One eagerly awaits hearing more from this talented composer.
What followed was Passage 2 (2018, premiere), by Singaporean composer, Gu Wei (www.guweimusic.com). The first of two works by Mr. Wei (the second coming after intermission), it employed gentle repeated figures to create a mesmerizing quasi-minimalist effect which initially brought to mind some music that is carelessly dubbed “New Age”; it did so, however, in a manner that this listener (not a New Age fan) found quite appealing. Especially intriguing was the way isolated tones emerged from the texture of repeated figures according to shifting metric placement, forming additional layers and textures. One could visualize a warp and weft subtly forming within the music, creating additional patterns between them. As with the other pieces (except, of course, the Schumann, played from memory), Ms. Zhang handled it all capably reading from the score.
In marked contrast to Passage 2 came Mr. Wei’s other featured work, Madman’s Diary for toy piano (2018, premiere). This toy piano work is a musical setting of seven selections from an allegory entitled Madman’s Diary (1918) by Chinese writer Lu Xun. Full of nightmarish references to cannibalism, the text provided the quintessential springboard for musical madness, with the eerie childlike sounds of a toy piano evoking alternately the sneakiness, obsessiveness, indecision, stealth, and panic of Lu Xun’s world in which one must eat or be eaten. Especially effective was the use of nursery rhyme-like symmetry of phrase, which, when interrupted towards the end, expressed perfectly the text’s last line, “save the children.” Ms. Zhang delivered this frightening work superbly and is to be commended for making the tiny toy piano so expressive, especially right before taking command of the house Yamaha grand for Schumann’s Kreisleriana – a striking juxtaposition indeed!
Before all this, though, to close the first half, one heard music by Ramteen Sazegari (www.ramteensazegari.com), in particular a piece entitled 20, 30 pg. for prepared piano and electronics. Some of the prefatory remarks were a bit muffled, but, in any case, one is uncertain how the title 20,30 pg. relates to what one heard. We were told something about a reference to purgatory (the possible origin of the “pg” part?), but we were largely in the dark. This issue will be addressed later.
Meanwhile, any misgivings about hearing electronic music evoking purgatory were quickly dispelled by what turned out to be an engaging piece. There was a fascinating blend of live piano sonorities with recorded ones, and one’s imagination was taken on an interesting ride. One audience member afterwards did express an aversion to some overwhelmingly loud bass tones in the electronic part, but this reviewer would have to argue that the suggested subject matter probably called for it. It was, again, a welcome addition to the program’s overarching theme of madness. In a way one couldn’t help musing what a great catchall this theme of madness could be for works defying specific interpretation, but certainly there were more specifics at play in Ms. Zhang’s conception.
This reviewer’s chief quibble for the evening was that, especially with new music, there needs to be better extra-musical communication to an audience, both from the composer and from the performer. Puzzles and hidden meanings can be a delight with some hints, but there is something off-putting about titles and prefaces that are unhelpful or worse. Having sat for decades through literally thousands of performances of compositions given such titles as Obfuscations 87.4 and the like, this reviewer can safely say that such cryptic cleverness (if it is that) gets old fast, becoming annoying rather than fascinating. Do musicians want to bring audiences closer to their musical hearts and minds or drive them away? And would the same musicians return to a restaurant serving food that had to be located via scavenger hunt, or on tables five feet above reach? Such presentation would be considered contemptuous.
Meanwhile, Ms. Zhang, quite soft-spoken, chose to read her introductions in haste from a small paper which drew her voice downwards. If projection is an issue, then one needs to use a microphone, to speak from the heart, to slow down, or to distribute printed program notes. Granted, it may take a listener some effort and repeated hearings to delve deeply into a masterpiece, but should it take extraordinary mental leaps to grasp even the basics of compositional intent during a first hearing? This musician says no. Note to composers: create some program notes that communicate – they will not have a “spoiler” effect! You do not need to present a theoretical analysis or a treatise on the philosophy behind it – just a bit of guidance for the ear and mind. Remember also that there may be lay people present.
If the above seems to be a bit of a rant, this reviewer has simply seen too much of this problem. Musicians, perhaps because they work long hours in solitude or in academia, are too often simply oblivious to the world that will hear them, as if they don’t even care whether an audience comes. On that note, despite the originality and appeal of Ms. Zhang’s program, Saturday’s audience amounted to fewer than twenty people, including the composers themselves and this reviewer and a guest. Surely there could have been more of an effort to reach out to prospective listeners who probably could have enjoyed it.
One learned after this recital that Ms. Zhang will be performing September 29, 2018 in Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall (Carnegie Hall calendar 9/29/2018). No program is listed yet at the Carnegie website, but one hopes it will be largely the same, by then just a bit riper. It should be a rewarding evening if just two pieces of advice are followed. To Ms. Zhang and company: do more reaching out, both before the concert and during! To music-lovers, art-lovers, and thinkers everywhere: go hear Huizi Zhang in September – she is an outstanding pianist with a gift for interesting programming.
