Recording in Review: Christopher Jessup, piano
- Debussy: Minstrels, No. 12 from Préludes, Book 1, L. 117
- Grieg: Sonata in E Minor, op. 7 (II. Andante molto)
- Haydn: Sonata in B Minor, Hob. XVI:32 (I. Allegro moderato)
- Ravel: Sonatine, M. 40 (I. Modéré)
- Jessup: Le revenant
- Mozart: Concerto No. 19 in F Major, K. 459 (III. Allegro assai), Ben Rhee, Camerata Artists Orchestra
Recorded at Oktaven Audio, New York (1–4), live at Weill Recital Hall, Carnegie Hall (5), live at Merkin Concert Hall (6)
Immediacy is the new gold standard. Never mind preening or buying tickets to an exciting début recital at Weill Hall. Now the piano recital comes to you, the program has been pared to its standout moments, and for 99 cents you can own one piece.
The promising 23-year-old American artist Christopher Jessup, a recent Juilliard graduate, takes full advantage of everything technology has to offer. In a smorgasbord of divine sound bites, Mr. Jessup introduces us to a 28-minute playlist of the pieces he delivers as well as anyone: Debussy’s “Minstrels,” the slow movement of Grieg’s Piano Sonata, opening movements of Haydn and Ravel, an original composition, and the Finale of a Mozart concerto with orchestra. The playlist comprises six audio YouTube links showing a profile of Mr. Jessup on the screen, with the exception of track 3, an actual (and very welcome) performance video in a drawing room filled with books. The selections are available for purchase: To purchase on Amazon To purchase on iTunes
Mr. Jessup’s playing is refined and eloquent in all of the styles he presents here. It is refreshing to witness the first act of a career which does not seem to indulge in virtuosic daredevilry, and although the artist is still searching for his special strength in a varied program overflowing with creative ideas, it may be safe to assume that he will sidestep pure athleticism as he gains wider recognition. His exquisite pacing is never beat-bound, he listens intently for balance and sound quality, and he is not afraid to pull the tempo along as the architecture of each piece unfolds. His expert training in composition not only allows him the freedom to immerse himself directly into the character of each paragraph he utters, but also affords his audience a glimpse of a new actor in that panoply of composer-performers who have shaped the pianistic idiom through the eras. The enthusiastic cadenza of the Mozart Concerto’s third movement which follows Jessup’s original work, Le revenant (The Undead? We would love explanatory notes!), shows us a more traditional version of the pianist’s love of improvisation.
At his best in capricious, spontaneous gestures, exaggerating the flexion of the raised musical eyebrow, Christopher Jessup uses his fine aural conception to lead us smoothly from manic to morose and toward the hyperactive once more, albeit in quizzical fashion. This play of opposites already has established itself in Jessup’s consciousness and in our own, as he traces an odd reverse chronology: from the comical face of Debussy in 1910 back to the Norwegian folk-influenced Edvard Grieg in 1866, to the arch-Classical Haydn of 1775, suddenly parachuting us forward again to France at the turn of the 20th century, and so on. If the artist has a plan, it is to ask for philosophical cohesion amid an oxymoronic batch of dissociated thinkers. But it is far more likely that he has not worried about the jarring juxtaposition of musical appetizers which lack a main course, and this may not be a productive path as he navigates the concert world.
In keeping with our consumeristic trends, radio stations often use the fallacy of listeners’ abhorrence of empty space to skip movements or delay announcements of titles, shifting images in such a neurological shuffle that listeners become gradually disoriented. The playlist may be a background for other comfortable activities: running, cooking, waiting for customer support. In Mr. Jessup’s demo, even the composers’ names are deemed peripheral, leaving audiophiles to guess them and puzzle over Le revenant, whose composer, as performer, is almost hidden in plain sight. When one factors in YouTube’s frequent interruptions for ads, Amazon’s running mashup of non sequitur samples, and the absence of program notes on these sites, the result is a rather trivial treatment for a musician who most certainly should be given our serious attention.
