Rixiang Huang, “French Romance Live” CD in Review
Rixiang Huang, Piano
Recorded March 7, 2020, Alfred Newman Hall, University of Southern California, CA; Recording Producer, Engineer, and Editor, Josue Gonzalez;
Photographer, Jiachen Liu; Piano Technician Ann Hayden;
Booklet Editing and Art Direction, Chenting Zhao
On March 7 of this interminable pandemic season, prizewinning pianist Rixiang Huang was busy playing a highly demanding piano recital at the University of Southern California, where he is a doctoral candidate at the Thornton School of Music. From this recital, a recording was made and released commercially in April as a CD entitled “French Romance.” The recording is now available both as a physical CD (including Poulenc, Debussy, Ravel, and Mussorgsky) as well as a download-only recording (with additional tracks of Bartók and Mendelssohn). There is much to admire in it.
About the repertoire, the French works include a short song transcription from the Poulenc’s Léocadia incidental music, specifically Les chemins de l’amour, plus Ravel’s Sonatine and Debussy’s Estampes. Though entitled “French Romance” the CD contains just around thirty minutes of French music, with the other thirty-one being the great Russian masterwork, Pictures at an Exhibition by Mussorgsky. The additional download-only tracks range still more widely (with Mendelssohn’s Phantasie, Op. 28, and Bartók’s Sonata, Sz. 80), bringing the total to around an hour and a half of very diverse piano music.
About the performer, Rixiang (Ricky) Huang (https://www.rixianghuangpianist.com/) is an excellent young pianist, whose live performances of Haydn, Beethoven, Granados, and Liszt I reviewed quite favorably last year at a Bradshaw and Buono winners’ recital at Carnegie’s Weill Hall (Bradshaw & Buono Winners Recital in Review). He has won an impressive array of other prizes and accolades as well, and he currently studies with the noted pianist and conductor Jeffrey Kahane. His playing on this recording displays the tremendous technical facility and range that one heard around a year ago in live concert, and it bodes well for continued success in his career.
The disc opens nostalgically with an arrangement of Poulenc’s meltingly beautiful song Les chemins de l’amour. Once a signature piece for the legendary Jessye Norman, the music had originally been set to a heartbreaking Anouilh poem of love and loss and has since been played in various arrangements for different instruments. No transcriber is credited for Mr. Huang’s solo piano version of the song, perhaps understandably in that very little is added to the original (to keep its purity intact). Mr. Huang lets the melody speak, as he should, and it is a poignant performance.
Debussy’s Estampes follows, and all three movements show individuality. The opening of Pagodes was a high point for this reviewer, reflecting a special sensitivity, grace, and delicate tonal shading. That sensitivity was less apparent to this listener in the second piece, Soirée dans Grenade, which suffered a bit from an almost metronomic stiffness, particularly the staccato sixteenths in measure 18 (and every analogous spot to follow). More of the crescendo in these spots (as marked even in Debussy’s manuscripts) would have lent a more human impulse and gesture to the phrasing to offset this quality. In the third and final piece of the set, Jardins sous la pluie, the drumming of the garden “rain” was quite evocative. Minor quibbles aside, many will be sure to enjoy the entire set, especially the Pagodes.
Next on the disc is Ravel’s Sonatine, and here the phrasing is flexible and singing, while still maintaining a restraint in accordance work’s neo-classical spirit. Mr. Huang shows a genuine expressiveness in the work’s central Mouvement de Menuet, and the finale, Animé, has just the right crystalline brilliance and drive.
Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition concludes the physical CD’s selections, and it does so with gusto. One may well ask why yet another recording of this well-known piece is needed (and why place one might place this juggernaut on a disc of French delicacies), but the results speak. It affords a chance for Mr. Huang to shine in almost every facet of his pianism. That is part of the goal of a debut CD, after all (which has this listener wondering why it wasn’t simply a self-titled CD rather than one shoehorned into a “French Romance” theme).
The Mussorgsky benefits here from a highly intense Gnomus and an exceptionally plaintive rendition of The Old Castle. The deft finger-work (especially in Tuileries, Limoges, and the Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks) is expert, as is the power in the lumbering – but not too slow – oxen of Bydlo, the storming of Baba Yaga, and the final Great Gate of Kiev. To play each contrasting piece with the different required touches, sounds, and moods is to master an encyclopedic range of pianism, and Mr. Huang delivers it all with seeming ease. The piece marks the end of a highly auspicious first commercial CD.
The additional digital downloads of Bartók and Mendelssohn are more than a bonus. Though the Bartók Sonata seems at first not as savage as one sometimes hears, it has instead a reined-in energy which is effective in building excitement, and Mr. Huang unleashes the accelerando to the close of the first movement with ferocity. The final movement is bristling. It may be one of this listener’s most enjoyable Bartók Sonata performances to date. Mendelssohn’s relatively underplayed Phantasie, Op. 28 is also excellent, with Mr. Huang’s fleet-fingered reading bringing it lucidity and cohesion.
One won’t find these last two pieces on the physical CD itself, so adventurous music lovers might consider purchasing the download-only version. A preview is available at https://rixianghuang.hearnow.com/. The complete recording is at Spotify, Itunes, Apple Music, and other stores.
