The 2012 William Kapell International Piano Competition Ends

The Kapell Competition Ends With An Evening of Concertos

After a concert last night in which the three Finalists played concertos with the Baltimore Symphony at the Clarice Smith Center’s Dekelboum Hall, the results of the 2012 William Kapell International Piano Competition are in, and they are as follows:

1st Prize – $25,000 to Yekwon Sunwoo, 23, of South Korea 2nd Prize – $15,000 to Jin Uk Kim, 28, of South Korea 3rd Prize – $10,000 to Steven Lin, 23, of the US The Chamber Music Award also went to Mr. Sunwoo.  A list of the other awards given can be found at:  http://claricesmithcenter.umd.edu

Well, it was a very exciting Final Round at the Kapell Competition, and there were some surprises.  Anyone who has been reading my postings will know that I expected — from the first ten seconds of his first performance — that Steven Lin would win the First Prize.  Based on his performances throughout the 2 weeks of the event, I still feel that way.  This opinion, however, should take nothing away from the actual First Prize winner, Yekwon Sunwoo, who played spectacularly well — particularly the Rachmaninoff Third Concerto, which he played in the Semi-Finals (with a really superb accompaniment by pianist Colette Valentine, an ideal collaborator and a wonderful pianist in her own right), as well as in last night’s Final Round with the Baltimore Symphony and conductor David Lockington.  On both occasions he let the beast loose with daring tempos, plenty of sonority and an especially ringing top.  He cut mightily through what was often a pretty heavy handed orchestral accompaniment and, I think, therein lay his victory.

Mr. Lin, who had in every performance up to the Finals demonstrated a truly breathtaking technique as well as an imaginative and attention-compelling musicianship that was well beyond what I was hearing from his colleagues, was simply swamped by the orchestra throughout his performance of Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.  Mr. Lockington and the BSO should take a share of the blame for this, there were passages, especially from the low brass, that were seriously, almost ridiculously, overplayed.  (Was it Richard Strauss who said, “Never look at the brass, it only encourages them”?)  But Mr. Lin, who at 23 is tall but still slight of frame, is going to have to find a much more robust tone when he next sits down in front of an orchestra, or risk another annihilation.

Jin Uk Kim, the Second Prize laureate, took a broad, encompassing view of Brahms’ Second Piano Concerto with its wide landscape of sun and shade.  The first movement was leisurely and reflective in tone; the second, which Brahms referred to jokingly as “a tiny, tiny wisp of a scherzo,” was suitably growly and threatening.  The Andante third movement was a glass of fine brandy and a cigar, an interlude of near stillness heightened by Chang Woo Lee’s plangent cello solo.  The final Allegretto grazioso was subjected to a rather speedy interpretation of that tempo marking, but it sparkled and danced and the notorious runs of double thirds in both hands seemed to cause Mr. Kim no distress — in fact he strode through all the really thorny pianistics with no problems at all but cracked a fair number of notes in less difficult spots.

As I said at the beginning of my coverage of the Kapell, an event like this reminds us all of how many terrific pianists there are seeking careers.  Not all of them will succeed, of course, but a number of competitors who didn’t make it to the Final Round still gave wonderful, memorable performances.  To wrap this up, here (in no particular order) are a few of my happier memories from the past two weeks:  Diyi Tang in Gaspard de la nuit, Guilliaume Masson’s Canope by Debussy, Jeewon Lee’s Tchaikowsky Concerto and Kreutzer Sonata (with Melissa White), both Misha Namirovisky and Alexandre Moutouzkine’s Scriabin performances, Younggun Kim’s Poulenc Novelettes and Prokofiev 7th Sonata, Julia Siciliano in the Waldstein Sonata, Chien-Lin Lu’s Chopin Bacarolle…, so many.  Congratulations to all who participated.

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by Timothy Gilligan  for New York Concert Review; New York, NY

Anton Kuerti in Review

Anton Kuerti in an all-Beethoven recital

You overhear these conversations all the time at concerts:  “Well, he/she didn’t put enough emotion into it.”  Or:  “He/she put a lot of emotion into it.”  Non-musicians can be forgiven for being confused by this issue, but the fact is (in my opinion, anyway) that “putting emotion in” is about 95% of the time the result of following the written directions of the composer, laid out in the score.  These guys (and gals) knew what they were doing, especially Beethoven who was positively obsessive about putting the most minute instructions in his manuscripts, occasionally on nearly every note.  It’s when performers don’t really take the trouble to learn the music in depth, when they take the once-over-lightly approach, or worse, when they decide that they know better than Mr. van B, that they end up sounding cold, or unemotional, and generally run aground on a lousy performance.  They’re not cold, they’re just lazy.  You don’t add emotion, you allow it to emerge by really knowing the musical score in the deepest possible way.  A good musician has to master it all — to internalize every detail of the composer’s instructions — and only then begin to decide how to best reproduce the work.

Anton Kuerti is not lazy.

Mr. Kuerti’s extraordinary all-Beethoven program last night — two Sonatas: the Op. 26 in A-Flat, and the Op. 57 in F minor “Appassionata” plus the massive 33 Variations on a Waltz by Diabelli, Op. 120 — was overflowing with carefully observed details, and, as a result, it had the kind of effect on the emotions that most performers think they are achieving but never do.  Kuerti has studied these works for a lifetime, and knows every jot in these scores.  So, one could ask, is there no room for individuality?  For a more personal interpretation?  Of course there is, and Mr. Kuerti’s playing was full of freedom and fantasy — individual touches like the tiny delays which served to intensify cadences and provide breathing room in phrases — it’s just that he started from a place where every mark Beethoven put on the page was accounted for in full, and embedded in his playing.

Anton Kuerti

Audiences don’t get the opportunity to hear a performance like the one Kuerti gave last night very often.  This audience clearly knew it and erupted in a standing ovation as soon as the Diabellis, which closed the program, ended.  This enormous set of 33 magical variations on perhaps the most banal tune ever written, something like 55 minutes in length (I glanced at my watch as  it began intending to time it, but became so engrossed in the playing that I forgot to look again), is not the sort of piece that usually calls forth that kind of reaction.  It is of great length, relentlessly repetitive, and worst of all it ends slowly and quietly.  Nevertheless the audience, with more than a few of the worlds best pianists sprinkled in, was on its feet at the end — a well earned tribute to the fantastic journey it had just taken with Mr. Kuerti leading the way.   The pianist is 74 now, and his fingers occasionally slip.  It matters not at all.  For a couple of hours last night, he showed us what a good musician is, and what a good musician does.

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by Timothy Gilligan  for New York Concert Review; New York, NY

Review of Jeremy Denk at The 2012 William Kapell International Piano Competition and Festival

Jeremy Denk in Recital

Pianist Jeremy Denk is carving out a major career as an advocate, and a very persuasive one, for the music of Charles Ives and Gyorgy Ligeti.  In addition to his work as accompanist to megastar violinist Joshua Bell, the last couple of years have seen him record both Ives Sonatas as well as two books of Ligeti Études.  His recital at the Kapell Competition Wednesday night provided a look at both his superbly worked out  and deeply understood Ligeti Études, and a sample of his way with more standard repertoire in the form of Brahms’ Klavierstücke, Op. 118 and Book 1 of his Paganini Variations, Op. 35.  Playing all of the Études and the Paganini Variations on the same program would be considered by many pianists to be a suicide mission.  Both sets are incredibly technically demanding and physically taxing in the extreme.  I think by the end of the evening, even Mr. Denk may have had second thoughts about the wisdom of undertaking it.

Jeremy Denk

Jeremy Denk

He opened his recital with books one and two of Ligeti’s Études (there is a third book which remained unfinished at the composer’s death in 2006).  The first two books contain fourteen études and, as Mr. Denk explained, the last of these was considered, even by Ligeti himself, to be unplayable by an unaided human.  Denk’s traversal of the other thirteen was rhythmically and tonally alive, secure, and tossed off with a  remarkable sense of freedom from technical struggle.  Mr. Denk has internalized these unremittingly complex pieces to an amazing degree.  He still plays them from the score — more of a security blanket than a necessity, I suspect, since they are for all practical purposes unreadable from the page — but he’s clearly not bound to the printed notes.

After all that paradoxical ease in the Études — the result, to be sure, of a staggering amount of work — the six pieces of Brahms’ Op. 118 could have used more struggle.  Not in the technical sense, but in mining their depths for the intensely emotional content they hold.  It was all a bit charming and gemütlich, even the Paganini Variations which were also taken at tempos that occasionally flirted with pandemonium.  The enthusiastic response brought out two encores, and Denk took the term literally.  He repeated one of the Ligeti Etudes and the Intermezzo, Op. 118, No. 2 of Brahms.  You have to admire all that hard work, but really — he never heard of the Spinning Song?

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by Timothy Gilligan  for New York Concert Review; New York, NY

Leon Fleisher in concert

Leon Fleisher

Leon Fleisher

Legendary pianist Leon Fleisher appeared in a rare recital Thursday evening at the William Kapell International Piano Competition and Festival at the University of Maryland campus in College Park.  It was an emotional event for the many pianists present as Mr. Fleisher, now approaching his 84th birthday, entered the stage moving slowly and looking a bit frail.  Fleisher’s meteoric career began as a child prodigy, becoming at 9 a student of the great Artur Schnabel, followed by a First Prize at the Queen Elizabeth of Belgium Competition in 1952 and continuing upward throughout the 1950s and early 60s with ecstatic notices and a series of concerto recordings with George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra that are still unsurpassed.  It all fell to earth in 1965 when a problem with the nerves in his right arm, diagnosed many years later as focal dystonia, rendered his fourth and fifth fingers useless.  Decades of often painful search for a cure followed while Mr. Fleisher ventured into conducting, and became a much beloved teacher at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore, a position he took up in 1959 and still holds today.   There were flashes of hope along the way — I remember being glued to the television, practically holding my breath, while he played the Franck Symphonic Variations about 30 years ago.  Again about fifteen years later there were some performances, and then most encouragingly, in 2004, the release of his CD Leon Fleisher: Two Hands.  I heard him then, in a concert in a friend’s living room in New York, play Egon Petri’s transcription of J. S. Bach’s Sheep May Safely Graze so beautifully that I had to wipe the tears from my eyes.  Whatever success in treatment there has been, however, doesn’t seem to last and the artist who appeared before a full auditorium to warm and appreciative applause last evening, did so with the fingers of his right hand visibly clenched.  He played, except for duets with his wife Katherine Jacobson, only left-hand repertoire.  Still, it was not so much how Mr. Fleisher played, though there was a craggily beautiful account of the Bach Chaconne transcribed for the left hand by Johnannes Brahms that began in spare black and white and then blossomed like a flower into warm hues at it went, but the fact that he did play, and in doing so gave us the opportunity to honor both the great achievements of his career, and the long struggle, never given up, to regain what he lost.  He seems to have made peace with his ordeal though, dispensing witty comments about the repertoire and speaking movingly about his long ago friendship with William Kapell.  If there was ever a bittersweet tinge to these memories — it was Fleisher’s emulation of his older friend’s fanatic practice regimen that probably led to his eventual disability — time has erased it so that only love and admiration remain.

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by Timothy Gilligan  for New York Concert Review; New York, NY

The William Kapell International Piano Competition and Festival; Solo Semi-Finals in Review

Solo Semi-Finals Are Over – Nine Pianists Played

On Thursday, July 12th, the Jury of the William Kapell International Piano Competition and Festival selected nine semi-finalists from a field of twenty four.  These nine pianists were heard in three solo semi-final rounds on Friday, Saturday and Sunday performing recitals of an hour each including both the required American piece — Leon Kirchner’s Interlude II proving to be wildly popular, at least among the competitors — and a portion of one concerto of the performer’s choice, plus standard repertoire solo works.  At the risk of being a bit crass, here is my racing form so far:

Jin Uk Kim, 28 from South Korea but residing in Boston these days is a DMA student at the New England Conservatory.  Mr. Kim played two of the Brahms Klavierstucke, Op. 76 in middle of the road mode, without much heat or light.  He chose Interlude II (the choice of 5 of the other nine players as well), a piece from Kirchner’s last years, as his American work.  It’s an evocative piece which lends itself to a touch of romanticism in tone and Mr. Kim’s satisfying approach was appropriately juicy.  Sparks flew from the Six Paganini Etudes of Franz Liszt but the requisite virtuosity turned his sound toward the hard side.  The Brahms Second Piano Concerto is the 32oz porterhouse of piano concerti, and for me, Mr. Kim left a good deal of meat on his plate.  It was a speedy reading of the first movement, without much breathing room, but the second movement was warmer.

Jin Uk Kim

Jeewon Lee, 30, is also from South Korea and pursuing her DMA at Rice University in Texas.  She began with her American work, Michael Torke’s Laetus and followed it with the Chopin Piano Sonata No. 3.  This, as all the piano playing world knows, is a towering work of great difficulty, both technically and musically.  Ms. Lee handled the technical demands without batting an eyelash, but the music itself was more problematic.  She tends to back away from the climaxes of phrases in a coy, cutesy way —  coquettish rather than ardent, and I think probably not what Chopin was aiming at.  Her Tchaikovsky Concerto No. 1, however, was fullblooded and very well played.

Diyi Tang was the competitor I missed hearing in the Preliminaries due to that unfortunate combination of confusion about the start time and traffic.  He is 32, from China, and working towards a DMA at Rutgers University.  He made something of a fashion statement, entering the stage dressed in a sharp and shiny brown sharkskin suit.  Fortunately, his Gaspard de la nuit shimmered as well.  Ondine irridesced, Le gibet twisted ever so slowly in a non existent wind, the endlessly repeating B-flats sounding like they were played by some other pianist in some other room far away, and Scarbo terrorized, leaping and whirling and generally throwing the furniture around.  Mr. Tang chose George Walker’s Sonata No 2 as his American piece and gave it a thoughtful reading.  Less so Chopin’s Scherzo in C-sharp minor, Op. 39 which was strangely uninvolved given the opportunities it presents.  Mainly it was very, very fast with little give, even in the chorale sections.

Saturday’s Round Two began with Yue Chu, 28, from China and currently studying in Philadelphia, who started his program with Interlude II.  To my ears Mr. Chu exhibited tonal problems throughout his recital.  He produced a duller sound than his predecessors which didn’t flatter him by comparison, particularly in the Liszt Sonata which suffered from a few too many cracked notes as well as insufficient bass, leaving otherwise lush harmonies under-supported.  The Rachmaninoff Third Concerto (first and second movements) was better but still on the cool side.

Masafumi Nakatani

Masafumi Nakatani

Masafumi Nakatani, 28 and from Japan, is in the Doctoral Program at University of Miami.  He also opened his program with the Kirchner — a mesmerizing reading with warm sound and pinging high notes.  Things slid downhill from there, however.  Schumann’s Carnaval was overpedaled and sloppy with missed notes and memory slips.  That’s forgivable in this pressure cooker situation, but in an effort to do something “deep” Mr. Nakatani often twisted the music out of proportion, a propensity that afflicted the Beethoven Emperor Concerto too, and that I am less inclined to brush off.

Fortunately, critics are not expected to exercise neutrality.  I have pointed out what I perceive to be some of the problems of these competitors, but I’d like to say here and now that they are all at a minimum very very good pianists.  Remember that, please, as you read what comes next:

Steven Lin is a whole other order of being.  In this competition, he is a leopard in a room full of house cats.  (Mr. Lin may also prove to be a cure for triskaidecaphobics since he is Competitor No. 13).  There is little to say except to marvel at his level of technical accomplishment, well above most of the professional pianists who inhabit the world’s concert halls these days.  The ease of this young man’s playing (he’s 23, and of Taiwanese descent but born in the US), his poise and his absolute mastery enable him to really let his imagination loose.  He can do pretty much anything he wants to do.  This is not necessarily always a good thing, but even when Mr. Lin does something slightly cringeworthy, he does it with such astonishing skill and freedom that it’s pointless to argue.  He exists in a blissful zone of his own.

Steven Lin

Steven Lin

Yekwon Sunwoo is also 23, from South Korea and enrolled in the Masters program at Juilliard.  He seems to me a strong contender for a place in the Kapell finals.  He’s a technical whiz and a good musician.  My one complaint would be that he uses very soft dynamics too much (this has been something of a trend at this competition).  The Chopin Ballade No. 1 left me feeling cheated at many beautiful moments.  The slow movement of Schubert’s Wanderer Fantasy was much the same — projection above all, please,  even at low volume.   His Rachmaninoff Third Concerto, however, practically lifted the roof off the auditorium (and broke a string in the piano as well).

Yekwon Sunwoo

Yekwon Sunwoo

Misha Namirovsky, 31, from Russia by way of Israel is another newly minted Bostonian, now in the DMA program at New England Conservatory.  I’m about 95% sure Mr. Nemirovsky intended to play the German Steinway he used in the preliminary rounds, however, since the string broken during Mr. Sunwoo’s Rachmaninonff Concerto couldn’t be properly replaced in the 15 minutes allotted between performances, I think Namirovsky must have agreed to use the American Steinway he ended up playing at the last minute.  If that’s the way it happened, it’s a pretty undesirable position to be put in and I suspect it rattled him, subtly at first and then more overtly as the Schumann Symphonic Etudes proceeded.  By the time the Beethoven Fourth Concerto came along he was back in control and he gave a beautiful if slightly oddball performance of it — the second movement played first, followed by the first movement.

Jun Sun, 23 from China and currently a student at Juilliard, gave an appealingly haunting and reflective performance of (once again) the Kirshner Interlude II, and a carefully articulated performance of Brahms’ Handel Variations that was also athletic and fearless at the right moments.  Brahms First Piano Concerto was a little reticent for my taste but it roared occasionally too.

Chamber music is on the program for the next two days followed by the announcement of the finalists.

A Correction:

There are of course inherent problems in publishing same day pieces, and sometimes mistakes are made.  Let me rephrase that:  Sometimes I make mistakes — and I made a lulu the other day when I wrote that Misha Namirovsky had, at the last minute before his performance on Sunday, been forced by circumstances beyond his control to play the American Steinway.  He was, in fact, scheduled to play the American Steinway, has used it from the beginning of the competition and he played it again today in the Chamber Music Round.  My apologies to all concerned.

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by Timothy Gilligan  for New York Concert Review; New York, NY

The Kapell Competition in Review

The Preliminary Round is Over

The Kapell Competition’s preliminary rounds were spread over three days – the only way to hear 24 pianists play 30 minutes of repertoire each without fatalities on the jury and perhaps the audience as well.  One fact becomes immediately apparent from such an undertaking:  there are a lot of excellent young pianists around.  This should give folks like Norman Lebrecht and other predictors of the demise of classical music something to think about.  These young artists are enthusiastic champions of the art form and in terms of audience, I think people have always come to classical music later in life when they go looking for real meaning as opposed to just entertainment.  In any case, we’ll see.  Personally, I’m not too worried.

William Kapell; Photo Credit: Clarice Smith Center

Among the performers here there are several with genuine star potential, and many more with the ability to inspire others to become interested in concert music.  Some time around 4pm today the jury will announce nine semi-finalists.  It’s 2:45 now so I’m going to go out on a limb and list my choices (in the order in which they played) to advance to the next round.  Once caveat:  due to the notorious Washington Beltway traffic, as well as a certain confusion of mind as to the actual start time of Round Three, I missed Diyi Tang’s performance entirely, and I only heard Maria Sumareva’s via closed circuit TV in the lobby since I arrived after she began — clearly not the best way to make a judgement, so if either or both of them deserved to be mentioned here, I can only apologize and look forward to hearing them in the next round.

Julia Siciliano

The first name on this list is bound to be controversial.  Julia Siciliano is a consummate musician who played very beautifully… except when she didn’t.  Nemesis stalked her through the Chopin Fourth Scherzo.  Its skittering leaping chords, which appear in I don’t know how many transpositions in the course of the piece, are a memorization death trap and Ms. Siciliano fell in.  Twice.  She climbed out, however, with elegance and grace and not the slightest effect on the rest of her performance of the piece or the remainder of her program — an absolutely engrossing and flawlessly played Waldstein Sonata, the equal of any I’ve heard.  I hope the jury will cut her enough slack to continue.

Younggun Kim

Younggun Kim is indeed, as his name implies, a young gun.  He has blazing technical capacity and a lush sound supported by a natural phrasing sense and an appreciation of the differences in approach required to project the music of Haydn – a little dry for my taste, but more about that in a later post about the pianos.  Kim’s Poulenc Novelettes shimmered with beautifully balanced voicings, and Prokofiev’s war horse Seventh Sonata was spiky and rhythmically driven but still played with full, beautiful tone.

Gonzalo Paredes

Gonzalo Paredes

Chilean pianist Gonzalo Paredes began with a sprightly performance of the first movement of Haydn’s big C Major sonata (Hob. XVI:50).  When I say sprightly I really mean fast, perhaps a little too fast, but perfectly controlled and bravely pedaled according to Haydn’s long markings.  Two pieces from Bartók’s Out of Doors Suite followed.  The Night’s Music was appropriately buggy, The Chase quite spectacular.  Liszt’s Variations on a Theme of J. S. Bach had the rapt audience eating out of Paredes’ extremely capable hands.  He has more than a little of his great countryman Claudio Arrau’s depth of sound and he uses it to great effect.

Steven Lin

Steven Lin

Steven Lin  is a phenomenon.  He seems effortlessly to do things which might reasonably be assumed to be impossible.  He is surely one of the most gifted technicians around, and that includes most of the professional pianists performing today.  This is not hyperbole; you have to hear him to believe it.  His Haydn Sonata, the same C Major as Mr. Paredes’, was playful and sparkling, and Mr. Lin milked it for every opportunity to do something remarkable.  He sometimes skated close to the outer bounds of good taste, but he never really crossed it, and, it has it be said again, it really was remarkable.  He followed this with a jaw-dropping account of Liszt’s very ungrateful Don Juan Fantasy — a piece I will readily admit that I detest.  In 40 years I never heard a performance of it that sounded like anything but a confused noise from without, that is until yesterday just before 11am when Mr. Lin set everything right.  Indescribable.  And I can’t wait to hear more.

Yekwon Sunwoo

Yekwon Sunwoo

Yekwon Sunwoo gave us a clear and well proportioned version of Beethoven’s Sonata Op. 27, No. 1, the companion piece to the more famous “Moonlight” Sonata, and one of Beethoven’s loveliest.  One thing puzzles me — and I’ll admit it’s a nit-pick, but the other pianist who played this work did the same thing — and that is the unauthorized (at least by Beethoven) appearance of staccato notes in the left hand in measure 4.  OK, ok, it’s a minor thing, but it spoils the surprise when they do appear in the next measure.  Somebody should kill this before it spreads.  Ravel’s La Valse stretches anyone’s technical abilities to the limit, but it didn’t seem to disturb Mr. Sunwoo in any way.  He gave a whirling, kaleidoscopic account that never lost sight of the basic waltz rhythm.

Jee In Hwang

Jee In Hwang

Jee In Hwang produced a massive Rachmaninoff Corelli Variations, a glittlering Jeux d’eau and a solid Les Adieux Sonata, although the first movement was not improved by a tempo which strained the upper limits of musicianship.  Misha Namirovsky’s Schubert suffered from too much una corda pedal — it seems to be the fashion these days to show how softly you can play and a number of competitors are overusing it — but his Rachmaninoff, Debussy and particularly his Scriabin Fourth Sonata with its devilish Prestissimo volando were awfully good.  Jun Sun played a rather uninterested account of Haydn’s Sonata No. 33 but Godowsky’s fabulous elaboration of the Strauss waltz Wine, Women and Song had a technical command you couldn’t argue with.  The problem with the Godowsky transcriptions is that pianists nowadays take them too seriously.  There was a lot of mooning over the opening riffs and other inconsequentials.  Sometimes it is just noodling.   Guilliaume Masson is another of the una corda addicts, but his takes on Mozart, K. 330 and Liszt’s Après un lecture de Dante were highly original and, well, pretty convincing.  Canope, Debussy’s evocation of an Egyptian burial jar, was magically still and mysterious. And now, time to await the real jury’s decision.

July 12, 2012 — 2:45pm

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by Timothy Gilligan  for New York Concert Review; New York, NY

Chamber Music Society of Kumho Art Hall in Review

KMF Virtuoso Concert Series
Music of Poulenc, Françaix, and Dvořák
Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center; New York, NY
June 7, 2012
 
Chamber Music Society of Kumho Art Hall

Chamber Music Society of Kumho Art Hall

 

The Chamber Music Society of Kumho Art Hall (CMS) was founded in 2007 and is presently a group of sixteen distinguished artists whose mission is to broaden the horizons of chamber music in Korea by performing and mentoring talented young players. Each season, the CMS performs with CMS Junior Members, giving these young talents the opportunity to learn and play with esteemed musicians. Tonight’s program had the Junior Members playing Francis Poulenc’s famous Sextet for Wind Quintet and Piano and the rarely played Dixtuor of Jean Françaix. The Senior Members took on Antonín Dvořák’s Piano Quintet in A Major, Op. 81.

Francis Poulenc (1899-1963) demonstrated his gift for wit, whimsy, and magic in his brilliant Sextet. The light-hearted nature of this work belies its fiendish difficulty; every player must be up to the mark or disaster ensues. There were no worries, as these young players were technically accomplished to a high degree. It seemed that the piece was child’s play for them. The notes were all there, passagework was clear, and the ensemble playing was excellent; a few intonation issues crept in, but these were few and far between. What was missing was the feeling of Poulenc as jaunty raconteur. I suspect this element will come with more experience and performance; the foundation is there in abundance, but it still needs developing. Once this is done, I am sure this ensemble will give an unforgettable performance of this mainstay of the repertoire.

Jean Françaix (1912-1997) is an unfamiliar name to many, which is regrettable given his tremendous output and sparkling style of composition.  Being a staunch and unrepentant Neo-Classicist in the time of serialism and atonalism probably has contributed to this. Dixtuor pour quintette à vent et quintette à cordes (Dectet for Wind and String Quintet) was composed in 1987. Scored for two violins, viola, cello, double bass, flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and horn, it is a work full of youthful optimism. While not as technically demanding as the Poulenc, it still requires top-notch players and has the additional challenge of ensemble and balance issues among ten musicians.  Perhaps to highlight the idea of yesteryear, the players performed while standing; in my opinion this neither added nor subtracted anything from the performance. The ensemble captured the essence of this charming work in a way that was lacking in the Poulenc.  There was whimsy without being cloying, the lyrical second movement was beautifully played, and the articulation was rendered with laser-like clarity throughout, especially the triplets in the third movement. The final movement built up such momentum that the double bass player inadvertently hit his stand with his bow, underscoring his enthusiasm. My only reservation was at times the strings were somewhat timid and overshadowed by the winds, but all in all it was an inspired performance of an unjustly neglected work.

After intermission, the senior members took to the stage. Music Director Daejin Kim led a bold performance of Dvořák’s Piano Quintet in A Major, Op. 81. Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904) showed his devotion to his native land in this masterpiece, using Bohemian folk idiom throughout and the CMS gave it a high-voltage performance. They showed their great understanding of Dvořák’s ideas and projected them with vigor. Other than a small slip where one violin was a fraction of a second early in an exposed section, the playing was extremely polished. The last measures of the finale were played with brio, bringing the work to an exciting close. The large audience responded with loud and prolonged applause, calling the performers back to the stage three times.

As much as I would like to name each and every player for their performance, I will simply congratulate CMS as a whole on a highly successful evening. I hope I have the pleasure of hearing them again in the future.

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by Jeffrey Williams  for New York Concert Review; New York, NY

New York Concert Artists Associates: Rising Artists Evening II in Review

New York Concert Artists Associates: Rising Artists Evening II
Jayoung Hong, piano; Jiaxin Tian, piano; Mariko Miyazaki, piano; Kazuo Kanemaki, conductor
Good Shepherd-Faith Presbyterian Church
June 2, 2012

What could be a better way to spend an evening than to hear – after Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings (Waltz) – four accomplished pianists playing four favorites of the piano concerto literature? Two concerti by Mozart (K. 466 and K. 503, followed by Schumann’s A Minor Concerto and Mendelssohn’s G Minor Concerto, made for a jam-packed evening. One couldn’t help thinking that such an evening should be required listening for young New York music students. Here are four pieces (K503 perhaps less so) that young players frequently attempt, though the playing requires the mastery of veterans, and the venue offers good vantage points from which to compare and study the different pianists’ approaches. It is also not every day that one hears so many piano concerti in a row played with such considerable polish.

The programming was a dream, starting with pianist Jayoung Hong playing Mozart’s glorious Piano Concerto No. 25 in C Major, K.503. A relatively large work from an extremely fertile period in Mozart’s composing, it requires a grasp of large structure as well as sensitivity to its wealth of surprises – along with complete technical control, of course. Jayoung Hong played it with seeming ease and, except for one minor mishap attributable to ensemble distractions, delivered a fine performance. If one could sum up in a word one of the loveliest qualities in her performance it might be seamlessness. She demonstrated a fluidity that carried her effortlessly from section to section, harmony to harmony, without a note of hesitancy or roughness. On the other hand it was this very quality that left me wanting more delineation. One sometimes wanted more rhythmic differentiation (for example between triplet-eighths and sixteenths, even in the opening main theme) and later, in the flurry of third movement passagework one wanted more demarcation at points of melodic return. There are several schools of thought on this, but all in all, Ms. Hong played with a grace that suits Mozart’s style. She seemed truly to enjoy the music most by the third movement. Occasionally there was some sketchiness in the strings, and the winds were sometimes overpowering (especially where marked pianissimo at the Andante’s close), but conductor Kazuo Kanemaki held things together well.

Going in reverse chronology, Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20 in D Minor K.466, came next, with Jiaxin Tian as soloist. While I am not a fan of “listening with one’s eyes” it was hard not to notice this pianist’s musical responses transporting her even during the opening tutti, before she played a note. This oneness with the orchestra and the music is a gift and pervaded her playing. Certainly she had all the technical nuts and bolts in order, but what brought her playing to a higher level was her unwavering passion and commitment to the work. Yet again, though, at times an asset can be a drawback, and I occasionally thought the piano should be less “one” with the orchestra and more soloistic. Particularly in the first movement’s opening theme, which could stand being more full-bodied, the melody was a bit wan at the peaks. The consistently receding tops of melodies had me wondering whether perhaps there might have been a pinky injury – but this pianist seemed quite purposeful in her performance. She lacked for nothing in the dramatic crescendo passages, and that “oneness” came in handy in some beautifully Beethovenian sweeps where she meshed perfectly with the orchestra. This concerto is often thought of as one of the most Beethovenian of Mozart’s works, and it is not surprising that Beethoven left cadenzas for it (one which she performed in the first movement). Her nicely ornamented Romanza led to an extremely fast final movement, which brought the audience to its feet.

In a change from the printed program Jin Kyung Park played Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A Minor right after intermission, instead of last, as programmed, but this reviewer is not assigned to review that performance. The program closed with Mariko Miyazaki playing Mendelssohn’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in G Minor. If some imagined this work to be too lightweight to conclude a concerto program (especially after Schumann’s A Minor masterpiece), a surprise was in store. Ms. Miyazaki played this oft-maligned work with fresh intensity and extreme brilliance. Bold and assured, she took the reins, leading the orchestra with ultra-clear downbeats and clean and precise pianism. Curmudgeons have often criticized this work for lacking depth or substance (a viewpoint I don’t happen to share), but Ms. Miyazaki treated it as a great work, and it repaid her. Even naysayers would have to concede that the sheer beauty of the piano writing, when perfectly executed, is a thrill akin to looking at a multitude of glistening chandeliers – call that a guilty pleasure, pianistically speaking. Ms. Miyazaki’s nearly flawless rendition was a pleasure indeed. She stormed and sparkled, and with equal poise and artistry projected the piece’s soulful slow movement. The final movement was a romp that concluded the program on a definite high, and again the audience was brought to its feet.

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by Rorianne Schrade  for New York Concert Review; New York, NY

New York Concert Artists and Associates Winners Evening: Evenings of Piano Concerti in Review

 New York Concert Artists and Associates Winners Evening: Evenings of Piano Concerti
Wael Farouk, piano; Alexei Tartakovski, piano; Vince Lee, conductor, NYCA Orchestra
Good Shepherd-Faith Presbyterian Church, New York, N.Y.
May 19, 2012

 

Anyone looking only to the larger musical venues of New York is missing out on some once-in-a-lifetime concerts at the “little church behind Juilliard.”  The Good Shepherd Church, which has held many exciting concerts over the years, is in its fourth year now as home to NYCA’s Evenings of Piano Concerti, which introduces concerto soloists, stars of the future, to adventurous audiences. Their May 19 concert was not to be forgotten.

Most memorable on this occasion was the performance of Rachmaninoff’s Third Concerto by Egyptian pianist Wael Farouk. The term “star of the future” is not quite apt here, as Mr. Farouk is something of a star already, with a career that has included innumerable concerto appearances, including the Egyptian premieres of Rachmaninoff Concerto No. 3, Brahms Piano Concerto No. 2, and Prokofiev Concertos Nos. 1, 2, and 3. Imagining Egyptian audiences hearing the Rachmaninoff 3rd Piano Concerto for the first time is exciting indeed, but those who heard Mr. Farouk play it in New York may feel they heard it for the first time as well.

Contrasting with the many hulking pianists who treat this piece as an Olympic hurdle (yawn), Mr. Farouk simply lived and breathed the music with the poetry of a born artist. Incidentally, this pianist is not of hulking build, and anyone brainwashed by the “size matters” crowd might have expected a less-than-powerful performance; they would have been proven wrong (as they might have, if Josef Hoffman, the great but diminutive dedicatee, had given the piece a chance!). Mr. Farouk’s technique is unquestionably great, despite apparently small hands, though this listener didn’t think of the word “technique” once during the entire performance (rare for this piece). The performance lacked nothing, but the way Mr. Farouk sailed through the piece, as if daydreaming out loud, made masses of notes seem merely incidental. That is how it should be, but only when one hears it does one realize how rare it is. Soulful melodic inflection, growling outbursts, coruscating passagework, and powerful peaks all combined with the unity of a master to bring the piece the unique life it deserves. Mr. Farouk also seemed to inspire the orchestra to glorious new heights, not by brute force, but by force of musical spirit. I am now officially a fan of this extraordinary musician.

Coming down to earth for a few moments, one should mention that some of the tempi were faster than one is accustomed to hearing, particularly in the last movement, where just a bit of “holding the reins” can make for more dramatic surges; it was so exciting, nonetheless, that one hesitates to suggest even the slightest tweaking. Conductor Vince Lee was a skillful and sympathetic collaborator throughout.

Prior to intermission, the audience was treated to Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto played by Alexei Tartakovski, and Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in F Minor, played by Yoonie Han. This reviewer is assigned to discuss the Beethoven but would be remiss in not mentioning Ms. Han’s excellent performance.

Alexei Tartakovski, Winner of the 2011 Rising Artists Concerto Presentation, has won several other awards as well and has fine credentials for one in his early twenties (his bio stating that he was born in 1989). He has performed in numerous cities in the US, Russia, Canada, Holland, Greece, and England, and is currently completing his Master of Music degree at the Peabody Institute. One competition jury member called him “a monumental talent” and another a “first-rate player.” Not surprisingly for one in the throes of a young competitor’s life, he offered a committed and solid performance of Beethoven’s Op. 58, one of the masterpieces of Beethoven’s Middle Period and a pillar of the piano repertoire in general. Mr. Tartakovski had the formidable challenge of starting the concert with this work’s contemplative opening – positioned on the program where one might find a light overture – but he was up to that challenge. He achieved a sense of spaciousness amid the settling of the audience and orchestra and delivered the music as a thoughtful and serious musician. Unassuming in demeanor, he also appeared to approach the work as chamber music, a goal which was not quite possible on this occasion (as undoubtedly there was limited rehearsal time). Unfazed by various ensemble glitches, Mr. Tartakovski showed intense concentration and resilience – qualities he will need in a busy performing career.

Tempo-wise, things were again a shade faster than I like. The last movement especially verged towards a light early classical romp rather than to a meaningful release from the preceding Andante’s depths. It nevertheless posed little challenge for Mr. Tartakovski, and he handled the movement comfortably and delivered its tricky trills with clarity and alacrity.

The task of a reviewer is presumably to review what one has heard and not what one could imagine given a different instrument or situation, but I can’t resist commenting that I would like to hear Mr. Tartakovski on a piano with a less strident treble for this work. While the instrument’s top register had cut through nicely for the previously heard Rachmaninoff (buffered by the rich underlying and surrounding harmonies), the leaner textures of the Beethoven left harsh upper octaves exposed, so one needs a mellower sounding instrument for it. Undoubtedly there will be future chances to hear this pianist, as he surely has many successes ahead of him.

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by Rorianne Schrade  for New York Concert Review; New York, NY

The Profile The Life And The Faith Across The Notes in Review

The Profile The Life And The Faith Across The Notes
A Symphonic Poem written for piano, orchestra, and chorus
Mario Jazzetti, composer
The Chelsea Symphony Orchestra; New York Choral Society
Francesco Libetta, piano; Donata Cucinotta, soprano; Matt Morgan, tenor
Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center; New York, NY
May 12, 2012

In a pre-concert address, Maurico Jazzetti shared remembrances of his father, Mario Jazzetti. It was obvious that he had great esteem and love for his father, and this concert was his way of sharing that with the world. Mario Jazzetti’s The Profile The Life And The Faith Across The Notes was presented. Having remarked on his dream that “this work must be played at Lincoln Center,” the younger Jazzetti must have felt great joy at making this dream a reality.

Mario Jazzetti (1915-1986) began his piano studies at age five and gave his first concert at age nine. He earned his diploma in piano in Naples and had a successful performing career in Italy in the pre- and post- World War II years.  He immigrated to the United States in 1951, where he continued his career as a teacher and performer, including concerts at Town Hall and Carnegie Hall. The Profile The Life And The Faith Across The Notes was first performed in a two-piano version in 1983.  A planned orchestral version was cancelled due to Mr. Jazetti’s ill health in 1984.

Billed in the program as a symphonic poem, in the program notes as a symphony concerto, and on the Internet as a piano concerto, it is apparent that the presenter is undecided on a final designation. Despite its titles’ far-reaching ambitions, this work seems ultimately to be none of the above. One might call it a suite, but it is really a pastiche of six works, composed at different times in Mr. Jazzetti’s life and placed together. Split into two sections (four movements, followed after intermission by the last two), the six movements are meant to represent the life journey, from birth to the end of life. They are titled Ninna Nanna (Lullaby), La bicicletta (The Bicycle), Tristezza d’amore (The Sadness of Love), Gioia di una Promozione (Joy of Graduation)– La Farfalla (The Butterfly), Tragica Realta’ Della Vita (The Tragic Reality of Life, also called the War Concerto), and Ave Maria.

With one movement written in his teens (Ave Maria), another conceived during World War Two (The Tragic Reality of Life), and the rest at other times not detailed in the program notes, the work has an uneven quality as one might expect. The influences of Grieg (especially the Piano Concerto), Tchaikovsky, Chopin, Liszt, and other romantic composers were prominent throughout in an overtly derivative manner, yet without these composers’ individual formal clarity, the effect was that of a collage. Thus, despite the organization into phases of life, there was an amorphous quality to the set. Conventional cadenza-like passagework was frequently used as thematic material, so that melodic lines become almost undistinguishable as such, while harmonic progressions bordered on the formulaic. There were, to be sure, poignant moments, but the surrounding material overwhelmed them.

Pianist Francesco Libetta was the star of the evening. Playing with great abandon, he broke a string on the Fazioli piano during The Tragic Reality of Life movement, much to the amazement of the audience. Soprano Donata Cucinotta and tenor Matt Morgan gave strong performances as well. The New York Choral Society was solid in their role – though what precisely that role was meant to be might have been clearer had there been a printed text, either in the original Italian or in translation (which was missing for the solo singers as well), a considerable omission in this case. Last, but not least, the Chelsea Symphony Orchestra was excellent from start to finish in a performance that completely outclassed another orchestra’s earlier performance of the work, as recorded in Italy (since removed from YouTube). The audience gave the performers a prolonged standing ovation at concert’s end.

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by Jeffrey Williams  for New York Concert Review; New York, NY