The twin pillars of the recital of Olga Scheps (b. Moscow, 1986) are the monumental C-Major fantasies of Schumann and Schubert, pieces that, satisfying they may be for an audience to hear in succession, certainly tax the powers of any pianist, both technically and musically. Happily, Scheps is equal to the task. In the first movement of the Schumann, her highly personal approach emphasizes high-flown rhetoric without stinting the supporting inner voices and glowing accompanimental textures. In the second movement, Scheps sidesteps the more heroic approach for a persuasively light, scherzo-like mood. The perilous leaps of the coda are brilliant, unfailingly accurate, and exquisitely shaped. Above the flowing pace and liquid textures of the finale, Scheps projects a rainbow of deftly shaded colors to create a scintillating atmosphere that is almost palpable. If her Schumann op. 17 is inward-looking and contemplative, Scheps’s Wanderer Fantasy is sun-drenched, brilliant, and extrovert. (All this despite her misreading of a key rhythmic element of the principal theme: She falls headlong into the familiar trap of playing the two quarter-note chords of the third measure with equal emphasis.) She is tremendously resourceful in negotiating the myriad technical hurdles of this least pianistic—or, perhaps more accurately, most anti-pianistic—of Schubert’s keyboard works. Moreover, she accomplishes this with an unerring focus on Schubert’s poetic lyricism and quasi-symphonic textures. The Mozart A-Minor Rondo is less successful. Its hemmed-in, miniaturized gestures and stage-whisper dynamics seem an anachronistic holdover from the old Dresden china figurine approach of Soviet times. Scheps concludes with Mendelssohn op. 14. Following an introduction of the most alluring cantabile playing, this Rondo Capriccioso is as agile, fleet-fingered, and hyper-articulate as one could possibly want.
Francesco Tristano Schlimé (b. Luxembourg, 1981) has something of the intellectual ascetic about him. Clearly in love with Stravinsky, Schlimé opens his program with Piano-Rag Music and Ragtime and, after some Bach, Haydn, and Frescobaldi pieces, returns to him with the Tango and a brilliant, pianistically understated Three Scenes from Petrouchka , in a performance of astonishing clarity and imagination that is, quite frankly, one of the finest imaginable. The A-Minor Bach Partita, BWV 827, on the other hand, is positively post-Gouldian in its self-conscious eccentricity. Schlimé plays the entire suite in a weirdly undifferentiated mezzo-piano quasi legato , devoid of even the most minute agogic inflections. Neither rhetorical emphasis nor change of register disturbs this implacable dynamic surface. Although this has nothing whatsoever to do with a Baroque dance suite, the performance nevertheless retains a certain fascination, as though one were looking at some computer-generated abstract rendering of Bach’s linear counterpoint. The Haydn Sonata (C Major, Hob XVI:1) and two Frescobaldi toccatas are less “statement” encumbered, and speak with freshness and energy. Schlimé is the only pianist here who also presents himself as a composer, and an obviously talented one at that. Influences of contemporary jazz and Minimalism are unmistakable in Melody and Ground Bass (Chaconne) 1997/2004 , idiomatic works of extraordinary rhythmical complexity. Nevertheless Schlimé speaks with a voice of his own. It will be interesting to follow the career of this clearly independently minded musician.
The awesome technical polish of Constantin Shamray (b. Novosibirsk, 1985) stands out, even amid this group of superbly trained young professionals. With an almost photographic fidelity to the text, Schumann’s Carnaval is delivered with dazzling technique in a seamless performance. Occasionally, however, a second’s icy calculation obtrudes, causing one to feel that this perfection of execution is achieved at the expense of spontaneity and expressivity. A group of six Scriabin etudes and preludes, shot through with kaleidoscopic colors and startling flights of fantasy, show Shamray’s gifts to greater advantage. Prokofiev’s Sixth Sonata is predictably a tour de force , displaying a lofty structural grasp that might be used as a strategic blueprint for any conductor preparing a Prokofiev symphony. Of the two Wagner-Liszt encores, the Spinning Song from Flying Dutchman comes across as brittle and notey, forfeiting the transcription’s intrinsic charm and élan. All is redeemed, however, in the Liebestod from Tristan , where deft pacing and a magisterial sense of the piano’s sonorities make a tremendous impression, despite a slight deficiency, perhaps, of truly heartfelt passion.
The Bach D-Major Partita, BWV 828, of Mizuka Kano (b. Tokyo, 1978) is far and away the most stylish Bach playing in this compilation. She will have none of the constrained, bizarre, eccentric “sound and fury signifying nothing” that passes for Bach interpretation among most pianists these days. Refreshingly, one feels confident that Kano not only understands the difference between an allemande and a sarabande or between a courante and a gigue, but that she could actually dance them herself if called upon to do so. Kano’s approach to the 11 Bagatelles of Beethoven’s op. 119 is equally individual and penetrating. She creates textures of the utmost simplicity, virtually naked in their stark clarity, and festoons them with garlands of all the quirky wit and irresistible charm of late Beethoven, on momentary leave from his burdens of profundity and transcendence. An interesting Mendelssohn group juxtaposes the iconic (the “Spinning Song” from the op. 67 Songs without Words in a joyfully extroverted reading) with the unfamiliar (a prelude and fugue from op. 35—not the occasionally encountered E Minor/E Major, but its scarcely touched F-Minor sibling, a formidable work played here with great poise and gravity). The Schumann Arabeske serves as the curtain raiser for the recital’s finale by the same composer, a brilliantly conceived and sympathetic performance of a borderline schizophrenic Humoreske. Kano follows with a Schumann encore; after the manic and distracted imagery of the Humoreske, Vogel als Prophet is both a balm and a benediction. This recital is a choice bouquet of the most fragrant blossoms, each selected with the utmost care for its complement to the whole, played by an artist-musician of extraordinary discernment and intelligence.
Despite the pianist’s marvelous facility, the recital of Jue Wang (b. Shanghai, 1984) evidences perhaps the least developed sense of stylistic differentiation, both among composers and eras as well as among individual pieces. Following a rather crisp and fresh Ravel Sonatine, in the Miroirs, Wang seems most successful in the less weighted “atmosphere” pieces such as the “Oiseux tristes.” Elsewhere the piquant colors of Alborada de gracioso emerge as strangely drab and devoid of character. The three Intermezzos of Brahms’s op. 117 are delivered with the same saturation of sound and fulsome pedaling as the Ravel pieces. Then, with enormous spirit and gusto, Wang launches full throttle into the first 10 Hungarian Dances in Brahms’s own solo transcriptions from the four-hand originals. Tactfully put, as played by Wang, these dances are about as close to Hungary as the northern reaches of the Hudson Bay are to the South Island of New Zealand, primarily due to a profound misconception about their fundamental rhythmic pulse and the extent to which that may be modified with rubato. The Albéniz-Godowsky Tango provides a moment’s steamy respite before chaos resumes with Liszt’s Grand galop chromatique as this recital, dropping notes in every conceivable direction, chugs off into the annals of piano playing.
Three Viennese sonata masterpieces are offered by Clemens Berg (b. Rostock, 1987), whose unassuming and direct musicality is immediately appealing. Haydn’s joyous E?-Sonata of 1789–90, Hob XVI:49, fairly bubbles with wit and bonhomie, with the slow movement taken at a leisurely pace that lends special portent to the minore section. A similarly sunny, uncluttered approach is characteristic of Beethoven’s “Pastorale” Sonata, op 28. Interestingly, in a justifiable and persuasive reading, Berg’s concept of the slow movement’s stalking progress evokes intense preoccupation rather than something more sinister. If the boisterous high spirits of the scherzo seem slightly understated, the rondo unfolds with a rustic earthiness that lends the sonata’s finale a ruggedly vivid character and weight rarely encountered. From the bucolic countryside surrounding Vienna, the opening arc of Beethoven’s Sonata op. 101 soars aloft to ethereal realms. The strategy of Berg’s programming is immediately apparent: The big guns have been saved for last. His grasp of Beethoven’s late idiom is truly remarkable for one so young. Following the astonishingly refined balance of the Apollonian and Dionysian of Berg’s Beethoven playing, his first encore, Liszt’s “La Leggierezza” etude, is almost dumbfounding. Here is the molten core of Romanticism, great surges of passion and yearning, tinged with an ineffable weltschmerz . Though technically dazzling, it is the poetic idea that prevails. The recital concludes with the most straightforward of the Schubert Impromptus, D 935/2, sung as though by a consummate Lieder singer. The further development of this extraordinary talent will be fascinating to watch.
