Alice Tully: Juilliard Piano Recital: Scriabin, Ravel, Szymanowski, Mikhashoff and Chopin

Yesterday afternoon's hour-long piano recital by Juilliard students, part of the Wednesdays at One series, featured short works by Alexander Scriabin, Maurice Ravel, Karol Szymanowski, Yvar Mikhashoff and Frédéric Chopin.

The program opened with Scriabin's Fantaisie in B minor, Op. 28 (1900) and was performed by Francisco Montero.  This was an enjoyable one-movement piece about eight minutes in length and fairly characteristic of the composer's works for piano.  An amusing story is told of how Scriabin forgot he had ever written the piece in the first place:

"When Leonid Sabaneyev started to play one of its themes on the piano in Scriabin's Moscow flat (now a museum), Scriabin called out from the next room 'Who wrote that? It sounds familiar.'. 'Your 'Fantasie', was the reply. Scriabin said, 'What Fantasie?'"

The next piece, and for me the real highlight of the recital, was Ravel's "Scarbo" from Gaspard de la nuit (1908).  ChengCheng Yao, the pianist who played it, certainly was looking for a challenge when she chose this piece.  The Wikipedia article (referencing the biography The Brilliant Music of Ravel by Charles Rosen) claimed:

"The piece is famous for its difficulty, partly because Ravel intended the Scarbo movement to be more difficult than Balakirev's Islamey. Because of its technical challenges and profound musical structure, Scarbo is considered one of the most difficult solo piano pieces ever written."

If anything, this was an understatement.  The dexterity and skill demanded by the work was apparent throughout its nine-minute length and I could readily understand why Ravel once said of this piece, "I wanted to write an orchestral transcription for the piano."  It was difficult to believe the music I heard was produced by one instrument alone.  The performance yesterday was one the most brilliant displays of virtuosity I've seen by any pianist, let alone a student.

Next was Szymanowski's Variations in B flat, Op. 3 (1901-1903), a piece the composer dedicated to Artur Rubinstein.  This was an early work written when the composer was only about 20 years old.  Although Szymanowski is often considered the most important Polish composer of the twentieth century, there were few recognizable traces of that country's tradition in this work.  I thought it was much more reminiscent of Scriabin.  The talented pianist was Yun Wei.

This was followed by Mikhashoff's "Portrait of Madame Butterfly," an operatic sonata-fantasy on themes of Puccini in four parts (Prelude, Scherzo: Flower Duet, Nocturne and Finale).  I had never before heard of Mikhashoff, perhaps because he was known primarily as a pianist rather than a composer.  (I found it interesting that his original name was Ronald Mackay - Mikhashoff was his grandfather's name - and that he had had another career in the 1960's as a ballroom dancer.)  This transcription was clearly intended to show off the pianist's skills and was given an exciting rendition by Christopher Reynolds.

The recital concluded with those staples of the repertoire, Chopin's Preludes, Op. 28, Nos. 15 -24 (1839).  These are among the most lovely miniatures ever composed for the piano.  Here they were given a very able rendition by pianist Wenting Shi but seemed somewhat anticlimactic after the more flamboyant works that had preceded them.