Juilliard Piano Recital: Haydn, Chopin, Corigliano, Bashaw and Ravel

I went on Wednesday afternoon to Paul Hall to hear a recital given by Juilliard's Piano Performance Forum that featured the music of Haydn, Chopin, Corigliano, Bashaw and Ravel.

The program opened with Haydn's Sonata in E Major, Hob: XVI:31 (c. 1776) performed by Seungyeon Lee.  Even though this is not one of the composer's better known sonatas it's still of the highest quality and well worth hearing.  In this work it's the E minor middle movement, an allegretto, that most immediately captures the listener's attention.  The sound here is more reminiscent of a stately Baroque form than a classical work.  The development section is never resolved but leads without pause directly into the final movement theme and variations.

The next piece was Chopin's Sonata No. 3 in B minor, Op. 58 (1844), one of the composer's most technically demanding works.  Though composed some five years before his death, Chopin was already in failing health at the time of its composition and may already have been looking toward his legacy when writing this work.  At any rate, it contains one of his most brilliant evocations of the Romantic ethos.  The third movement largo, in particular, is filled with yearning but at the same time a sense of peaceful resignation.  For some reason Chopin never performed this work in public, but he must have realized that the "galloping" final movement was so daunting that there were very few pianists who possessed the virtuosity needed to successfully render it.  At this recital it was played exceptionally well by Peng Lin.

This was followed by the piece I found most intriguing at this recital, Corigliano's Fantasia on an Ostinato (1985), performed by Tomer Gewirtzman.  In addition to the original piano version played here, originally composed for the Van Cliburn Competition, Corigliano prepared the following year an orchestration that was premiered by the New York Philharmonic.  The endlessly repeating ostinato form is a perfect vehicle for Corigliano's minimalist style, and it also allows him to revisit Beethoven's use of ostinato - consisting of of a quarter note, two eighth notes and two quarter notes - at the beginning of the Seventh Symphony's second movement.  The result contains distinctive echoes of Beethoven throughout while still retaining an uncompromising modernist sound that is almost hypnotic.

The program ended with an incredible display of virtuosity by Ming Xe who performed Ravel's Gaspard de la nuit (1908) prefaced by contemporary composer Howard Bashaw's Prelude: Dita correnti.  Bashaw is a Canadian composer, and this was the first time I'd had an opportunity to hear any of his work.  The Prelude performed here worked very well as an introduction to the Ravel's longer work.  As for Gaspard itself, this is one of the most onerous in the repertoire, most especially the final "Scarbo" section, and it seems a favorite of the Julliard pianists - at another recital last month I heard Christopher Staknys play "Ondine" - who are continually seeking out the most challenging works available for their performances.  It's exactly this willingness to take on the pieces known for their difficulty that make attending these recitals so rewarding.