Reviewed by Ewart Shaw, Wednesday 19th October 2016
The Morgans International Piano Series has brought some of the world's great performers to Adelaide for solo recitals, often timed to coincide with their engagements with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. The artistic director is Guy Barrett.
The original publicity implied that Singapore-born, London resident Melvyn Tan would be playing the fortepiano, the light action instrument on which Mozart wrote his concerti and sonatas. The instrument, big, black and gleaming in The Space Theatre for his recital was a Steinway. In conversation later, Tan explained that he is moving away from the fortepiano to concentrate on the pianoforte.
His experience on the earlier instrument may be responsible for the amazing lightness of touch he displayed, and the remarkable speed and dexterity, especially in his right hand.
At one stage he explained that there was a theme of master and students. Beethoven taught the young Czerny whose printed recollections are a guide to Beethoven's mind, and Czerny then taught Liszt. He also referred back to C. P. E. Bach's influence on Beethoven, and you can infer the link back one generation prior to that, as the deaf Beethoven studied scores by J. S. Bach and Handel, admiring their musical architecture.
I always try to sit where I can see the pianist's hands, and Tan's were gentle, flexible, and elegant.
The performance began with a set of Bagatelles, Opus 126, by Beethoven and, while bagatelle implies something small and of little value, a trifle, these were beautiful pieces of condensed Beethoven, delivered with the lightness of touch that was the keystone or keynote of the concert. Watching Tan's posture and expression was enlightening. He would lean forward as he touched a key and glow with delight at the sound that it prompted, as if he'd never heard it before, and that element of sheer enjoyment permeated the recital.
Tan followed it with the Opus 109, one of the late sonatas, in E major. It's not a big work in length but the depth is, as you can guess, impressive. The final movement, longer in itself than the preceding two, was a set of variations, which in the notes Tan links back to Bach, C. P. E. and/or J. S. The final work in the first half was another set of variations, this time by Czerny, a composer and pianist best known for his teaching exercises and his reminiscences, immensely valuable, from his time as a student and friend of Beethoven.
The variations on the La Ricordanza ,Opus 33, took a theme by the violinist, Rode, which showed off Czerny's and Tan's remarkably supple fingering. At times, the fingers of Tan's right hand became a blur.
The second half of the concert began again with Czerny. He'd been, along with Franz Schubert and others, a pall bearer at Beethoven's funeral, and composed a funeral march, his opus 146. It's unusual and unfamiliar, and hasn't yet been published, which explains its obscurity. Tan had heard mention of it, and tracked it down to the Beethoven museum in Bonn. The curator faxed him the score. While it begins with the dotted rhythms that are recognizably a part of a funeral march, the Chopin for example, it flowers in the middle from C minor to C major, almost as a wreath of roses.
Then, in case we hadn't cottoned on to Tan's virtuosity, he played three studies by Franz Liszt. These concert etudes, originally called Poetic Caprices, were Il Lamento, La Leggierezza, and the most popular, Un Sospiro. Their pianistic complexities meant nothing to the pianist who could devote himself to exploring their tonal beauties. In Un Sospiro, it was intriguing to watch as the famous theme was played by the left hand crossing the right.
His encore was the most familiar piece of the evening Chopin's Fantasie Impromptu, the Opus 66, source of a very popular song in my younger days about chasing rainbows. The applause, when he mentioned that he would play Chopin, prompted him to promise more Chopin the next time. I'm certainly looking forward to that next time.
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