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By Kenneth DeLong
It has been roughly 5 years since Calgary-native Jan Lisiecki final carried out in Calgary. Throughout these years the world has seen the disruption of live performance life due to COVID, but it surely additionally has seen the flowering of Lisiecki’s worldwide profession as an essential live performance artist. Lisiecki has established himself as considered one of at the moment’s most sought-after pianists: he concertizes all around the world; he has made prize-winning recordings; and the listing of the venues wherein he has carried out embrace lots of the world’s Grade A live performance halls. He has additionally given concerto performances with a lot of the main European conductors. It’s a formidable report, to say the least.
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To no nice shock, Lisiecki’s solo recital at Mount Royal Conservatory’s Bella Live performance Corridor was bought out, each potential additional seat added for the occasion. As an occasion, the recital had about it the ambiance of a celebration — a celebration of high-quality pianism, after all, but additionally a wider sense of happiness on the return of a local son. Mount Royal Conservatory was, in truth, one of many earliest performing venues for Lisiecki, even earlier than he was a young person.
Nonetheless solely 28 years outdated, Lisiecki has now greater than 15 years of expertise on the live performance stage. His live performance on the Bella was subsequently not that of an up-and-coming pianist, however of a mature, established artist. This heady mixture of youth and expertise fashioned the through-line for this much-enjoyed, very high-quality live performance.
This system was dedicated to preludes. As Lisiecki identified in his notes, preludes are basically anticipatory in nature, embodying the thought of a preparation for the “factor to return.” Nonetheless, because the style developed traditionally, preludes more and more took on the spirit of fragile, quick moments that evoke, however don’t current, larger issues — temporary emotional moments that depart an emotional residue or fragrance.
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Nowhere is that this notion of a prelude extra evident than within the set of 12 Preludes, Op. 28, by Chopin which fashioned the second half of the live performance. Though the primary half additionally consisted of preludes, as a gaggle they carried out the perform of being a prelude to the Chopin preludes of the second half. The impact of this was to convey, extra typically, the vary of musical concepts that composers earlier than and after Chopin considered a part of the style earlier than turning the musical core of the thought.
Quite unusually, Lisiecki started the night with the “Raindrop” Prelude from the Chopin preludes he carried out within the second half of the live performance. By performing this work first, Lisiecki set the basic tone and method of efficiency and music for the night: the prism by which the opposite works of the night is perhaps understood, both as continuance or as distinction.
On this manner, Lisiecki put earlier than the viewers his “persona” as a pianist for the night, the persona of a reflective musical poet reasonably than a barnstorming virtuoso. To stretch the picture a trifle, it was as if Lisiecki provided himself a pianistic James Bond — on this case, Goldfinger: The Man with the Velvet Contact (as Shirley Bassey didn’t sing).
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Just about all of the items chosen demand a beguiling singing tone and the utmost in refinement of contact, a top quality which Lisiecki possesses to a exceptional diploma. It’s this capacity, maybe, that may be a central supply of his success as a pianist, a capability notable in his enjoying from his earliest years. This mixing of youth and refinement dominated the primary half. Most of the preludes carried out have been very early compositions by prodigy composers — composers prescient of their musical maturity on the age of 20 and even youthful. These included preludes by the 18-year-old Karol Szymanowski, the 20-year-old Olivier Messiaen, and the 21-year-old Henryk Gorecki.
Each as music and as efficiency, these have been among the many most profitable works of the primary half, Lisiecki responding imaginatively to the person world of the items, lots of which derived from the early music of Scriabin, if with extra fashionable tendencies. I particularly loved the three preludes by Polish composer Karol Szymanowski with their uncommon harmonies, in addition to the spiky sounds of Henryk Goredki’s preludes, each units of items listed as Op. 1. The three Messiaen preludes, once more very early items by the composer, gave a foretaste of the extra well-known works to return and have been carried out with equal sensitivity and refinement.
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The primary half additionally included acquainted music by Bach and Rachmaninoff, together with probably the most well-known of all Rachmaninoff preludes, the C-sharp minor, composed when he was simply 19, in addition to the G minor prelude from the Op. 23 set, once more a well-recognized work. In all these items and others, Lisiecki provided mainstream accounts, polished technically, and carried out with the utmost safety and poise.
The Chopin Preludes that fashioned the second half are actually a preferred staple of piano live shows. They current a kaleidoscope of feelings inside their quick musical packages, together with, right here and there, moments of virtuosity. Given Lisiecki’s underlying poetic method to performing, it was attention-grabbing that it was the extra extrovert and impassioned moments that he succeeded finest on this specific efficiency. The virtuosity of the ultra-fast left-hand figuration within the G main prelude and the equality demanding right-hand figurations within the B-flat minor prelude have been spectacular, as was the ultimate torrential D minor prelude that closes the set. Lisiecki might current himself as a pianist poet, however there’s additionally technical metal underneath the hood.
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Having performed a large amount of Chopin’s music, and to very nice success, Lisiecki was clearly at residence in these items, even a few of the preludes have been extra magical than others. The preludes and A-flat main and B-flat main struck me as significantly profitable, in addition to the fearsomely tough prelude in F-sharp minor. At occasions, nonetheless, the enjoying was workmanlike and considerably typical.
However that is largely a matter of non-public style, given the familiarity of this music. As a night of solo piano preludes, the live performance was tremendously loved by the viewers, happy to listen to music new and acquainted, and blissful to welcome again to Calgary a local son that does town proud.
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