ASPECTS OF LISZT / STEVEN SPOONER Piano Recital / Review

ASPECTS OF LISZT

STEVEN SPOONER Piano Recital

Esplanade Recital Studio

Monday (4 September 2017)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 6 September 2017 with the title "Taking on a dynamic range of Liszt".

Imagine coming on stage to give an all-Liszt recital and not knowing what pieces are to be performed. That was the quandary facing American pianist Steven Spooner, who had offered five lists of piano works by the virtuoso Hungarian pianist-composer for the audience to vote on before the concert was to begin.

Comprising mostly young people and their parents, the audience probably had the good sense of shunning the half-hour-long Sonata in B minor, instead opting for Franz Liszt's song transcriptions, Transcendental Études and Hungarian Rhapsodies. Despite being mostly shorter pieces to accomodate shorter concentration spans, it was still a daunting prospect.

One of Liszt's legacies was to promote the music of less celebrated colleagues by transcribing their songs as piano solos for performance. Spooner began with one selection apiece from Schubert's three great song-cycles. In Wohin? (from Die Schöne Müllerin) and Ständchen (Schwanengesang), he found a mellifluous singing line, with the echoing voices of the latter being a particular treat. These were contrasted with the seemingly optimistic galloping rhythm of Die Post (Winterreise), a song bearing false hope.

Liszt's filigreed take on Chopin's Maiden's Wish called for nimble fingers while the gift of romantic love in Schumann's Widmung (Dedication) was gratefully consummated in sweeping arpeggios and emphatic chords. Leaving the most difficult for the last, Schubert's Erlkönig only promised tetanic spasms from the right hand's repeated octaves with the left hand's octaves scrambling to keep up. The sense of desperation, of a father's plight in rescuing a sick child, was palpable, but unlike the song's plot, the performance did not end in tragedy.

Two of twelve Transcendental Etudes also gave a sense of breadth and depth that was Liszt's art. Preludio (No.1), just a minute long, was a warming up exercise for Harmonies du soir (No.11), a glorious paean to the riches of chordal piano writing.

Even the two Hungarian Rhapsodies performed were not familiar favourites. Some listeners might remember the great French pianist Cyprien Katsaris polishing off Hungarian Rhapsody No.5 some years ago, a funeral procession that carried the title Heröide-Elégiaque (Heroic Elegy).

Its lugubriousness was tempered by a central section of rare Chopinesque lyricism, and Spooner's reading showed that this rather than the oft-performed Funerailles might have been Liszt's true tribute to Chopin. More Magyar in spirit was the Hungarian Rhapsody No.13, and with Vladimir Horowitz's swashbuckling additions, Spooner raised the decibel level and lifted the roof off the piano.    

With the noisy audience enthused, Spooner's encore of Liszt rarely-heard Rienzi Paraphrase, using themes from Wagner's early opera, was another work that tested the Steinway's dynamic limits. To proved that utmost sensitivity was also an attribute of complete pianism, Chopin's melancholic Mazurka in A minor (Op.17 No.4) provided a sublime and quiet end to an otherwise stormy evening. 

CD Review (The Straits Times, April 2017)

DEDICATIONS

STEVEN SPOONER, Piano

A Life Of Music Records

(15 CDs + 1 DVD) / ****1/2

American pianist Steven Spooner, professor of piano at the University of Kansas, was largely trained in the Russian School of piano playing. Having studied both in Moscow and Tblisi (Georgia), the repertoire he presents in this handy box-set mirrors those favoured by his pianistic idols, namely Sviatoslav Richter (represented by 8 CDs), Vladimir Horowitz (3 CDs), Emil Gilels and Van Cliburn (who himself was taught by a Russian). 

He does not slavishly copy their styles. Instead he summons their collective spirits, allied with playing informed by his schooling, which emphasises interpretive rigour and solid technique. 

Alongside heavyweight works such as Liszt's Sonata in B minor, Schubert's Sonata in B flat major and song cycle Winterreise (with baritone Chris Thompson), Brahms' Piano Quintet (with the Borromeo Quartet) and Debussy's Préludes Book 1 (3 performances), one will also find rarities and gems. 

His teacher, the Georgian pianist Nodar Gabunia's A Pupil's Diary, Schnittke's rarely-heard Piano Concerto and American Mohammed Fairouz's Second Sonata are well worth several listens, while Arensky's Elegie in G minor is a melody to die for. 

Spooner's own improvisations of gospel hymns and Concert Etudes in the styles of Martha Argerich, Keith Jarrett and Horowitz make perfect encores. In lieu of printed programme notes, he supplies audio commentaries at the end of each disc which are both insightful and personal.  

POSTCARDS & MEMORIES / STEVEN SPOONER Piano Recital / Review

MEMORIES & POSTCARDS

STEVEN SPOONER Piano Recital

Esplanade Recital Studio

Wednesday (26 November 2014)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 28 November 2014

The piano is an instrument with enormous range, possessing the capabilities of an orchestra to exploit every colour, mood and nuance of musical expression. Compositions for piano are thus like canvasses on which every variety of paint and pastel is applied by a composer to his own fancy. This recital by American pianist Steven Spooner was a masterclass on how a piano can conjure up images of landscapes and portraiture for the ears like a palette and paintbrush can for the eyes.

Claude Debussy wrote out his 24 Preludes before appending evocative French titles to each, inspired by some literary quote or scenery (hence the reference to postcards here). With deft use of pedalling and a variegated touch, watching and listening to the First Book of twelve Preludes unfold in Spooner’s hands was pleasure itself.

Even in the simple group of sustained chords in the opening Dancers of Delphi, gentle echoes resounded just long enough before the next notes appeared. There was none of the muddiness associated with amateur musings, but the bell-like clarity when pedals unlock secrets to a piano’s soul.

His characterisations of each successive number were gripping and varied according to the inherent moods. There is an astonishing sequence which began with the swirling tarantella rhythm of The Hills of Anacapri, followed by bleakness and desolation in Footsteps in the Snow before erupting into the storm of What The West Wind Saw, Debussy’s most violent piece bar none.

And before one could catch a breath, the utter simplicity of Girl with the Flaxen Hair descended like angel dust. What contrasts provided by the crashing chords in The Engulfed Cathedral and the book’s close with the impishness of Puck’s Dance and dixieland swagger of Minstrels, were all captured with much vividness.

The second half began with four popular but diverse Schubert songs transcribed by Franz Liszt. The art of the transcriber is akin to that of an alchemist, where something like base metal is turned into gold. Not that any of Schubert’s lieder is lead, but with Liszt’s Midas touch, miracles do occur.

Voice and piano become unity in the frequent crossing of hands of Wohin? (Whither) and lovely echoing effects in Ständchen (Serenade). Ferocious repeated octaves define The Erl King, and Spooner’s blistering account was worth the while just to watch him sweat. 

Like the pianists of the fabled Golden Age, Spooner was prey to composition and transcription himself. Three of his virtuoso etudes brought down the house. The first was a toccata à la Martha Argerich, all of flying fingers and hot-blooded Latino passion. The second and longest was My Funny Valentine in the ruminative bluesy manner of Keith Jarrett, while the last a speculation on how Vladimir Horowitz might have interpreted We Are The Champions by Queen.

Late old Volodya might disagree but there was no doubt that Spooner’s two encores were Horowitz classics, Chopin’s A flat major Waltz (Op.69 No.1), appropriately entitled L’Adieu (Farewell) and the delectable Scarlatti Sonata in D minor. By the applause and accolades he received, the pianist had done his idol proud.

All photos by the kind permission of Musique Loft.

STEVEN SPOONER Piano Recital / Review

STEVEN SPOONER Piano Recital

Esplanade Recital Studio

Saturday (12 May 2012)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 14 May 2012 with the title "Voting in the halcyon era of great pianists".

Originally entitled a Sviatoslav Richter Commemorative Recital, American pianist Steven Spooner, piano professor at University of Kansas, gave his audience a choice of four different recital programmes to choose from. This element of serendipity, interaction, and ultimately spontaneity, was an unusual departure from the norm of a concert pianist having a fixed recital programme that is played to death within a given season.

It also harked back to the halcyon era of great pianists (the likes of Anton Rubinstein, Josef Hofmann and Rachmaninov come to mind) who had such wide repertoires that the entire length, breadth and depth of piano literature is explored over a series of evenings. As it turned out, the audience voted out the austere Richter recital, favouring instead programmes inspired by Arthur Rubinstein, Vladimir Horowitz and Spooner’s own arrangements.

Thus a Chopin group opened the evening, with a Polonaise, four Mazurkas, a Waltz and the Second Scherzo, all exhibiting a sensitive ear for gradations of sonority, and an intuitive feeling of rubato. For the Polish dances, the lilt was delicious, lingering ever so slightly but not overdone. Outright virtuosity came to the fore in the Scherzo, but there was never a forced or ugly sound.

Three short works that Horowitz loved came next, first a delicate Scarlatti Sonata in D minor, Rachmaninov’s melancholic Prelude in G sharp minor and the lovely cantabile of Liszt’s transcription of Schubert’s Serenade. In the latter, the intimate voices became so intertwined in a tender love duet that was simply hard to resist.

Spooner then played two of his own Virtuoso Etudes, first an improvisation on My Funny Valentine in the manner of Keith Jarrett, followed by a Latino toccata that interpolated Scarlatti’s repeated notes with Ginastera’s cascading chords as if it were played by Spooner’s idol, the ageless Argentine Martha Argerich. The operative word here is “if”. 

The recital was so absorbing for both pianist and audience that the customary quarter-hour intermission was completely forgotten when Spooner offered to play requests. Most votes went to Liszt’s Thirteenth Hungarian Rhapsody with Horowitz’s elaborations, last heard here played by Arcadi Volodos in 2005. If anything, Spooner displayed a greater sense of freedom in the slow lassu introduction, and more than matched the regaled Russian in the furiously fast friss to close. 

Then there were calls for Liszt’s B minor Sonata and the hymn Amazing Grace. Amazingly, Spooner played the descending G minor octave scales that open the 30-minute long Sonata. Settling comfortably in G major, the famous John Newton hymn later emerged from the mist and was subjected to the full gospel treatment. That cunning little act of “preluding”, a practice of old and now almost forgotten, lives again!