HAIOU ZHANG PIANO RECITAL / Review

HAIOU ZHANG PIANO RECITAL

Victoria Concert Hall

Saturday (4 November 2023)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 7 November 2023 with the title "Sparkling recital by pianist Haiou Zhang ends with 3 sublime encores".

 

Planning a recital programme is an art, one which a musician attempts to showcase different aspects of artistry while providing a fine balance of sobriety and enjoyment for an audience. In that respect, Germany-based Chinese pianist Haiou Zhang’s solo recital, presented by Bechstein Music World, came close to perfection. Piano fanciers will remember his splendid recital at Esplanade Concert Hall in 2021, during the time of pandemic social distancing restrictions and limited audiences.

 

Almost a full house witnessed a serious first half which topped 50 minutes, opening with J.S.Bach’s Chromatic Fantasy & Fugue in D minor. Originally conceived for harpsichord, Zhang found a rainbow of colours on the C.Bechstein concert grand. His liberal use of pedalling, crisp fingerwork  and generous helpings of rubato might have startled purists but made for very compelling listening.

  

In Mozart’s Sonata in F major (K.332), a thread of cantabile ran through the first two movements, a recurrent theme that characterised the recital. This was contrasted with the finale’s prestidigitation, one of the Austrian composer’s most technically demanding movements. All this set the stage for Beethoven’s late-period Sonata No.30 in E major (Op.109), where Classical era niceties had given way to full-blown Romantic impulses.

 

This encompassed wistful sentimentalism and impetuous dramatics within two short movements, then unfolding gloriously in the finale’s theme and variations. Here, Zhang brought out the full gamut of charged emotions, rising to a voluminous climax before closing the sonata in quiet reverence.

 

The recital’s shorter second half was filled with popular single-movement pieces, ensuring that the many children in the audience did not get too restless. In Franz Liszt’s transcription of Robert Schumann’s lied Widmung (Dedication), the song-like countenance continued, before taking a break in the gushing waterworks of Liszt’s Les jeux d’eaux a la Villa d’Este, a most vivid picture-postcard depiction of the fountains of Tivoli.

 

This was followed by a no less absorbing Chopin group, centred on enharmonically related keys, beginning with the posthumous Nocturne C sharp minor. Its Lento con gran espressione (slow with great expression) description was lived rather than just faithfully observed, and has there been a more sombre reading of the “Raindrop” Prelude (Op.28 No.15) in D flat major? Its repeated G sharp and B natural octaves felt more like stabs to the heart than gentle pitter-patter of precipitation.

 

The familiar Nocturne in E flat major (Op.9 No.2), always a pleasure to encounter in recitals, was performed without further filigree before closing with the heightened pathos of Scherzo No.2 in B flat minor (Op.31). A spectacular close brought out loud cheers, which was rewarded with three sublime encores.

 

The first two were lyrical masterpieces in miniature by Schumann, the posthumous Variation V from Symphonic Etudes (Op.13) and the tender and songful (Zart und singen) movement No.14 from Davidsbundlertanze (Op.6). The scintillating Moszkowski Etincelles, a favourite of arch-virtuoso Vladimir Horowitz’s, provided a suitably sparkling end to an immensely enjoyable recital.