MAO FUJITA Piano Recital / Review

 

MAO FUJITA Piano Recital 

Victoria Concert Hall 

Sunday (15 December 2024)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 17 December 2024 with the title "Pianist Mao Fujita makes most of short pieces in delightful recital".

The final piano recital of the calendar year, presented by Altenburg Arts, featured Berlin-based young Japanese pianist Mao Fujita. He shot to fame after winning 1st prize at the Clara Haskil International Piano Competition (Switzerland, 2017) and 2nd prize in the International Tchaikovsky Piano Competition (Moscow, 2019), and has several critically-acclaimed recordings under his belt. 

Mao Fujita's latest album,
Preludes by Chopin, Scriabin
& Akira Yashiro.

Implausibly boyish looking, the 26-year-old sloped on and off the stage like someone three times his age. Appearing shy to a fault, he even seemed embarrassed by the applause by taking short and tentative bows. Thankfully, he let his playing do the talking and the ice was immediately broken. 

He opened the recital with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Variations on Ah Vous Dirai-je, Maman (K.265), better known as Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. This is almost never heard outside of children’s piano recitals but he made a most persuasive case by playing all the repeats and freely sprinkling delicious ornaments. Sometimes bringing out hidden inner voices or adding his own surprising and sometimes bluesy harmonies, his view was an unexpected delight. 

Next came Russian pianist-composer Alexander Scriabin’s 24 Preludes (Op.11) which were strongly influenced by Frederic Chopin’s music. It was even rumoured that Scriabin went to bed every night with a volume of Chopin under his pillow. Alternating between major and minor keys, the pieces progressed through a circle of fifths, beginning with C major and closing in D minor. 

One cannot imagine a smoother ride through the keys, for Fujita crafted svelte silky sonorities from start to finish. The lyricism and passion was Chopinesque, and there were several numbers which were clearly inspired by the Pole, but Scriabin was becoming very much his own man. In Prelude No.15 (D flat major), he brought out gentle bell sounds as opposed to Chopin’s raindrops, while Prelude No.16 (B flat minor) relived the plodding of mysterious footsteps rather than the fury of a tempestuous ride. 

Fujita made every short piece count by compelling one to truly listen with intent. There was never a dull moment. Having also heard his recording of the same work, one can only concede that live playing is still preferable to a mere recreation of the music. 

A similar journey was repeated in Chopin 24 Preludes (Op.28), which is a far more familiar work to most listeners. Like the earlier Scriabin, these were ultra-smooth and polished to a fine sheen. Anyone seeking any hint of a rough edge or a raw nerve ending, unmitigated mirrors of Chopin’s angst, does so in vain. 

There have been more sharply contoured and personal readings, notably by Russian pianist Ilya Rashkovskiy and Thai pianist Poom Prommachart in the same venue in the recent past, but Fujita’s was still a solidly reliable and absorbing performance which will gain further facets with time. 

His encores were varied and excellent, in particular the finale of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Appassionata Sonata (Op.57), when the talons finally came out and drew blood. By contrast, Felix Mendelssohn’s graceful little Song Without Words in F sharp minor (Op.67 No.2) provided a healing salve.

All photographs by Ung Ruey Loon,

courtesy of Altenburg Arts.