pianomania: ZHANG HAOCHEN Piano Recital / Review

ZHANG HAOCHEN Piano Recital

Victoria Concert Hall

Friday (23 May 2025)

Zhang Haochen was the reason how I got to attend the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in Fort Worth, Texas. He was awarded joint first prize (tying with Nobuyuki Tsujii) at the 2009 competition, and had been engaged in 2011 to perform two concerts presented by the Singapore Chinese Orchestra. As a member of SCO’s Artist Committee, I was afforded tickets to attend the 2013 competition, where I witnessed first-hand the rise of Vadym Kholodenko and Beatrice Rana, who have since become pianistic icons in their own right.

Now at 35, Zhang Haochen is no longer the bright-eyed, wet-behind-the-ears post-wunderkind rookie but a seasoned stage veteran with several high-profile recordings (including a highly-rated Beethoven piano concerto cycle with the Philadelphia Orchestra on BIS) behind his name. His first solo recital here since 2011 was a sober affair, with just two major sonatas and none of the virtuoso fodder that pleases audiences and typically draws large crowds. That itself is a sign of maturity.

His recital opened with Schubert’s Sonata in G major (D.894), sometimes referred to as Fantaisie. This was not the Wanderer Fantasy but a large-scale sonata that precedes the famous final trilogy (D.958-960). It ought to be better known, but the lack of showiness and inordinate length (almost forty minutes) militate against that. The sonata opens with a sigh, a long-breathed motif that is at odds with the emphatic statements made in succeeding sonatas. Sustaining this and capturing attention over the lengthy first movement’s broad vistas is difficult (although Sviatoslav Richter did it gloriously), which was why Zhang omitting the exposition repeat was an astute move. He kept this retiring music moving along, and while giving the development section an earlier chance to flex its muscles.

The slow movement was Lieder at its purest and melancholic, contrasted by a vigorous Menuetto and Trio, which were most musically rendered. The finale was a delight, its opening almost a retort to the first movement’s sigh before launching into possibly Schubert’s jolliest and most carefree music. I have frequently joked that this was Schubert’s ragtime (akin to Beethoven’s boogie-woogie in the variations of Op.111), its and infectious lightness and levity perfectly handled by Zhang all the way to its happy close. Much as I loved this reading, it will not efface memories of Melvyn Tan’s smiling, dancing and prancing his way on a fortepiano way back in 1989.

The other big work was Liszt’s Sonata in B minor, arguably the greatest single movement of piano music ever conceived. I felt Zhang’s introduction of the first three motifs to be cut and dried, but there was a reason for this, soon to be apparent. Extreme clarity was to define his performance, making sure that every theme, motif and note to be heard without smudging or textures, nor drowned by that refuge for multiple sins – the sustaining pedal. How often lesser technicians would hide digital inadequacies behind sostenuto, but Zhang would have none of that. The rampaging octaves were as clean-cut and precise as one could possibly hope for, leading to the fourth motif – the memorable wide-striding Grandioso.

Photo: Pianomaniac

As musical architecture goes, Zhang had its full measure, clearly delineating when one “movement” ended and the next began without disrupting the flow. While the first was an expository sermon of fire and brimstone, the central “movement” in F sharp major was a contemplation in prayerful repose, and how he made each section truly matter. That is the essence of Romantic playing, by bringing these wide contrasts into the consciousness of his listeners by force of persuasion and eloquence, not knocking their heads into submission with virtuosic devices and gestures.

The final "movement", beginning with the surreptitious fugato, was again a beacon of clarity. The climactic pages with octaves and chords were voluminous, achieved without banging, before the sonata’s beatific close with the first motif of descending bass notes. There was nearly a half-minute of silence before a most tumultuous audience response.

Zhang’s four generous encores, alternating between slow and first, constituted another recital of its own. How he contrasted the colours and nuances in Debussy’s La fille aux chevaux de lin (The Girl with the Flaxen Hair) and Horowitz’s Carmen Variations (with his own personal rubatos and touch-ups) was itself worth the price of entry. This was followed by Chopin’s Nocturne in C sharp minor (Op.posth), the Lento con gran espressione in its alternative version, and Liszt’s epic Chasse Neige (Transcendental Etude No.12) with its snow blizzards sending a chill down the spine. Zhang Haochen’s return to Singapore cannot come soon enough.