Asian Pianist Series: Azariah Tan Piano Recital

AZARIAH TAN PIANO RECITAL

THE ASIAN PIANIST: YOUNG VIRTUOSO RECITAL

SINGAPORE CONFERENCE HALL

1 SEPTEMBER 2013

An edited version of this review was published in The Straits Times on 3 Sept 2013 under the title "YOUTHFUL SPIRIT SPARKLES"

*Just a note, in view of what was published, I must clarify that I made no mention of Azariah's disability in my submission. I felt it was of no relevance to how he performed that night.

The Young Virtuo Recital, formerly part of the Singapore International Piano Festival, offers a professional platform for the very best of our young pianists to showcase their abilities. Azariah Tan, having won several international competitions at the age of 22, was the latest to be featured in the series and despite his tender years offered up a performance as refined as any in recent memory.

His astute comprehension of musical structure in his reading of J.S. Bach’s Partita No.5 in G major BWV 829 revealed from the start that this was no ordinary musician, but a bona-fide artist with a keen mind. The sparkling clarity of the opening Prelude and fleet-footed Corrente were delivered with a spirited elegance that never indulged in the unnecessary, and the artfully-phrased Sarabande caroled with grace.

Mozart’s Piano Sonata in B-flat major, K. 333, offered Tan the opportunity to bask in its youthful innocence. While there were moments of inclination to surge ahead, he nevertheless infused an air of humility and nobility into his playing and resisted all temptation to pedal over delicate runs and leaps. The second movement would have been better served with a touch more cantabile, and it was in the concerto-like final movement, complete with a cadenza section, that the work sprung to life.

Zraz Za by Kawai Shiu (b. 1967), dedicated to the performer, is a reflective and meditative commentary to Chopin’s A-minor Prelude. The chromatic figurations of the Dies Irae chant were spatially scattered throughout the work, and the tolling of notes in the extreme registers of the piano saw Tan produce an startling range of sound from the Steinway grand. Despite the conjectural nature of its harmonies, he seemed to have an innate sense of their function in the work and the coherent reading drowned any haunting abstractness one felt.

His pairing of the Berceuse and Ballade No. 4 by Chopin, while understated, was completely convincing. The repeated four-bar theme of the Berceuse effervesced in its infinite degrees of metamorphosis, reflecting Chopin’s mastery of trasfiguration, and the complex cross-rhythms and filigree writing always tastefully managed.

The Ballade No. 4, a fantasy-like narrative of emotions and musical ideas, was one of the composer’s most complex works with its harmonic miscellany and overlapping polyphony. It was in this work that Tan’s relative youth was most apparent. Instead of dwelling on the work’s heightened and translucent state of drama and angst, he opted for a more penetrating and projected execution. It was none other than the great pianist Alfred Cortot who once remarked that to perform Chopin’s music, “you not only need to play it, but also to dream it.”

The music of Franz Liszt are always crowd pleasers, and Tan did not disappoint in the Hungarian Rhapsody No. 12. His care-free approach to the nomadic dance was contrasted impeccably by the astounding accuracy of the left-hand octaves, and the lightness of his ad libitum running notes were simply breath-taking.

His offering of two encores, Etude Op. 10 No. 3, and Op. 25 No. 9 by Chopin, gave hint of his favoured composer. In time, Azariah would be more at ease with risk-taking during performances, but he has already proven with his musical intellect and supreme control of the instrument that the sky’s the limit for this young pianist.

#azariahtan #kawaishiu