This is now Tyler Wottrich writing, as Mary Anna Salo has been called away from the Conservatory for the afternoon. As it happens, I competed in the PianoArts competition the same year as Mary Anna, so it seems fitting that we would end up tag-teaming today's posts.
The 1st movement "Sinfonia" of J S Bach's second keyboard Partita in C minor served as a stately opening to Huan Li's recital, with its opening reminiscent of the French overture style and subsequent sections which gradually grow in movement. She paired the "Sinfonia" with the second movement of the Partita, the "Allemande." Li's playing of the Bach was poised, colorful, and thoughtfully expressive-- a very attractive combination of traits.
Huan Li continued her program in the relative major of the Bach C minor Partita with Chopin's Nocturne in Eb Major, Op 55 No 2, whose long melodic lines Li sustained beautifully. As was also true in her performance of Bach, the clarity of texture and superb contrapuntal balance allowed listeners to fully relish the richness of Chopin's musical tapestries.
"Une barque sur l'océan" from Ravel's Miroirs cast us into a very different world than we had been enjoying so far, and again Huan Li's musical ideas were expressed in full lush technicolor. This music, which seems to fly across and space, emotion, and color, truly transports the listener out of the concert hall and into the aether (Huan Li was an excellent guide for this experience...!).
Lowell Liebermann's "Gargoyles" brought us solidly back to earth. What is "Gargoyles?" Huan Li asks the audience. "Fantastic monsters in churches or old buildings to scare away evil spirits." She proceeds to give a vivid, characterful, and sometimes amusing account of what she sees in each of the four movements:
1. Thunder or devils contrast with a peaceful night.. Something's happening but no one knows yet.
2. Intervals are special in this movement: dissonances abound, but there is an innocent and simple melody in the right hand.
3. Huan Li tells us this movement is her favorite. Colors and mysterious feeling... The embedded melody is simple but very expressive. What she sees in the music: a water sprite confessing her love to a human being!
4. A ferocious and violent movement. Hundreds of monsters are invading!!
Sitting in the hall listening, not one of these details is lost in her impressive performance.
Brava Huan Li!
I have never been so emotionally moved by the selections in a solo piano recital as I was listening to Huan Li this afternoon. Bravo! Bravo!
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