Cliburn Competition: Preliminary Recital 7, June 4, 2022
—Wayne Lee Gay
Three years ago, 16-year-old Australian Shuan Hern Lee took top prize in the Cliburn International Junior Piano Competition. Now 19, he returned Saturday morning to take a shot at the big prize, opening with a brilliantly energetic rendition of the required Fanfare Toccata by Stephen Hough. Lee then opted for a decidedly mainstream approach to Haydn’s Sonata No. 52 in E-flat, successfully creating an interesting palette of emotions and sonorities within the reasonable bounds of late-18th-century Viennese classicism.
He followed Haydn with a beautifully shaped performance of Chopin’s Barcarolle, achieving an impressive balance of the simple melody floating on gentle pianistic waves in the accompaniment. (The music of Chopin, traditionally a mainstay at piano competitions, has taken a back seat to Liszt in particular at the 2022 Cliburn, and with Mendelssohn, Schumann, and Scriabin also turning up more often than Chopin.)
Balakirev’s Islamey, once known as the most difficult piano piece ever, closed Lee’s program; Lee leaped over the considerable interpretive and technical challenges with apparent ease, to close one of the strongest showings of the competition.
Japanese-French pianist Marcel Tadokoro presented (British) composer Hough’s Fanfare Toccata with a French accent, marked by a dry resonance and spare use of pedal. (Though it’s not obvious on first hearing, the Fanfare Toccata draws generously on Hough’s British heritage, most notably the patriotic marches of William Walton.)
Tadokoro turned directly to his own French heritage with an elegant Musette by eighteenth-century composer, Jean Phillipe Rameau. His very effective repertoire of shorter works continued with Beethoven’s Variations on an Original Theme, initially light-hearted but gradually moving toward a dark penultimate moment before a half-humorous, half-introspective final section. Tadokoro’s light touch served well in Liszt’s “Fireflies” Etude, which he integrated into sheer muscle for an electrifying presentation of Three Movements from Stravinsky’s Petrouchka.
Consciously or not, Italian Federico Gad Crema presented two journeys from darkness to light in another admirably intriguing, well-played program. An almost spooky rendition of Scarlatti’s Sonata in D minor (K. 213) preceded Scriabin’s Fantasy, which begins darkly before rising to a glorious Chopinesque climax, followed by a closing triumphant shift from B minor to B major. Crema then turned to the dark-hued Variations sérieuses of Mendelssohn, combining carefully detailed phrasing and voicing with compelling momentum toward the final minor cadence. Sunshine, light, and joy returned with Hough’s Fanfare Toccata to close another promising preliminary round performance.
