Miller Theater (Columbia University), New York: February 19, 2002
American Pianist Jenny Lin’s “Piano on the Edge” concert, a program of music by 20th century women composers, confirmed her growing reputation in the vanguard of young artists with an interest in unusual repertoire and the technique to give it life. Lin threw down the gauntlet from the very first note, tearing into Laura Elise Schwendinger’s (b. 1962) Pointillisms. This gnarly 1997 work, requiring Lin to scramble back and forth over the keyboard like an angry sidewinder, served immediately to blast away anyone’s preconceived notions of “effeminate” music. Point made, Lin exchanged Schwendinger’s harsh rhetoric for the gentler, impressionistic timbres of Elsa Barraine’s (1910-1999) Hommage à Paul Dukas (1936), and Prelude of 1930, two lovely works that drew attention to a composer who surely deserves greater exposure.
Lin has recorded a stunning album of piano music by Ruth Crawford Seeger for BIS records (a Classicstoday.com Disc of the Month selection), and her passionate advocacy (as well as her technical mastery) was no less apparent in her performances of Seeger’s brilliantly inventive 1928 Preludes (5 of the 9 played here), and the Study in Mixed Accents (1930), with its hair-raising rapid metrical shifts. The program’s first half came to a close under the gloomily gray skies of Galina Ustvolskaya’s Sonata No. 1 (1947). A student of Shostakovich, Ustvolskaya (b. 1919) shares his penchant for grim realism–if not his counterbalancing humorous tunefulness–and Lin’s performance confronted the music in all of its uncompromising starkness.
The second half began in a decidedly more upbeat and lyrical vein with April Preludes (1937) by Czech composer Vitezslava Kaprálová (1915-1940). These irresistible, fluently varied pieces reflect Kaprálová’s study with Novak and Martinu (they were composed for the great Czech pianist Rudolf Firkúsny), though her own distinctive and somewhat quirky style (similar to Janácek’s) shines through most of all. Judging by the uninhibited joy exhibited in her playing, Lin seems to have a special fondness and affinity for this composer.
Elena Firsova’s (b. 1950) Hymn to Spring (1993) with its brightly glittering birdsong (in the manner of Messiaen) hovering over beautifully subdued, simple chords below, made an effective bridge to Etude No. 6 “Grains” by Unsuk Chin (b. 1961). Composed in 2000 for Pierre Boulez, this brainy musical thicket certainly does honor its dedicatee, and watching Lin negotiate the ultra-complex rhythms, nearly-uncountable meters, and blisteringly rapid repeated notes was awe inspiring.
Like Kaprálová, Grazyna Bacewicz (1909-1961) appears to be another composer close to Lin’s heart. Her powerful Sonata No. 2, with its big Romantic gestures filtered through a quasi-modernist language drew from the pianist a deeply emotional response in the haunting slow movement, and playing of exceptional color and vitality in the brilliant concluding toccata. Though this was the last scheduled item on the program, the Miller Theater audience’s enthusiasm prompted a special encore: Bees, by Johanna Beyer, with which Lin closed the evening in a bracing whirlwind dash across the keys.
Victor Carr Jr
