Date: February 23, 2003
Review: Young Artist Concert

"Four young colorists for the price of one" served as the rubric for the Steinway Society's "Young Artists' Concert" Sunday night at Le Petit Trianon. Organized so to showcase winners of the Beethoven and Russian Music Competitions, the recital previewed burgeoning musicians of taste and fiery talent, some of whom demand an asbestos keyboard. While the brunt of the concert focussed on the Russians, Beethoven, Chopin, Debussy and Ravel managed to assert their own virtues through the force of the evening's youthful virtuosos.

Doreen Lee appeared first, and hers was a percussive talent. Her opening Chopin Impromptu in F-sharp, and the ensuing "Mouvement" from Images sounded monochromatic, until her last piece, Prokfiev's A Minor Sonata, Op. 28, suggested that it was Prokofiev that was playing the earlier pieces, all steel and granite, muscle and gristle, hard-edged and obsessive. In Prokofiev Ms. Lee found her true element, where the lyricism was not mannered nor forced. Plenty of fingers on this girl.

Luis Magalhaes ensued, having chosen three excerpts from Ravel's Miroirs, which he proved to adumbrate Gaspard de la Nuit. Both "Noctuelles" and "Oiseaux tristes" achieved the limpid, surreal pathos that dripped like Dali's melting clocks. The "Alborada del gracioso," a knuckle-buster if ever there was, rang in kaleidoscopic, Spanish colors that had Mr. Magalhues contorted at the keyboard, not so far from Ravel's own "Scarbo." His last piece, a cabaret-style execution of Rachmaninov's arrangement of Kreisler's "Liebesfreud," made me wonder if there really is any difference between "schmaltz" and "kitsch." The audience obviously did not care; they rose in the first of several ecstasies over kitchen-sink music.

Beethoven received the clear, sober and perfectly charming attentions of Beth Nam, who played his early Sonata in A, Op. 2, No. 2, dedicated to Haydn. Despite Nam's light,

unobtrusive approach, she managed to reveal those disturbing harmonies and dynamic jolts in Beethoven's Mannheim and Alberti rhythms that originally made Haydn uncomfortable with the new composer's sturm und drang. Ms. Nam communicated a freshness in Beethoven, the awe with which young talent discovers The Master. Only for Ms. Nam did this reviewer rise applauding.

This is not to belittle the other talents, nor the pyrotechnics of the last pianist, Darrett Zesko. Zesko stuck to his Russians, Scriabin (Op. 37 preludes), Rachmaninov (five preludes from Op. 32), and the whopper, Balakirev's Islamey, which legend says the composer could not play. Zesko brought a clearly erotic element to the table, making the Scriabin B Major Prelude a calling card. Rachmaninov's G Major Prelude had those shadings of light that want to transcend Chopin; the B Minor Prelude ("the Return") had us rapt in a world apart. If the A Minor and E Major Preludes kept the motor running, Balakirev achieved takeoff, and nobody who loves flying carpets could keep still.

But the cheering was for more than a fleet virtuoso who can make colors at the piano: it was for our young people, an endangered species, who this night brought articulate intelligence and greatness of soul to a grateful audience of music lovers.

— Gary Lemco
Dr. Gary Lemco is a former writer for Musical America and
a commentator on "First Hearing." He currently contributes to
Audaud.com and teaches English in Campbell