By Mike Winter

More starkly different pianists than these three gentlemen would be hard to find.  One of the joys of hearing great artists in succession is the delineation of contrasting styles.  Chetan Tierra possesses frightening raw power–for sheer volume of sound, rarely does a pianist produce more.  Spencer Meyer is all elegance and suavity, and Eduard Kunz is a blend of the two, but leaning more to subtlety with his enormous range of color.  Tierra’s power, however, is offset by wonderful tenderness; he enjoys exploring softly blended sounds, creating dreamy, Debussy-like clouds of sound in Liszt’s Ballade No. 2 in B minor.  This is an amorphous work of some 18 minutes, which I don’t understand very well, so my overall impression of Mr. Tierra is also a bit enigmatic, since the Liszt comprised about a third of his program.  Tierra also presented the familiar Liszt arrangement of “Widmung,” a fairly solid account of the Brahms-Paganini Variations, Book I, and concluded with a block buster performance of the Ginastera sonata.  Tierra obviously has a lot to offer, but I need to hear more for a clearer picture.

Stephen Meyer presented a wide-ranging program: a superbly played Beethoven Sonata in F-sharp, Op. 78, a lovely Chopin Barcarolle, five preludes from Debussy’s Book II, ending with a sparkling “Feux d’Artifice,” and concluding with the Vine sonata.  Meyer has an excellent account of this work on YouTube, by the way.  Meyer is serious, accurate and controlled…there is little to fault and much to enjoy.  Precision and grace are his operative words.

Eduard Kunz is an original.  I find him absolutely marvelous, but other critics here feel the opposite.  This comes down to a long running philosophical debate: how much of the performer’s personal interpretation should infuse the composer’s music?  Do you prefer Bruno Walter or Leoanrd Bernstein, or Horowitz to anyone else?  In the case of Kunz, the question might become: is it right to play Scarlatti as if he were Debussy?  Actually his Scarlatti was strict in rhythm, but abundant in color, which made it fascinating throughout 5 sonatas, only one of which I’d heard before. These he followed with a quirky one-movement Hadyn Sonata that sounded more like theme and variations (A major, Hob. XVI:12).  The only traditional virtuosity came from the Bach-Busoni Chaconne, which was played to the hilt.  Kunz ended this Baroque-centric program with utmost simplicity: the Bach-Siloti Prelude in B minor.  Kunz is a pianist with a rich tonal palette and the musical sensitivity to use it.  May he return to the Cliburn stage so we can hear him move into Beethoven, Rachmaninoff, and the 20th Century.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 23rd, 2009 at 4:05 pm and is filed under Screening Recitals. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.