Saturday, June 9, 2012

Yinuo Qian: Fire and Brimstone

According to the program notes, at the age of nine, Yinuo Qian was awarded second prize in the Chopin Piano Competition in Zhejiang Province, China. Her affinity for that composer apparently stuck; ten years later, at the Wisconsin Conservatory, Qian added four mazurkas by the great Polish composer to the already-required Chopin nocturne. She bounced from a quick, almost angry-sounding first mazurka to a slower, more contemplative one, and on through a wide array of feelings in the next two dances. The second and third mazurkas require the pianist to combine a gentle touch in their left hand with more direct, pointed notes in the right, and I was quite pleased with the way she was able to carry that off.

The Nocturne, a staple of the PianoArts 2012 competition, allowed Qian to show off her ability to create all different kinds of sounds. For much of the piece, she was getting a much fuller, richer sound than in the mazurkas; later on, though, she had a real light, gentle passage high up on the keyboard. In Robert Muczynski's Toccata, she adopted a much more bombastic, percussive style to suit the piece's brusque chords. And on the J.S. Bach Prelude and Fugue, Qian sounded brisk, light and sharp. As if all that wasn't enough, she also sounded sad later in the piece; vigorous and brisk, yes, but somehow sad at the same time. I'm not used to one pianist drawing all of those emotions out of the piano, but Qian pulled it off wonderfully.


Qian capped off her part of the marathon recital with Alexander Scriabin's Piano Sonata No. 2, a calm, melodious piece. There were a lot of neat little harmonies embedded throughout the work, and Qian was able to find and expose them to good effect. It ended up being a really pretty and melodious tune. In my notes is the phrase "She really does have a lot of passion that goes into this," which is pretty much true; Qian's performance was as emotional as it was technically sound. Her behavior on-stage was very expressive as well, as she would lean back on the seat or lean forward in particularly intense parts. It looked like she was almost choked up at the end. If I may be permitted to use Nike's old slogan, Qian really did "Leave nothing" on the stage. Instead, she put everything into those pieces.

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