Continuing in the long parade of Van Cliburn Competition prize-winners to grace Melbourne’s concert stages in recent years, the 2009 Gold Medal Winner, Japanese pianist Nobuyuki Tsujii, presented a virtuosic and varied solo recital program to a hearteningly jam-packed audience in the Elisabeth Murdoch Hall on Wednesday night. When Tsujii first took to the stage in the Preliminary Round of the Van Cliburn, essaying Chopin’s Opus 10 études with a heady mix of technical ease and graceful musicianship, he announced his artistic presence in the competition as few had done before him. This was therefore an eagerly awaited debut Melbourne recital.
The program opened with Bach’s G major French Suite, a collection of stylised impressions of dances from across Europe. Tsujii approached these with a robust tone that would have been welcomed by those in the back rows of the auditorium, where audience members can too often be left wondering what might be in concerts. Throughout the suite, Tsujii chose to emphasise the rhythmic vitality of each of the dances, the infectiously energetic, toe-tapping concluding Gigue being the highlight of the Suite. Repeats were often slightly varied, though occasionally one was left wanting to hear even more of the pianist’s inventiveness here. Tsujii was also not afraid to explore the left “soft” pedal, particularly in the slow Sarabande, which was characterised by a deftly ornamented melodic line.
Then followed a small Liszt bracket. The rarely-heard second Consolation (why have not other composers taken up this most evocative of titles?) served as a tasty hors d’oeuvre to two staples of the repertoire: the Concert Paraphrase on Verdi’s Rigoletto and the popular Mephisto Waltz No 1. Tsujii was in his element in Rigoletto, his rich-toned chords allowing the operatic drama to unfold compellingly, complemented by a suave, outward-looking lyricism. The demonic character of Mephisto was established right from the outset, and the circus-like pianistic acrobatics that challenge even the best virtuosi in live performance were fearlessly dispatched, leaving the many admiring piano students in the audience slack-jawed.
After interval, Tsujii opened with a clutch of short works by Ravel. The first, composed in 1909 as a commemoration of the centenary of Haydn’s death, was but one of many such works by established French composers, each using the assigned notes of the scale imposed by Haydn’s name as the basis for thematic development. Ravel’s somewhat melancholy Menuet unfolded with appropriate delicacy and fragility in Tsujii’s hands. Remarkably, the ensuing Pavane for a Dead Princess (1899) – perhaps better known in its orchestral version – is a work from Ravel’s student days, and while slow off the mark initially, it quickly gained in popularity once Ravel’s favourite pianist, Ricardo Viñes, started performing it. At times one wished for an even more nuanced tonal palette from Tsujii to enrich Ravel’s fragrant harmonies. Nevertheless, he managed to immerse himself in the courtly, stateliness of the pavane, deftly eschewing a too-slow tempo. By contrast, Tsujii seemed to revel in the dazzling brilliance of Jeux d’eau (1901), a work often cited as being the first genuinely Impressionist piano composition. Although written only two years after Pavane, it is much more harmonically adventurous, and decidedly more advanced from a pianistically technical point of view. It is Ravel’s first true masterpiece and Tsujii’s glittering, nimble finger-work evoked the shimmer of the cascading waterfalls colorfully, its translucent harmonies bathed in sensual pedalling and gently nuanced rubato.
To close the official program, Tsujii concluded with Russian composer Nikolai Kapustin’s Eight Concert Etudes Op. 40 (1984), piano studies that have acquired a huge popularity in the noisy halls of the world’s leading and not-so-leading conservatories. It is rare to hear all eight performed in sequence however, and happily, Tsujii was able to persuasively reveal each étude’s distinctive individuality, rather than their too-oft-seeming sameness, with aplomb. Technique is clearly not an issue for Tsujii, as he explored the respective jazz-inspired styles with apparent ease. Highlights included the crisp clarity of the rapid-fire repeated notes of Toccatina No. 3, and the supple coyness of the Intermezzo No. 7, before finally concluding with the blazing, jauntily-accented rhythms of the moto perpetuo Finale.
In response to sustained and enthusiastic applause, Tsujii offered four deliciously varied encores: Debussy’s evergreen Clair de Lune, Liszt’s dazzling La Campanella, what was perhaps Tsujii’s own gently-lilting arrangement of Waltzing Matilda, and finally a tempestuous and defiant “Revolutionary Étude” of Chopin – one of the works that helped launch his now-flourishing career from the Van Cliburn stage, way back in 2009.
Photo supplied.
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Glenn Riddle reviewed the recital given by pianist Nobuyuki Tsujii, presented by the Melbourne Recital Centre as part of the Exquisite Classical Experiences 2024 series, at the Elisabeth Murdoch Hall on October 30, 2024.
