Jan Lisiecki at the piano (photograph by Christoph Köstlin, courtesy of SFP)
Last night Canadian pianist Jan Lisiecki returned to Herbst Theatre to present his third solo piano recital for San Francisco Performances (SFP). He began his first recital with the first four of the eight preludes that Olivier Messiaen composed in 1928. For his return, he prepared a program consisting entirely of preludes.
The second half of the program was devoted entirely to Frédéric Chopin’s Opus 28 set of preludes in all major and minor keys. The first half also included its own fair share of other Chopin preludes, as well as three by Sergei Rachmaninoff, two from his Opus 23 collection and the other the notorious Opus 45 in C-sharp minor. Johann Sebastian Bach was represented only by the first two of his Well-Tempered Clavier preludes, BWV 846 in C major and BWV 847 in C minor. Lisiecki also returned to Messiaen, this time with only the first three of the preludes he had previously performed. The other composers included on the program were Karol Szymanowski (his three Opus 1 preludes) and Henryk Górecki (the first and last of his four Opus 1 preludes, both of which reminded me of Peter Schickele’s quip about holding a black belt in music).
While Lisiecki seems to have mastered a solid command to account for the overall plethora of notes in this program, he fell painfully short of bringing any expressiveness to his interpretations. Indeed, I was reminded of what I wrote about his emphasis on technical display in his debut, which I described as “often hammered out with an intensity that bordered on brutality.” There is no question that this was an impressive technical display, but I would hesitate to call it musicianship.
As a result, I was not particularly disappointed when the title of the encore selection announcement was muttered beyond recognition!
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