During the first five seasons of the San Francisco International Piano Festival, Founder and Artistic Director Jeffrey LaDeur was too busy with management to have much time for performing. As a result, his performance yesterday afternoon of the second Solo Recital Series program in the Sixth Festival could be taken as a landmark occasion. Indeed, it was his first solo performance in Old First Presbyterian Church since 2014.
As in the past, he prepared a program with a generous scope of repertoire. The first half of the program amounted to a “traversal” of the nineteenth century. He began with Franz Schubert’s D. 784 sonata in A minor, advanced to the second (in the key of F-sharp major) of the three romances in Robert Schumann’s Opus 28 collection, and concluded with Johannes Brahms’ Opus 4 Scherzo in E-flat minor. The second half of the program began with a series of dances. Maurice Ravel’s “Valses nobles et sentimentales” was followed by a selection of four mazurkas by Frédéric Chopin:
- Opus 6, Number 2 in C-sharp minor
- Opus 33, Number 1 in G-sharp minor
- Opus 30, Number 3 in D-flat major
- Opus 7, Number 3 in F minor
The program then concluded with Chopin’s Opus 49 Fantaisie in F minor. As was the case at the first recital on Friday evening, the encore was not introduced, identified only as “Scriabin.”
This made for an extensive account of a repertoire that spanned from the early nineteenth century to the early twentieth. LaDeur found his own personal approach to each of the selections, bringing freshness to the more familiar selections. Furthermore, one could appreciate the intensity of his focus, whether it involved the “heavenly length” of a Schubert movement or the brevity of a Chopin mazurka. It is not often that one experiences such a considered balance of breadth and depth, which is what we should expect in any occasion called a piano festival!
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