Howard Who?

January 23, 2006 - Wen Yu Shen at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium

         The Rachmaninoff International Piano Competition and Festival has been held twice in the past three years, each time yielding a winner. In its first event, Russia’s Evgeni Mikhailov took the gold; in its second, China’s Wen Yu Shen. What better way to raise funds for the next generation of RIPCF winners than to have the past ones take the stage and show why they won to begin with. There was the question of who would go first. Well seniority would suggest that Wen, who is only 18 years old, should play first while Mikhailov, 32, should play second. That was a poor decision as Wen’s recital was very meaty and more naturally crowd pleasing. He hails from the Yundi Li school of pianism, play softly but carry a big technique. Not as detailed or as fluid as Li, he comes across as a young man trying to dutifully follow in his fellow countryman’s footsteps. Like Li, Wen has a soft touch but sometimes to a fault. His sound can get dull and heavy, and I wonder how much the rare Shigeru Kawai piano had to do with that. There is a timidity as if he is getting through the difficult passages (which there were many) rather than owning them. His playing is often beautiful but it is also flawed.And in following other recent Chinese pianists, he plays the signature piece of Yundi Li, Chopin’s Scherzo No. 2. It won Li the Chopin Competition in 2000. And as if to touch all his bases, he plays a signature piece of another famous Chinese pianist, Lang Lang’s Carnegie Hall concert-ending Reminisces of Don Juan by Lizst. Both are firmly rooted in the romantic tradition and provide little to no adventurousness for the audience. They are workhorses, and it is easy to see Wen as a workhorse pianist. Yet there was something in his playing of Ravel’s Gaspard de la Nuit. It exhibited a much more fluid, tender, and somewhat experimental side. I believe impressionism is closer to who he’d like to be though he is being schooled in the romantics. The Ravel exposed his light feathery touch and sensitivity to rhythmic variation which worked in his favor. The Chopin by contrast felt a bit rushed and harsh at times, but Wen has to play to his fans, who would prefer to what him play the clichés and the difficult finger exercises all night than to express a mood or emotion. And fortunately, or unfortunately, that’s exactly what the Lizst piece is, one big difficult finger exercise in search of applause. It was grand, and it garnered the almost obligatory standing ovation these days, but the luster was sullied with knowing that Yundi Li and Lang Lang had nothing to worry about. And then there was Mikhailov. Having him second was a bit anti-climatic, not because he wasn’t good (he was) but because his recital didn’t have the range of Wen’s. He began with Medtner, whose music is not of the highest quality. It was a shame because Mikhailov is a very solid and engaging pianist. His steely performance feels as if he is creating a fortress in time. Though emotionally distant, he is a much more thorough and clear pianist than Wen. If Wen’s sound was soft and bass heavy, Mikhailov’s was hard and treble-y, different sides of the same coin.  In fact, Mikhailov was the only pianist to play Rachmaninoff’s music even though this was technically a Rachmaninoff event. The four etude tableaux Mikhailov chose were beautiful pieces but did not have the same wham-bam crowd-pleasing factor as Wen’s. There were strangely no signs of Rachmaninoff’s famed preludes. Mikhailov also played some Scriabin, who was a classmate of Rachmaninoff. He ended his recital with another reminisces of an opera, this time Ginzburg’s “Figaro’s Aria” based on the Rossini opera. It was short and effective (people chuckled with recognition) if too silly to properly end a concert. Mikhailov has much to recommend him, but there is a nagging concern I have with RIPCF. It gave him the top prize when he was nearing 30 and already had a substantial musical career. In other words, he didn’t need this competition. Contrast that with Wen, a much younger talent who could definitely use the attentions of the prize to attract an audience and develop his own special approach to the instrument.