Zankel Hall Archives - ROVING PIANIST

Cong Bi’s Carnegie Hall Debut

On April 12th 2019, Chinese pianist Cong Bi strolled on stage in Carnegie’s Zankel Hall for his Carnegie debut.

Relaxed and confident, he looked dashing in patent leather shoes, blue jacket and grey-ish pants.

A tall man with shoulder-length hair, Cong Bi stood with his hand over his heart for a few moments, prompting shrieks from the audience.

The last male pianist whom I saw have this effect at Carnegie was Korean superstar Seon Jin Cho.

Beethoven: Sonata No. 23 Op 57 (Appassionata)

This work was a bold opening gambit for Cong Bi’s Carnegie debut. He engaged the allegro assai with the conviction that we expect from a seasoned performer. However his arpeggios seemed rushed. That which should have glittered was too often blurry.

If Cong Bi overreached during the first movement, he made amends with his authentic andante con moto. This reviewer appreciated the left hand voicing in particular.

Schumann: Davidsbündlertänze, Op 6

Cong Bi Carnegie Debut April 2019 Sold Out

Cong Bi – SOLD OUT!

Cong Bi’s rendition of this work was generally balanced and sweet, occasionally flamboyant. Since the works of Schumann mostly leave this reviewer unmoved, it would not be fair to the performer to comment further.

Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition

Cong Bi’s Pictures started cautiously and swelled into magnificence. This work can so easily become ponderous, but Cong Bi is not that kind of pianist. I appreciated his engaged, powerful delivery and excellent sense of timing.

However, we could have done without Cong Bi’s abrupt “pointing backwards” arm gestures! These attempts at pianistic drama did not work because they felt inauthentic. For this reviewer, only Lang Lang can get away with such gratuitous posturing.

Cong Bi jokes with his Carnegie audience April 12, 2019

Encores: Bach

The first encore was a pleasant Bach work that nobody I spoke to could identify.

The second encore was Bach’s Prelude in C Major, BWV 846. Cong Bi played this deceptively simple work with divine translucence.

I’ve commented before on how pianists’ encore choices can be revealing. At the end of the day, Cong Bi did not go for a showpiece. Instead, he went for the sublime.

After the closing bars of Bach, the pianist played a very short jazzy riff. I took this as a youthful gesture of victory: “I got this”! But maybe it was just for the young women who gave him flowers.

Closing thoughts

Cong Bi is an impressively self-assured and promising young pianist, at ease on stage and able to joust with his audience. In his Carnegie debut he showed himself to be equally at home with Beethoven’s raging Appassionata, Mussorgsky’s monumental Pictures, and Bach at his most ethereal. Watching him reminded me of the Washington Post article The Future of Classical Music is Chinese.

Cong Bi got better and better as the evening went on, but after the intermission I noticed a few empty seats. If only these people had stayed, they would have been rewarded with a stirring performance of Mussorgsky and some magical Bach. And of course, that cheeky riff!

My personal thanks to producer Qianci Liu for inviting me to this most enjoyable recital, and to the Paulus Hook Music Foundation for making it possible.

Bezuidenhout at Carnegie, October 2016

On Monday October 24^th, 2016, my wife and I went to see pianist Kristian Bezuidenhout at Carnegie Hall, New York. Actually I did not know this pianist, but the Carnegie Series that I subscribed to included his Beethoven-heavy program and it looked promising.

Mr. Bezuidenhout’s name sounds Dutch. In fact he is from South Africa, a former Dutch and British colony. He lives in London, from where his trendy cosmopolitan clothing, stylishly tight with rumples, may have come. His patent leather shoes had beech-colored soles that matched the matte wood of Carnegie Zankel.

Carnegie Zankel Hall

This was the first time I had been to Carnegie’s Zankel Hall. In photographs, Zankel looks modern and sharp. In person and up close from the Parterre, however, the luster was tired. The Hall smelled musty, and the stage front needed cosmetic work. Also, the Hall is a couple of levels below the ground, so from time to time I could hear the muffled bass of the New York Subway somewhere to stage right.

The Instrument

The piano was angular in design, with frond-like cinnamon artwork on the casing. Naïvely I assumed that this was a modernistic design in keeping with Zankel’s styling, but many readers will know better.

Beethoven Rondo in C Major, Rondo in G Major

Bezuidenhout opened with two Beethoven Rondos. I was struck by the fineness of his touch and his ability to separate voices, especially at the lower end. It was as if each voice were suspended in its own acoustic space. In part this was because the piano lacked the power of the traditional concert grand, so there was less “bleed” from one register to another. In the acoustic intimacy of the 600-seat Zankel Hall, this made the instrument sound as beautiful as it looked.

Expression and Gesture

As a young man I attended several seasons of the Leeds International Piano Competition. There I saw many fine pianists, including Radu Lupu and Victoria Postnikova, but I don’t remember those performers as individuals. Now that I am older, I savor the uniqueness of each pianist’s personal nuances of expression and gesture. For this reason we splurged on front-row seats, which gave us an unparalleled view of Bezuidenhout on stage.

There was no cultivated drama in Bezuidenhout’s keyboard presence: his performance was all about the music. I noticed that Bezuidenhout’s eyebrows were always on the move. His use of sheet music had a less-desirable impact, however. Leaning low over the instrument, he had a particular rightward glance that might in other circumstances be seen as “giving the evil eye”. Try reading sheet music from a few inches above the left keys and you’ll get the idea.

Beethoven Sonata No. 7 in D Major

When Mr. Bezuidenhout moved to Beethoven’s Sonata No. 7 in D major, he drew the Largo out so exquisitely that I barely heard the rest of the piece or the subsequent Haydn. Only the best pianists can capture my attention like this, so I will be scouring the web for more Bezuidenhout and for other renditions of this Sonata.

The Fortepiano

During the Intermission I browsed the program and discovered that the recital instrument was a not a piano, but a fortepiano. When Bezuidenhout returned, he gave an impromptu monologue about this instrument. He commented on the light action, the four pedals, how the strings were not cross-strung, and how the design gave the instrument its unique sonic character. In this modern replica, he explained, we were hearing the Viennese fortepiano as Beethoven would have known it.

Beethoven Sonata No. 8 (“Pathétique”)

The last scheduled piece was Beethoven’s Sonata no. 8 (“Pathétique”), a personal favorite that I never tire of. Mr. Bezuidenhout’s Carnegie performance was stellar. While the fortepiano lacked the low end power of a modern concert grand, Bezuidenhout’s interpretation retained all of the Sonata’s drama.

Excellent and Informative

As an encore, Bezuidenhout played a Beethoven-like piece that I could not identify. It was a fitting close to the evening’s 18th-century repertoire, performed on an 18th-century instrument replica. I enjoyed this recital much more than I had expected, and thanks to Mr. Bezuidenhout’s short lecture I learned more about the fortepiano. Now I just have to find a fortepiano that someone will let me play!

Pianist Cong Bi’s Carnegie Debut