Washington, DC—A surprisingly sparse crowd populated the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater Monday evening to catch the latest recital in the venerable Young Concert Artists (YCA) Series. Monday’s program featured violinist Noé Inui in an impressively varied recital featuring works by Mozart, Brahms, Stravinsky, and Szymanowski.
A little like the Wolf Trap Opera Company, the New York City-based YCA discovers highly promising young artists from around the world, provides them with showy debut recitals in New York and DC, and supports them by arranging additional concert performances in numerous venues. And like Wolf Trap, YCA has a great track record of success. Past young artists have included Emanuel Ax, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Pinchas Zuckerman, and many others.
Violinist Noé Inui. (Photo credit Andrew
Chiciak. Courtesy YCA.)
Ably accompanied by pianist Noreen Polera, whom we recently heard at a recital at the Phillips Collection, Mr. Inui proved to be a formidable artist indeed—although he seemed to need a little time to warm up.
His performances of Mozart’s "Sonata for Violin and Piano in C Major," K.296, and Brahms’ "Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 1 in G Major," Op. 78, were crisp, accurate, and for the most part played with great technical skill and sensitivity.
Yet the artist seemed somewhat distant from the proceedings to the point of missing little nuances that should have been obvious.
Take, for example, the Mozart sonata. Tuneful and gracious, it’s not one of Mozart’s most inspired. But it never fails to engage, particularly in its intimate center movement, marked Andante sostenuto.
Here, Mozart involves the accompanist in a rather laid-back but earnest conversation with the violin. The piano introduces the main statement to which the soloist both replies and, on occasion, accompanies as the movement proceeds. Mr. Inui, however, seemed to miss this opportunity early on. His own accompaniment drifted above the accompanist--although it's possible that Ms. Polera was also pulling back to give the soloist more room. In any event the music was nice. But the intended conversation rarely took place.
The Brahms sonata proved more successful. This composer is always a handful in the recital hall for both accompanist and soloist. Both, happily, were ready to do battle. But again, the overall reading of the work, while passionate, seemed somewhat distant, detached. The audience always needs to be invited in, to become part of the moment. But this didn't seem to happen in the Brahms.
Fortunately, after the intermission, the audience got a chance to hear what I believe is the real Noé Inui, an exciting, un-selfconscious young artist who's filled with the joy of life and fearless in the pursuit of excellence. His performance in the recital's final set reminded me, oddly, of football or basketball games we've all seen. You know, the ones where the home team experiences a so-so first half, only to charge out after the break to convincingly annihilate the opponent to the cheers of a partisan crowd.
Mr. Inui’s opponents here were Stravinsky’s “Divertimento for Violin and Piano" and Karol (Carl) Szymanowski’s “Nocturne and Tarantella,” Op. 28, and he tackled both of them with obvious relish.
The Stravinsky is essentially a four-movement reduction of music from the composer’s ballet Le baiser de la fée (The Fairy’s Kiss). Beginning with a longish “Sinfonia” coupled with some “Swiss Dances,” the work becomes more intense in its devilish “Scherzo.” It's followed by an equally challenging “Pas de deux” which is essentially a theme with wild variations.
Stravinsky composed this piece in his own distinctly acidic neoclassical style. The music is often charming and proper, a la Mozart. But unpredictably, it erupts in wild, spiky outbursts and irreverent, almost dadaist musical jokes that are easily pure Stravinsky.
In the "Divertimento," Mr. Inui suddenly morphed into the artist everyone had been waiting for. Not only did he clearly recognize and emphasize Stravinsky’s musical cherry bombs. He even dug up a few the composer might not have originally imagined. Octaves, slides, complicated figures, tricky pizzicato effects—Mr. Inui had an obvious blast with Stravinsky’s funny and occasionally snide asides, creating in the process a magical moment at once profoundly musical and wildly funny. (The gentleman seated next to me—possibly a music professor—was in stitches for much of the performance.)
In a somewhat more serious vein, the musical fireworks continued in Mr. Inui’s final offering, Szymanowski’s “Nocturne and Tarantella,” Op. 28. The most talented Polish composer since Chopin, Szymanowski (1882-1937)—a distinguished musical figure I wish were better known in this country—seems generally to be regarded as a late Romantic composer. But he’s more complicated than that.
As a young man, he naturally gravitated toward writing music that paid homage to the style and subject matter of his fellow countryman, Frederick Chopin. But, as he became better traveled, Szymanowski was also influenced by the late Romantic Germans, Mahler, Bruckner, and Richard Strauss. But before settling on a final style, he was also influenced by the impressionists as well as the enigmatic Russian composer Alexander Scriabin, with perhaps a dash of Schönberg thrown in.
Like Szymanowski, Scriabin began his compositional career heavily indebted to the style and subject matter of Chopin. But, like many Russian artists including novelist Leo Tolstoy, Scriabin found his way into a highly personal, messianic mysticism that heavily influenced his later music. (More on Tolstoy's mysticism here.) To embody this otherworldly state in music, Scriabin invented elaborate “mystical chords” and frequently employed elaborate, ecstatic trills, most notably in his later piano sonatas.
It’s this Scriabin whose influence we can hear in Szymanowski’s “Nocturne and Tarantella.” This is an odd piece, but a memorable one, with its quiet (usually) first part steeped in Arabic motifs colored by trills and chords similar to those employed by Scriabin. The Nocturne’s occasional outbursts foreshadow the wicked Tarantella that follows. An impetuous yet driven Italian dance form, the tarantella came to be much favored by composers of virtuoso violin works, and Szymanowski's is one of the most original.
The entire composition is recognizably tonal, yet edgy and exotic. And technically, it’s a nightmare for any violinist who doesn’t have a comprehensive plan for performing it.
Fortunately, Mr. Inui knew exactly what he was doing and wasn’t afraid of the composer’s daunting challenges. This piece is loaded with pyrotechnical "special effects" like two-directional glissandi, ghostly octaves, and, of course, more insane two-handed pizzicato effect. All were letter-perfect during this performance. But they were executed in the artist's own unmistakably witty style, "putting the eyebrows" on the piece as the late Frank Zappa might have observed.
The Szymanowski was both a surprise and a crowd pleaser at Monday evening’s recital. Mr. Inui burned through the piece with obvious passion, relish, and delight which is exactly how his audience received it.
Their enthusiasm was rewarded with two impressive encores, brilliantly concluding what happily turned out to be an exciting and musically rewarding evening in the end. If Mr. Inui can keep his game face on for an entire evening, his will be a career that's hard to stop.
Rating: ** ½ (Two and one-half stars)
YCA will return to the Terrace on Tuesday, April 27, featuring young Bulgarian violinist Bella Hristova in recital, performing works by Beethoven, Corigliano, Messiaen, and Saint-Saëns. For tickets ($30—a steal) and information, call (202) 331-0405, or visit YCA's website.
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