We have detected that you are using an adblocking plugin in your browser.

The revenue we earn by the advertisements is used to manage this website. Please whitelist our website in your adblocking plugin.

Concert review: Jan Lisiecki stretches into chatty Chopin Étude programme in Stratford

By John Terauds on August 9, 2013

Jan Lisiecki introduces Chopin's Op. 10 Études at St Andrew's Church in Stratford on Aug. 9 (John Terauds phone photo).
Jan Lisiecki introduces Chopin’s Op. 10 Études at St Andrew’s Church in Stratford on Aug. 9 (John Terauds phone photo).

Calgary-bred teenage pianist Jan Lisiecki is back in Stratford this week, where he has enjoyed a summer concert residency every year since 2010. As he admitted to his audience at St Andrew’s Church on Friday morning, it has become an opportunity to try new repertoire as well as new concert formats.

Yesterday, Lisiecki presented Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 with Toronto’s Annex String Quartet. Today and tomorrow, the affable 18-year-old’s goal was to not only play through all 24 Études of Frédéric Chopin, but provide running commentary along the way.

Although he has only just reached voting age and is still a student at the Royal Conservatory of Music’s Glenn Gould Professional School, Lisiecki is an accomplished performer, with a globetrotting concert calendar that would make most veteran professional pianists envious.

He also has three albums to his credit, the last one being the Chopin Études, recorded at Koerner Hall in early January. All have been warmly welcomed by critics as well as regular music fans.

This makes the Stratford visit all the more special. There is no glitz and glamour here, just a modest-sized, sparsely decorated Presbyterian church filled with an appreciative audience that, judging by the look of people at Friday’s recital, is largely made up of local southwestern Ontario folk.

Friday’s instalment was Op. 10, the first 12 of Chopin Études, each one designed to stretch a pianist’s technical abilities in a different way — yet also meant to be shaped into beautiful, passionate, Romantic music.

Lisiecki, wearing his now-signature bowtie, introduced each Étude separately, sat down to play it, then stood to up to introduce the next. This and the encore (Chopin’s Op. 28 “Raindrop” Prelude — a concert first for Lisiecki, he said) took up an intermissionless hour.

The pianist had promised the audience that he would entertain questions after the recital, but the audience dashed for the exit door after giving the teen a standing ovation, and Lisiecki did not reappear.

Lisiecki’s playing was deeply felt, far more effusive dynamically than what he left for posterity on his Deutsche Grammophon recording. The Yamaha CFX concert grand piano was loud, brash even, under the pianist’s deft fingers.

What the overall sound lacked in delicacy and finesse, the recital made up in heart-on-sleeve dynamism.

But what was really lacking was a sense of continuity in the music. The Études are short, and to offer commentary between each, no matter how neatly or appropriately expressed, made for a choppy recital experience.

Normally, a reviewer would leave it at that, but I had an opportunity to chat with Lisiecki after the concert and asked him how he felt about the experience. (To follow the progress of such a serious, talented and musical soul from promise into professional realisation is a rare opportunity, and Lisiecki has so far been polite enough to oblige.)

Although he is committed to continuing this concert format at Saturday’s voyage through the Op. 25 Études, I got the impression Lisiecki would prefer to talk less and play more. But it’s always worth giving something like this a try.

Lisiecki has grown to stand nearly 2 metres tall. His art is evolving and stretching along with his body, and his Stratford Summer Music Festival visits have turned into a musical equivalent of tracking the growth of the family children with pencil marks in a doorway.

Each visit is welcome.

Note that Saturday’s recital starts at an extra-early 10:15 a.m. Details here.

John Terauds

Share this article
lv_toronto_banner_high_590x300
comments powered by Disqus

FREE ARTS NEWS STRAIGHT TO YOUR INBOX, EVERY MONDAY BY 6 AM

company logo

Part of

Terms of Service & Privacy Policy
© 2024 | Executive Producer Moses Znaimer