KEY POINTS:
It seemed as if four Steinways had come together on the stage of the Raye Freedman Arts Centre to graze, while eight pianists gleefully hammered out the likes of Rossini's Lone Ranger theme on their four keyboards.
The 2007 Auckland International Piano Festival ended with a right celebration.
This closing concert did not shirk from the jollities of a stern Gao Ping giving rebellious Stephen McIntyre a Hoffnung-style piano lesson in Haydn's Il Maestro e lo Scolare; yet it also acknowledged the special bonds that music can create when Tamas Vesmas and Chenyin Li, teacher and student in real life, illuminated a Mozart duet sonata.
Also on the serious side were Frontispiece, an evanescent five-hander by Ravel, in which Li was joined by Sarah Watkins and Katherine Austin, and my personal favourite, Milhaud's 1948 Paris, in which all four instruments feted the French capital with canonic chic and cascading chords.
Ten years ago Aucklanders might have counted themselves lucky to have seven piano recitals in a year; by last Sunday, we had enjoyed as many in just over a week.
Overseas guests were led by Piers Lane uncovering the opalescent beauties of Chopin's Opus 48 Nocturnes and giving us authoritative takes on two of his Sonatas. Another Australian, Stephen McIntyre, coupled crisp Ravel with Beethoven's Diabelli Variations which made their journey towards the cerebral without ever threatening their immense emotional impact.
The dynamic Spanish pianist Guillermo Gonzalez did not flinch in exposing us to the relentless glare of the Spanish sun in Albeniz's Iberia, so unrelenting that the distressed Steinway needed a tune-up during interval.
In fact, the new piano was worrying. Chenyin Li insisted on her adjustments well before interval, so she could do brilliant justice to Schubert's Wanderer Fantasy. Li's programme ran from some faux-flamenco Scarlatti to Ravel's shimmering Miroirs and was, by far, the most rewarding evening of the festival.
Richard Mapp also tackled Scarlatti, more diffidently, although his total immersion in Janacek's I.x.1905, pursuing the many dialogues of this extraordinary Sonata, was mesmerising.
Michael Houstoun and Tamas Vesmas were the opening-night duo. Although the two men drew a full house, the dryness of Brahms' F minor Sonata proved that this work is better heard in its Piano Quintet version. While Debussy's En blanc et noir was immaculately conjured, the esprit and grace of Saint-Saens' Variations were dimmed by irritating technical stutters.
Six hours of masterclasses every day allowed these experienced pianists to impart their wisdom, whether it be Vesmas finessing a Debussian trill or Houstoun focusing on phrasing four Beethoven bars with the precision of a stealth bomber.
Chenyin Li was the soul of tact, interrupting some soulless Bach with a smiling, "I think there is a lot more in this work". Like Piers Lane, she sat alongside her student at a second piano, demonstrating and joining in.
All pianists insisted that students see beyond the limitations of their black-and-white keys. Vesmas evoked the world of the cello, the highly dramatic Gonzales told one charge to "think about opera always", shaking his jowls with passion to Mozart's K 284.
This second Auckland International Piano Festival has been a momentous achievement, made possible through the vision of Vesmas and the support of David Shin-Ya Yu's Kokako Concerts. Hopefully it will now be a regular event in the city's musical calendar.
Hopefully too, when it reappears, we might be treated to some music written after 1948, and someone might also note we have no shortage of composers in this country who deserve representation. With Philip Norman's biography of Douglas Lilburn on the Montana shortlist, an evening devoted to the composer's piano music would not have been amiss.
REVIEW
What: Auckland International Piano Festival
Where: Raye Freedman Arts Centre
Reviewer: William Dart
