Pianist Ashley Hsu
by
Lyn Bronson
Sixteen–year-old
Ashley Hsu appeared at Santa Catalina School yesterday afternoon in a piano
recital presented by the Monterey County Branch of the Music Teachers’
Association of California (MTAC). Ms. Hsu is a member of the MTAC’s “Young
Artist Guild,” the highest achievement that a Certificate of Merit student can
achieve. Election to the Young Artist Guild offers semi-professional paid
performance opportunities through MTAC branch-sponsored concerts.
Ms. Hsu comes from a
musical family in which both her younger brothers, age 13 and 10, are also
accomplished young pianists. Her own musical accomplishments consist of first
prize awards in several important piano competitions in the State of California.
The two major works on
her program this afternoon were Schumann’s Fantasie in C major, Op. 17, and
Beethoven’s Sonata in E-flat Major, Op. 81a, “Les Adieux.” In the Schumann
Fantasie she charmed us with some lovely expressive playing in the outer
movements in which she demonstrated a maturity beyond her years in shaping
phrases with beautifully sustained legato, subtle voicing and elegantly
controlled dynamics. The opening brief introduction of the Beethoven “Les
Adieux” Sonata was eloquently stated with such beautiful dynamic control it
achieved mastery on a high artistic level.
A rare treat on this
program was a performance of “The Alcotts” movement from “The Concord Sonata” by
Charles Ives. Ms. Hsu showed equal amounts of restraint and extroverted abandon
in her lyrical performance of this work. This also was artistic playing of a
high order.
Another rarity on the
program was a performance of the Transcendental Etude by Liszt known as “Ricordanza.”
This demanding work consists of a continuous flow of expressively ornamented
florid passages. Glittery roulades of spinning chromatic passages tripped from
her fingers effortlessly as she navigated her way through this work’s thorny
difficulties with supple ease.
Were there evidences
of immaturity we might attribute to her youth? Yes, the opening work on the
program, the Prelude in D minor from Book II of Bach’s Well Tempered Clavier was
so aggressively over played that we heard ugly sound throughout. Harsh ugly
sound was also evident in some of the louder passages in the Schumann Fantasie
and the Beethoven Sonata, but these moments were few and far between, thus the
artistic heights she achieved overall were significant achievements.
She rewarded the
enthusiastic audience with one encore, the Brahms Intermezzo in A Major, Op.
118, No. 2. Although most pianists regard this lovely work to be one of the most
tender pieces Brahms ever wrote, Ms. Hsu treated it aggressively as a statement
of bold and unrestrained passion.
