Jon Nakamatsu Thrills his Audience
by
Lyn Bronson
Jon Nakamatsu is a virtuoso of the highest order and his
technique ranks him right up there with the best. He can spray the air with
cascades of brilliant octaves, glittering scales, percussive chords, and
mountains of accumulated sound. At times he can even tickle your fancy with some
quiet reflective playing. If you want to hear a pianist storm his way through
the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 or the Rachmaninoff Third Concerto,
Nakamatsu would definitely be your man. But in a solo piano recital such as we
heard last night at Sunset Center when Nakamatsu played a benefit concert for
the Chamber Music Monterey Bay, much of his music making didn’t make sense. It
was as though he was thinking, “I’ll play this part very softly,” or “I’ll make
a nice crescendo here,” and these decisions seem to derive not from the organic
internal structure of the music, but rather as devices applied consciously to
the music to make it more effective for an audience.
This resulted in some peculiar attitudes toward the music
we were hearing. In the four Scarlatti sonatas that began the program, all the
glittering technique was there, although it didn’t always serve the music. Fast
tempos were too fast, loud passages were too loud, and accents were too violent.
I couldn’t decide whether this was Scarlatti in the style of Balakirev, or
Scarlatti on meth, but in any case it was larger than life and in your face. The
one exception was the lovely Sonata in E Major, L.430.
This piece is so lightly scored that it provided no opportunities for
fast scale playing or leaping all over the keyboard. Nakamatsu played it
magnificently and simply — with lovely coloring and admirable restraint. One of
the most interesting of the four sonatas was the last one in D Minor, L.422.
This is an effective toccata with brilliant repeated notes, but it was so
fast that it reminded me of the Tokyo-Osaka express zipping along so rapidly at
240 mph that you can’t enjoy the scenery.
The Rachmaninoff Variations on a Theme of Corelli, which
followed are much more suited to Nakamatsu’s personality, and in it we heard
some of the best playing of the evening. The more virtuoso variations had a
brightly projected sound and beautiful clarity. In this piece the ultimate
virtuosity is needed to unravel thorny complex passages and make them clear to an
audience, and this he did admirably. In the slower variations, however,
Nakamatsu seemed impatient to be done with them and to move on to something more
exciting. One of the most beautiful parts of this work is the final page, where
after all the bombast of the climax that preceded it, Rachmaninoff departs from
D Minor and spins out a lovely hushed melody in D Major. It is like the
sun coming out from behind a cloud after a storm (although it didn’t quite make
it out last night).
There were two Chopin selections on the program — the
lovely Nocturne in F-sharp Major and the Scherzo No. 3 in C-sharp Minor.
In these works we heard some fine playing, both lyric and
demonically virtuosic. For the most part these pieces were beautifully styled,
although there were times when his expressive rubatos threatened to derail the
momentum. The fantastic coda of the C-sharp Minor Scherzo was brilliant, and you
won’t hear it played any better.
After intermission Nakamatsu performed Five Dances from
Dances Fantastiques, Op. 2b, by Loris
Tjeknavorian, and this was a great performance — virtuosic when appropriate, but
also elegant in its more lyrical sections. Speaking from the stage, Nakamatsu
explained the collegial relationship the composer shared with his teacher,
Marina Derryberry, and how pleased he was to eventually have this piano version
of the orchestral piece arranged for him to premiere. It is a great pleasure to
hear a contemporary piece where at its conclusion you wished it was longer, for
this piece is definitely “listener friendly.”
Ending the program were a selection of works by Liszt,
Impromptu for Princess Gortschakoff, Valse Impromptu in A-flat Major and the
Après une lecture du Dante. After the
two charming impromptus, the so-called “Dante Sonata” was really the major work
on the program and it received here a brilliant performance. There are two
schools of thought on this piece, for some consider it right up there in
significance with the great B Minor Sonata, yet others savor the immortal line
from Shakespeare, “Full of sound and fury, and signifying nothing.” Well, the
truth is somewhere in between. This work has many moments of high bombast, but
also moments of lovely serenity, so you just have to take your pick.
After a rousing standing ovation, Nakamatsu played one
encore, the beautiful Liszt transcription of Schumann’s song,
Widmung (dedication). It was lovely
