Pianist Jane Coop
by
Lyn Bronson
During Canadian pianist Jane
Coop’s recital in Miller Hall for Piano Festival Northwest last night, we had
the impression that her intent was to convince her listeners that she is a
virtuoso. It is possible that a provincial audience of non musicians might buy
into a concert where technical display prevailed over expressive musical values,
but the audience of pianists, teachers and piano buffs attending this concert at
Miller Hall was definitely a sophisticated audience familiar with the piano
repertoire, and it was just as definitely able to distinguish music from
technical display.
Her initial offering was one of
the lesser known Haydn sonatas, the one in B-flat major, Hob.XVI/41. Ms. Coop
was unsuccessful in persuading us that this she really loved this sonata, for
this short, two-movement work came across as a lot of fast moving notes, but
little else.
In the following work, the
Beethoven “Pastorale” Sonata, she fared better and this turned out to be some of
her best playing of the evening, however this subtle work was consistently over
played and the closing coda of the last movement was a scramble.
The greatest miscalculation of
the evening was her performance of the Brahms Variations on a Theme by Paganini,
Book II. This is one of the most treacherous works in the piano repertoire.
Although professionally recorded performances normally utilize unlimited editing
to re-record smudged passages, live performances rarely exhibit a high degree of
polish and refinement. Ms. Coop’s playing of this piece seemed labored,and once
again failed to convince us that she truly loved this work. I had the feeling
that had she played Brahms' Op. 118 or 119 in their entirety, we would have
enjoyed it more.
The concert ended with a
performance of Chopin’s 24 Preludes, Op. 28. This is familiar repertoire to this
sophisticated audience, most of whom know every note of every Prelude. Although
there were various Preludes that were finely played, there were many important
ones, like the G Major, the F# Major, the B-flat Minor, the F Minor and the D
Minor, that were less than satisfying.
As an encore, Ms. Coop played
the A-flat Major Etude from the three supplementary Etudes for the Method by
Moscheles. This was the most beautiful playing of the evening, and demonstrated a
love for this work and a love for playing the piano, commodities in short supply
during this concert.
As teachers, we often recommend
to young pianists putting together a program for a recital, “select pieces you
love and pieces you play well.” With this criterion in mind, we have a chance of
exhibiting to our audiences a “joy of music” and, if we are successful, we will
move our audiences and send them home after the concert feeling in an up mood.
Ms. Coop is obviously an
accomplished pianist and a sophisticated musician. Her performance last night
was a lesson to us all how difficult it is sometimes to relax on stage and let
the music unfold in an unforced, natural way.
An interesting feature of this
concert was Ms. Coop’s selection of the Hamburg Steinway rather than New York
Steinway. We have been hearing the more brittle and brighter sounding Hamburg D
in earlier sessions as a second piano used for demonstrations in master classes,
and our impression has been that the unpleasant sounding Hamburg D needed a lot
of voicing before it will become as mellow as the New York instrument. Thus, at
the beginning of Ms. Coop’s recital it was a pleasant surprise to observe that
piano technician Steve Davis had achieved a minor miracle for the piano sounded
very nice indeed, even when consistently overplayed by Ms. Coop. It was also
interesting that this instrument, although not "concert tuned" as often during
the past few days, held its tune remarkably well so that its unisons sounded
great even at the end of the concert.
