Aki Takahashi in Concert
by
David Beech
Aki Takashi
The highlight of pianist Aki Takahashi’s recital
in the Arts and Lectures series at UC Santa Cruz on November 3, 2006, was the
Morton Feldman piece simply entitled Piano. The composer was often as sparing in
his titles as in his music, and here he may have been referring both to the
instrument and to the sustained quietness of most of the piece. Apart from a
sudden outburst in the middle, the mood of the work is reflective, often with
widely spaced single notes or dissonant chords with haunting use of the pedal,
with thought processes laid bare and piquing the listener’s curiosity as to what
will come next. It was easy to feel that this spellbinding music could go on for
ever, a wish that Feldman was eager to gratify, since his form of minimalism did
not espouse Webern’s brevity – indeed, Feldman’s second string quartet is
reputed to last five and a half hours.
Aki Takahashi is the ideal interpreter of
Feldman’s music, perfectly poised and gentle, and able to balance soft chords so
as to bring out significant inner notes. Communication with the audience might
have been even more direct had she played the piece from memory, but there was
no doubting the authenticity of the playing, since she used to tour together
with Feldman when he was alive (he died in 1987, aged 61), so that he could
introduce the works.
Takahashi began her program with one classical
work, Schubert’s “short A major” Sonata, Op.120, and this gave us a foretaste of
her relaxed style. The first movement was mellow in tone, but rather on the slow
side. There was beautiful layering of pp accompaniments under p melodies,
although sometimes the melodies ran through the little rests that Schubert
indicated; and the stormy octave triplets of the development section were rather
tame. The tuneful Andante came across almost perfectly, apart from missing the
warmth of the gorgeous bar that introduces the G major of the middle section.
The finale, however, lacked sparkle and bravura, notably in the rising
two-handed scales that seemed to take forever to climb their three octaves.
The short excerpt from “Waves Breaking on Rocks”
by Peter Garland (born 1952) began with a charming Satie-like high treble over
consecutive fourths, but was followed by a clumsy dance, again with consecutive
harmonies, that could only have been rescued by a more extrovert delivery.
The next two works were for two pianos, set
unusually side-by-side, rather than interlocked with the pianists facing each
other. For these pieces, Takahashi was joined by Rae Imamura from Berkeley, and
both played brilliantly and with impeccable coordination without looking at each
other – except once, which was the only time the synchronization failed!
“Crystal Drops” by Hi Kyung Kim (b.1954, and a
member of the UCSC faculty) proved quite challenging at a first hearing. The
first movement had attractive flashy sounds and rhythmic complexity, while the
second movement had a slow, flowing melody high on the first piano with low
rumblings in the second part – it could almost have been a duet on one piano.
The finale seemed to be about irritation, with the second piano insisting on
repeating a high note as loud as possible, with the first player eventually
being provoked into some big chordal reactions. After a lyrical interlude, the
second player tries the original tactic on bass notes, before reverting to the
top of the keyboard. The first player responds a few times a semitone higher,
and then gives up, somewhat to the relief of the audience.
The other two-piano work, “Mukashi Mukashi” by
the veteran Bay Area composer Andrew Imbrie (b.1921), was inspired by his first
visit to Japan. It moves from a sonorous introduction into a spiky section with
a nice momentum, and a slow melodious dialogue. There was a nice variety of
textures and recognizable melodic fragments, all performed with pleasing light
and shade, as well as remarkable precision, by the excellent pianists.
In the second half of the program, after the
Morton Feldman work discussed above, Aki Takahashi concluded her program with
three pieces from the “Hyper Beatles Collection” that she had commissioned from
45 composers, taking their favorite Beatles songs as starting points. This
sounded as though it was going to be a good deal more rambunctious, but turned
out to illustrate the work of composers at opposite poles temperamentally from
the Beatles, with minds more refined if not necessarily livelier than those of
the lads from Liverpool. James Tenney’s version of “Love Me Do” needed a more
dashing performance, but we then had the rare treat of a classical pianist
singing at the keyboard as Takahashi began Benita Marcus’ “Julia”, which led to
nice ripples and a very pretty soft-pedal accompaniment to the melody. Finally,
in “Because” arranged by Akira Nishimura, we heard some radiant sustained tones
and overtones, as crisp groups of sextuplets before a beat kept reinforcing
them.
So at the last, we were reminded again of the
sound world of Morton Feldman, and left with the feeling that we would like to
hear Aki Takahashi play much more of his music.
[David Beech, a serious clarinetist, a significant amateur pianist, and a
music lover of uncommon taste and refinement, is a frequent contributor as a
guest reviewer in this column.]
