A review of the concert on April 19, 2003 by Erik D. Dyar.
The all too neglected repertoire for duo pianists received a welcome presentation Saturday night, April 19, 2003, at Le Petit Trianon in San Jose. The Julliard-trained husband and wife team of Ning-Wu Du and Helen Sim, brought to us by the Steinway Society The Bay Area, played a varying program of works for one piano (four hands) during the first half, and works for two pianos in the second half. It is clear from their performance that far from approaching this format and repertoire as something just to dabble in (since after all they are a married couple who both are fine pianists), they have committed themselves to it. They both played from memory throughout a concert filled with much virtuosity, as well as, musical substance.
The four-handed first half, began with three Hungarian Dances by Brahms. These are playful and fun, and masterfully arranged, gypsy tunes that offered an excellent introduction to the not so familiar sonorities of 20 fingers playing together. These were followed by the substantive center of the program, a four-hand arrangement of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 by Hugo Ulrich. Purists may have problems with transcriptions such as this; and obviously a full orchestra in the original version has a much wider palette of colors and textures. However, a work such as this, which has to rank near the top of the list of the greatest music ever written, certainly deserves to be expressed in other idioms. For whether you hear this music played by strings, woodwinds, horns, and tympanis, or whether by the hammers and strings of a piano, it is still great music, and this in itself, in my opinion, gives the performance validity. Undoubtedly, the difficulty in attempting to bring to life music, which is so familiar to the audience in another form with many more instrumental advantages, is daunting. Du and Sim, however, more than met these challenges, and they were able to bring out the power and majesty of this musical apotheosis. On this occasion, the purists were silent and the audience was taken away by the beauty of the work; their enthusiastic response at the conclusion left little doubt as to the performers effectiveness at conveying it.
The power of the Beethoven symphony was, however, in stark contrast to the other rather light, less substantive works that filled the rest of the program. The second half (all works for two pianos) began with Rachmaninoff’s Suite No. 2, Op. 17. Written during the period of the composer’s creative rebirth which included the Second Piano Concerto, this three movement piece does not contain near the same quality of inspiration. It is a rather mediocre work that does have its good moments. Du and Sim handled the technical difficulties with ease and gave it a decent accounting. Perhaps, in the future, they might program Rachmaninoff’s two piano version of the Symphonic Dances, Op 45, which is just a brilliant and amazingly well-arranged score for this format.
It must be said that there is really nothing that will sound less “together” than two pianos that are not in synch; and it is certainly more difficult to play together when separated across the expanse of two grand pianos, than when sitting together at one instrument. Du and Sim displayed, during both the four-hand and two piano portions of the concert, a remarkable synchronicity which never seemed to falter. It was observed that the pianos were both Model B (7-foot) Steinways instead of the Model D (9-foot) concert grands. This was certainly welcome, for the volume of sound could have easily been overwhelming in this live hall using the larger version, though, the quality of the instruments themselves left something to be desired. Whether because of the pianos, or the pianists, or both, I was too often reminded that the piano is a percussion instrument. There was a bit too much harshness and lack of softness of tone for my taste during the performance. With two pianos, also, there is a basic problem of the sameness of color and texture that has to be dealt with by composers and performers who choose this medium. It becomes more difficult to achieve the proper balances and to bring out nuance and phrasing when the same notes are played by the same instrument. Du and Sim, in general, handled this well; however, I missed some of the softer pianissimos in the melodic line, which are understandably problematic when the line has to be loud enough to be clear above the overall sameness of sound.
The concert continued with Milhaud’s Scaramouche Suite for Two Pianos. This is a delightful work with a potpourri of musical antecedents including jazz and Brazilian samba. The duo brought style and wit to the varying characters of the piece. The program concluded with a wonderful transcription of the popular Gershwin Preludes (originally written for solo piano). The pianists excelled at the vibrant, syncopated rhythms of the first and third preludes while tenderly expressing the bluesy and almost haunting harmonies of the second.
The couple were given a standing ovation for their performance and persuaded to give an encore. They did not disappoint in what had to be the climax of the evening, giving an astounding account of Lutoslawski’s Variations on a Theme by Paganini. The theme comes from his A minor Caprice and is the same used by Brahms in his Paganini Variations for solo piano. Even the virtuosic passages of the Brahms (which are considerable) cannot fully compare to the display we heard from Du and Sim. Let us thank them for the commitment to the repertory and hope they can come again to bring us more gems from this neglected form of chamber music.
