A review of the concert on April 22, 2001 by Dr. Thomas Wendel.
At the risk of confessing my own ignorance, Li-shan Hung, at least to me, has until now been a well-kept secret. The Taiwan-born pianist resides in Mountain View; why she has had little publicity in the South Bay seems truly something of a mystery. As revealed at the Petit Trianon last Sunday, we have here living amongst us, a major musician of tremendous stature.
One need only look over Dr. Hung’s program to understand that she is a deeply probing artist (she received her doctorate at the Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University). To have Schumann’s Davidbündlertänze and Beethoven’s A-flat major Sonata, Opus 110, on the same program is a rare and profound treat. Furthermore, the artist started with a fine Scarlatti Sonata and the Program included Liszt’s dramatic Legend No. 2, Francois de Paule marchant sur les flots and the Tocatta from Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin — a feast of significant and profoundly moving music.
Dr. Chung surprisingly began her recital with the incredibly virtuosic Scarlatti Sonata in F major, K.445. This was no warm-up opening work; the rapid scale and arpeggioed passages clearly glistened, as the pianist ripplingly repeated both halves of the piece as indicated by the composer. It was a thrilling opening to a thrilling virtuosic and thoughtful evening of music.
The Davidbündlertänze is one of Robert Schumann’s major compositions. A lengthy work, it is made up of eighteen pieces divided into two books. The “David Society” was an imaginative gathering of advanced musical souls gathered to combat the musical Philistines. Dr. Hung explained this and other works on the program in English and Chinese, the latter because she obviously was no secret to the very large number of Chinese-American attendees who made up the vast majority of the audience.
Dr. Hung’s performance of the Schumann was for the most part riveting. The for-the-most-part reservation springs from her, at times, overpowering, almost crushing, fortissimos that in the lively acoustic of the Petit Trianon became painful to the ear. I believe I was not alone in wishing that she had rather adjudged fffffff maybe to have been better expressed at ff.
But this is not to say that overall the Schumann created marvelously evocative — well — Schumannesque moods symbolized by the ecstatic Florestan and sensitive Eusebius, the two imaginary characters the composer thought himself (pardon me) composed of. Indeed, he initialed the eighteen numbers of the work with an F or an E to indicate the particular affect of each. The Davidbündlertänze is dedicated, naturally, to Robert’s beloved Clara.
The highlight of the program followed the intermission. One would have to travel far afield on disc and in concert halls to experience a more thoughtful, a more probing, and yes, more spiritual account of Beethoven’s great sonata in A-flat major, Opus 110, the second of the three last culminating piano sonatas of the series of thirty-two such works. As Ms. Hung stated, the sonata traces a spiritual journey from pain to triumph.
I would only here comment on the beautifully shaped final fugue, both in its upright and upside-down appearances. Both began remarkably, daringly, slowly. And both mysteriously gathered intensity and tempo until at the very last the triumphant restatement of the fugue and dazzling return to the work’s opening arpeggio figuration. The victory was Beethoven’s — and the pianist’s through whom the sense of triumph was communicated throughout the hall. As if this were not enough excitement for one night, Hung’s performance of Liszt’s Second Legend, the story of Francois de Paule walking on the water towards God, the torch of faith held aloft, was a vivid, almost pictorial, representation. With incredibly powerful waves of chromatic scales in the left hand, scales illustrating the stormy seas, one could truly feel the watery scene. The performance was a tour de force.
And finally the Tombeau de Couperin provided a fine virtuosic finale to an incredible evening of music making. The clamorous audience brought Dr. Hung out for one encore, Ravel’s lovely Minuet sur le nom de Haydn, composed inCommemoration of the 100th anniversary of Haydn’s death. She played it beautifully though one would think that after so heady a program, the virtuosic Dr. Hung would be exhausted.
