A review of the concert on September 26, 2004 by Richard Scheinin.
Stephen Prutsman performed root canal surgery on his piano Sunday night, drilling straight down into the bass notes to wrap up his terrific recital at Le Petit Trianon. This virtuoso does it all: plays passages with nail-gun physicality, or offers featherings of notes that hang in the air like dust motes. As an encore, he even left the audience whistling a tune.
You don’t run into this sort of range often. The recital, the opening salvo in the Steinway Society’s 2004-05 series at the little hall in downtown San Jose, began with the jewel-like brilliance of Ravel. It then moved to a quietly eruptive work by Prutsman himself, before engaging the sparkling and densely clanging sonorities of Stravinsky’s “Three Movements from Petrouchka.” The pianist infused this rarely performed work with a pin-your-ears-back energy that’s more typically encountered in jazz.
Prutsman knows how to hook an audience: A lanky figure, he sat in a molded-plastic chair, his knees barely fitting beneath the keyboard, and, at moments of high drama, twisted his body away from listeners, so they saw nothing but his back. Miles Davis, master of mystery, perfected this move. Prutsman is pretty good at it.
He played Ravel’s “Miroirs” with deep, liquid beauty. As the music shimmered and darted about, soaked with arpeggios, you could see the choreography of the performance: Prutsman’s hands mined for harmonies at opposite ends of the keyboard, joined in descending cross-handed sequences, like dancers in a pas de deux, then separated, the left hand rippling up toward the right’s high trills.
On “Alborada del gracioso (Morning Song of the Jester),” the work’s fourth movement, Prutsman evoked rapturous Spanish guitar-strumming effects, his fingers creasing the keyboard with glissandos. These infamous slides have drawn blood from the fingers of more legendary Ravel interpreters, but Prutsman seemed to have no problem with them.
Then, on to “Tannery Pond,” Prutsman’s evocation of a rustic spot in New York: There were stirrings and tadpole dartings of notes, somewhat impressionistic, but more fidgety and harder-edged. It led neatly into the Stravinsky, with its gleaming surfaces and jabbing rhythms. Prutsman, shoulders bouncing, inhabited this piece, with its droll humor, amazing melodies, demon chords and drilling finish.
Encore, anyone? Prutsman slowed down for a song, he said, “my father used to sing.” It was Irving Berlin’s “What’ll I Do,” seasoned with heartfelt chords that had the taste of jazz pianist Bill Evans, who loved Ravel.
