On Sunday afternoon, a lanky, unassuming fellow ambled across the stage at Baker-Baum Concert Hall. He sat at the piano without any fuss and began to play.
If there were any doubts that this modest gentleman deserved to be in that hall, they were soon dispelled by the beautifully sounded voicings of the Allemande from J.S. Bach’s “French Suite” No. 5 in G major, BWV 816.
The pianist was Zoltán Fejérvári, making his San Diego debut courtesy of the La Jolla Music Society. A 35-year-old Hungarian with boyish looks, he had a calm demeanor on the piano bench that at times seemed incongruous to the dazzling passagework and musical pyrotechnics he produced on his instrument.
Fejérvári had a beautiful singing tone, which he deployed throughout his recital. His interpretation of the “French Suite” was marked by a clear delineation of all the parts and a gift for ornamentation. The embellishments weren’t merely trills, but additional pitches not found in Bach’s score that were idiomatically appropriate.
His performance of the Sarabande was a gorgeous bit of sonic poetry, and the speed of the Gigue dazzled, all the more so due to its lucidity.
The program also featured Ravel’s “Le Tombeau De Couperin” and Chopin’s Preludes, Op. 28. Whether intentional or not, it could be viewed as an examination of the concept of a “French suite.” In Bach’s case, there’s very little about the work that is French aside from the movement titles. (In his defense, Bach never called them “French suites”).
Chopin’s Preludes, whether performed in their entirety as Fejérvári did or as a group of excerpts, could be considered a suite, although it’s debatable if there is anything French about them aside from Chopin’s residence in Paris.
With “Le Tombeau De Couperin,” we find a true French suite, inspired by the harpsichord suites of Bach’s contemporary, François Couperin. Here Fejérvári was at his best, the first and last movements taken at dizzy tempos and sparkling like Champagne. His cantabile tone was exquisite in the “Fugue” and the “Forlane,” capturing the melancholy character of these pieces dedicated to friends lost in World War I.
Chopin was stimulated by the 24 preludes of Bach’s “Well-tempered Clavier,” written in all the major and minor keys. The way that Chopin moved through the 24 keys was different than Bach, but allows for a more harmonically natural listening experience.
Fejérvári played them with minimal pauses between each Prelude, discouraging applause and thereby allowing us to better experience the huge contrasts between these tiny gems. He easily met Chopin’s technical challenges and manifested the appropriate emotions for each one.
For an encore, he played the first movement from Tchaikovsky’s “The Seasons.” He drolly pointed out that the “January” that Tchaikovsky experienced “is a little different than what you have here.”
In a pre-concert performance, Del Norte High School sophomore Ellie Seohyun Lee performed the first movement of Sibelius’ Violin Concerto. This member of the San Diego Youth Symphony played with surprising maturity and captured much of the sly humor in an arrangement of Rodion Shchedrin’s piano work, “In The Style Of Albéniz.” She was ably accompanied by pianist Cho-Hyun Park.