KEY POINTS:
John Chen is just off the plane from Christchurch, where he performed Rachmaninov's Paganini Variations with the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra.
"This is decorative stuff, to be sure," was Monday's assessment in The Press, "but in these hands what decoration!
"Fingers disappearing from view like the wings of a hummingbird. John Chen just devoured this work."
There is more Russian fare for Chen's delectation when he sits down to Tchaikovsky's Second Piano Concerto with the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra tomorrow night.
I am surprised he hasn't already tackled the composer's First Concerto.
"I played the introduction and coda of the first movement for the Starlight Symphony three or so years ago ... none of the sonata form bit."
Chen dishes the humour dry for a young man just out of his teens, although he bubbles with enthusiasm over the Second Concerto's Finale.
"People always say that Tchaikovsky's personality was on the depressive side and you can hear that in a lot of his music," he explains. "But this Finale is one of the happiest pieces of music in existence. I can't think of any happier, overwhelmingly so, almost to the point of being annoyingly happy."
And Chen will be more than happy if he makes it through to the finals of Moscow's Tchaikovsky Competition in June because this concerto will be on his programme.
Chen has been in Los Angeles for 16 months, studying under John Perry. "He focuses on the overall impression rather than details, saying a few things that will change the way you think about a piece."
Perry always encourages the individual voice, Chen explains.
"He never forces you into a mould. He works with what you've got and gets the best possible results out of it."
Living opposite Disney Hall, he was "totally moved and uplifted" when Christoph Dohnanyi recently took the LA Philharmonic through Brahms' First and Third Symphonies.
Last November, he experienced the thrill of playing alongside Jeffrey Kahane and the LA Chamber Orchestra in Mozart's Triple Concerto.
Chen has the unwavering opinions of youth. He likes conductors who have "a solid musical mind, whose ideas are very thought out and who can inspire the orchestra to find sounds that they wouldn't normally use".
When it comes to pianists, he selects Katchen, Ashkenazy, Pletnev and Brendel as his ideals for their "huge musical intelligence" and the fact that "they treat the music with a lot of respect".
Now, with his new Naxos recording of the complete piano music of Henri Dutilleux, Chen's playing is in the international arena.
Tim Ashley of the Guardian is an admirer. For him, Chen delivers "everything with supple finesse and just the requisite touch of dispassion, carefully exposing every shift in colour and sonority".
This CD is an extraordinary achievement, paying dues to a composer whose work Chen has known for most of his playing life.
"I've always been a fan of the 20th-century French repertoire.
"As a high-school student I studied flute for eight years and that's all you get."
Dutilleux's piano music, in particular, is "so colourful, so magical, the pinnacle of contemporary piano repertoire".
The disc offers an enchanted and enchanting hour of music.
Apart from the mighty Sonata of 1948, there are children's pieces, a rippling tribute to Bach, and the explorative preludes of the 70s and 80s.
Dutilleux, still alive and writing in his 90s, has been done brilliant justice by a player old enough to be his great-great-grandson, recorded on the other side of the world.
In these days when so much of our culture has become Pacific-oriented, there is something rather nice about that.
Who: John Chen with the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra
Where and when: Auckland Town Hall, tomorrow at 8pm
On disc: Henri Dutilleux, Complete Solo Piano Music (Naxos 8.557823)
