Solo recital brings chamber music north

Pianist Jian Liu

How many Auckland music-lovers are frustrated at missing out on the fine concerts that Chamber Music New Zealand presents in smaller centres?

In the next few weeks, Xenia Pestova brings her enterprising piano recital of music from Bach to Berio, with four New Zealand premieres, as near as Rotorua and Warkworth.

Later in August, Les Bons Vivants, a Christchurch trio of flute, violin and harp, treats Tauranga and Warkworth audiences to new commissions by Kiwi composers Lissa Meridan and Alex van den Broek.

But next Friday, thanks to Auckland Museum's Fazioli International Piano Recital Series, Wellington pianist Jian Liu brings to town the programme he recently toured from Cromwell to Whangarei.

Liu appreciates the intimacy of the solo recital.

"You're in complete control of the music," he says.

"And the pieces that I've chosen are quite personal to me."

At first glance there are familiar names such as Beethoven, Chopin and Brahms but each composer is represented by a work from each end of his life.

Beethoven's Pathetique, Moonlight and Appassionata are put aside for the young composer's very first sonata.

"He was only 12 when he wrote it," Liu says.

"It may be very classical and influenced by Haydn but the eccentric accenting and unexpected changes of dynamics have the real vigour of youth."

Moving forward 40 years, the same composer's Six Bagatelles of Opus 126 - pithy and sometimes barbed miniatures that Liu sees as the summation of his life's output - feature.

With Chopin, we hear his very last composition - a highly chromatic mazurka that sounds like a premonition of Wagner's Tristan. Liu sees it as the work of a dying composer, too ill and weak to give breath to his final thoughts. What better to contrast with this than a lusty polonaise, penned when Chopin was a precocious 7-year-old?

The recital opens with two New Zealand pieces by John Psathas and Jack Body, whose The Street Where I Live is a delight, as the pianist plays under, over and around the late composer's pre-recorded voice.

For Liu, who enjoyed Body's friendship and mentoring of staff of the New Zealand School of Music, the piece is more of a conversation, playing a soundtrack while he talks of his life, his house and his stuff.

Punters will able to take this piece home with them by buying Sarajevo, Liu's new album on the Atoll label. It's a marvellous collection of New Zealand piano music, ranging from Gareth Farr's idyllic The Horizon from Owhiro Bay to Ross Harris' poignant Piece for Barry, which Liu premiered two years ago.

Jack Body is represented by three offerings, including his politically engaged Sarajevo suite and, most curious of all, a wry reworking of a Chopin mazurka.

"It's like reminiscence," Liu says.

"Here and there you almost get it and then, suddenly, it slips away from you."

What: Jian Liu in recital
Where & when: Auckland Museum, August 4, Friday at 7pm
CD: Jian Liu, Sarajevo (Atoll, through Ode Records)