Anyone who says that emerging young pianists all sound alike obviously hasn’t heard Tanya Gabrielian. Appearing in recital last night at All Saints’ Church in Carmel as the grand prize winner of the Carmel Music Society’s 2010 Piano Competition, she came across as a mature, powerful young artist with bold original ideas.
It was purely an accident that she was playing at All Saints’ Church, for she had originally been scheduled to perform at Sunset Center on Friday, May 20, as a part of the Carmel Music Society’s “Competition” weekend, in which its instrumental competition occurred the following day. Because of a scheduling conflict her recital was rescheduled for the earlier date and moved to the Church. It is interesting to ponder the consequences of the change of venue. Heard in the intimate and resonant acoustics of All Saints’ Church there was something larger than life and over the top about Gabrielian’s approach both to the piano and to the music she played.
Her opening work, Bach’s Partita No. 4 in D Major, seemed overplayed, emoted, spikey and jagged, yet it was, in its own way, powerful and convincing as another way to play Bach. This isn’t to say that there weren’t some tender and subtle moments, for in the Sarabande Gabrielian proved to us that she could create moments of beauty and serenity.
Gabrielian’s performance of four Preludes by Debussy was again highly original, and again bold and jagged. The first three Preludes were so startlingly aggressive they seemed to be almost in the style of Shostakovich. Quite different was the remarkable performance of her final selection, Feux d’artifice (Fireworks); it was extraordinary the way she controlled her dynamics and pedaling to create a lovely array of beautifully controlled effects that appropriately enhanced the music.
After intermission we heard a fleet performance of Haydn’s Sonata in C Major, Hob XVI/50. Fast and fleet in its outer movements, it was the Adagio slow movement that made the greatest impression with its lovely control of phrasing and shaping the lines.
The best was yet to come as we heard some truly astonishing playing in Gabrielian’s performance of the Eight Etudes-Tableaux, Op. 33. Although we occasionally hear a few of these as encores, it is rare to hear the set in its entirety (although there is some doubt whether Rachmaninoff intended them as an integral suite). Gabrielian’s brilliant and probing performances of these pieces served to remind us that Rachmaninoff is a much underrated composer. The critical judgment of the Third Edition of Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians was that “Rachmaninoff’s music finds little favor among musicians and is unlikely to outlast his lifetime.” How wrong that is was clearly demonstrated by Gabrielian during the last half hour of her recital.
From beginning to end, Gabrielian, with her totally masterful playing wove a magic spell and convinced us that these Etudes-Tableaux are unjustly neglected. Especially powerful was the lovely intense Grave No. 3 in C Minor that gave us hints of the internal turmoil and pessimism that seemed to have been so much a part of Rachmaninoff persona — although Rachmaninoff had a surprise for us at the end as the clouds parted and the piece ended in C Major tranquility with a poignant melody that tore at the heartstrings.
Responding to a standing ovation, Gabrielian addressed the audience to say that she wanted to end the recital, as she had begun it, with something by Bach. She sat down and played the Sarabande from the Second French Suite. It was beautifully understated and thoughtful. What a very nice way to end a recital.
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