Friday, March 2, at Sherwood Auditorium, highly touted 24-year-old Chinese pianist Yundi Li delivered the goods to a huge audience that spilled onto both sides of the stage. The La Jolla Music Society’s new and, this night sorely tested, Belanich Steinway delivered the goods as well.
It’s one thing to break in a new Steinway, and quite another to break it. Happily, the instrument did not suffer any apparent damage. And if there was something undetectable, piano wizard Earl Kalberg has two months to work it out before Garrick Ohlsson returns to close this season’s piano series May 16. Ohlsson’s playing and the reportedly extensive use of the Belanich during the yet-to-be-announced SummerFest will ease the extraordinary piano along, a seasoning process that normally requires four years.
Meanwhile, CEO and artistic director Christopher Beach is like a proud papa.
Li’s most impressive moments were his sustained and subtle shaping of Mozart’s Piano Sonata in C Major, K.330; the subtlety and darkness of his approach to Frederic Chopin’s Four Mazurkas, Opus 33; and his lovely playing of the Nocturne in E-Flat major, Opus 9, No. 2. Granted, the audience applauded too soon at the end of each section (wouldn’t it be nice to withhold applause until the piano’s final chords fade?). He seemingly retaliated by beginning Schumann-Liszt’s “Widmund” before applause for the Nocturne had died.
The audience thrilled to Li’s impassioned playing of Chopin’s Andante Spianato et Grande Polonaise Brillante, Opus 22 ” the severe test of both pianist and piano ” that closed the first half of the recital.
Unfortunately, my pleasure in Li’s playing of Modest Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition” was severely dampened by a odd squeaking noise it took at least until the “Two Polish Jews” section to discover. A man seated across the aisle was flexing and rubbing his feet together. They were clad in shiny alligator shoes. He finally uncrossed said appendages, and then, when I wasn’t worrying about Li’s sweat landing on the Belanich’s keys, I was able to enjoy the rest of the piece right down to its ultra-sonorous close, “The Great Gate of Kiev.”
Next up for La Jolla Music Society at 8 p.m. Saturday, April 5, Sherwood Auditorium: Europa Galante, Fabio Biondi, violinist and conductor.
For additional programming visit www.ljms.org or call (858) 459-3728.