To Sharon_F _ Here's the skinny on Awadagin's concert

[athykay]

Well, he's gone from beefsteak to hero of the piano for me. 

Refer to this thread:  https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,6243.0.html 

Awadagin Pratt performed at Bates last night.  He's an amazingly powerful *and* sensitive performer.   I LOVED his program.  The first half started with the Beethoven Op. 109 which he did with complete technical mastery and wonderful nuance.  Then he did the Bach chromatic fantasy and fugue. I wasn't familiar with this piece.  All I  can say about it is "WOW"!  It hardly seemed like Bach it was harmonically so dense.  Of note was the fact that  Mr. Pratt  did not use the sustain pedal once throughout the piece.  Is that the norm these days for performing Bach?  In any event,  had I not observed this with my eyes, I would otherwise have not noticed it.  The performance was impeccably smooth.  He ended the first half with the Bach/Busoni Chaconne.  This was the highlight of the concert for me.  I  could understand the women swooning for Lizst  during this performance.  The power he had during the climatic points of this piece were amazing.  I can't imagine a better performance of this piece than what I heard last night.

The second half was a very thoughtful series of pieces that he explained to the audience were intended to flow from one to the other.  In fact, he asked that all applause be held until the end of the program  for  the second half.  He started with the Bauer transcription fo the Franck Prelude, Fuge and Variation , Op.18.   This was another piece I wasn't famailiar with, but I'm marching out and getting it now.  What a soulful, lush, melancholic work this is.  Again, I have no basis for comparison, never having heard it before, but suffice it so say, his performance sold me on the worthiness of the piece.  He then broke into three Rach pieces:  Moment Musical No. 3, to the Pelude No. 10 in b (remarkably similar thematically and no coincidence there) and then to the Prelue No. 12 in g#, and he ended with the Scriabin Etude in d#.  These pieces were al beautifully played, but  a gentle let down after the Bach/Busoni and the Franck.   I also felt he went just too fast on the Scriabin.  Or maybe I'm jealous because there's no way in Hell I could ever play it that fast. Probably the most unfortunate thing, on the last chord in the Scriabin, he did a left had crossover on that large end chord and landed on the wrong note.  Until that, he had played nary a wrong note.  Yikes, I felt  so bad for him because it just took the wind out of the end moment which otherwise would have been glorious. I could tell he just wanted to curse,  and it showed in the relatively muted applause; especially where all of the applause had been withheld throughout the whole second half of the program.

In any event, it was truly an awe-inspiring performance and his programming was very inventive. Truly, it was one of the best piano concert programs I've experienced and the guy is most definitely worth  experiencing first hand.

PS to Sharon.  I didn't find his body movements and position at all off-putting.  He did have a tendency to hunch over the piano during pianissimo sections, but I've seen other performers of note do the same - particularly Olga Kern.  One sort  of quirky thing he did, however was during the Bach performance.  He did this thing with his feet where one was in back of the bench and the other way forward.  Mind you, he didn't have the pedal to keep his feet busy during this peice.  At one climatic point he suddenly did this giant sliding step, switching the position of his feet.  It was almost acrobatic and I sort of wondered at that point how he could manage to continue to play.

[sharon_f]

Thank you so much for the review. I wish I could have been there.

What an interesting program. I love the Op. 109 and the Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue. (His Bach is really quite amazing!)

I have only heard him play Bach and Beethoven before so I was really interested in how he played the Romantic repertoire. (And the Chaconne really is a romantic piece.) I'm not familiar with the Bauer transcription (or for that matter the original) but I love Franck's music and it is a shame it's not performed more often. As far as the "ouch" moment at the end of the Scriabin I feel for him. (I had a friend years ago who missed the very last note of the Chopin B-flat minor Scherzo in a competition, but still managed to win!)

Once again, thank you so very much for the report.

[steinwayguy]

I get to hear him perform Beethoven's 4th concerto this weekend with the local symphony orchestra, I can't wait!!!