Search - Sergey Rachmaninov, Modest Mussorgsky, Sa Chen :: Rachmaninov: 6 Etudes Tableaux; Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition; A Night on Bald Mountain

On the right track; even better than some 'big guns'.

A. F. S. Mui | HK | 09/23/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Okay, there ARE better recordings of the pieces selected in this album, but they were ALL by more mature and maestro-status pianists, granted.

The Moussourgsky works are very well done - the tone colours and touching serve the pieces very well.

Sa Chen is never a keyboard technician in the sense of Yuja Wang or Lang Lang, but she has tons more musicality and poetry in her readings, and her tone is so much more beautiful than MOST reknowned pianists that she would virtually turn everything she plays into objects of beauty.

The Pics are much more musical than Pogo's and finer than Brendel's. So never mind if they do not measure up to Richter's or Horowitz's.

If she is able to keep up with this level, it is only a matter of time that she joins the historical big guns in pianoforte performance.

"

A Young Pianist Not Quite Ready to Join the Masters

J Scott Morrison | Middlebury VT, USA | 09/11/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Sa Chen is a young Chinese pianist who won third prize at the 2005 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition and was a student in China of the redoubtable Dan Zhaoyi and protégé of fabled Fou T'song in London. There is no question that she is the real deal.



However, this recital disc from the center of the virtuoso pianist repertoire (six of Rachmaninoff's Études tableaux and Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition) plus a transcription of Mussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain shows a pianist who while technically secure is still an immature musician. Night on Bald Mountain, an obscure transcription made by Konstantin Chernov of Rimsky-Korsakoff's version of Mussorgsky's tone poem, is nicely played, I suppose, but the transcription is clumsy. (Perhaps I simply much prefer to hear Rimsky's orchestration, which is so evocative.) I think most people would find the work negligible and not deserving of many hearings.



Chen chooses six of Rachmaninoff's seventeen études tableaux: Op. 33, Nos. 2 in C, 3 in E flat, & 5 in G minor; and Op. 39, Nos. 4 in B minor, 5 in G minor & 6 in E flat minor. She manages the slower études fairly well, but the more sprightly études lack lightness and spark although all the notes are in place. I particularly like the lyricism of the Op. 33, No. 5 in G minor. I was not convinced by the drama of Op. 39, No. 6 in A minor, which seemed a bit labored. I will continue to prefer the favorite performances of many cognescenti, those of Constance Keene Rachmaninoff: Etudes Tableaux Complete Op.33 & 39 or the classic Richter Rachmaninov: Preludes; Etudes-tableaux .



Some of the same criticisms might be applied to Chen's performance of Pictures at an Exhibition, except that it is the faster movements that are better (e.g., Ballet of the Unborn Chicks in Their Shells) (although the final page of 'Limoges. La grand marché' is smudged) and the slower, more atmospheric ones (e.g. Samuel Goldenburg and Schmuyle) that don't somehow convey their pathos. I would recommend, rather, the Richter The Sofia Recital 1958.



Scott Morrison"