Christian Gamboa: Duo Recital

The Latin phrase "sub rosa" literally means "under the rose", but figuratively means to be secretive. In ancient Greece and Rome, but also in medieval England and present-day Scotland, what is said 'under the rose' was/is regarded as secret and untouchable. Now, as anyone who has spent five minutes in the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music knows, their primary concert hall is festooned with roses; they're all over the walls and the ceiling. Christian Gamboa's first piece literally took place sub rosa, and after listening to Franz Lizst's Harmonies poétiques et religieuses, I began to wonder what the piece was hiding. It's as foreboding as a piano can sound, a real brooding piece that spends most of its time south of middle C. Even when Gamboa made it up to the higher end of the keyboard, Lizst still sounded really brooding and nasty. Gamboa played off that trend, using the pedals to add a menacing kind of shimmer to the whole thing. He also managed the transition well to a calmer, less introverted, more optimistic sound.

Following the Lizst, cellist Scott Tisdel came on-stage again to play in Schumann's Drei Fantasiestücke, another piece that was played several times. The name of the first fantasie translates to "Delicately and with expression," which it certainly sounded in the hands of Gamboa and Tisdel. They got a really nice, babbling-brook sound early on in one of the more delicate bits, and did a good job passing musical phrases back and forth and building on them as they went. Both players sounded somewhat cavalier in the second fantasie. That section finished with a little flourish, whereupon Tisdel and Gamboa charged into the third fantasie--"Fast and with fire"--extremely quickly and furiously.

Gamboa's final piece of the day was Mendelssohn's Concerto No. 2 in A Minor, composed (as Gamboa told the crowd) for an English music festival. After getting a few laughs by making fun of Mendelssohn's romantic difficulties, of which there were many, Gamboa called Jeannie Yu up on stage as the orchestra piano and began the piece. He darted nimbly around the keyboard during some light, gossamer passages that showcased his ability to play delicately once more, then tossed a very active theme back and forth with Yu. Their final exchange drew not just applause from the crowd, but a chorus of hushed "Wow!" sounds.