Friday, June 8, 2012

David Ko Sets the Bar

If you're a semifinalist in the PianoArts competition, hosted at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music, and you happened to catch David Ko's performance Friday night, you are now officially on notice. Ko, who won the 2010 competition, showed the audience just how good this year's winner will have to be.

By way of a repertoire that included J.S. Bach, Beethoven, Debussy, Alban Berg and Franz Liszt, Ko's mastery of the piano was on full display Friday night. Ko was equally comfortable with slower, more romantic playing and faster, more technically precise passages. Particularly during Debussy's Estampes, he showed great awareness of when to slow down the piece and when to pour on the intensity. He's able to pull off the most stupendously complicated passages with little apparent effort, and then transition straight into calmer, more melodious bits with little or no ill effects. In Beethoven's Sonata No. 27, which he characterized as a "war between head and heart", the more forceful "head" theme comes in with jarring suddenness, and just as suddenly gives way to the calm, quiet "heart". It's not the easiest thing to pull off, but you'd never know that from watching Ko.

Not only did Ko win the competition outright, but he also took home the Audience Communication Award two years ago. Watching him tonight, I could see why; he stopped to give a little talk before each of his five pieces, and genuinely seemed to be enjoying himself during each one. Even better, the talks were genuinely informative. For a musical dunce such as myself, it's much appreciated when the artist plays samples of the main themes before the piece begins, tells you what they mean and points out where you might hear them. (I'm sure the aficionados in the audience could find reason to appreciate that as well.)

There were really only two things about the performance I didn't like. The first was a persistent electronic whine, right at the edge of one's hearing, likely caused by one of the small army of microphones surrounding Ko and his instrument. The second was a rather awkwardly timed encore; Ko had just finished the piece with Lizst's Venizia e Napoli, ending with the Tarentella, and that was the piece on the program that he probably got the most into.  Impassive through most of the rest of the performance, Ko smiled, grimaced, flourished and danced across the keyboard through a mesmerizing finale. The audience erupted with applause, Ko took his bows, and the whole thing seemed to have come to a satisfying and natural conclusion. But as people were standing up and getting ready to go, Ko flew back onstage for a quick, bloodless performance of "Dance of the Beautiful Maiden" that just felt out of place after the emotional Tarentella. It's an indictment of how good the previous couple of hours were, in a way, that the concert really didn't need any extra music.

Other than that, however, the show was magnificent. Semifinalists be warned: the bar has been set. As the great classical pianist Roy Jones Jr.* once said, "Go hard... or go home."

*Disclaimer: Roy Jones Jr. is the definition of not a classical pianist.

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