Part of a crop of exceptional pianists, now in their late 20s and early 30s, George Li, a Boston-born Wunderkind, had to travel a more arduous road than others from mere virtuosity to veritable artistry. Only in recent years has he proven that, beyond grasping the architecture and the ineffableness of different scores, he can make his own interpretative voice heard.
Li dedicated the first half of his Zankel Hall recital to the music of Robert Schumann, selecting two works conceived during the troubled period of courtship between the composer and Clara Wieck. Both pieces – the relatively short, ABACA-structured Arabeske and the collection of 18 little gems named Davidsbündlertänze – are characterised by a continuous sway between contrasting moods that the pianist played with great care for contrapuntal details and daring harmonic excursions. In Li’s interpretation, the dialogues between the two Schumann inner personalities – the impetuous Florestan and the contemplative Eusebius – had a yin-yang quality, in the sense that in many of the utterances meant to be just wild or pensive there was a perceptible presence of the opposite character’s temperament.
Schumann attributed several of Davidsbündlertänze’s numbers to both Eusebius and Florestan, and these, not the ones where the hotheaded Florestan is galloping into battle, are arguably the most challenging to play. No. 10, “Balladically. Very fast”, belongs to an angry, emphatic Florestan, but there are brief interludes where Eusebius competes for the listener’s attention; Li played them with sensitivity, without overemphasising any poignancy. In no. 13, “Wildly and funny”, the interplay between determination and tenderness was exquisitely rendered. The 17th, “As if from afar”, assumes a blending between serenity and tension, a target only partially achieved here.
Davidsbündlertänze’s last movement is a contemplative waltz that appeared to be an appropriate bridge between Schumann’s oeuvre and Ravel’s Valses nobles and sentimentales, played after the interval. Nominally, “a series of waltzes in imitation of Schubert”, the ensemble of eight pieces seemed to recall, at least in this interpretation, Schumannesque compositional traits. There is a cyclical cohesiveness in Ravel’s work – in terms of motif and tonality transformations – that is many times ignored and that could be understood as a reference to early Schumann. Li made sure to underline it, emphasising how motivic identity is preserved along movements or how several of them begin where their predecessor in the series ended (the 7th waltz starts with a reference to the cadence ending the 6th; melody and rhythm provide a charming transition between the 3rd and the 4th). In another potential nod to Schumann’s heritage, Ravel’s “Epilogue” echoed the German composer’s signature Eusebius-evoking type of coda. In Li’s rendition, a work that could be regarded just as an enrichment of the Viennese waltz tradition with impressionistic harmonies was imbued with additional, unexpected connotations.
For those expecting Stravinsky’s Three Movements from Petrushka to be an explosion of percussive fireworks, Li prepared a more nuanced approach. The swirls of notes were indeed rendered with utmost finger dexterity, but there was also humour in repeatedly rendering Petrushka’s four-note motif and, more, there were moments of respite – in both Danse russe and Chez Pétrouchka – when the keyboard was touched with Eusebius attributable delicacy.
Four encores – the Melody from Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice, Horowitz’s Variations on a Theme from Bizet's Carmen, Chopin’s Prelude Op.28 no.15 and Paganini’s La Campanella in Liszt’s transcription – in fine, but not exceptional versions, could also be perceived, with their alternating frames of mind, as a continuation of a dialogue between Eusebius and Florestan started two hours before.
