The story of Nobuyuki Tsujii’s success is incredible. By the age of seven he was winning prizes in his native Japan. At ten, he made his concerto debut in Osaka. In his early twenties, he tied for the gold medal in the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. Child prodigies are nothing new in classical music, but Nobu, as he is known to his legion of fans – many of whom flocked to the Queen Elizabeth Hall for this International Piano Series recital – was born blind.
Tsujii can read Braille scores, but learns music largely by ear from tapes prepared by assistants, breaking the music into small sections. Watching him perform, one marvels at how he overcomes his handicap. Led to the piano, he has to run his right hand to the end of the keyboard to gauge where to place his hands to start playing. He seems to follow the notes as they float away into the atmosphere. His sense of touch must be heightened, hence much dusting of keys with a handkerchief between numbers.
Like most concertgoers, I prefer to sit “keyboard side” of any concert hall, to be able to observe a pianist’s technique. Here, one was constantly aware – and in awe – of the sheer feat of performing this music without the gift of sight. It’s easy to appreciate why Tsujii’s audiences are so devoted. But if I closed my eyes, as I frequently did during this programme, my ears told a different story.
There is no doubting the technique. The cascading runs in Debussy’s Reflets dans l’eau glittered and the turbulent storms in Chopin’s Scherzi thundered. But from the Satie Gymnopédies which opened the programme, there was a nagging doubt that Tsujii is not always the most musical of performers. Take the melancholy Gymnopédie no. 1, which looks deceptively simple on paper. The left hand rocked gently enough, but the right hand, where the spare melody meanders in single notes, lacked either legato or a sense of line; the notes were merely punched out without any feeling that they knew where they were going.