Nobuyuki Tsujii 's Carnegie Hall Debut -- Paul Shaw

This review of the Nov. 10, 2011 debut recital of Nobuyuki Tsujii at the Carnegie Hall was posted on the facebook page of Mr. Paul Shaw, who studied at the The Juilliard School

NO BARRIERS: Nobuyuki Tsujii Plays Carnegie Hall Debut Recital

by Paul Shaw

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=639152249&sk=wall

(posted on Nov 15, 2011)

Lest anyone showed up at Carnegie Hall on Thursday evening, November 10, 2011 wondering whether the blind-since-birth co-winner of the 2009 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition could successfully negotiate the classical canon under the close scrutiny of a knowledgeable New York audience, Japanese pianist Nobuyuki Tsujii immediately established himself as a fearless titan of the keyboard in the eyes of all who cared to see.

Mr. Tsujii had the nerve to open his program with John Musto’s rhythmically intricate and relentlessly virtuosic “Improvisation and Fugue,” which he alone had also offered from a mandatory menu of four new works in the semi-final round of the Cliburn Competition. Perhaps more daring, however, was his decision to fill the remainder of the program, by contrast, with standard warhorses familiar to even the most casual classical piano music listener: Beethoven’s “Tempest” Sonata, Liszt’s “Un Sospiro” and the “Rigoletto” Concert Paraphrase, and Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition.”

Except for an uncustomary lyrical treatment of the opening “Promenade” and a rather underwhelming arrival at “The Great Gate of Kiev” in the Mussorgsky as well as two perceived miscalculations in tempo that resulted in a Beethoven second movement without gravitas and “Un sospiro ” that was more of “a gasp” than “a sigh,” there were no major disappointments . . . or revelations. Nobuyuki Tsujii is a normal super-virtuoso pianist with extraordinary musical talent, period.

The most striking features of Tsujii’s playing are his limitless technical facility, sincerity of expression, and impeccable timing. The Beethoven first movement was a well-paced and heartfelt recitation; the fading tones of Mussorgsky’s “Bydlo” and the transition to the subsequent statement of the ”Promenade” were mesmerizing; “The Marketplace at Limoges” was a breakneck bustle; and the right-hand tremolo in “Cum mortuis in lingua mortua” was as serene as is super-humanly possible.

It is obviously too early to place a final postscript on the 23-year-old Tsujii’s burgeoning career. Yet, his essential message came to light in the commingling of three stylistically diverse encores – a touchingly rendered arrangement, presumably his own, of Stephen Foster’s “Jeanie With the Light Brown Hair” followed by the Chopin “Raindrop” Prelude, and finally, an Andrew Lloyd Weber-like piece, which an Asian member of the audience, at least a third of whom appeared to be Japanese, identified as Mr. Tsujii’s own “Elegy for the Victims of the Earthquake and Tsunami of March 11, 2011.” Ultimately, Nobuyuki Tsujii left us all with his vision of a non-discriminatory world in which musician and audience, regardless of the perennial categorizations of age, race, creed, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, religion, or disability, are free to come together, explore, and even enjoy a variety of musical genres. He truly epitomizes his belief that “there are no barriers in the field of Music.”