Reviews

A Pianistic Conquest: The Complete Chopin Études

By Anthony Tommasini, The New York Times
Published: June 8, 2009

For serious pianists, from advanced students to seasoned artists, working on the Chopin études is an essential, lifelong endeavor. In popular perception, Chopin may be a dreamy Romantic who brought poetic flights and rhapsodic freedom to his extraordinary piano pieces. But he also had a serious pedagogical side. For nearly seven years, from his late teens to his mid-20s, he analyzed the art of playing the piano and channeled his thoughts into two books of études, 12 in each. These pieces explore every dimension of piano technique: arpeggios, double octaves, double thirds, rolled chords, leaps, spiraling passagework, repeated chords and much more. If you can play the 24 Chopin études, you can play anything written for the piano. Recitals that offer the complete Chopin preludes, or waltzes, scherzos, ballads, nocturnes and such, are fairly common. But it is not often that a pianist plays the complete Chopin études in a single program. Taken together, the 24 pieces last only about an hour. But there is no more intimidating hour of music in the piano repertory.

So it was well worth attending the recital by the pianist Irena Portenko, who holds degrees from the Kiev Conservatory in her native Ukraine and a doctorate from the University of Michigan, at Weill Recital Hall on Saturday, presented by Artists International. Ms. Portenko played through Chopin’s études with a relaxed and resourceful technique. In some of the works her playing was dutiful, lacking in color and spontaneity. At times she sounded a little underpowered and pale. No doubt she held back to conserve her energy. If her performances were missing some sweep and fire, her playing was admirably honest and clear-textured.

There are classic recordings by legendary pianists who performed the Chopin études in concert, including Alfred Cortot’s elegant, if imperfect, accounts from the 1930s, and the tasteful, technically exquisite recordings by Claudio Arrau from the ’50s. It might seem out of character, but Rudolf Serkin, the masterly interpreter of central Germanic repertory and never a flashy technician, sometimes played the second book of Chopin Études (Op. 25) complete in recital. Incredibly, at 13, the prodigious Chinese pianist Lang Lang played the complete Chopin études for a major recital in Beijing. The surprising no-show here was Arthur Rubinstein, who performed and recorded (sometimes many times over) almost the entire Chopin repertory except for the études. “I played many in concerts,” Rubinstein wrote in the second volume of his autobiography, “but left out those to which I felt I couldn’t do justice.”

Chopin ingeniously turned each of these technical studies into an imaginative composition. But to present them as engaging works, a pianist must utterly conquer the technical challenges. Some of the hardest études are those that, to nonpianists, may seem the least brilliant. On the surface the Étude No. 2 in A minor seems straightforward and impishly charming. As the right hand plays a fleet line of 16th-notes that creeps chromatically up and down the keyboard, the left hand blithely plays an oompah chord pattern. But on the first of every four notes in those right-hand runs, the pianist must fill out the harmony with two more notes to complete a chord, relying heavily on the outer, weaker fingers. Only pianists who have worked on this étude understand how difficult it is.

Ms. Portenko played it at a lithe pace, with notable clarity in the scale patterns and a gentle lilt in the left-hand chords. She was at her best in the more tumultuous études, including No. 12 (“Revolutionary”), with its punishing runs for the left hand, and No. 23 in A minor (often called “Winter Wind”), with its cascading right-hand passagework and stern theme in left-hand chords. Whatever the shortcomings of her performances, Ms. Portenko pulled off a feat that puts her in a select company.

Irena Portenko, piano
Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall

By Edith Eisler, New York Concert Review Inc.
Published: June 6, 2009

Of all Chopin's piano compositions, none are more notoriously difficult than the Etudes. Even the famous Chopin exponent Artur Rubinstein confessed to being "scared to death" of them. Of the 24 Etudes, only a fairly límited number are played often enough to have become popular; complete performances are very rare. So when a young píanist programs both sets on her New York recital debut, it indicates great courage and raises great expectations.

It is a pleasure to report that the Ukrainian pianist Irena Portenko amply fulfilled those expectations. After announcing that she was dedicating the recital to "the loving memory of her grandparents", she plunged into the cascading arpeggios of the first Etude with a sweeping energy which, though she was clearly still warming up, left no doubt that she was fully equal to the Etudes' most daunting demands.

The Etudes, or "studies", concentrate on specific pianistic problems indicated by their names: "Thirds" (Op. 25 No. 6), "Sixths" (Op. 25 No. 8), "Octaves" (Op. 25 No. 10), "Black Keys", (Op. 10 No. 5). Some also have names referring to their character: "Butterfly" (Op. 25 No. 9), and one of the most famous, "Revolutionary" (Op. 10 No. 12). Ms. Portenko met all their challenges with admirable ease and aplomb. Her sound was sonorous and powerful without getting harsh, and she achieved high speeds without seeming rushed. She brought out the Etudes' distinctive moods, but the slow, lyrical ones tended to be a bit sentimental, with push-and-pull rubatos and hesitations. Her tone needed more variety of dynamics and color, and she often used so much pedal that the running passages became blurred and muddy. But these are small cavils Ín a most auspicious debut, which was rewarded with a standing ovation (and many flowers) by a large, enthusiastic audience.

A graduate of the Ukranian National Academy of Music and the University of Michigan with Doctorates in Performance and Collaborative Piano, Ms. Portenko has performed in recital, with orchestra and in chamber music in Europe and America. Winner of numerous international prizes, she appeared at Weill Hall as Recipient of Artists International's Special Presentation Award.

Classical music for the pop culture set
DSO's Daugherty has fun in bold concert

By Mark Stryker, Detroit Free Press
Published: October 25, 2002

3 STARS out of 4
Michael Daugherty, composer, with the University of Michigan Contemporary Directions Ensemble Wednesday, Detroit Institute of Arts.

One of the charms of Pro Musica's concerts at the Detroit Institute of Arts is the invitation to roam the museum before the performance. Wednesday's official tour took patrons through the Dutch galleries, but I sneaked off to the American wing. With a program devoted to the Day-Glo-colored classical music of Michael Daugherty on the horizon, it made more sense to ruminate on Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg and Roy Lichtenstein than on the Delft school and Rembrandt. Daugherty, resident composer of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and professor at the University of Michigan, has much in common with the pop artists. He shares their obsession with the icons and artifacts of popular culture, their calculated brashness and frank expression. Love it or loathe it, Daugherty's music hides no secrets. Just as Lichtenstein had his comic books and Warhol his Brillo boxes and his Jackie O, Daugherty has James Brown riffs, piano-lounge clichés. Vegas kitsch, Elvis — and, well, Jackie O, the subject of his 1997 opera in which Warhol, Liz Taylor and Maria Callas are supporting characters.

Daugherty, 48, was on hand Wednesday to narrate the program, employing an engaging slide show to summarize his life and influences. He even delivered a raffish version of "Misty" at the piano; before finding his legs as a composer, Daugherty supported himself as a pianist.

The most powerful work on the program happened to be for solo piano — "Venetian Blinds," which was recently premiered at an Italian contemporary-music festival. About 12 minutes long, the piece alternates soft, muted chords and suspiciously trembling bass notes with thrilling outbursts, furious glissandos up and down the keyboard and rapid trills; I thought of a love child of Charles Ivés and Liberace.

An abstract veneer kept melting into primary-colored harmony, melody and form, but the shadings of light and dark — Daugherty said he was thinking of film noir - informed the music with a mystery and depth lacking in other works on the program. Pianist Irena Portenko's exciting reading unlocked the music's technical challenges. (The performers Wednesday, save a couple ringers, were U-M students.)