Neo Hung at 10 am played the opening fanfare of Bach Busoni C major Toccata , Adagio and Fugue better than Horowitz did at 4 pm in 1965!
Authority and mastery of the Gilels school of limpet like fingers that suck every sound out of the notes they cling too with nobility and sumptuous beauty
A mastery from this unassuming young man, a student of Dina Parkhina and the great Russian school born of hard work, dedication and talent.
A radiant beauty to the Adagio with the breathtaking daring of Bach’s extraordinary interruptions .
All recreated by this young man with the same impact it must have had with the ink still wet on the page .
A fugue played with fearless clarity and exhilaration . Even Bach’s revolutionary juxtaposition of keys came across with the same terrifying impact it must have had in its day .
His jump from the furness of a fervent believer into the cool running stream of ‘An Autumn Moon on a Calm Lake’ was with liquid sounds of velvet beauty. I have never forgotten the sound that I thought only Gilels could make.
Hollywood style , as is Chinese classical music, but of fantasy and refined good taste .
I was cheer leader and purposefully did not applaud because Liszt ‘s Auf Wasser was exactly a perfect twin as a combination.
These Liszt reworkings of Schubert Lieder are every bit of genius as Schubert’s with poetry attached .
They have long been a favourite of the great Russian pianists of the past when mastery of subtle sounds and a magical sense of balance gave way to the revolutionary sound world of the twentieth century composers brought up in the rugged and brutal air .
And it was this that is ever present in Prokofiev’s War Sonatas of which Neo played the second – n 7
But Neo played it with an unexpected lyricism from the very first notes . Of course there was a whole orchestra in his hands but always with a kaleidoscope of colours of the greatest of orchestras . A sense of colour and line that leads us on a journey in a maze of wonders .Canons. there were indeed, but unlike Chopin not covered in flowers but with the suffering of the imminent holocaust in the composers soul .
I have never heard the second movement played with such an aching pulsating sense of line and inevitability . When the opening melody unexpectedly appears on the horizon it was somehow transformed for us by what we had suffered on the way back.
The last movement was a relentless tour de force of mastery and dynamism and the painting of Munch came to mind as Neo’s mastery seemed to know no limits .
A scream indeed, of unbridled mastery
And what better way to diffuse such astonishing barberism than a Barcarolle by Fauré ( one of many sadly neglected by pianists these days) . It was like a breath of rarified French air with the refined beauty and elegance that was to disappear after the two world wars.
French perfume was in the air and nullified the stench of the rage that man can still be capable of.
ChristopherAxworthy-MusicCommentary 