Jeremy Chan
Miracles at Milton Court
I had no intention of commenting on Jeremy’s graduation recital today but just wanted to support him on his final recital after five years of intensive study at the Guildhall . What we heard this morning was so extraordinary that I am moved to write about it and share such a wondrous experience with whoever might be foolish enough to read my scribblings ! It reminds me of another rare occasion when I met a pianist in Cremona and he asked me if I would like to come to his graduation recital at 10 am like today.
It was a recital by a young Hong Kong born pianist Ka Jeng Wong and how could I ever forget one of the finest performances of the ‘Hammerklavier’ I have ever heard. He now has a flourishing career and has become quite famous in Hong Kong!
There was magic in the air today too as this young man having graduated from Durham University with honours now has time to practise and dedicate himself to a performing career. I had heard Jeremy a few years ago in Perugia, the home of Angela Hewitt and since then I have heard him play lunchtime recitals on varying ‘casseroles’ in churches in London, building up valuable playing experience. Today I heard a pianist where all the ingredients have come together but as Curzon used to say playing then piano is 90% work and 10% talent. Many have one without the other and it is rare indeed when talent combines with hard work to produce an artist worthy of interpreting the great masterpieces for piano. Today Jeremy has come of age and can take the stage as he did today with the knowledge and mastery to be able to bring the greatest masterpieces to a public too often contented by entertainers not dedicated interpreters. The Brahms F minor sonata is one of the hardest works to play as it is not the quantity of notes but the rhythmic precision needed allied to a poetic and architectural understanding of this vast Symphony for the Piano. From the very opening if the rhythm is not absolutely precise the structure can fall flat on its face and sag and drag in a very longwinded way. Jeremy’s precision was allied to a passionate involvement and poetic sensibility with a range of sounds and colours that was worthy of the greatest of symphony orchestras. Octaves fearlessly strewn into the path never having to alter the overall pulse that like a great wave was ever present and took us from the first to the very last note. A slow movement of sublime sounds richly embroidered but never entangled in personal emotions but deeply felt within the very notes themselves. Passionate climaxes were played with searing intensity dissolving to a whispered only to be reawakened in a paradise of sublime contemplation. A Scherzo that just shot from Jeremy’s fingers with authority and daring leading to the extraordinary introduction to the final movement. Timeless beauty of emotionless beauty preparing us for the monumental final movement. I know it was hot in the hall and obviously much hotter for Jeremy than of us mere spectators but I would not have had a pause or even moved between these two extraordinary movements. A final movement that was like the last movement of the B flat concerto, Capricious, noble, majestic but above all aristocratic and sumptuous with a burning excitement of exhilaration and glorification.
