KATHERINE CHI: Honens Laureate Series: Beethoven Rachmaninov

Katherine Chi

Honens Laureate Series: Beethoven Rachmaninov

© 2003 Honens International Piano Competition (775020555228)

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She takes on two of the great composers of the Romantic era: Beethoven and Rachmaninov. Music full of big emotions and beautiful melodies.

tracks

1 Sonata in B-flat major Op. 106 Hammerklavier: I. Allegro
2 Sonata in B-flat major Op. 106 Hammerklavier: II. Scherzo
3 Sonata in B-flat major Op. 106 Hammerklavier: III. Adagio
4 Sonata in B-flat major Op. 106 Hammerklavier: IV. Largo
5 Variations on a Theme of Corelli Op. 42: Theme: Andante
6 Variations on a Theme of Corelli Op. 42: I. Poco più mosso
7 Variations on a Theme of Corelli Op. 42: II. L'istesso tempo
8 Variations on a Theme of Corelli Op. 42: III. Tempo di menuetto
9 Variations on a Theme of Corelli Op. 42: IV. Andante
10 Variations on a Theme of Corelli Op. 42: V. Allegro
11 Variations on a Theme of Corelli Op. 42: VI. L'istesso tempo
12 Variations on a Theme of Corelli Op. 42: VII. Vivace
13 Variations on a Theme of Corelli Op. 42: VIII. Adagio misterioso
14 Variations on a Theme of Corelli Op. 42: IX. Un poco più mosso
15 Variations on a Theme of Corelli Op. 42: X. Allegro scherzando
16 Variations on a Theme of Corelli Op. 42: XI. Allegro vivace
17 Variations on a Theme of Corelli Op. 42: XII. Agitato
18 Variations on a Theme of Corelli Op. 42: XIII. Intermezzo
19 Variations on a Theme of Corelli Op. 42: XIV. Andante
20 Variations on a Theme of Corelli Op. 42: XV. L'istesso tempo
21 Variations on a Theme of Corelli Op. 42: XVI. Allegro vivace
22 Variations on a Theme of Corelli Op. 42: XVII. Meno mosso
23 Variations on a Theme of Corelli Op. 42: XVIII. Allegro con brio
24 Variations on a Theme of Corelli Op. 42: XIX. Più mosso-Agitato
25 Variations on a Theme of Corelli Op. 42: XX. Più mosso
26 Variations on a Theme of Corelli Op. 42: XXI. Coda: Andante

notes

Calgary-native Katherine Chi became the first woman, and the first Canadian, to win the Honens International Piano Competition (2000). A gifted young performer whom The Boston Globe asserted was “on a line headed straight up,” Chi went from The Curtis Institute to the New England Conservatory, where she performed her graduation recital in 1997. It was clear that she belonged on the international stage when, two years before her Honens win, she was a prize winner at the Busoni International Piano Competition.

Katherine Chi is widely hailed wherever she performs. Her programming is eclectic, “Her program was a humdinger, bristling with challenge,” a review in The Globe and Mail said. “Chi’s playing left virtuosity in the dust,” said the Ottawa Citizen. Her Weill Recital Hall debut at Carnegie Hall drew the following words from The New York Times: “Ms Chi displayed a keen musical intelligence and a powerful arsenal of technique.”

Review:

Katherine Chi, piano. (New York).
Source: American Record Guide
Publication Date: 01-JULY-03

I remember writing about the first Esther Honens International Piano Competition of 1992 for ARG after hearing the semi-final and final rounds
while I was in Calgary conducting a seminar for aspiring music critics at Mt Royal College—one of the sideshows for the main event that also
included recitals by all the jurors and even master classes from some of the participants. I expressed particular regret that one of the Honens
contestants, Katherine Chi, didn't make it to the last round. Her account of the Schubert G-flat Impromptu, D.899:3, made a lasting impression,
and I felt that her superb performance of the Brahms F minor Piano Quintet with the Shanghai Quartet ought to have earned her at least the
reward for the best chamber music performance. But all's well that ends well. Katherine Chi returned for another go at the Honens in 2000 and that
time garnered the first prize; her April 23 recital at Weill Hall was her (and our) reward.

Chi is Canadian by birth but largely American by training. She attended Curtis as a youngster, where she studied with Seymour Lipkin (himself a
Rudolf Serkin student), and of course spent some time at Marlboro. When I heard her in the 1992 Honens, she had been studying in Boston with
Russell Sherman and, I was told, moved to England to take some lessons from the Russian pianist Nikolai Demidenko (who had been on the
Honens jury). She spent a few years in Italy, and the still youthful artist is now based in Cologne. She is no longer a superstudent, but a thoroughly
seasoned performer.

How many players of any age or experience could begin a program with Beethoven's daunting Hammerklavier Sonata and deliver that behemoth
with such certitude and musical command? Chi opted for a middle-ground interpretive approach, eschewing on the one hand Beethoven's insanely
fast metronome marking (a half-note equals 138) and, on the other, post-Wagnerian inflation. And from my seat on the left side I could see that
Chi, to her eternal credit, took note of the composer s instructions to take the opening leaps of the first movement with her left hand alone, and
was familiar with many of the controversial textual options (she chose a variant in the third movement, from one of the sonata's London editions; I
remember hearing Peter Serkin play it on one of his Pro Arte recordings). And, most important, she made the piece sound completely fiery,
innovative, convincing, and logical. Without undue pushing and pulling about, she was able to make the many transitions of mood and tempo while
at the same time remindin g us that op. 106 is the cumulative outgrowth of the quintessential classical sonata. Her masterly reading put me in
mind of Solomon's elevated early 1950s reading for EMI (now on Testament). No higher praise could be offered.

Schoenberg's Six Little Piano Pieces, Op. 19, miracles of the composer's newly atonal style and of almost Webernesque compression, were rendered
with fierce concentration and exquisite, audacious contrasts. I have noted on other occasions that much of Schoenberg's piano music is a direct
outgrowth of late Brahms; that too--but as Chi played these pieces she also re-created a more restless Beethovenian emotional world.
I am (to say the least) no great admirer of Leopold Godowsky's ornate decadence, but the great pianist's Symphonic Metamorphosis on Themes
from Johann Strauss's "Fledermaus" was dispatched with the sort of technical savvy that precious few modern virtuosos could manage (Chi's
rendition had brains as well as brawn). And what a pleasure to hear, as one of her encores, her singing performance of the Schubert Impromptu I
had heard at the Honens competition. It exactly confirmed my memory of Calgary, 1992.

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