Charlotte Hu: Liszt: Metamorphosis
Pentatone

The title Metamorphosis applies not only to the Hungarian composer whose works are presented on this digital release but also the pianist performing them, Charlotte Hu. If her name doesn't ring a bell, there's a reason: when she moved as a fourteen-year-old from Taiwan to study at The Juilliard School, she was known as Ching-Yun Hu, the name under which she established herself thereafter. Awards accrued, as did degrees (Juilliard, Cleveland Institute of Music, and Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media) and performances on prestigious globe stages. She's appeared at Carnegie Hall and the Concertgebouw, performed concertos with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, and is artist-in-residence at Philadelphia's Temple University. Along the way, she founded two piano festivals, the Yun-Hsiang International Music Festival in Taipei and the PYPA Piano Festival in Philadelphia. Of course she's a recording artist too and issued albums featuring Chopin and Rachmaninoff before making her Pentatone debut with this sixty-seven-minute Liszt collection. She's accompanied it with the next stage in her personal development, a change in stage name from Ching-Yun to Charlotte, the latter having French origins and meaning freedom.

In Hu's own words, the album title “mirrors both the metamorphic nature of the repertoire and my personal and professional journey.” Yet while her fully formed persona as a pianist permeates the album, the evolving pieces she chose by Liszt (1811-86) reflect changes in compositional style and temperament that occurred over many years. On the one hand, early works are virtuosic and reveal Beethoven as an inspiration, while ones written later find the composer venturing into more tonally abstract territory. Five pieces also capture Liszt's talent for transcribing and transforming material by others he admired, in this case Schubert and Schumann.

Interestingly, though, as the set-list isn't chronological, it doesn't document that metamorphosis as clearly as it might. Hu begins the album with 1877's “Les jeux d'eau à la Villa d'Este,” follows it with lieder transcriptions of art songs from 1838 and 1848, 3 Concert Études from 1845-49, and finally Rhapsodie espagnole from 1858. It's a small point perhaps, but strictly speaking “Les jeux d'eau à la Villa d'Este” should close the set, not open it, if the composer's evolution across four decades is intended to be recounted. That said, Hu's choice of sequencing doesn't significantly detract from the strong final impression one forms of the recording.

Hu's trademark virtuosity is omnipresent, and there are passages that are breathtaking in their display of technical command. She shows herself repeatedly adept at expressing the lyrical qualities of Liszt's music and his sensibility. One thing I would have preferred otherwise, however, is a slower choice of tempo in two cases. The one she chose for “Ständchen” (from Schubert's Schwanengesang) makes the material feel rushed, and consequently the dreamy languour the piece is capable of inducing is largely absent; rather than bask in slowly unfolding splendour, one feels hastened along (compare Hu's version to the sublime one delivered by Sandrine Erdely-Sayo on her own recent Liszt set on Navona Records, Majestic Liszt). “Auf dem Wasser zu singen,” the first of three selections from 12 Lieder von Franz Schubert, S. 558, is similarly delivered, such that while one is awed by Hu's towering execution one also wishes a slightly more ruminative tempo might have been adopted. Her lovely rendition of “Ave Maria,” on the other hand, is neither too slow nor too fast, and her deft adjustments in tempo bolster the lilting swoon of the piece. The fury with which the grandiose “Erlkönig” is handled is also adroit and smartly considered in all respects. Hu's take on the Schumann-based Liebeslied, S. 566 mesmerizes too for the poetic lyricism and majesty of her resplendent reading.

As mentioned, Metamorphosis begins with “Les jeux d'eau à la Villa d'Este” (from Années de Pèlerinage III, S.163), which, consistent with its Debussy-esque title (composed in 1877, it predated the French composer's work), is painterly in evocation and design. Hu's nuanced articulation of its shimmering, keyboard-spanning arpeggios sparkles and haunts in equal measure, and its almost Wagnerian main theme resonates vividly amidst the abundance of impressionistic textures. The recording's second half gets underway with 3 Concert Études, S. 144, its first, “Il lamento,” an epic, ten-minute travelogue of colossal scope and titanic emotional expression. The lyrical tenderness of which Hu's capable comes through vividly in her handling of “La leggierezza” and “Un sospiro,” as does her ability to scale dramatic peaks with authority. Inspired by Liszt's travels to the Iberian Peninsula in 1845, Rhapsodie espagnole, S. 254 brings the album to a thrilling close with a fourteen-minute musical excursion into Spanish culture. Declamatory statements, epic romantic outpourings, and effervescent dance gestures intermingle during the evocation, a rhapsodic expression delivered magnificently by the pianist. Anyone wanting a sampling of Hu's virtuosity need only jump to the passage eleven minutes into the journey.

September 2024