The high-ceilinged sanctuary with its beautiful stained-glass window over the altar at Newport’s Emmanuel Church (Episcopal), which shares its home with Newport Classical, had a fully packed audience in attendance Saturday afternoon for the piano recital of festival artist Llewellyn Sánchez-Werner, a prize-winning performer of international stature who began his career as a child prodigy at the age of 6. This was his second season appearing with Newport Classical, and he also played a recital last season for Jamestown Community Piano Association on neighboring Conanicut Island, better known as the community of Jamestown.
As if on cue, a bat swooped across the sanctuary to the dark opening notes of the Lisztian recitative-like passage that begins Chopin’s Scherzo no. 3 op. 39. Sánchez-Werner held back a bit as the first theme fought to surge forward with its rapid octaves, as a rider trying to control their horse, later to give in and let go at a full gallop, but not yet, as the composer himself kept trying to hold back — halting back on the reins and attempting a gentler themed response — the octaves surging forward each time until finally letting loose to finish out the first section. Three tolling notes (A-flat) transition from the tension ridden key of C-sharp minor to the quiet chorale in D-flat major, beautifully voiced by Sánchez-Warner, each strain answered by a shimmering of cascading passages, with each strain of the chorale growing more noble, until a final tolling of bells and sweeping passage work herald the final triumphant sounding of the chorale, only to return to now unbridled return of the first theme running octaves. When the chorale returns it is by turns dark, uncertain, each strain trying to find its calm, but ultimately giving in to a tumultuous burst of speed and virtuosity the final chords triumphant only by their turn from the minor to C-sharp major in a grand crashing finale. In this opening work Sánchez-Werner showed not only his extraordinary pianism, but also his gifts as a poet-storyteller at the keyboard, able to weave a sense of the literary drama that infused these masterworks of the piano repertoire, establishing himself as one in a continuing line of pianists that began in the so called Golden Age by pianists such as Chopin and Liszt, and their students down through the generations.
In Chopin’s Barcarolle in F-sharp Major op. 60, the normally calm and gentle rolling motion of a gondola in peaceful waters instead had restless undercurrents, with only occasional islands of repose. The finely sculpted phrases increased in intensity until bursting forth in a grand and noble finish, again showing the pianist’s gifts of making finely wrought individual parts cohere.
Beethoven’s late Sonata no 28 in A Major op. 101 closed the first half. The first movement is marked Allegretto ma non troppo but also contains the additional German instruction to be played “with an inner depth of feeling.” The paints interpreted these contradictory and conflicting instructions to render the opening theme with more expressive freedom and liberty than forward motion, and while perhaps a departure from the norm, allowed for a more convicted shaping of the sonata as a unified whole rather than as three separate movements. The second movement “fast in the manner of a march” drove forward with boldness but also had its lyric qualities, some playfulness in the imitative sections, but with an overall sense of seriousness and a quality of “raw grit” that defines Beethoven beyond the courtlier and more refined milieu around him. Beethoven once wrote of his need to deepen his sense of composition (letters regarding his Opus 31 which includes The Tempest) and in his most dire moment to find purpose in writing as a reason for living (Heiligenstadt Testament). In this spirit, Sánchez-Werner’s Langsam – Adagio movement was deeply expressive, the thick chords beautifully voiced, leading to a poignant return of the very opening motives of the sonata’s first movement before launching into the glorious final movement, like the wind, with its imitative writing, expansive use of all registers and grand exciting finish.
The somewhat lighter fare prevailed for the second half, received no less virtuosic intensityEarl Wild’s transcription of Jesús González Rubio’s Jarebe Tapatío, more commonly known as the “Mexican Hat Dance,” evoking the pianist’s Mexican heritage, also has a rich history not only in the locales of its origination, but also in hoe the dance makes connections with the Mexican Revolution for Independence. Llewellyn Sánchez-Werner’s own transcription of the Consuelo Velásquez hit song Bésame Mucho followed. The composer’s connections with Jalisco (birth) and the Guadalajara region of Mexico (growing up), opened areas of common heritage with the pianist.
Liszt’s Valée d’Obermann from the Années de pèlerinage – Première année: Suisse), a reflective work but displaying intense octave work in its final moments, was inspired by lines of a novel. The wandering Obermann, trying to find meaning in life, being overcome by the natural beauty surrounding him, somewhat true of Liszt himself.
Another virtuosic tour de force and again a bow to Sánchez-Werner’s Mexican heritage, Manuel Ponce’s Ballada Mexicana, closed the concert. It combines folkloric melodies with Lisztian pianism. For an encore we were treated to a cleansing, free and liberating Prelude and Fugue in B-flat Major from Bach’s Well Tempered Clavier Book I.