Music Reviews

Feb 11, 2000 - Pianist James Lent's Showman Concertizing at the Pioneer

By Jack Neal

Twenty-seven year old concert pianist James Lent easily captivated Wednesday's Washoe County Community Concert audience at the Pioneer. It's impossible to resist youth it seems, especially when it comes wrapped in such a blazingly talented package. Never mind that Mr. Lent looks even younger than his years, making him a kind of Leonardo DiCaprio of the piano. (At concert's end this gifted young pianist was kept busy signing autographs for a bevy of young, mostly female, admirers.)

No sinking ship, however, for this pianist. The program's first half was all Chopin and it set the tone for an evening of superbly played piano music that harkened back to the heyday of matinee idol concertizing a la Franz Liszt. Lent not only plays well, he mesmerizes with his artistry, he enchants with his showmanship.

One can only imagine how New Yorkers would take to Lent's all-blue second half: Concert Arabesques on Themes from Johann Strauss's "The Beautiful Blue Danube" for Piano (a transcription by Polish concert pianist Adolf Schultz-Ever), "Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues" (Frederic Rzewshi) and Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue." "Am I blue?" the old song goes. And indeed Mr. Lent was, lighting and all. How will that sort of Liberace thing play in Peoria? Wonderfully, I'm sure. It certainly played well here in Reno.ø0d

The concert's Chopin collection was elegantly managed without being effete. Lent's light, rhapsodic lyricsm suits the temperament of Chopin to a "T," making him one of the finest interpreters of Chopin I've heard. The physicality of his playing is impressive; Wednesday's program required substantial athletic prowess to bring off. It's Lent's combination of physical vitality and sublime artistry that I predict will set him upwardly apart from today's crowded field of up-and-coming pianists.

Chopin is one of the yardsticks that tests a pianist's metal and Lent passed with flying colors. The Berceuse in D flat Major, Op. 57, was lovingly, hauntingly played. The Scherzo No. 3 in C sharp Minor, Op. 39, was dazzling without dashing introspection. As brilliantly realized by Lent, the Andante Spianato and Grande Polonaise in E Flat Major, Op. 22, a showpiece of piano virtuosity, returns the performance of Chopin's music to its rightful place as heroic and impassioned. Nothing lightweight here.

As part of Community Concert's Young Musicians Encouragement Series, and sandwiched between the two halves of Mr. Lent's concert, was the impressive playing of 13-year old pianist Jiyang Chen. Chen played the first movement of Beethoven's Waldstein Sonata with an assured technique. Better yet, the Herculean tempestuousness of this mighty movement did not escape this young pianist. Chen's was a prodigious performance.

The concert's blue period was as wonderfully played as it was entertaining. The all-over-the-keyboard "Blue Danube" is the techniquely dashing stuff of a glittering Viennese ball and not one ounce of flamboyance was overlooked. The "Cotton Mill Blues," a descriptive fusion of the mechanical workings of a cotton mill with the sorry-time blues such drudge work brings on, was via Lent's ultra-revelatory reading powerful, poignant and earthy. Lent's "Rhapsody in Blue" had all the syncopated chutzpah, sophisticated melody, and brash arrogance of one of Gershwin's own performances, which says a great deal about this young pianist's possibilities. Who could ask for anything more?

Audiences often do. Debussy's "Clare de Lune" was the evening's encore. It was rapturously played.

Singers Lee Lessack and Joanne O'Brien will appear on March 8. The Chinese Golden Dragon Acrobats will close the current Community Concerts season on April 24. All regular season Washoe County Community Concerts programs are presented at the Pioneer Center for the Performing Arts, 100 South Virginia Street, Reno. For information regarding these concerts and other Community Concerts events call 775-786-7300.