October 18, 2024
Emerson Hall, Schwartz center for Performing arts
Atlanta, GA – USA
Zee Zee, piano.
Pyotr Ilyich TCHAIKOVSKY: Sonata in C-Sharp Minor
Frédéric CHOPIN: Selected Waltzes
Samuel BARBER: Piano Sonata
TCHAIKOVSKY/tr. Mikhail PLETNEV: Suite from “The Sleeping Beauty,” Op. 66
Mark Gresham | 24 OCT 2024
On Friday, October 18, 2024, the concert pianist known as Zee Zee (birth name: Zhang Zuo, 左章) brought a dynamic, ambitious program to Emerson Hall at the Schwartz Center for Performing Arts built around three selections from Années de pèlerinage by Franz Liszt. The program included music by three other composers, Richard Wagner, Arnold Schoenberg, and Maurice Ravel. Most of the selections were drawn from Zee Zee’s latest album, Journey.
“Liszt is one of the most important pianists and composers for the piano in the history of classical music,” Zee Zee says in the program notes. “These pieces deeply influenced both contemporary and later musicians. They either explore the same theme or elaborate on Liszt’s innovative writing style.”
The concert opened with Liszt’s piano transcription of the “Prelude” to Act I of the oprea Tristan und Isolde by his son-in-law, Richard Wagner. This opera’s famous “Tristan chord,” which appears in the very first moments of the score, profoundly influenced Liszt’s approach to harmony.
Zee Zee’s interpretation revealed the expressive potential of the piano to carry the Wagnerian drama with both clarity and deep emotional engagement. Her treatment of the opening was measured and poignant; she brought a satisfying coherence to the shifting tonal landscapes.
Fittingly, next on the program came Arnold Schoenberg’s Drei Klavierstücke, Op. 11 (“Three Piano Pieces”), composed in 1909. Schoenberg was a leading figure in the shift away from traditional tonal music, and Drei Klavierstücke marks a pivotal moment in music history, recognized as one of the first entirely atonal compositions. These three pieces serve as a crucial bridge between the late Romantic era and the new musical language of the 20th century. The harmonic innovation Wagner began with Tristan und Isolde found its next pivotal point in Drei Klavierstücke.
Zee Zee tackled the thorny dissonances and the fractured, volatile phrasing with a sense of assuredness, showing mastery of both technique and the expressionist emotional terrain Schoenberg inhabits.
Maurice Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit, composed in 1908 and inspired by the poems of Aloysius Bertrand, closed the first half of the concert. The first movement, “Ondine“, evokes the mythical water nymph who lures listeners to her underwater domain. The second movement, “Le Gibet,“ creates a haunting atmosphere with its portrayal of a corpse hanging from a gallows, accompanied by the distant toll of a bell. The suite concludes with “Scarbo,“ a notoriously challenging movement that portrays the mischievous antics of a goblin-like figure in the dead of night.
The suite showcased Zee Zee’s poetic sensibility, and she handled the technical challenges with remarkable fluidity and grace. Her “Ondine“ shimmered with a luminous, almost liquid quality. “Le Gibet,“ in contrast, offered a dark and deathly atmosphere, like a slow, inevitable march toward doom. In “Scarbo,“ Zee Zee’s technical brilliance was on full display, navigating the frenetic pace and sudden bursts of energy with an impressive degree of control. Each movement was distinct in its emotional tone but formed a vivid, unified narrative.
One of the telling strengths of Zee Zee’s programming was her choice of playing Schoenberg’s Drei Klavierstücke, and Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit back-to-back. Both works emerged around the same time in the early 20th century (1908–1909), before World War I. While they belong to different musical styles, they share some critical connections. Schoenberg’s work leans towards atonality and Expressionism; Ravel’s is rooted in French Impressionism and flirts with harmonic ambiguity, though within a tonal framework. So, both works are natural consequences of the changing harmonic outlook that began with Wagner’s Tristan. Both also represent pivotal shifts in the evolution of piano music, exploring new ways of writing for the piano and expanding the instrument’s expressive possibilities, each rich in mood and atmosphere, though they achieve this through different means.
The program’s second half featured the selections from Franz Liszt’s Années de pèlerinage (“Years of Pilgrimage“), where Zee Zee further demonstrated her virtuosity and interpretive depth. “Vallée d’Obermann“ was expansive and deeply introspective, carefully layering the romantic sweeps and undercurrents. In “Les jeux d’eaux à la Villa d’Este,“ she created a sense of sparkling clarity, capturing the imagery of water fountains in the piece. The closing “Tarantella,“ one of Liszt’s more overtly show-stopping pieces, was performed with dazzling speed and precision, capping the recital with sheer technical prowess that left the audience spellbound.
For an encore, Zee Zee performed “Intermezzo,” the flowing fourth movement from Robert Schumann’s Faschingsschwank aus Wien, Op. 26 (“Carnival Scenes from Vienna”).
Throughout the program, Zee Zee’s connection to the material was evident, displaying a keen understanding of each composer’s idiomatic demands while maintaining a personal artistic voice. The boldness of the programming was matched by her ability to navigate these four musical worlds easily. ■
EXTERNAL LINKS:
- Zee Zee: zeezee-piano.com
- Schwartz Center for Performing Arts: schwartz.emory.edu
Read more by Mark Gresham.
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