The Tao mixed tape concert

Solo recital at Berwaldhallen (Stockholm) 2018-11-29
Conrad Tao, piano

J S Bach: Chromatic fantasy and fugue BWV 903
Eckardt: Echoes’ White Weil
Wolfe: Compassion
Rachmaninov: Étude-Tableaux op 39:2
Beethoven: Piano sonata no 31 in A flat major op 110

Conrad Tao has become a regular and very popular guest at Berwaldhallen. This was actually his fifth visit since 2014, and his second visit this season. But it was his first visit giving a solo recital.
And what a solo recital! It was like a journey through life with intensity, complexity, despair, elegance, simplicity and much more.

I normally tend to prefer programs that have a clear theme, or where the connections are obvious. In this case I was not sure how there could be a line through Bach – Eckardt – Wolfe – Rachmaninov – Beethoven, but after the concert I realise that this was a program that opened new doors just by the way the different pieces interacted.

The initial piece – Bach’s Chromatic fantasy and fugue – was played from within. Conrad Tao has obviously spent a lot of time getting inside the music. This created a fresh and personal take on this music. It felt like it was created in that very moment. Parts of it felt almost improvised – as if you were sitting with old Bach playing around on the keyboard at the end of a long day.

Echoes' White Veil by American composer Jason Eckardt felt like a natural pairing with the Bach piece. It gave me the same feeling of balance between complexity and simplicity. It’s both eruptive and almost meditative. Conrad Tao’s way of letting the notes resonate before letting them die revealed why this piece requires a place in the standard repertoire for the instrument.
He played it with the same approach as he had in the Bach piece – that created an even stronger connection between the two pieces. I’m not a friend of labelling music or composers, but in this case I would make an exception and call it ”Bach today”.

Julia Wolfe is yet another fascinating contemporary American composer. Her piece Compassion is written after the 9/11 attack, and it’s tempting to hear a direct connection to this tragedy. But I think that this music is even bigger than that. At this concert this music pulled me into places of strong emotions connected to pictures in my mind of standing in a flow of things happening. It starts with the sound of a lonely bell. In the distance you hear signals (of warning or alarm?) calling. Slowly the chaos moves in, and I found myself standing in the middle of despair and uproar. But that passes, and after a while I’m standing there again, just hearing the lonely bell. A bell of sorrow or a bell of enduring life?
I’m not surprised if this muic will become an iconic piece for the instrument.

The Rachmaninov piece was played almost like an impressionistic meditation. It was absolutely needed after the Wolfe piece. Conrad Tao used subtle and delicate means to create colours and shades.

After a short break Conrad Tao came back for the final piece of the evening – and what a piece! Beethoven’s sonata no 31 in A flat major op 110 was written by a composer in bad health. It’s a very typical late Beethoven piece in the way that it’s not at all typical. It moves along new ways, still being based in tradition. (It’s like driving an old car along new roads.) For example the traditional third movement scherzo is here placed as second movement, something that is absolutely natural within the overall structure of the sonata. The first two movements are to be played in a rather simple and straight-forward way. Conrad Tao found just the right level, avoiding any tempting sentimentality or dramatic effect. In the final movement we got much more of the Beethoven drama. But this is not a drama of illness defeating man. Instead this is a burst of defying energy that for example is shown in the rising fourths in the finale first fugue. The rising fourths are almost reaching beyond, trying to expand the reach of the music itself. This new energy is also present in the increasing intensity in the second fugue.

As an encore he played Le jardin féerique from Ma mère l'Oye by Ravel. It is originally written for piano four hands, and even if Conrad Tao played it in an arrangement for two hands it still sounded as four hands. He brought out all the magic there is in this music in a very Ravelian way.

It takes quite a musician to make this music happen for real. Conrad Tao is that musician. His playing is absolutely true to his perception of the music. This open honesty creates a unique feeling of participation and an invitation to a shared experience between musician and audience.