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Demon Digits Creating Dreamscapes New York
Merkin Hall, Kaufman Music Center
02/07/2025 -
Henri Dutilleux: 3 Preludes: 3. “Le Jeu des contraires”
“Piano Sonata No. 3 Interpolation”: Claude Debussy: Préludes (Book I): 4. “Les sons et parfums tournent dans l’air du soir”, Pierre Boulez: Piano Sonata No. 3: 2. “Tropes”, Debussy: Etudes: 10. “Pour les sonorités opposées”, Boulez: Piano Sonata No. 3: 2. “Tropes” & Debussy: Les soirs illuminés par l’ardeur du charbon
Timo Andres: Clear and Cold
Freya Waley-Cohen: Bad Habit
Maurice Ravel: Miroirs
George Xiaoyuan Fu (Pianist) 
G. X. Fu (© Viktor Jelinek)
“Debussy was one of Boulez’s heroes and so, in Boulez’s view, his music must be heard as a harbinger of the glorious atonal world to come.”
Norman Lebrecht
“Music should be heard not as emotion but as music.”
Pierre Boulez
Like Zeus erupting from a Cretan cave or Venus popping up from the waves, the newest generation of pianists, like Conrad Tao or George Xiaoyuan Fu tonight, are more than fearless. They seem to have been born to whiz through Boulez or Stockhausen, they can play the demonically composed Ravel Miroirs as though it was Frère Jacques and–most impressive of all–can elevant the most complex notes into the most breathtaking music.
Mr. Fu had a full Merkin Concert Hall audience tonight. It was improbable they braved the chilly Manhattan weather for Pierre Boulez and Henri Dutilleux. Instead they came to marvel at the extraordinary young pianist. In fact, George Fu doesn’t seem to play the piano. He turns himself–fingers, body, feet on the pedals–into the piano itself.
The program seemed on the surface to be a grab bag of mind‑blowing music. Instead, Mr. Fu had organized an esoteric balance, without a single intermission to disrupt the cohesive night’s work.
The Dutilleux “Game of Opposites” came a few pieces prior to Debussy’s etude “For Opposing Sonorities”. Clear and Cold by the great Timo Andres was like a variation on Ravel’s “A Boat on the Ocean.” And for the most unexpected work, Pierre Boulez had written five opposing works: two excerpts of his own unfinished Third Sonata between his transmogrifications on three Debussy pieces.
Not a single work was anything but excruciatingly difficult. But the informal pianist offered a clarity, a bouquet of sounds which precluded knowledge of their difficulties.
The start was Henri Dutilleux’ Third Prelude, which, despite its Herculean problems, was quite simple to hear. Dutilleux, who was the New York Philharmonic’s composer-in-residence a few years before his death, belonged to no school. This Prelude, while serious in contrasting highest and lowest tones, seemed to come from the fingers rather than the brain, and one could imagine both genius and ingenuity doodling over his piano.
Timo Andres (in the audience, later answering questions) offered Clear and Cold, which was certainly clear under Mr. Fu’s fingers, but hardly cold. Perhaps it was a through‑composed work (I caught no particular themes), but Mr. Fu cut through any difficulties.
The American debut of Freya Waley-Cohen’s Bad Habits was just as difficult to play, but one caught a bookend of student “exercises”, with a nuance of jazz, a single measure of ragtime.
Onto the two familiar-made-fantastic works here. Pierre Boulez never finished his Third Sonata, but two of the movements were executed with due regard to space and perspective. Yet someone–was it Boulez himself? Was it George Fu? I see no record of its composition–gave us two Debussy preludes and one etude in between.
Though not exactly. Each work had a demanding theme, and each theme, interpolated by the composer, was repeated or magnified or contracted. Not a variation but an inner prompting to go with the Boulez pieces.
The result was not a mystery. (Boulez, I confess is mysterious to me, though his Debussy recordings are the best.) Rather it was a Picasso picture. One knew the subjects, one was stunned by their fantastic images.
Finally, Mr. Fu let those frenzied fingers give an endless pellucidity to the most extravagantly difficult Ravel Miroirs. Mr. Fu won the BBC “Newcomer of the Year” award for his recording. But this is a condescending award. This was a superb Miroirs for any age.
Mr. Fu was indeed dazzling, translucent, each measure standing out. Yet was it Ravel the elegant? Ravel the menacing? Ravel the Mallarmé-styled poet? To a certain degree, it was all of that, though not all the movements had their own color. Yes, the “Alborada” clicked its castanets, yes, the “Barque” tossed the boat up and down. At the end, though, with the tones of church bells in the distance, one lost the pictures for the brilliance of the notes.
Through little more than an hour, George Fu gave a concert for which virtuosic praise missed the point. He is that so rare young pianist who actually transcends the notes. And allow us to see the gleaming diamonds beneath the digits.
Harry Rolnick
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