After the third all-Chopin piano recital Friday (May 21) in its comprehensive Chopin Bicentennial Celebration, the La Jolla Music Society appears to be confirming the Mae West dictum that “too much of a good thing can be wonderful.” Certainly in terms of the depth and caliber of Chopin performances, the series has moved from strength to strength.

Orion Weiss.

^{Courtesy photo}

In March we were dazzled by the young, unknown French pianist Jean-Frédéric Neuberger, whose brilliant technique and keen analysis of each piece amazed the liesurely Sunday-afternoon audience at the La Jolla Neurosciences Institute. Friday night it was Orion Weiss, the modest, 28-year-old American lad, who kept a full house at Sherwood Auditorium on the edge of its seat with the invigorating vitality and endless spontaneity he found in each Chopin selection.

Weiss is well-known to La Jolla audiences for his participation as a chamber player in recent SummerFest series, the La Jolla Music Society’s high-profile August music festival. But this recital offered the opportunity to hear Weiss completely on his own.

Weiss centered his recital around the complete Opus 28 “Preludes,” whose kaleidoscopic moods and inspirations he elucidated with breathtaking precision and fervid emotional resonance. From short, simple pieces that a beginning student can master to daunting virtuoso showpieces that few students ever attempt, the range of these 24 preludes is daunting. Weiss made those familiar student preludes glow with subtle intensity, yet he made the most arduous sound ineffably eloquent. By transitioning quickly yet gracefully to each succeeding prelude, he wove these highly contrasting pieces into a single shimmering tapestry.

Weiss’s program-opening pair of Polonaises, Op. 26, immediately established his nuanced use of rubato and effortless, seamless legato. I admired his ability to bring out the slightest gestures that nevertheless illuminated the soul of each dance movement. In two contrasting Impromptus, Op. 36 and Op. 51, he demonstrated an uncanny ability to suggest a compelling narrative in otherwise totally objective scores.

The F-sharp Minor Polonaise, Op. 44, revealed the muscular side of Weiss’s technique, brazen declamatory flourishes executed with flawless attacks and weighty authority. Such grandiosity, however, was meted out with judicious attention to the score and never overstayed its welcome. He let us know beyond a shadow of doubt that he knew the difference between interpreting Liszt and Chopin.

If there is a shortcoming to playing all the works of Chopin, it involves encountering a few (deservedly) obscure pieces of questionable merit, and the “Allegro de Concert” in A Major, Op. 46, is an ideal candidate for this shadowy category. Any music historian will aver that the term "de Concert" added to the titile of a mid-19th century composition is an instant give-away for either pomposity or unadulterated camp.

Chopin “rescued” this silly masquerade from an abandonned attempt to compose a concerto for two pianos, and I suggest he should have left those musical scraps in that circular file into which they had been previously deposited. Weiss spared no effort to make this orphan attractive, but even his considerable magic could not transform this sad offspring.

Weiss chose a long, demanding recital, yet his evening of Chopin (two hours, 20 minutes) did not seem long. Unlike the newly-minted competition winners who try to bowl the audience over with their prowess, Weiss managed to continue to draw the listener into his music-making. He made us want to hear what he had to say, and it was mesmerizing.

I don’t need to see a performer bench press the piano—I want to imagine the music in a revealing way I have never experienced before. And Weiss accomplished that in spades.

PRESS HERE for PROGRAM and BIO