When La Jolla Music Society President and Artistic Director Christopher Beach launched the ambitious Chopin Bicentennial Celebration earlier this year, he prudently chose pianist Garrick Ohlsson to play the first recital. As the first American to win the Chopin International Competition, in 1970, Ohlsson is a well-liked performer who has made Chopin interpretation the cornerstone of his repertory.

But for the second Chopin recital, Beach took a big gamble, presenting a little-known 23-year-old French virtuoso Jean-Frédéric Neuburger, the equivalent of going to Del Mar and betting on a 50-to-one odds pony

Pianist Frederic Neuburger.

^{Courtesy photo}

that nobody except the trainer and the jockey had heard of. Sunday afternoon in the acoustically stellar recital hall at the Neurosciences Institute, Beach’s gamble paid off, and Neuburger took first place without so much as breaking into a sweat.

Of course, playing the piano is not a race, although at the blazing speed he executed some of the treacherously difficult Chopin “Etudes”—which he realized with breathtaking accuracy—I believe he would have left any serious competition in the dust in an “etude race.”

A performer of flawless composure, Neuburger tears up the instrument or alternately carresses it with minimal body language, unlike a certain popular Asian virtuoso who is in great demand these days. Rail-thin and possessed of an elegant posture, Neuburger’s elbows rarely leave his side, and his hands appear to float over the keys. Only at moments of great intensity does he bend his torso ever-so-slightly towards the keyboard.

According to an instructional tutor on piano performance that Chopin started to write but never completed for publication, this approach comports quite well with the maestro’s instruction, and, I submit, is part of the reason Neuburger’s Chopin is so freely executed and wholly idiomatic.

He made the complete set of twelve “Etudes,” Op. 25, the center of his program. Even at his young age, he has had some time to think about the inner meaning of these works, inasmuch as he recorded them when he was but 16. His riveting performance probed the musical allure and melodic riches of the etudes rather than exalting in their pedagogic display of technical challenges. In the “C-sharp Minor Etude,” one could hear the climax of a tragic opera in his heart-rending repetition of the descending chromatic theme, more poignant each time it returned. Neuburger’s choice of tempo and application of rubato proved unfailingly apt and natural in every etude.

He chose some unusual Chopin artifacts, mainly from the composer’s early period, including the augustly proper Opus 1, “Rondo in C Minor,” and the slightly camp “Boléro in C Major,” Op. 19. Neuburger stressed the sharply accented articulations of the “Rondo,” giving it a slightly pompous air—Chopin was out to impress, even if he had not yet found his voice. The “Boléro” is Chopin’s elaborate confection of a popular 19th-century dance in three-quarter time with snappy chordal subdivisions on the second beat of the measure, a genre that Ravel later parodied so exquisitely. Like all of the works on his program, Neuburger gave “Boléro” a fresh, fluent reading that dared the listener not to take every note seriously.

Two sets of “Nocturnes,” Opus 15 and Opus 27, graced the program. While it was easy to admire the fury and precision of the con fuoco section of the “F Major Nocturne,” the serene, lyrical effusion of the “D-flat Major” drew almost-audible sighs from the audience, a sold-out house that included a number of well-behaved youngsters. If any were piano students, I hope they went home and vowed to double their daily practice efforts.

In the “Fantasie in F Minor,” Op. 49, the most mature Chopin work he offered, Neuburger maintained an air of constant improvisation and dramatic surprise, a wise approach for a work of such unpredictable organization.

Although the La Music Society has lined up a cadre of A-list pianists to continue their Chopin complete-works project, including the likes of Orion Weiss and Anne-Marie McDermott, it will not be easy for these formidable artists to top the exhilaration of of M. Neuburget’s performance. But he certainly has raised our anticipation—and the bar—to to a very high level.

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