Young pianist tames his savage breast
M. Taufiqurrahman, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta
Young pianist Mario Santoso may have been in possession of all the traits needed to become a future maestro, but he seemed to lack the very thing that could have immediately won him instant recognition: an ability to come to grips with himself.
At his recent recital at Gedung Kesenian Jakarta (GKJ), the 23-year-old delivered a rabid performance that resulted more from a hurried attempt to display his technique than an impassioned interpretation of the program.
Small wonder that Mario chose to play as openers pieces by Frederic Chopin, a Polish composer best known for the complexity of his works, which demand formidable skill in their execution.
In Chopin's Ballade No. 1 in G minor Op. 23, Mario approached the piano the way a rock musician might attack rhythm guitar.
At times, his chords were two-fisted affairs, thundering along in a staggering gait. The piano turned into a vehicle through which Mario produced an outlandish interpretation of every composition.
In the second part of the Ballade, when the sonic assault was through and the tempo slowing down, he unwittingly drained the elegance that was supposed to emanate from the composition. The occasional surrender of ripples in a placid sea was later drowned in a raging torrent.
From a distance, what appeared was furious and knowing, but when studied up close, it turned out to be somewhat hollow.
Mario regained his self-control by the third composition from Chopin, Andante Spianato & Grande Polonaise Brillante in E-flat major Op. 22.
Staying true to the composition's graceful and moderate tempo, Mario made effective use of the keys and sustaining pedal to take the half-full GKJ audience on a journey to a land of dreams.
Each individual tone flowed like a stream of consciousness and the crowd was carried along in its slipstream.
In one part of the Andante, Mario produced a gorgeous, drawn- out solo that was built from two or three notes, and, figuratively speaking, time was brought to a standstill at the venue. Rarely has so much beauty been wrung from so few notes.
In the second part of the concert, in which two compositions were performed -- Felix Mendelssohn's Rondo Capriccio in E major, Op. 14 and Franz Schubert's "Wanderer" Fantasy in C major D. 760, Mario was seemingly in full control.
His versatile piano-playing enabled him to develop drama that sprang to life from a funereal hymn, chiming church bells and looming thunder.
Speaking after the recital had concluded, Mario, winner of the 2002 Abilene Collegiate Orchestra Concerto Competition in Texas, U.S., defended his choice of Chopin and the other two Romantic composers by saying they were more crowd-pleasers than a means to display his craft.
"An artist must be able to develop a repertoire that will be well-accepted by the audience. Here in Jakarta, the audience is fond of those three composers and I decided to play pieces by them," he said.