Beethoven / Czerny / Liszt: Master & Pupil – Melvyn Tan

   in Piano International (May, 2017)
Here is some fascinating programming from Melvyn Tan, who celebrated his 60th birthday last October. Tan presents Beethoven’s last work for piano, the Op 126 Bagatelles in a reading that honours the gestural nature of these pieces. Tan recorded this previously on a fortepiano; here, on a modern grand piano, he finds the stormy heart of the Presto No 4 with precision, force and accuracy, unapologetically using the sustaining pedal liberally for the contrasting sections. Perhaps the sixth Bagatelle could have had that touch more tenderness, and if only the Onyx recording were not over-reverberant; but overall, this is a finely considered account.

Beethoven’s Op 109 and the Liszt Sonata are …