Junyan Chen plays
Beethoven, Amy Beach, Liszt and Bartók

The piano recital given by Chinese pianist Junyan Chen in The Hub, Lichfield, had been advertised as an exciting event and certainly gave the large and appreciative audience an evening to remember.

Junyan Chen first played in Lichfield in 2022 as a Lichfield Festival Young Artist, while she was still a student at the Royal Academy of Music when she played the two works by Beethoven and Liszt which began and ended this recital. To these three more works were added – Variations on Balkan Themes Op. 60 by Amy Beach, written in 1904; the Liszt Funerailles S.173/7, written in 1849; and 3 Bartok Studies, from 1918, with fast and furious pace and incisive rhythms.

The work by Amy Beach was unfamiliar to many in the audience but was immediately enjoyable and accessible, giving the pianist a chance to showcase a wide variety of moods and tempi. The final piece, the Liszt Piano Sonata in B minor is now seen as a pinnacle of his work and is a fixture in the concert repertoire, with a fearsome level of difficulty making this performance all the more impressive; the music was extremely dramatic with the full extent of the keyboard used in a quiet opening, furious scalic passages, lovely lyrical moments and great confident use of rubato – there was no danger of this performance not being appreciated.

Junyan has a growing reputation as one of the world’s top young pianists, and her next challenges are the 2024 Leeds Piano competition (11th to 21st September) and the International Piano competition of Orleans in October and November. As she said when she introduced herself to us, this recital will help her preparations for the competitions (she played without music for the whole performance). We must wish her well in her future career and thank her for a memorable evening of music.

Programme

Beethoven Piano Sonata No. 28 in A Major, Op.101
Amy Beach Variations on Balkan themes, Op. 60
Liszt Funérailles
Bartók 3 Studies for piano, Op. 18
Liszt Sonata in B minor, S.178.

Lichfield Festival Friends are very grateful for sponsorship for this event from Nigel O’Mara, and from Tony Davis and Darin Qualls