Francesco Tristano Schlimé at Weill Recital Hall, February 1, 2008

As promised, I attended Francesco Tristano Schlimé’s New York debut last night. He’s the real deal, although I’m not sure if he is going to be to everyone’s taste.

For the record, let me state that my preference in piano playing is for personality, even if it risks eccentricity. Technical mastery is all well and good, but I prefer touch, expression, sensibility. Schlimé is technically assured (although I wouldn’t want to account for the clarity of all of his passagework). More importantly, though, he brings a forceful presence to every piece he plays, an acute point of view that gives his readings uniqueness and power.

He started the program with Cinque variazioni, an early piece by Luciano Berio, and which he played from memory (not always a given with modern music). Schlimé is superb at bringing out contrasts, and this music, in which a lyrical tendency fights with percussive attacks, was tailor-made for him. In Schlimé’s hands it flowed with mesmerizing beauty.

In a provocative move, Schlimé launched into his next set of pieces, three toccatas by Frescobaldi, without a break. The effect was startling, but not in an ugly way; I was more impressed by how apposite the pairing was. Schlimé may have angered some purists by using some heavy pedal effects in these ancient pieces; to my ear, the pedal gave the music spaciousness and heft. The last of the three, in F major, from Frescobaldi’s second book of toccatas, is a contrapuntal tour-de-force that seems to have held no terrors for the young pianist.

The program continued with Bach’s French Suite No. 4 (BWV 815); Schlimé gave the dance-like rhythms real point and, in the final, hair-raising Gigue, once again showed off his technical flair. I did not detect his using the pedal in these pieces, but I could be wrong.

The first half finished with a remarkable piece, Technology, a realization (by Schlimé) of an electronic work by the techno-music composer Carl Craig, whom I am too ignorant in these matters to have heard of before. It started with a series of chime-like figures; this was followed by a transitional passage in which a repeated bass note was punctuated by some manipulation of the piano string by the pianist: Schlimé reached into the piano and produced a rising scale of eerie overtones by plucking the string, all the while sounding that bass note. By keeping his foot on the pedal, the resonance created an aural background, like the swooshing of traffic in the rain. This led to a jazzy ostinato in the bass that eventually grounded the triumphant return of the chime-like music of the opening.

The second half of the program opened with a work by a young composer, Justin Messina, called NYTectonics: 4 City Bridges. (The bridges are the Verrazano, the Queensborough, the Triboro, and the Brooklyn.) The four components do not need be played in any particular order, and the codas and introductory measures of each are meant to played in an overlapping way. I can’t say whether the bridges were being musically described, or whether they were simply used as evocative points of inspiration. Verrazano was characterized by a continuous drone of seconds; Queensborough was jazzy, with syncopated rhythms and blue notes. It was music by a promising young composer who managed to incorporate disparate elements without sounding easily eclectic.

It made me think, also, of Hart Crane. His bridge, like Schlimé’s piano (and aesthetic), is a living link between epochs, genres, cultures. There is a welcome idealism in this kind of time-and-space-bending enterprise.

Schlimé then performed Haydn’s sonata in C (Hob. XVI:48), a two-movement work that opens with a theme and variations marked “andante con espressione,” here played in a manner that I imagine many would consider all wrong—heavy and dramatic, rather than light of touch and “objective,” as is the custom these days with this kind of music. I liked his approach, though. How else to convey the chromatic richness of the variations, if not investing it with layers of feeling? He took the presto finale fiercely, ending with an exciting flourish.

Schlimé is also a composer, and he finished the scheduled program with a short, tonic work by Berio, Wasserklavier, and an improvisation on the same, in which, upon Berio’s harmonic platform, he built a veritable skyscraper, shimmering in intensity.

As though this wasn’t impressive enough, Schlimé gave as an encore a composition of his own, a short piece called Melody (I think), which rarely moved above middle C, and featured an insistent, tango-like ostinato in the bass.

Afterward, there was a complimentary reception, with an abundance of food and wine, at which Schlimé met with the audience. I overcame my habitual shyness and managed to shake his hand and utter some words of congratulation. (He also told me what the encore was, as he did not announce it from the stage.) He addressed his well wishers in several languages, and he seemed polite and not at all touched by the kind of pretentiousness that one might expect.

It’s rare to hear the piano played so expertly and intelligently, imbued with both grandeur and a keen intellect. They don’t always go together. It was also, musically, one of the most satisfying recitals I have heard, mixing music from different eras and avoiding overplayed concert staples. Let us hope for a speedy return of Francesco Tristano Schlimé to New York.