Uncle Dave Lewis
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an ample talent!
Makiko Hirata is a young Japanese pianist who divides her time between providing accompaniment at the Juilliard School in New York and teaching at the Nara International Academy in Japan. The disc, Etudes, Seriously, is her own production, and for that, it is very good -- well recorded, well edited, and very well played. She has studied with Bela Siki, Marc Silverman, Sara Davis Buechner, Mitsuko Uchida, and others, but Hirata's strengths are not the sum total of her teachers. Buechner seems to have it right when she says of Hirata, "[Makiko] is one of those rarities and individualists, whose every move is nonetheless determined by identification with the music at hand, and commitment to bringing it vicariously to life." This generous program hop-scotches through a wide swath of piano literature in short stretches rather loosely related as "etudes" -- a bit of Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, Debussy, Rachmaninoff, and Prokofiev. Hirata has the technical equipment to deal with all of this music with relative ease and her expressive qualities do seem to vary depending on what music is before her. She utilizes a light touch in the Bach and plays it at a relatively even tempo, yet she uses a broad, expansive rubato in the Rachmaninoff and makes the individual lines stand out relative to one another. In a way, the mid- and late-romantic literature makes for the most satisfying offerings here; the Liszt and Rachmaninoff selections are wonderful. Her Prokofiev is steely, forceful, and pragmatic, and as his Etudes, Op. 2, are a relatively uncommon set in comparison to the other pieces in the collection, one is grateful for their inclusion; the Presto energico is terrific. The only disappointments are the two Chopin pieces -- they are big, loud, powerful, and exciting, but just a bit more restraint and subtlety would be welcome.
Clearly the idea of the album -- Etudes, Seriously -- is to demonstrate that the form of the etude, while not taken very seriously owing to its status as teaching material, can have the qualities of "seriousness." We knew that, but it is heartening to see an artist in her own release attempt to take on some of the thematic considerations addressed in a major label recital of a pianist who is looking to show her stuff. While it would be nice to hear Makiko Hirata in longer, more ambitious works, it isn't desirable to be too critical in the case of such a modest and fine outing done on the artist's own dime. Were she to play these pieces in your own living room, you'd be enthralled. Considerations of literature and presentation aside, this is an entirely satisfying disc for demonstrating Makiko Hirata's ample talents as pianist.
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