Notes and Editorial Reviews
LISZT
Dante Sonata. La Leggierezza. Grande Marche d’Abdul Medjid-Khan.
SCHUBERT
Piano Sonata
, D 958.
HAYDN
Andante variée
•
Gülsin Onay (pn)
•
SONO LUMINUS 92140 (72:54)
The Turkish pianist Gülsin Onay is perhaps best known in the U.S. from two VAI DVDs. The first, from 2009, introduced her in the Saint-Saëns G-Minor and Grieg
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concertos. A recital filmed at the 2008 Miami International Piano Festival and including works by Schumann, Chopin, Mendelssohn, Elgar, and Ahmed Adnan Saygun was released earlier this year. Onay studied in Turkey and later at the Paris Conservatory, where she won her first prize at 16. Subsequently she won prizes at the Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud and Busoni competitions.
Onay’s approach to Schubert’s C-Minor Sonata, D 958, the largest work on her interesting new Sono Luminus disc, tends toward the lyrical rather than the dramatic. Generally relaxed tempos allow her to bring out many intricacies of voice-leading that go unheard in more rushed readings. That said, the furious tarantella of the finale moves along at a terrific clip, its momentum never flagging. Throughout, the trademarks of Onay’s style—precise articulation, judicious pedaling, and extreme clarity—are everywhere in evidence. Her superb sense of
cantabile
playing also imbues Haydn’s F-Minor Variations. Here her interpretation strikes as ineffably French, more wistful than tragic, and always emotionally at one with the musical affects.
Liszt’s
Grande paraphrase de la marche de Donzetti composé pour Sa Majesté le sultan Abdul Medjid-Khan
, a souvenir of his 1847 tour to Constantinople, is a not insubstantial work of eight minutes. Here, and in a subtly calibrated and intensely expressive reading of the
Dante Sonata
, Onay reveals her flair for romantic virtuosity. (These two pieces are ever so slightly marred by overly close microphone placement at the Sono Luminous studios in Boyce, Virginia.) A poetic and delicate
La Leggierezza
rounds out the program.
Ultimately it is Onay’s unqualified emotional identification with the music she plays, conveyed with an honest and impeccable technique, that makes her performances so persuasive. One looks forward to hearing more from her.
FANFARE: Patrick Rucker
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Works on This Recording
2.
Sonata for Keyboard in F minor, H 17 no 6 by Franz Joseph Haydn
Performer:
Gulsin Onay (Piano)
Period: Classical
Written: 1793; Vienna, Austria
Venue: Sono Luminus, Boyce, Virginia
Length: 15 Minutes 51 Secs.
4.
Sonata for Piano in C minor, D 958 by Franz Schubert
Performer:
Gulsin Onay (Piano)
Period: Romantic
Written: 1828; Vienna, Austria
Venue: Sono Luminus, Boyce, Virginia
Length: 30 Minutes 46 Secs.
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