By George Warren - September 19, 2009
Pianist Nareh Arghamanyan, just 20 years old, delighted her audience in the Concert Hall at California
State University, Fresno in the first recital of the Philip Lorenz Memorial Keyboard Concert series 2009-10
season, copresented by the CSUF Armenian Studies Program. Arghamanyan’s wide range of expression
proved captivating and overcame some hair-raising hazards in the music.
She began with Mendelssohn’s Variations Serieuses, Op. 54 and showed real restraint as she allowed
each variation to unfold and build upon the last. Variations are often tedious, even in the hands of the best
composers, but with this work Mendelssohn created something much less stilted than the ordinary theme and
variations. Here, it isn’t merely theme in major, then minor, then compound time ad infinitum. The work visits
both lyrical and percussive textures and shows real imagination with rhythm as well as harmony.
In the hands of Arghamanyan, composer meets highly skilled interpreter. Arghamanyan began with the
lightest possible touch on the piano, arching over the keyboard as she drew out the theme. She plucked at
the keys and brought out a light and percussive accompaniment to the melody. She kept a close ear on the
volume as the energy built up, and then at just the right time she released the latent energy one sensed all
along.
Mendelssohn provided an excellent platform for Arghamanyan to show her major strengths, and it seems
that Schumann, too, would be a good choice for a pianist with this kind of expressive palette. She played
Schumann’s Carnaval, Op. 9, with its 21 discrete movements. The problem here is that, while there may be
structural unity across the whole work as there is in other collections like this by Schumann, the impact of the
movements seems to lack focus, much like a story that has too many characters and you can’t keep track of
them.
Arghamanyan managed the music just fine, and the whole thing came to a grand conclusion, but the
troubling part is the “Schumann rhetoric” which is so compelling to play and so tedious to listen to. The
player gets to feel, see, and hear all the wonderful imagination of Schumann; the listener hears the nugget of
an idea and it’s gone, with another nugget already in process before the last one was processed.
That said, some of the nuggets in this work are memorable and a lot of fun to hear. One of the most
enjoyable movements is the Valse allemande, the 16th movement, with its grace notes and its playful, dancing
texture. Arghamanyan displayed a true grasp of the character of this movement, clipping along briskly with
very sharp accents throughout the melodic line.
Further, in every movement, it appeared that Arghamanyan truly enjoys this music. She moved with the
rhythm of the faster movements and swayed with the melodies of the slower ones. She unleashed her
youthful energy in the end, hammering out the music with accuracy and vigor.
After the intermission, Arghamanyan returned with music from Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker,” arranged
for the piano by Mikhail Pletnev. The arrangement was very well done, and Arghamanyan’s musical vision
enabled her to present three textures at once. It was thrilling to hear the melodic line in the upper register,
chords in the middle, and a countermelody in the bass. This required a lot of movement of both hands from
the outsides to the middle of the keyboard, and special attention to the dynamics of each part. Arghamanyan
was up for the challenge, and the old music seemed reborn, made for the piano. For the listener, it was
delightful to hear and see a person pull off something as tricky as that without any major gaffes.
With the final work, the Arghamanyan’s brilliance faded a bit. She tackled Rachmaninoff’s Sonata in
B-flat minor, Op. 36, tearing into it with all her heart. What came out of the keyboard carried a lot of
expression, but also carried a whole load of bad notes. The accuracy that we heard in the Mendelssohn and
the Tchaikovsky was gone, and a different sort of player emerged. Here, Arghamanyan went for volume and
strength, not finesse, and perhaps rightly so given the material. However, it does not work to hit the low
octave plus a couple of wrong notes at top volume and let them ring with the sustain pedal while the right
hand does its part. Further, the material meanders a lot in the first movement, and it falls to the pianist to
maintain a focus and a flow. The audience has given ear, and the pianist must lead it through what may be
opaque musical idea. She had success earlier with this task in the Schumann; not so much with this
movement.
The middle movement worked well in contrast, and Arghamanyan delivered the emotion of the
movement along with the notes. Here, she seemed to get away with an extreme tempo rubato (free tempo,
not in strict time) as a point of expression. In the outer movements, however, a bit stricter tempo would serve
her well. She ended the work with the requisite fireworks, but even the last chord carried those extra notes
that didn’t belong.
The audience seemed to enjoy every minute of this ambitious program by a young pianist, and she
received an enthusiastic ovation following the Rachmaninoff.
