Islands of Fire

Tzenka Dianova - XX Century Piano Music
Saturday, 1st October, University of Auckland School of Music

There are limited opportunities in Auckland to hear 20th Century "classical" music. So Tzenka Dianova's piano recital last night was an event to be leapt at. Dianova specialises in the avant garde end of 20th Century composition for piano, and the ambitious program was a satisfying survey of this particular musical vein, spanning music from 1905 to 1986.

Charles Ive's Three Page Sonata was the only piece with which I was familiar, and Dianova played the bustling third movement far more rhythmically than does Peter Lawson on his excellent American Piano Sonatas recording. There was even a hint of ragtime in Dianova's playing...

Peter Lawson - Three Page Sonata (Ives)
From American Piano Sonatas: Virgin Classics 61928 [Buy]

The real highlight of the concert was John Cage's Daughters of the Lonesome Isle for prepared piano. Oh to have a spare Steinway grand that you can fill with nuts, bolts, screws and bits of rubber! I couldn't help being reminded of Javanese gamelan on hearing this piece.

Tzenka Dianova, preparing her piano for a John Cage composition

The remainder of the concert was rounded out by the resonant harmonics of I.Phases II.Reseaux by Canadian Gilles Tremblay; the austere and minimal Intermission 5 by Morton Feldman; Galina Utsvol'skaya's Piano Sonata #5 (who would have thought that middle Db could become a theatrical character?). Dianova closed the concert with Olivier Messaien's brief and savage Ile de Feu I, played without sheet music, giving the impression that this forceful piece of modernism is one of Dianova's "party pieces"