Following the pin-point delicacy and precision of his complete Mozart Piano Sonata cycle Mao Fujita offers something radicallly different, telling you in his 72 Prelude programme of a break with the older tradition of seeing a Prelude as a mere introduction to a fugue; to something more subsantial. Here his Chopin, Scriabin and Yashiro are sui generis, existing in their own right.
But if Fujita is fully responsive to Scriabin and Yashiro he is less so in Chopin where, with few exceptions, he shows a determination to lighten music which I assume he feels are too often over-expressed. If some will celebrate a naturalness or insouciance, others will feel short-changed. Why so evasive in the morbid lento progression of No 2(admittedly a familiar failing)?His pedalling is heavy in No 3 detracting from its contrasting optimism and sparkle. And if Preludes Nos 6 and 7 can be over-loaded, here they sound inconsequential. There is a more positive characterisation in the dark, swirling glitter of No 8, but the notoriously demanding No 16(for Cortot, 'the road to the abyss') he is sturdy rather than enthralling. An apt blaze of defiance in the final Prelude comes too late to redeem a generally low-keyed account, making you wonder if, like a minority of pianists (Igor Levitt's' I don't get Chopin') he is less than fully at ease in Chopin.
Turning more positively to his Scriabin you sense a different level of involvement, a natural feel for music which. if the shadow of Chopin still lingers, was composed before the composer's wilful obscurity and Stravinsky's question, 'Scriabin, where does he come from and where does he go.' From Fujita No 4 is lost in its own reverie and there is a vivid sense of the contrasting inwardness of No 19 and the storm of No 14. Whether in characteristic retreats into introspection or in violent upheavals Fujita is clearly liberated by Scriabin's greater fantasy and freedom.
Finally, as Fujita tells us in the accompanying notes, Yashiro's 24 Preludes were composed when he was fifteen, before his later studies with Messiaen and Nadia Boulanger. Writing of their Japanese influence FUjita revels in their endearing youthfulness and caprice. Is there a hint of the British national anthem in No 10, and what of the distant drum beats in No 11, entitled 'In Complete Silence?' No 19 wanders mischievously off key and No 24, ends in grandly virtuoso style.
The performanes are as dextrous and musically empathetic as you could wish. And if the Chopin is disappointing the Scriabin and Yashiro are a fine compensation. For Fujita his programme invites a culinary analogy. 'If the Chopin and the Scriabin are the fish and the rice, the base, the Yashiro is the wasabi. Just as vital, and with just that special kick to create something delicious.' Less fancifully, if less endearingly Fujita joins Shakespeares' Polonius to claim that 'brevity is the soul of wit.'
Bryce Morrison