Andrew von Oeyen is a thirty-four-year-old French-American pianist of Dutch-German origin who includes Alfred Brendel and Leon Fleisher among his teachers. Lavishly publicised, he has recorded extensively, and for his new album, 'Angels and Demons' he sets the stage in an effusive essay evoking dark and light, saints and sinners, concluding that such oppositions are inextricably entwined.
But if expectations run high they are only partialy fulfilled. Von Oeyen is a musicianly player who scorns excess or nervous display, and his way with the Bach-Busoni 'Nun Komm der Heiden Heiland' (for him 'a cautionary tale for the unfaithful') is suitably sonorous and measured. Characteristically, much of his original Bach-- the G major French Suite-- is fluent and reserved(the concluding Gigue lacks joi- de- vivre) and if he makes a fervent claim for MacDowell, his choice of 'Rhapsodie:in ritmo tenebre' and 'Hexameron', while enterprising remain essentially decorative rather than genuinely demonic offerings. Neat and articulate in the latter you only have to turn to Stephen Hough's recording of the same work to hear a necessary virtuosity of another order. In Messiaen's 'Regard de l'Eglise d'amour' from the 'Vingt Regards' there is greater energy and final serenity in Oeyen's own arrangement of 'In Paradisum' from the Faure Requiem.
This is an intriguing and imaginative recital but the lack of edge and drama becomes all too clear in Liszt's First Mephisto Waltz. The recorded sound is outstanding and there are no less than six photographs of the pianist.
Bryce Morrison