Hayato Sumino is a thirty-year-old Japanese pianist surrounded in a halo of publicity(much of it absurd, for example,'he is objectively a world-class pianist'). His latest album,
'Chopin Orbit,' while novel and arresting at one level is openly provocative at another. After telling us that 'Chopin has been the axis of my musical life' he adds that by setting Chopin's original works side by side with hs own compositions he shows respect for the composer. He also claims that he adds works by Janacek and Godowsky 'because they are similar in spirit' when they are radically different.
More specifically Sumino is clearly a highly gifted pianist, with a fleet technique and with no lack of musical, if fluctuating quality. His opening 'Prologue' is a dreaming elaboration of the central oasis of calm at the heart of the 'Polonaise-Fantasie,' his re- working of the 'Aaolian harp' Etude(Schumann's affectionate title) opus 25 No1 with the addition of the Lydian mode is arguably witty. He is every inch the nimble-fingered gentleman in the 'Black Keys,' opus 10 No 5 Etude and his extension sends virtuoso sparks flying in all directions. His way with the C major Mazurka, opus 24 No 2 has a natural idiomatic feel for Chopin's most teasingly and elusive genre, while his 'Larghetto,' modelled on the F minor Concerto's slow movement, imagines how Chopin, if still alive, would have reacted to jazz. The 'Polonaise-Fantasie,' after its phantom appearance in 'Prologue,' then comes complete, its climax given with a storming sense of its soaring and rhetorical climax. The programme concludes with Godowsky's 'Concert Paraphrase on Chopin's 'Grande Valse Brillante'(opus 18 No 1), a vulgar inflation by a pianist-composer who could not leave well alone. At the same time it is an admirable vehicle for Sumino's exhilarating virtuosity.
It is easy to be puritanical and curmudgeonly about Sumino's enterprise, yet for all their ingenuity his tributes make you treasure Chopin's inimitable genius more than ever. The recordings vary but are often unpleasantly close(in the 'Berceuse' it is as if the microphones are placed inside the piano). Sumino writes his own explanatory notes and there are fourteen photographs of the pianist but none of Chopin, making it clear where the priorities lie. Whether you consider 'Chopin Orbit' one for the birds or a genuine recreation, you take your money and take your choice, while reminding your self that Sumino is a remarkable pianist.
Bryce Morrison