Cheng Infuses Piano Program With Sparkling Range of Talents

A program worth repeating, Gloria Cheng’s fascinating, tightly packed recital of music by 20th century French and British composers came back to us Tuesday night.

The program, given first at the Ojai Festival of 2000, in June, and encompassing music by Messiaen, Tristan Murail, Thomas Ades, Ravel, George Benjamin, Boulez, Judith Weir and Jonathan Harvey, raptly held a large audience gathered in the Neighborhood Church, Pasadena, for the opening of the Piano Spheres series.

Here were provocative juxtapositions of engaging pieces interconnected by interest but deeply divided in styles. Most engaging, perhaps, were two very different yet similarly haunting items by Ades, “Darknesse Visible” and “Still Sorrowing,” both products of 1992.

Equally engaging were Murail’s example of spectralism via an extended improvisation, “La Mandragore,” and Harvey’s disturbingly clangorous piece for live piano and microtonal tape, “Tombeau de Messiaen.” Noisiness and aggression also marked Boulez’s “Incises” (1994) and Messiaen’s “Little Sketches of Birds” (1985), the latter full of the jangling glissandos and relentless screeching of nature--delightful and bothersome at the same time.

There was respite in two miniatures, Ravel’s “Menuet sur le nom d’Haydn” (1909) and Benjamin’s “Meditation on Haydn’s Name” (1982). Weir’s “The Art of Touching the Keyboard” may have been intended as a romp, but ended as an irritation, a collection of unidentifiable snippets marked by a lack of substance--too many notes in search of a theme.

Throughout, Cheng’s musical and technical resources brought color and sense to this varied menu of contemporary tastes. Christopher Hailey’s brilliant program notes added to our delight.