Since the release of his first CD at the age of 15, Jan Lisiecki has been one of the most in-demand teenage pianists in the world.
All that came to an end – in the nicest possible way – at the Abu Dhabi Festival, where the talented Canadian performed the first concert of his 20s, a day after marking his birthday with a surprise celebration and cake on board an Emirates flight to the UAE.
The new decade certainly hasn’t begun to show physically on Lisiecki, who looked fit and ready for the high-school prom, as he strode confidently onto the Emirates Palace stage, garbed in an evening suit and bright red bow tie.
He began the evening’s programme where it all began for him, with Bach. First came two short, contrasting choral preludes, arranged for piano by Italian virtuoso Ferruccio Busoni. Tantalising the audience with his elegiac execution, Lisiecki’s grasp of the great master truly became apparent on the lengthy Partita No 2 in C Minor, as he inventively mined his instrument’s dynamic potential to breathe fresh human profundity into Bach’s typically tight, mathematical melodies.
Next he turned to the overlooked composer Paderewski, a former prime minister of Poland, soaking in the lush, Romantic textures of three of his six Humoresques de Concert, before a reading of the composer’s stark and delicate Nocturne in B-flat Minor.
Lisiecki ended the first half of his performance with the rustic carnival of Mendelssohn’s Rondo Capriccioso, a riotously schizophrenic showdown requiring cartoon-like levels of dexterity, which Lisiecki gamely provided, rocking his head from side to side as if in a trance, not looking at the keys, as if dazzled by his own finesse. All this was a warm-up for what was to come next. Stripping off his jacket for the second half, the birthday boy sat down to climb the mountain of Chopin’s revolutionary first 12 études. Boasting Polish ancestry – and having released two discs of Chopin, including all 24 primary études – this is what the audience came to see. There was a tangible air of expectancy as Lisiecki sat down to play.
Polishing off the dozen short pieces in a little under 30 minutes, the performance was both a brazen display of technique, and a roller-coaster ride through the depths of worldly emotion.
The famous third (Triste) and closing 12th (Revolutionary) were familiar crowd-pleasers, but it was the reflective fifth and 11th that best showcased Lisiecki’s gift for welling deep into the score’s emotional core.
The appreciative audience was repaid with a spine-tingling encore of Chopin’s haunting Nocturne in C Sharp Minor (Posthumous). A magnificent end to the new Festival Recital Series, and I hope the concept will remain a part of the festival next year.
rgarratt@thenational.ae
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Results
6.30pm: The Madjani Stakes (PA) Group 3 Dh175,000 (Dirt) 1,900m
Winner: Aatebat Al Khalediah, Fernando Jara (jockey), Ali Rashid Al Raihe (trainer).
7.05pm: Maiden (TB) Dh165,000 (D) 1,400m
Winner: Down On Da Bayou, Royston Ffrench, Salem bin Ghadayer.
7.40pm: Maiden (TB) Dh165,000 (D) 1,600m
Winner: Dubai Avenue, Fernando Jara, Ali Rashid Al Raihe.
8.15pm: Handicap (TB) Dh190,000 (D) 1,200m
Winner: My Catch, Pat Dobbs, Doug Watson.
8.50pm: Dubai Creek Mile (TB) Listed Dh265,000 (D) 1,600m
Winner: Secret Ambition, Tadhg O’Shea, Satish Seemar.
9.25pm: Handicap (TB) Dh190,000 (D) 1,600m
Winner: Golden Goal, Pat Dobbs, Doug Watson.
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Biog:
Age: 34
Favourite superhero: Batman
Favourite sport: anything extreme
Favourite person: Muhammad Ali
Major matches on Manic Monday
Andy Murray (GBR) v Benoit Paire (FRA)
Grigor Dimitrov (BGR) v Roger Federer (SUI)
Rafael Nadal (ESP) v Gilles Muller (LUX)
Adrian Mannarino (FRA) Novak Djokovic (SRB)
Salah in numbers
€39 million: Liverpool agreed a fee, including add-ons, in the region of €39m (nearly Dh176m) to sign Salah from Roma last year. The exchange rate at the time meant that cost the Reds £34.3m - a bargain given his performances since.
13: The 25-year-old player was not a complete stranger to the Premier League when he arrived at Liverpool this summer. However, during his previous stint at Chelsea, he made just 13 Premier League appearances, seven of which were off the bench, and scored only twice.
57: It was in the 57th minute of his Liverpool bow when Salah opened his account for the Reds in the 3-3 draw with Watford back in August. The Egyptian prodded the ball over the line from close range after latching onto Roberto Firmino's attempted lob.
7: Salah's best scoring streak of the season occurred between an FA Cup tie against West Brom on January 27 and a Premier League win over Newcastle on March 3. He scored for seven games running in all competitions and struck twice against Tottenham.
3: This season Salah became the first player in Premier League history to win the player of the month award three times during a term. He was voted as the division's best player in November, February and March.
40: Salah joined Roger Hunt and Ian Rush as the only players in Liverpool's history to have scored 40 times in a single season when he headed home against Bournemouth at Anfield earlier this month.
30: The goal against Bournemouth ensured the Egyptian achieved another milestone in becoming the first African player to score 30 times across one Premier League campaign.
8: As well as his fine form in England, Salah has also scored eight times in the tournament phase of this season's Champions League. Only Real Madrid's Cristiano Ronaldo, with 15 to his credit, has found the net more often in the group stages and knockout rounds of Europe's premier club competition.
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The specs
Engine: 3.8-litre, twin-turbo V8
Transmission: eight-speed automatic
Power: 582bhp
Torque: 730Nm
Price: Dh649,000
On sale: now
Western Region Asia Cup T20 Qualifier
Sun Feb 23 – Thu Feb 27, Al Amerat, Oman
The two finalists advance to the Asia qualifier in Malaysia in August
Group A
Bahrain, Maldives, Oman, Qatar
Group B
UAE, Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia
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