5 February, 1998

The Register-Guard, USA

Rozum’s Chopin concert nears perfection

FREDERIC CHOPIN’S complicated piano compositions were reduced to a simple element by Yuri Rozum on Tuesday night: beautiful melodies.

In a spectacular all-Chopin recital at the University of Oregon’s Beall Concert Hall, the Russian pianist demonstrated convincingly that he has a special affinity for the Polish composer who wrote some of the loveliest melodies known.

Maybe it’s the proximity of their homelands; maybe it’s the sorrows in their lives; maybe it’s their physical ailments. Whatever it is, Rozum seemed at one with Chopin and gave full flight to his amazing compositions in a transfixing display of physical ease and emotional insight.

Of all the composers who wrote for the piano, Chopin perhaps understood it best. His singular devotion to the instrument produced a library of pieces that have legions of ardent admirers.

Chopin’s pianistic supremacy allowed astonishing effects that are beyond most mortals. But not Rozum. He can rip the ivory off the keys with the best of them, yet can transcend the blizzards of notes to reveal the full range of human emotion.

Rozum plays Chopin the way Chopin would have wanted it played - with grace, ease, intelligence, delight, song and dance. His concert was a treatise on rising above pages blackened with notes to make heavenly music.

Although he still showed the troublesome aftereffects of a hernia operation in Germany two weeks ago, Rozum cut himself no slack. He chose Chopin favorites that required supreme endurance and power, then went out and conquered them, growing stronger as he went.

Rozum opened by diving into Polonaise in F-sharp minor (Op. 44), then drifted effortlessly through Nocturne No. 1 in C-sharp minor (Op. 27) and Nocturne No. 2 in F-sharp Major (Op. 15).

Having made the audience conversant with Chopin’s unique harmonization, Rozum then pointed out new joys in three concert pleasers, Fantasy-Impromptu in C-sharp minor (Op. 66), Valse No. 2 in C-sharp minor (Op. 64) and Valse in A-flat Major (Op. 42). A lovelier trio would be difficult to Imagine.

Rozum could do no wrong. His fleet fingers tore up and down the keyboard with clarity that seemed humanly impossible. He would attack at breakneck speed, hammering louder and louder, then abruptly change his mood and become pensive.

What emerged was the originality of Chopin’s harmonization, the universal appeal of his melodies and the remarkable command of his tonal coloring - and Rozum’s interpretative genius in bringing it to life.

Everything Rozum touched bore his personal stamp. He hammered out the rhythm, burnished the melodies and feathered the inner voicings In Valse No. 1 In A-flat Major (Op. 60), then piloted a dizzying flight through Valse No. 3 in F Major (Op. 34).

And so on, nonstop, past a ballade, a barcarolle and a scherzo that begged for more. Which Rozum granted, with four encores of ever-increasing pyrotechnics that left the audience exhausted but happy.

If there were any skeptics in the crowd coming in, this remarkable display of piano wizardry surely convinced them that Rozum is the real thing - one of the great pianists of our time.

Fred Crafts is The Register Guard’s critic-at-large.