Review by Simon Jenner, July 29 2026
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Miaoyan Li returns for the third time to St Nicholas to give one of the most exciting programmes of the year: Adams, Prokofiev, Messaien, Fauré.
She began discussing the blessings of silence and contemplation amidst world crises. John Adams who astonishingly turns 80 next year, has written a small corpus of piano works. Often they’re offshoots of his operas or orchestral pieces.
‘China Gates’ certainly suggests his 1987 opera Nixon in China. Unlike the febrile intensity of that work though ‘China Gates’ is remarkable for its shimmering calm. Fuelled by a post minimalist pulse, it’s an iridescent blue, if one has to put a colour to it.
It’s followed by a comparative rarity. Prokofiev wrote his ninth and last completed Piano Sonata No 9 in C minor Op 103 (he died in 1953 after staring a tenth) in 1947: the year Adams was born.. No 9 should be far better known. Whilst not written after the Zhadanov crackdown of January 1948 that stifled Prokofiev, it’s subdued nature after his ferocious Symphony No.6 of the same year, suggests a premonitory withdrawal from his hard-edged confident musical persona.
It’s been called a domestic sonata, reflecting and even celebrating an inner world, away from the public brio if the mast three Sonatas. It was premiered and recorded in 1956 by Sviatoslav Richter. Though seemingly he didn’t keep it in his repertoire.
It’s scored in four movements. The opening Allegretto bags with an insistent memorable motif moving up and down.
It would be enough you’d think to secure it a more regular place in the repertoire (where it languished behind the trilogy of 6-8, 2 then possibly 3, then Judy ahead possibly of the 4thand 5th and finally 1.
The second movement Allegro strepitoso is a shadowy movement full of darts and rallies. It seems equivocal though and fades into the Andante tranquillo. A calm and balmy movement again without any of the summer lightning you see in some of his slow movements.
The Allegro con brio explodes on the finale. But there’s a surprise as there’s added a ‘ma non troppo presto’ that allows eddies and memorable themes to alternate as we move between extremes. This continues blurring the outlines between the last two movements – it’s teasing and intriguing to work out where you are.
A truly remarkable and premonitory work. Just months later even this was seemed too “formalist” (code for western and modernist) for Zhadanov. Though it seems quietist it probably contains too many harmonic and narrative twists. And anyway it was by Prokofiev. It ends with an almost unique whisper.
Li speaks eloquently about this work and the Parisian No. 5, much alter revised, and its quasi-homage to Stravinsky, later visited as nostalgia. Li’s knowledge around the music she plays give depth and perspective to all she plays. .
Olivier Messaien’s Catalogue D’Oiseaux occupied and exercised the composer Ron around 1954-70. Reflecting bird actors – in this case d the Golden Oriole from the first Book No 1 of 1954. Imitating bird calls is just the start. Messaien knee of course this was impossible. But with juicy tone clusters and runs he makes it believable. Much of this particular bird sound is limpid spare and quietist. It’s interrupted by sudden outbursts in purple and gold chords clattering like an interjection. Then enclosed by calm chords again.
Finally one of Gabriel Fauré’s series of 13 Barcarolles. This is nearing the middle. No 5 in F sharp minor Op 66. In fact it’s well past halfway through Fauré’s work and dates from 1894.
The Barcarolle is a form Fauré made his own. From it’s charming single example by Chopin Faure creates a series evolving from the conventional illustration of a boat, down to an impressionist wash of the action of water and glittering surfaces; through to the meaning of the ferrying between life and death of his final existential Barcarolles. In this Fauré changed out sense of the Barcarolle. Hand Werner Henze in 1978 !wrote an orchestral elegy with the title, and so did others.
No 5 is lively after its very dark minor-keyed opening. The liveliness and play though is rooted in disturbance as the two-note opening followed by two more two-notes tied together, becomes ever more exploratory and dark. The hunt for meaning below the glitter has begun.
It’s the perfect piece to come down after the previous glittering ferocities too. It acts as a cooling draught on one of the hottest days of the year, which always seems to peak on Wednesdays at the point of a St Nicholas recital.
In all this Li, who finished her training at Trinity Laban, is sovereign and in total command of a huge range of colour. From the shimmering post-minimalist Adams through the reaches and explorations of Prokofiev’s sour tonalities, through the glorious juicy colours if Messaien’s chords, to the classical dark Romanticism of Faure. Like Prokofiev he lurks in shadows we’ve hardly explored. An outstanding recital. Li hopes to return next year, teaching permitting.
Photo Credits: Simon Jenner
