Portland Piano International, as is its wont during the years in which the Van Cliburn International Piano competition is held, brought one of the Cliburn medalists to Portland for a recital. This year it was bronze medalist Evren Ozel, an American pianist whose powerful Tchaikovsky 1 and sublime Beethoven 4 concerti helped propel him to the podium. I had the great pleasure of attending the finals at the Cliburn this year, which I wrote about at length at OAW earlier this summer.

(Note: As I explained in the Cliburn review, I will alternate between using the performer’s first name and last name. With a performance as intimate as this, it often feels to me that, although I may never have met the performer, we are on a first name basis. It is no disrespect, but rather the opposite; if we aren’t on a first name basis after sharing this, then when are we?)

Evren began his September 7 recital at the Lincoln Performance Hall at PSU with three sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti. The sheer volume alone of Scarlatti’s solo keyboard output is staggering: 555 sonatas. A great number, to be sure, but the artistic and spiritual wealth of this treasure trove is incalculable. They are much shorter in duration and are typically in a simple binary form (not in the compound binary form we think of when it comes to keyboard sonatas). As such, everything must be given at every second; there is no time to have a lapse and deliver a dull phrase or an idea that dwindles; these short gems are always all or nothing.

Opening with the Sonata in G Major, K. 427, Ozel’s ability to expound upon every line, to bring out each individual voice leading, whatever the texture, and to infuse it with care and sensitivity was on display here. More delicate and lyrical than some interpretations I’ve heard, his dynamic phrasing was fresh, and unafraid to explore the pianissimo despite the bouncing, ebullient nature of the work. K. 11 in C Minor came next, and he showed proper baroque technique by providing richer and more complex ornamentation on the repeats, something that is often missing from the recordings; the rich cadential appoggiature were scintillating and sentimental all at once. He closed with K. 159 in C Major and the key element to this was again the ornamentation – at this breakneck pace there’s barely enough time for even a top-notch performer to fit in all the intricate varieties of trillos and mordants here, yet Ozel managed it, and it never felt close to coming off the rails – all was set perfectly in place.

Beethoven’s Sonata No. 30 in E Major, Op. 109, is one of the late sonatas, one that defies the traditional expectations of the genre by the movements being arranged “slow-fast-slow” instead of “fast-slow-fast.” It’s one of his most introspective and curious pieces, and having heard Ozel’s masterful treatment of the Beethoven Concerto No. 4 at the Cliburn, I was excited at the opportunity to hear him play some of the master’s solo work.

The soprano elements – gentle, deft, almost ‘un-Beethovenian,’ one might say – were right in Evren’s wheelhouse, and as he played there was a genuine, inquisitive smile on his face; a private reflection, perhaps, although through his playing it felt like we were being let in on the secret, which is maybe part of the key as to why his Beethoven is so engaging. In the “Prestissimo” his interpretation was like that of a wandering soul searching frantically for a thing without any certainty of its being found; at the beginning of the “Gesangvoll mit innigster empfindung” (“Lyrical, and with the deepest sentiment”), Ozel played the opening chords with all the solemnity of a Bach chorale as the wanderer finally came home to rest. In spirit like some kind of tema con variazioni Schubert lied, the variations came and went – some more surely, Ozel giving them a risoluto treatment, and then others played like a slow, gentle dance between the hands. In yet another variation Ozel was having great fun, the hands popcorning in and out of one another’s way, playing hide-and-seek with the melody, and his penchant for clear, pristine linework once again served him well in the fugato variation. Ozel’s way of total immersion into Beethoven, so that all the poignancy and proto-Romantic intent is brought to the fore, was as effulgent here as it was at the Cliburn, and was truly a fine thing to hear.

Closing out the half was Bartók’s Out of Doors, Sz. 81. The “Wild Drums and Pipes” that opened the work immediately disclose that this is going to be something weird, but only in the best way. Jumping, pulsing and syncopated, Ozel built and built the tension until it suddenly came to a grinding halt. In the second movement he brought a swaying sort of swagger to this angular interpretation of a “Barcarolle,” rolling through the water like fragments of mysterious thoughts. The “Musettes” saw Ozel hammering away with a staccato that was almost obnoxious in its intensity – and so of course intensely fascinating. “The Night’s Music” is an endlessly fascinating piece, and one of Evren’s favorites. Those strange arpeggiated cluster chords, solo at the beginning but a constant motif throughout: are they a chirruping frog, an aggravating insect or a sinister night-bird? The odd, disjointed rhythms paired with disgorgements of stygian color and character provide a limitless canvas for the performer’s imagination – and then there is sudden beauty and serenity as a peasant flute theme enters, but still we are reminded that the bizarre creatures of the night are lurking just outside. Then “The Chase” begins with an explosion out of the bass, and Evren’s deft management of the rapidly repeating notes allowed the chase to play out to its unknown finale. Ozel played this work as part of his quarterfinal recital at the Cliburn; I highly recommend viewing it here.

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The second half started with Fauré’s Nocturne No. 4 in E-flat Major, Op. 36. Short, sweet, and dreamy, it served as a sort of prelude to Robert Schumann’s Carnaval, Op 9. Consisting of 21 short pieces centered around costumed revelers at Carnivale, some of the studies were based upon Schumann himself and others he knew, including Chopin and Paganini.

The “Préambule” came out like a fanfare, with dashing phrasings and delightful little arabesques that Ozel fired off almost like afterthoughts. As the “Pierrot” made its appearance, sudden fortissimo motives exploded alarmingly from the texture. During the “Arlequin,” Ozel managed delightful, presto acciaccature leaps in the right hand, landing deftly and ever-so-gently on the fifth finger high above the lower note of the figuration. This movement felt very like a carnival, festive and gay. In “Eusebius” Ozel rendered the themes with such lush, sighing care that I wanted to hold my breath, as each phrase became more heartbreakingly beautiful than the last, and “Papillons” felt like the tender yet stochastic dance of butterflies in a wind-swept meadow. Movement 13 was simply called “Chopin,” and was done very much in that style, so it looked like Ozel was having fun getting to play a little Chopin in a program that didn’t contain any of his work. “Estrella” was the tenderest of lullabies, and the finale, the “Marche des Davidsbündler contre les Philistins,” symbolized an imaginary league of modern composers of Schumann’s own creation, struggling against the reactionary philistines of days gone by, and Evren’s joyous treatment of the thunderous cannonade of repeated notes was the perfect, rousing finale to close out the concert.

I absolutely love the intimacy of solo recitals by master artists at the top of their games. Evren Ozel’s blending of the hands to arrive at exact right texture and timbre from an infinite set of possibilities, his knack for accenting just the right notes in any harmonic structure to impart the perfect color to an interwoven melodic line – it feels to me like a bit of a ‘hangover’ from the Cliburn earlier this year, a reminder of sorts as to just why we go to hear great music performed by great artists in this age when virtually anything and everything we want to hear is literally at our fingertips. There are some things that just can’t be conveyed or understood without seeing and hearing a performer live, and PPI is a marvelous testament to that fact.