Tanaka to perform in Placitas
Twenty-first century pianist Misuzu Tanaka feels right at home with 18th century composer J.S. Bach.
Tanaka will demonstrate that comfort level when she opens her Placitas Artists Series recital with Bach’s Italian Concerto.
“I’ve felt an affinity for Bach since I was young,” the London-born Tanaka said in a phone interview. “He’s a composer on a technical and spiritual level I’ve felt very close to.”
She’s surprised it took her until two years ago to learn the piece, because it’s been on her radar for some time.
“I’m happy to have a chance to play the piece, because it’s so festive,” Tanaka said. “Bach was one of the first to try to portray on a single instrument what a large ensemble would do. That’s one of the most exciting things about this piece.”
After the Bach, the gifted pianist will perform Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Variations on a Theme of Corelli.
What Tanaka finds interesting about the work is that it’s the composer’s last solo piano work and culminates all of the techniques he had been using.
She also finds curious that Rachmaninoff said a pianist can omit several of the 20 variations he wrote “because he was never able to perform all of them. Sometimes audience members were laughing so loud that he took it as an indication that they didn’t like (that particular variation), so he went to the next one.”
Tanaka, who studied at The Juilliard School, will play the complete set of variations in the Placitas concert.
In the second half of the
concert, she will perform W.A. Mozart’s Piano Sonata in C minor and Sergei Prokofiev’s Piano Sonata No. 2 in D minor.