Tao Lin,  Pianist                

  Critical Reviews

"From the opening chords of the sonata's initial Allegro [Haydn's Piano Sonata No.50 in C Major], Tao Lin offered inspired music making. A superior classical stylist, he combined crisp articulation with impressive digital dexterity and command. In the Adagio, he illuminated Haydn's wonderfully ingenuous interplay of modulations between major and minor keys. In the Allegro molto finale he vividly captured the music's capricious wit and sly humor. Tao Lin's performance was replete with brio and élan. Here was consummate musicianship and superbly idiomatic musicality."

—  Coral Gables Gazette

"Mr. Lin was most impressive….he tossed off devilish finger work with ease. Even though the instrument was not exactly responding to his vigor, energy, or precision, the audience could connect with his intent."

  —  Ionarts                       

"Tao Lin took a recital program of mostly familiar works and turned them into adventures for the ears . . . [Lin] earned his first of two standing ovations for his breathtaking performance of the Sonata in b minor, op.58, by Frederic Chopin, a masterwork so massive that most pianists who play it close their programs with it. Lin’s version was full of sound and fury but also carried a distinctly sensitive feel in the lush, legato passages . . . What Lin did close with was an awe-inspiring performance of Mily Balakirev’s finger-twisting, knuckle-busting Islamey . . . As impressive as the pounding pyrotechnics were in those two works, what Lin offered in his curtain-raiser, Franz Joseph Haydn’s C major Piano Sonata, Hob. XVI:50 was more interesting. He took the tempos in this, one of Haydn’s best known solo works, quickly and also took full advantage of the sonic qualities of the modern grand piano, breathing life into a piece that too many pianists make stiff and sterile."

—  Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Tao Lin at the piano is like Fourth of July sparklers, his fast fingers are a blur and I would not be surprised if the keys fused from the heat.

Despite such pyrotechnics his fingering is crisp and precise and his playing is both intellectual and appreciative of the composers’ intentions. Tao Lin is a virtuoso.

Tao Lin interpreted Joseph Haydn’s intentions with the first movement of the Piano Sonata in C Major by giving us both an Allegro tempo and a happy sound. He clearly enunciated the two themes while sending their variations scampering across the keyboard in hot, and complicated, pursuit of each other. Crisp and lighthearted.

The Adagio takes a much-needed breath before indulging in flights of fancy; and the final, short, Allegro molto, stops and starts, deliberately hesitates, plays with our expectations, and dares us to laugh out laud at its antics. Tao Lin’s fingers danced.

Tao Lin handled the four movements of Frederic Chopin’s Piano Sonata No. 3 in B Minor with thoughtful intensity, bring us rivers of sound that swirled and eddied to reveal new delights with every passage.

From the Allegro Maestoso’s stately opening and lovely, gentler, second theme, through the super fast scherzo that open the Molto vivace movement and let to a lovely legato section, he kept the contrasts distinct yet integrated. He waded into the Largo with a series of heavy chords that were then echoed with the lightest, ephemeral, touch. His handling of the whole had a feeling of both surprise and inevitability, and his ease at the keyboard belied its difficulty.

Post intermission brought more Chopin with four Mazurkas, then a major Impromptu by Franz Schubert that displayed lovely legato playing and had a crystalline intensity.

The program ended with Mily Balakirev’s Islamey – a piece of such technical difficulty that the composer admitted there were passages he could not play. Premiered by Nikolai Rubinstein in 1869, it opens with pure fire, smolders through a center section, then bursts into flame again. I swear there was smoke rising from the keyboard at the end, but Tao Lin looked relaxed and closed with a glimmer of a smile.

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Last updated:  01/02/2010