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Reviews JENNY LIN

Pianist

Jenny Lin: “None more persuasive”
Sunday Times, London, August 17, 2009
CD Review: Shostakovich: 24 Preludes & Fugues
Hänssler Classics CD98.530 (2 CDS)

Isaiah Berlin, in a newly published letter, memorably describes urging Shostakovich, an awkward guest
at an Oxford reception, to perform something of his own: “Without a word he went to the piano and
played a prelude and fugue — one of the 24 he has composed like Bach — with such magnificence,
such depth and passion, the work itself was so marvellous, so serious and so original and unforgettable,
that everything by Poulenc [who was present] flew through the window and could not be recaptured.”
The truly inspiring set has often been recorded, but seldom so persuasively as by Lin, equally at home
with the dour, looming intensities and the eruptions of playful passage-work.
— Paul Driver

A Place for Piano, Even When It Needs 6 Hands
Jenny Lin at the Poisson Rouge
New York Times, July 21, 2009
Le Poisson Rouge, the Greenwich Village cabaret, has made its name by presenting an exciting lineup of
contemporary-music artists and ensembles playing everything from classical modern to indie rock. But
once in a while, lest its clientele start making assumptions, the managers of the club dip into the past.
So it was on Monday night, a program that opened with Stephanie & Saar, duo pianists, playing Bach.
Of course, this being Le Poisson Rouge, the married pair (Stephanie Ho and Saar Ahuvia) played five
works by Bach (a selection from a cantata, a prelude and fugue for organ, and more), with one Fresco-
baldi piece tossed in, as arranged for four-hand piano by the Hungarian composer Gyorgy Kurtag. Mr.
Kurtag’s arrangements, filtered through his contemporary sensibility, emerge as riveting transforma-
tions of the originals. The duo gave beautifully understated performances.
Bach’s presence also hovered over the featured artist of the evening, the dynamic pianist Jenny Lin, who
played 5 of the 24 Preludes and Fugues by Shostakovich, composed in 1950-51. The concert was partly a
release party for Ms. Lin’s new two-CD recording of the complete Shostakovich Preludes and Fugues on
Hänssler Classic, a German label.
In composing his 24 Preludes and Fugues, Shostakovich was paying homage to Bach’s “Well-Tempered
Clavier,” two books of 24 preludes and fugues, written in all major and minor keys. Yet while heeding the
protocols of contrapuntal writing, Shostakovich boldly grasped the prelude and fugue genre from Bach
and took it to the 20th century.
Though Ms. Lin plays a wide-ranging repertory, including concertos by Chopin and Rachmaninoff, she
has made her reputation as a champion of contemporary music. On this night she was beautifully at-
tentive to the Neo-Classical formalities and elegance of the Shostakovich works, while bringing out the
modernist twists and harmonic pungencies.

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Reviews JENNY LIN

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She began with the deceptively simple Prelude No. 1 in C, which at first seems a contemplative chorale,
until the chords start to wander harmonically and are interrupted by quizzically meandering lines. Ms.
Lin was equally fine in the steadfast fugue that follows, music so serenely contrapuntal you almost do
not notice the dark stirrings below the surface.

Ms. Lin gave a brilliant account of the rippling Prelude No. 2 in A minor, which sounded like some un-
hinged toccata, followed by the slightly crazy fugue, with its jagged theme and asymmetrical phrases,
music that the composer Conrad Cummings, who introduced the program, rightly described as “terrify-
ing.”

Other high points were the joyous Prelude and Fugue in A (the fugue is like some apotheosis of a brass
fanfare) and the Fugue in B flat, all complex counterpoint and wildly fractured rhythms, like some metric
mind trap. Ms. Lin ended with a coolly urgent account of the monumental final Prelude and Fugue in D
minor.

One of the Bach/Kurtag pieces was arranged for piano six hands. So Ms. Lin lent her two to the Stepha-
nie & Saar Duo. Le Poisson Rouge, where all kinds of contemporary music and the artists who play it are
welcome, seems to foster such collegiality.
—Anthony Tommasini

Ms Lin’s virtuosity and Shostakovich’s genius
The Wall Street Journal, July 11, 2009

Some musical masterpieces transcend mere euphony to become a matter of life and death. Composed
in 1950-51 by Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975), the 24 Preludes and Fugues, Opus 87 for piano represent-
ed a relief from the Russian composer’s life under the Stalinist yoke.

.....

During Stalin’s reign of terror, many of Shostakovich’s Russian colleagues rejected his 24 Preludes and
Fugues as not Socialist enough. Yet the work had its persistent champions—notably Nikolayeva, who
premiered the work in Leningrad in December 1952, recorded it repeatedly, and was stricken by a ce-
rebral hemorrhage while playing it in San Francisco in November 1993, dying nine days later. Available
recordings of Nikolayeva playing the 24 Preludes and Fugues mostly date from the latter days of her
career, including two 1987 performances on Melodiya and Orfeo (excerpts); a 1990 studio version for Hy-
perion (1992); and a recently released DVD in the Medici Arts Classic Archive series (filmed in late 1992).
Sadly, none represent Nikolayeva at her best.

More revealing are records made by Shostakovich himself in the 1950s, two of which are available on 2
CD from EMI’s “Great Recordings of the Century” series. Some excerpts express mortal grief and despair.
Others present Shostakovich playing with giddy abandon, missing notes in the service of wild tempos
that surpass his own not-negligible keyboard abilities. This range of moods, from exaltation to the
slough of despond, is entirely appropriate for the 24 Preludes and Fugues—a kind of expres-
sivity rarely matched by the Russian pianists who recorded excerpts from the work, from the

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overimposing monumentality of Sviatoslav Richter to the dignified, restrained lyricism of Emil Gilels.
Lost to posterity is a recording of an arrangement played by Shostakovich and a gifted composer friend,
Mieczys_aw Weinberg (1919-1996). This four-handed version was intended by Shostakovich to facilitate
the performance of the work for those who found the two-handed version unwieldy.

The 24 Preludes and Fugues had to wait a few decades for recordings by Western pianists who plumbed
the depths of its essence. This delay might have been avoided had the American pianist William Kapell
(1922-1953), who left some memorable excerpts from Shostakovich’s Preludes Opus 34 (available from
Sony/BMG) not died prematurely in an airplane crash. It wasn’t until 1990 that the Cypriot pianist-
conductor Marios Papadopoulos recorded a lucidly affectionate version of the 24 preludes and fugues, a
version still well worth hearing, available on CD from Oxford Philomusica, an ensemble of which Mr. Pa-
padopoulos is music director. And a year later, the American Keith Jarrett’s recording for ECM smoothed
out the cycle with a highly palatable cool jazz sensibility.

Setting aside the German pianist Caroline Weichert’s capable, if slightly pinched 1991-92 recording for
the French label Accord, and the dishearteningly eccentric Olli Mustonen excerpts for RCA (1997) and
Ondine (2002), we have had to wait until today for a wholly exuberant, indisputably triumphant inter-
pretation that fully realizes Shostakovich’s intentions.

Born in Taiwan and raised in Austria, the young pianist Jenny Lin (www.jennylin.net) currently teaches at
New York’s 92nd Street Y. Having already recorded CDs of Russian modernist music by such overlooked
composers as Arthur-Vincent Lourié (1892-1966) and Serge Bortkiewicz (1910-1949) for the German
label Hänssler, Ms. Lin is perfectly situated to understand the Russian pianistic idiom that Shostakovich
transfigured with his genius. Moreover, Ms. Lin’s virtuosity, expressed in works by Liszt and Rachmaninov
on her own YouTube channel (www.youtube.com/user/jennylinpiano), is fully up to the fearsome chal-
lenges set by Shostakovich.

There have been other outstanding recent CDs of the 24 Preludes and Fugues, such as those by the
nimble-fingered Canadian pianist David Jalbert on Atma Classique, and the lusciously expressive Lithu-
anian Mûza Rubackyté, albeit less than ideally recorded by Brilliant CD engineers. Yet none captures the
dizzying diversity, the range of experience from the moribund to the ecstatic, as does the remarkably
fluid and theatrically imaginative Ms. Lin. Even though Shostakovich did not intend his 24 Preludes and
Fugues to be heard complete, they are such a delight as presented by Ms. Lin that the listener would be
at a loss to do without any one of these miniature masterpieces. Listening to her stunning renditions,
a line by Tennyson, one of the few writers to out-gloom Shostakovich at his most moribund, comes
to mind to describe this work that finds rebirth in bereavement: “O Death in Life, the days that are no
more.”
—Benjamin Ivry

Victory for Shostakovich and for Jenny Lin 3
All Classics, May 11, 2009
Dmitri Shostakovich’s set of 24 Preludes and Fugues for piano Op. 87 is a hard row to hoe; it
requires endurance, patience and discipline and not a small amount of good old fashioned

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muscle. Although the aspect of stamina is a significant one in performing this long and arduous cycle,
even in the studio environment, Shostakovich’s Preludes and Fugues are generally not considered the
domain of younger pianists, as there is a depth of expression that maturity affords such essentially
didactic literature: the “big names” associated with this cycle include its dedicatee, Tatiana Nikolayeva,
who recorded it more than once, the last time when she was nearing 70, the mature Keith Jarrett, Vladi-
mir Ashkenazy and so forth. Jenny Lin is a young pianist and an interesting choice for this cycle -- delib-
erately composed within rather stringent, self-imposed requirements -- in that she is noted for the wide
range of material she covers. Hänssler Classic’s Dmitri Shostakovich: 24 Preludes and Fugues for piano
Op. 87 is only the second album Lin has done devoted to a single composer; the others are themed
compilations of a variety of composers, and this kind of collection has heretofore characterized, if not
wholly defined, Jenny Lin’s work and its popularity. For Lin and Shostakovich both, this is a victory; the
playing is warm, sensible and disciplined and Hänssler’s recording is straightforward and direct; every
contrapuntal line within Shostakovich’s sometimes busy textures are clear. Fans of Lin’s recordings like
The Eleventh Finger on Koch might find Shostakovich’s middle period music a mite conservative, but
devotees of Shostakovich should be pleasantly surprised. While these virtuoso pieces are not often used
in teaching, those who are studying Shostakovich’s Preludes and Fugues for a recital or what not will
find a friend in Jenny Lin’s well-considered, no nonsense playing of them, and yes, her youthful stamina,
endurance and muscle is a help in this music rather than a hindrance.
—Uncle Dave Lewis

ClassicsToday.com—posted April 27, 2009
Dmitri Shostakovich: 24 Preludes & Fugues Op. 87
Jenny Lin (piano)

Hänssler Classic- 98.530(CD)
Reference Recording - Scherbakov (Naxos)

Artistic Quality 10 / Sound Quality 10

Taiwanese pianist Jenny Lin’s discography to date shows just how difficult it is for a talented young
pianist to gain recognition in today’s glutted performing arts marketplace. She has made excellent
recordings for Koch, BIS, and now Hänssler, including discs devoted to modern “niche” composers (Ruth
Crawford Seeger, Valentin Silvestrov) and to some very clever “interesting repertoire” collections (“Chi-
noiserie”, “Preludes to a Revolution”). Her complete Bloch music for piano and orchestra easily is (pianis-
tically at least) the best collection of that music currently available. These recordings show that she has it
all: intelligence, technique, imagination, curiosity, expressive intensity, and a willingness to take risks.

So if there’s any justice in the musical world, this Shostakovich recording ought to be a “breakout”
release. It’s a particularly smart repertoire choice: a 20th-century keyboard masterpiece that has not
been over-recorded but has enjoyed some very distinguished advocacy, mostly from Russian pianists—
Tatiana Nikolayeva, Vladimir Ashkenazy, and above all, Konstantin Scherbakov, whose superb Naxos
recording is the one to beat. Lin does just that, turning in what is hands down the finest version of this 4

massive work yet recorded--a brilliant, moody, energetic, edgy, and technically stunning explo- ra-
tion of Shostakovich’s compositional genius.

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There are so many highlights that it’s impossible to list them all, but here are a few of the most notewor-
thy: First there’s Lin’s amazingly clean fingerwork in the A minor and C minor preludes, and in the witty G
major fugue. The A major fugue, so difficult to phrase cleanly because its simple arpeggio head motive
resists contrapuntal elaboration, has all the freshness of a spring day. It truly dances, and never has been
played better. Lin also finds a perfect, flowing tempo for the F-sharp minor fugue, one of the toughest in
the entire set owing to its length and brooding glumness.

Despite the remarkable clarity of counterpoint in the fugues, and the pointillistic accuracy of Lin’s
technique in this often sharp-edged and brittle music, she’s acutely sensitive to texture and atmosphere
where Shostakovich demands it: witness the impressionistically dreamy E major, B-flat minor, and the
evocatively-pedalled E minor and G minor preludes. The D-flat major prelude’s scherzo/trio has more
gruff Russian humor than the Russians often bring to it, owing to Lin’s aptly heavy left hand in the
scherzo and pitch-perfect delicacy in the trio. The entire performance builds to an effortlessly majestic
and satisfying conclusion in the D minor fugue, a climax achieved as much through ideal pacing and
control of dynamics as through expressive mannerisms.

Hänssler’s engineers have captured Lin’s piano with remarkable fidelity, particularly the rich bass regis-
ter that so nicely contrasts with a slightly “twangy” treble. Having listened to this set several times, on
several systems (including my iPod on a flight to Europe), there is no question that this release repre-
sents a major statement by an artist who deserves far more acclaim than she has received to date. Lin
has paid her dues, and it’s high time that she be let in from the cold of contemporary music recitals and
unusual repertoire collections (which, let’s face it, few people care about), so that we can hear what she
has to say in the classics of the keyboard literature. On evidence here, she’s more than up to the chal-
lenge. Hopefully Hänssler is listening.
—David Hurwitz

Jenny Lin at Le Poisson Rouge
New York Pianist, July 14, 2008

When I descended the stairs of (Le) Poisson Rouge and presented my ticket to attractive youngsters
stationed at laptops I wasn’t sure if I was entering a chillout lounge or the Cloisters. I entered a grotto
with a circular stage, a concert grand Steinway, and cocktail tables lit with gently pulsating tea-candle-
sized LEDs. One moment the sound system was playing atonal string quartet music, the next it featured
a romantic piano trio. It was enchanting.

I was looking for new piano music. I found Jenny Lin. Ms. Lin was celebrating the release of InsomniMa-
nia, a disc of contemporary solo piano music. We hope to be able to bring more about Jenny Lin to you
soon.

The instant that Ms. Lin began Dream by John Cage, there was no other sound in the club. When do 5
you experience silence in New York City? She continued to captivate her audience for over an hour with
night-inspired music.

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Detroit Free Press, September 10, 2008
Fresh thoughts on new music: Jenny Lin’s inspired ‘Insomnimania’

Despite the implosion of the major labels and overall struggles of the classical music recording industry,
quality independent labels continue to release impressive recordings at a swift pace, typically filled with
the kind of inventive repertoire the majors often ignore.
Of the many worthwhile examples that have come my way recently, American pianist Jenny Lin’s “In-
somnimania” (**** out of four stars, Koch International Classics) is particularly inspired.

Lin has a knack for programming and executing winning thematic projects. One recent recording on the
Hanssler label surveyed preludes by Russian composers working between 1905 and the creation of the
Soviet Union in 1922. Another CD, “Chinoiserie” (Bis), surveyed music by Western composers who found
inspiration in the Orient.

“Insomnimania” explores 20th- and 21st-Century American solo piano music associated with dreams,
twilight, somnambulism, insomnia and the never-never land between sleep and consciousness. The
composers -- John Cage, Robert Helps, Frederic Rzewski, William Bolcom, John Musto, Raymond Scott,
Michael Byron, Eric Richards, Cornelius Dufallo and Daniel Felsenfeld -- are a diverse lot of experimental-
ists and mavericks, some famous and others unknown to even aficionados. The entire album, beautifully
paced and performed with striking technical command, emotional intensity and nuance, casts an allur-
ing spell.

The opener, Cage’s “Dream” (1948), sets a meditative mood that carries through the entire album, a
sustained feeling of suspended animation. Cage’s simple single-note lines turn back on themselves, land
in spare chords and then spin away again in a state of low-key reverie descended from the piano music
of Erik Satie. Other works turn feverish, the imagery morphing into night-music visions. Rzewski’s “Mayn
Yingele” (1989) takes off from a prayerful melody by a Yiddish poet, a lament that blooms into grandly
conceived variations that wail in the night.

Vernacular echoes -- specifically ragtime -- come into play in both Musto’s abstract and ghostly “Mid-
night’s Harmonies” and Bolcom’s “Dream Shadows,” which marries a bittersweet melody and lazy rhyth-
mic sway into a 3 a.m. feeling of the blues. Pour yourself a nightcap and wait for the sunrise.
—Mark Stryker

TimeOutNewYork.com—September 11-17, 2008 6
InsomniMania
Jenny Lin
(Koch International Classics)
5* out of 6
If drug-company advertisements can be believed, we are a nation of sleep-chasing insomniacs tor-
mented by the cruel red gaze of a digital alarm clock. But if Lunesta’s lengthy list of side effects is
enough to keep you out of the medicine cabinet, pianist Jenny Lin has a midnight snack for you.

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That’s not to say that the well-rested won’t also enjoy her delicious new disc. Stocked with pieces the-
matically tied to nighttime dreams and anxieties, the threat binds together ten tracts that reach back as
far as Raymond Scott’s Sleepwalker (1936) and move up to Insomnia Redux; 4am, a work written for Lin
in 203 by Daniel Felsenfeld (a TONY contributor).

Lin is a diligent study, the kind of artist you can trust to take you anywhere she wants to go, and it’s not
hard to hear how she herself might be kept up nights. There’s a distilled, unflagging energy that perme-
ates her performances, and a clean, crisp force to the sound she gets out of her instrument. The music
runs the gamut of sleep-related inspirations: Cornelius Dufallo’s Night Visions raises the pulse rate with
ominous clusters and dampened piano strings; Michael Byron’s brief As She Sleeps lightens the mood, in
the vein of a sun-laced afternoon catnap. lin brings out the fantasy in William Bolcom’s “Dream Shadows”
(from Three Ghost Rags) without without wallowing in period nostalgia. The standout track, however, is
Frederic Rzewski’s arresting May Yingele; Lin flies through its intense aerobic demands with characteris-
tically inexhaustible fingers.
—Molly Sheridan

Excerpts from Reviews

”…remarkable technical command… No one who has heard (her) will need to be told that Ms. Lin has a
gift for melodic flow...”
—James R. Oestreich, The New York Times

“Lin’s confident fingers... spectacular technique...”
—Gail Wein, The Washington Post

“The phenomenal virtuosity of pianist Jenny Lin...catapulted hypnotized listeners into three standing
ovations at her Spoleto Festival debut... we watched a living legend at her inspired best.”
—Nada Arnold, Spoleto Festival USA

Jenny Lin’s towering talent at piano awes crowd
— (Headline) The Charleston Post and Courier

“ …a spectacular performance… dazzling mastery.”
—Joshua Rosenblum, Spoleto Festival USA

“Like a speaker whose inflections and emphasis catch your attention, Jenny Lin...gave a performance of
the Mozart Concerto No. 15 (in Bb-Major K. 450) that really spoke to the audience...”
—Lesley Valdez, The Philadelphia Inquirer

“…pianist Jenny Lin…is not merely a promising artist, but a true, first class, concertizing reality. She has 7
not only bravura, flawless technique and youthful temperament; but also a class that is perceptible at
once, and that puts her on a different level.
—Bernardino Zappa, L’Eco di Bergamo (Italy)

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“the soloist Jenny Lin…integrated so well with the orchestra that the two seemed to melt into a single
expression. Without the need for undue rhythmical liberties, she acted sovereign.”
—Rainer Henn, Die Rheinpfalz (Germany)

“...an exceptionally sensitive pianist.”
—Michael Oliver, Gramophone

“Brace yourselves, as The Eleventh Finger is like a thrill ride for musical adventurers, listeners who are not
afraid to take the plunge into the unknown… Lin’s playing… is nothing less than superhuman.”
—David Lewis, All Music Guide, CD “The Eleventh Finger” Koch International Classics

“…a formidable disc of early twentieth-century Russian-Soviet piano music…”
—Alex Ross, CD “Preludes to a Revolution”, Hänssler Classic

“La pianiste Jenny Lin présente avec quiétude ces pièces rares.... se concentre sur leurs lignes tendues,
faisant de toutes une seule, chronologie inquiétante conduisant vers un cataclysme.”
—Jacques Amblard, Le Monde de la Musique

“Miss Jenny Lin is a very gifted young musician and a brilliant pianist.”
—Martha Argerich

October 2009

8

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