Pi-hsien
Chen,
陳必先 pianist
Pi-hsien
Chen
was born in Taipei in 1950. When she was nine, she left Taiwan
and one year later entered the University of Music in Cologne,
Germany. She grew up in the home of her teacher, Hans-Otto
Schmidt-Neuhaus, who was also the teacher of Karlheinz
Stockhausen, Christoph Eschenbach, and Péter Eötvös. She later
studied with Hans Leygraf and also with Wilhelm Kempff, Claudio
Arrau, Geza Anda, and Tatjana Nikolajewa.
In 1972, her
carrier as pianist began when she won the First Prize at the
International ARD Competition in Munich. Her special interest in
Schoenberg and Bach also enabled her to win the Arnold
Schoenberg Competition in Rotterdam and the Bach Competition in
Washington, D.C.
She has
performed in most of the major concert halls and with many of
the world’s major orchestras, particularly almost every
orchestra within the German radio system. Among the orchestras
with whom she has appeared are the Royal Philharmonic, the
London Symphony, the BBC Orchestra, the Scottish Chamber
Orchestra, the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam, the Zurich
Chamber Orchestra and Tonhalle Orchestra, as well as the NHK
Orchestra in Tokyo. She has also been a partner in the Asko
Ensemble in Amsterdam, Ensemble Modern in Frankfurt, and
Ensemble Intercontemporain in Paris.
She has
appeared in the festivals in Lucerne, Schwetzingen, Hong Kong,
and Osaka, as well as the Berliner Festspiele, the
Wien Modern festival, the Festival d’Autumne
in Paris, the Strasbourg Festival, the South Bank Festival in
London, the Huddersfield Festival, the BBC Proms, the Ruhr Piano
Festival, and the festival in Roque d'Antéron. She represented
German music at EXPO 2000 in Hanover, appearing with Alfons
Kontarsky. She has been a frequent guest at the Donaueschingen
Festival, and was one of six piano soloists in the world
premiere of Georg Friedrich Haas's limited approximations
in 2010.
Her
dedication to new piano music evolved out of her collaboration
with composers such as John Cage, Elliott Carter, Pierre Boulez,
Karlheinz Stockhausen, György Kurtág, John Patrick Thomas, and
Péter Eötvös, to whom she was married. An IRCAM documentary film
by Walter Schels shows Boulez assisting Pi-hsien Chen as she
prepares for the world premiere of his Douze Notations.
In "Black and White", a documentary film about Elliott Carter,
Pi-hsien Chen is the pianist in his Double Concerto for
Harpsichord & Piano and Two Chamber Orchestras.
She was a
professor specializing in contemporary piano music at the
Universities of Music in Cologne and Freiburg. She has taught
and performed at the "International Summer Courses” in
Darmstadt, the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, and the Chinese
Foundation for Performing Arts Summer Music Festival in Boston.
The documentary film "Himmel voller Geigen" (shown on the
German/French arts channel ARTE in 2014) examines Pi-hsien
Chen’s role as a pioneer in Taiwan's musical life.
Her
recordings include:
J.S.Bach |
Goldberg Variations (Naxos), Six Partitas |
(JazzWerkstatt) |
|
"The
Art of the Fugue" |
(Feldgen) |
Jean
Barraqué |
Sonata |
(Telos) |
John
Patrick Thomas |
"Lost
Landscapes" |
(Emrick
Music) |
W.A.
Mozart |
Complete Sonatas and other Variations and Piano Pieces
|
(6 CDs
for Sunrise) |
A.
Schoenberg |
Complete Piano Music |
(Hat[now]Art) |
O.
Messiaen |
"Harawi"
with Sigune von Osten, soprano |
(JazzWerkstatt) |
Pierre
Boulez |
Complete Sonatas and Notations |
(Hat[now]Art) |
Pierre
Boulez
John Cage |
Structures I & II and
"Music For Piano" with Ian Pace |
(Hat[now]Art) |
John
Cage
Domenico Scarlatti |
"Music
of Changes" and
Nine Sonatas of Scarlatti |
(Hat[now]Art) |
Stockhausen
Beethoven |
Klavierstücke I-Vl and
Sonatas Op. 101 and Op. 111 |
(Hat[now]Art) |
Xiaoyong Chen |
"Invisible Landscapes" |
(Radio
Bremen) |
York
Hoeller |
Piano
Works |
(EDA) |
Lei
Liang |
"Tremors of a Memory Chord" |
(Naxos) |
A
newly released box set with live recordings of five
recitals in Cologne’s Kolumba Museum (February-July 2017) |
(Telos) |
Reviews:
"Chen
creates a masterful "Art of the Fugue". (Richard Buell, Boston
Globe)
"...Ms
Chen's recording of Jean Barraqué's Sonata is remarkable. She
takes a sparkling, crystalline view of the music in a way that
brings it near the music of Barraqué's principal French
contemporary, Pierre Boulez...." (Paul Griffiths, The New York
Times)
"...Pi-hsien
Chen's opening to Beethoven's Bagatelles announced that the
audience would be treated to musical universes that were clear
and clean, contained and carefully considered and phrased…. In
the carefully curated and bigger-scope-than-normal Scarlatti
sonatas, Chen wielded a rich palette while expressing an
enlightening variety of characters, lines, and moods within each
sonata (which makes me think her Mozart might be special)...."
www.classical-scene.com,
2004
"...Pi-hsien
Chen interleaves the four books of the Music of Changes
with nine Scarlatti keyboard sonatas.... The juxtaposition works
wonderfully with the irregular multilayered sound masses of
Cage's pieces. What links them here, though, is the sense of
buoyancy and alertness that
characterises
all of
Chen's playing... " (Andrew
Clements,
The Guardian, U.K.)
“Pi-hsien
Chen's playing was strikingly colorful and exciting, and the duo
with Nicholas Kitchen played Mozart's Sonata with real Mozartian
elegance....”
www.classical-scene.com
2016
“...
Beethoven’s late works, with their startling degree of
subjectivity, form a fascinating contrast to Stockhausen’s
impersonal, coolly constructed world. One reason this functions
without problem is because Pi-hsien Chen possesses a remarkable
ability to inhabit both of these worlds. Unexpected contrasts
take place; above all, the transition from Op. 101 to
Klavierstück V is sensational. Everything fits, even better than
in Pollini’s version….” (Max Nyffeler, NMZ, Schott Phono)
|