SACRAMENTO BEE

August 25, 2000

“Pianist Plays Old, New, His Own--All Brilliantly”

Impressive qualities of pianistic brilliance, strength, intellect and sensitivity marked the concert by pianist-composer John Ferguson in the First Methodist Church Wednesday night, and they were brought to bear on a program of extraordinary variety and interest.

For one thing, it reached all the way back to Beethoven and Liszt and was as contemporary as today’s John Zorn, to say nothing of the premiere of one of Ferguson’s pieces.  But spanning two centuries is not that unusual.  This program was also a rare trip to a near-forgotten tradition: piano transcriptions of symphonies.  The first half of Ferguson’s recital was Franz Liszt’s transcription for two hands of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7.

It is common to regard such works as a way to display the soloist’s virtuosity, and often they were merely that.  But Liszt was a formidable composer in his own right, and one with a conscience.  He was the greatest virtuoso of the 19th century, but to him, Beethoven was “sacred,” and when his publishers persuaded him to transcribe all nine Beethoven symphonies, he wrote that he wanted to transfer to the piano not only the “grand outlines” of the originals but also their “numerous fine details and smaller traits.”

You could appreciate both Liszt’s conscience and the demands of his virtuosity as Ferguson pursued his tremendous, 45-minute task.

Beethoven’s Seventh is one of his most popular.  This was like hearing it anew--a fascinating experience.  Its persistent rhythmic character is underlined by the essentially percussive nature of the piano.  Passages full of notes recall the fullness of the orchestra’s sound.  The course of the work is unchanged, but here and there are inner phrases--a little rising figure in the left hand supporting the first theme in the first movement, for instance--that pique the attention as is one had never heard them before.  But they were always there, of course.

The piano’s sound accented the dance-like bounce of the Trio in the Scherzo.  And the finale--here Ferguson braved virtuoso heights--was a hurricane of music with tiny pockets of calm, finally blowing itself out in the last climax.

The performance was a heroic success all around.

John Zorn (born 1953) is an avant-garde composer with his foot in so many camps you can hardly locate him.  Jazz (he plays alto sax), rock, lounge music, the Kronos Quartet, film, modern composition--he ties into them all.

Ferguson played his “Carny,” which seemed, in its 13-minute span, to epitomize eclecticism.  Jabbed notes at the very top of the keyboard, rolling arpeggios, bursts of merriment serial intervals, boogie woogie, pretty pop chords, bangs and trills, wild spurts of virtuosity--it had an abundance of contrasts.  Much better than a roller-coaster ride, it left you wondering where you might be going next.  Ferguson’s program note found “structural pillars” and a progress toward form; at first hearing, it was hard to find a plan, but I don’t doubt that it was there.  In any case, it was a stimulating ride.

Ferguson’s “Piano Piece No. 4,” 10 minutes long, seemed a much more coherent work, holding the attention with a steady appeal.  It begins quietly, with spare melodic writing that suggests thoughtfulness.  Strong bass chords support a growing excitement in the upper register.  Brief but fiercely felt fugal writing gives way to a return of the opening music and some beautiful, rising chord progressions.  Lows and highs come together, gather forces and lead to a high soft, ending that disappears into silence.  It’s a work one would gladly hear again, and it was played with the utmost care.

Three very short, contrasting pieces by Jean Sibelius, titled “Kyllikki,” also were played.

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BOSTON GLOBE

September 18, 2000

“A Robust Workout for Fleet Ferguson”

John Ferguson is young, tall, blond, and earnest-looking--the image might almost be that of a Victorian missionary--and it was indeed a kind of proselytizing zeal--along with fleet fingers, power, and a fine dynamic control--that made his recital at the Boston Conservatory Thursday night quite a success in its determinedly off-center way.

If you’d forgotten what the program was to be and had come in late, chances are that for a minute or so you’d have wondered which particular middle-period Beethoven sonata Ferguson was having at so robustly.  Of course it was not a sonata at all, but Franz Liszt’s mighty effort to gather the totality of Beethoven’s orchestral textures within reach of a pianist’s mere, sorely taxed, and vulnerable 10 fingers.  Amazingly, this seemed to work a good two-thirds of the time.  Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring,” transcribed for piano, packs more of a wallop nowadays than the original does.  Something similar may be true of the Seventh.  Ferguson’s sforzandos meant business, coming out of nowhere and posing a threat to any loose plaster that might be around.  Viola parts that only violists get to hear also came out of nowhere, but much more quietly.  All this served to demonstrate anew Liszt’s much-remarked genius in orchestrating for piano.  And, as well, the terrible demands he makes on an executant--endless stamina and a large reach head the list.  Though Ferguson’s playing in the finale wasn’t exactly note perfect--he did tire some--it steered triumphantly clear of the Laocoon-like tangle one feared, its bacchanalian spirit intact.

All very interesting, you say, but was there any “normal” music on this program?  Well, no.  The next item was an instance of Sibelius’s writing for the piano, usually dismissed as a load of salon fripperies dashed off for ready cash.  By the sound of them, the Three Lyric Pieces “Kyllikki,” Op. 41, are an exception.  The characteristic Sibelian tone of curdled passion and desolated lyricism (a frustrated sweet tooth, it’s been mooted) was written all over them.  A neat project for a course in orchestration, surely--some passages cried out for an oboe solo.

In John Zorn’s “Carny” (1989) the stylistic snippets came from everywhere at a speed close to that of an MTV video.  This was another workout for the pianist, but not as satisfying.  It could have ended anywhere.  That it defiantly didn’t raised suspicious memories of the audience-baiting that New York City loft culture of the 1980s used to indulge itself in.  Ferguson’s own “Piano Piece No. 4” was imaginatively and beautifully written for the instrument, its sure-handing pacing of events proclaiming a distinctive authorial voice.  As a composer, too, John Ferguson is the genuine article.

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21st CENTURY MUSIC

January, 2002

“Babbitt and Fluxus”