New York Times – Review: A Carnegie Recital Pushes the Piano to Its Limits

by Anthony Tommasini

Most pianists begin a recital with a piece that allows them to warm up a little, and gives the audience a chance to settle in.

Not Jason Hardink. He began his concert on Tuesday at Weill Recital Hall with Jason Eckardt’s “Echoes’ White Veil,” a dizzying, manic 12-minute work of almost stupefying difficulty. There is just a hint of hesitancy at the start, with percussively repeated notes and sputtered trills.

Then the music takes off — and how, with frenzied runs in each hand crisscrossing like strands of unhinged counterpoint, bursts of pummeling cluster chords leaping the length of the keyboard, and more. Some passages hint of avant-garde jazz, like an audacious Cecil Taylor improvisation, but with flintier modernist madness. This 1996 piece has become a calling card for Mr. Hardink, who played Mr. Eckardt’s score not just with command, but with abandon and remarkable clarity.

Read full review at nytimes.com

Photo Credit: Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times