Tony Chen Lin

Classics Today
Tony Chen Lin’s Digressions
Review: Jed Distler
Sept 2020

Digressions
Bela BARTÓK (1881-1945)
Piano Sonata BB 88 (Sz. 80) [13:23]
Johann Sebastian BACH (1685-1750)
French Suite No. 5 in G major, BWV 816 [17:06]
Tony Chen LIN (b. 1988)
Digression (Meditation on R. S.) [5:15]
Robert SCHUMANN (1810-1856)
Humoreske, Op. 20 [30:10]
Tony Chen Lin (piano)
rec. 2018, Adam Concert Room, New Zealand School of Music, Wellington
RATTLE RATD080 [66:06]

Pianist Tony Chen Lin understandably tries to explain and justify why he’s brought these particular four compositions together for a recital disc. Yet he doesn’t need to, because they add up to a wonderfully contrasted program.

Opening with Bartók’s Piano Sonata guarantees attention, especially considering Lin’s grounded rhythm and decisive articulation in the outer movements. In addition, he successfully reconciles the central movement’s sustained lyricism and forceful “pesante” qualities. Lin also strikes a happy balance mixing and matching legato cantabiles and clipped detaché phrases through Bach’s G major French Suite. My only half-quibbles concern an overly fast Bourrée, plus rhythmic mannerisms in the Gavotte and Loure.

While Lin displays plenty of sensitivity and musicality in Schumann’s Humoreske, I miss the textural clarity and marked contrasts in mood that ...continued

MusicWeb International
CD Review: DIGRESSIONS
Review: Paul Serotsky
May 2020

Digressions
Bela BARTÓK (1881-1945)
Piano Sonata BB 88 (Sz. 80) [13:23]
Johann Sebastian BACH (1685-1750)
French Suite No. 5 in G major, BWV 816 [17:06]
Tony Chen LIN (b. 1988)
Digression (Meditation on R. S.) [5:15]
Robert SCHUMANN (1810-1856)
Humoreske, Op. 20 [30:10]
Tony Chen Lin (piano)
rec. 2018, Adam Concert Room, New Zealand School of Music, Wellington
RATTLE RATD080 [66:06]

To those who have heard him play, the pianist Tony Chen Lin is remarkable on several counts: most obviously for his virtuosic technique, but even more so for his sensitive and insightful musicianship. Yet, by far the most remarkable is that, other than in New Zealand and some parts of central Europe, he seems to be something of an unknown quantity. This I find a bit puzzling, particularly in view of one quote given justifiable pride of place at the top of the “About” page on his website. Coming from no less a personage than Tamás Vásáry, this pretty well paraphrases my opening sentence: “Tony Chen Lin is a true artist. Rarely have I encountered a finer musician who has something truly exceptional to say in music. He has ...continued

Radio New Zealand
Tony Chen Lin (piano) – Dreams/Fantasies
The Great Hall of the Arts Centre, Christchurch – 1.10pm, 30 September 2019
Review: Tony Ryan
From Upbeat, 11:16 am on 2 October 2019

Dear Tony Chen Lin

Every now and then, usually years apart, I encounter a performance that goes straight to my heart and which seems to inhabit my soul. Today, yours was one such.

Everything was overwhelming, and I’m so glad that you retained all four works from your Chamber Music NZ tour in this Christchurch programme. By the middle of the first movement of the Janáček Sonata, the tears were flowing.

Then, at that rapturous opening of Schumann’s Fantasie, my heart was in my throat!

After the second movement I wondered if others in the audience thought it all as special as I did.

The standing ovation answered my question. In other parts of the world such a performance would have inspired the audience to extend their appreciation for many minutes longer; I’m sorry that we are more restrained in Christchurch.

The only other time that I have encountered a live performance of the Schumann was in the same hall from Hungarian ...continued

Middle C
CD Review: DIGRESSIONS
Review: Peter Mechen
29/09/2019

Wellington Chamber Music presents:
TONY CHEN LIN (piano)

Music by Mozart, Schumann, Janáček and Gao Ping

MOZART – Fantasia and Sonata in C Minor, K,475 & 457
GAO PING – Daydreams – Suite for Piano (2019)
JANACEK – Piano Sonata 1.X.1905, “From the street”
SCHUMANN – Fantasia in C Major Op.17

St.Andrew’s on-The-Terrace, Wellington

Sunday, 29th September, 2019

Can it really be three years almost to the day that Tony Chen Lin was last playing for us in this same venue? – delighting and enthralling us on that occasion with a programme remarkable as much for its explorations of the music’s connecting threads and echoings as its contrasts and differences? Perhaps it was the unifying factor of having a similarly “only connect” spirit hovering about the music and the playing on this more recent occasion which helped to “telescope” the intervening period so markedly.

Here, the pianist’s choice of repertoire sought out a thread of fantasy running through each of the pieces, an opening up of worlds of imagination and conjecture across varied mindscapes, ranging from personal angst (Mozart), romantic longing (Schumann), whimsical daydreaming (Gao Ping) and presentiment of tragedy (Janáček). ...continued

Seen and Heard International
Powerful pianism and soulful singing from Tony Chen Lin in Whangarei
Review: Paul Serotsky
15/09/2019

Mozart – Fantasy and Sonata in C Minor, K. 475/457
Gao Ping – ‘Daydreams’, a suite for piano
Janáček – Sonata 1. X. 1905 ‘From the Street’
Schumann – Fantasie in C Major, Op.17

Readers of my reviews of recitals presented by Whangarei Music Society in association with Chamber Music NZ might have noticed the change of venue. Newberry’s has a large, light, airy room with a capacious dais at the front, comfortable seating for 300 or more, a decent grand piano, and spacious reception area. Compared to the Old Library, the acoustic is dry; nevertheless, for chamber music it is passable.

Born in China, New Zealander Tony Chen Lin (I’m not sure of his proper surname, so I’ll just say ‘Tony’) studied at Canterbury University (NZ), Freiburg Hochschule für Musik (Germany) and the Liszt Academy (Budapest). As well as being an accomplished, mature and well-travelled pianist, equally happy as a recital soloist, chamber musician or concerto soloist, Tony is also a teacher, conductor and composer (see his website). Judging by the comprehensive, evocative and literate essays he provided, he is ...continued

Middle C
CD Review: DIGRESSIONS
Review: Peter Mechen
01/05/2018

My first encounter with Tony Chen Lin was in 2008 at Kerikeri’s International Piano Competition, in which he was awarded what I’ve always regarded as a “too close to call” second place to his friend Jun Bouterey-Ishido. Since then I’ve heard each of them some years afterwards give separate recitals in Wellington; and while appreciating the unique excellence of each, I’m still unable to pronounce either of them the other’s superior. Most recently I heard Lin perform at St.Andrew’s, which was less than a couple of years ago, in September of 2016  (the review can be read at the following link – http://middle-c.org/2016/09/tony-chen-lin-piano-evocations-visions-and-premonitions-in-st-andrews/ ), and two of the items he presented on that occasion are now included on this, his first CD, appearing on the Rattle Records label.

The CD’s overall title “Digressions” is borrowed from one of these two pieces, in fact Lin’s own composition. As its subtitle Meditation on R.S. suggests, the piece is a kind of reflection on Robert Schumann’s Humoreske, the work that concludes this recording’s programme. The opening tones of Lin’s piece seemed conjured out of the air, with ...continued

Otago Daily Times
CD Review: DIGRESSIONS
Review: Geoff Adams
June 2nd 2018

DIGRESSIONS - Tony Chen Lin (Rattle) (Rat-D080 2018)

This fine debut album from Lin features three appealing but seemingly unrelated works. Bartok's Piano Sonata in three movements, written in 1926, provides a fresh and lively beginning to the programme, followed by J.S. Bach's French Suite No.5 in G major BWV816, which also has a lively appeal, with seven short dance movements showing Bach in some of. his happiest moments of joy.

The final classical work is Schumann's mercurial Humoreske Op.20, in six slightly longer movements, and where the ''humour'' refers to a study of the human condition. The composer confessed in a letter to Clara that he was ''laughing and crying at the same time'' when he .. wrote it.

In deliberate ''digression'' (echoed in the album title), the soloist has sandwiched in his own five-minute composition Digression, subtitled as '' Meditation on R.S. '', which introduces the Robert Schumann masterpiece, and is itself inspired by the digressive nature of that work.

Lin won the NZ National Concerto Competition in 2007 and other scholarships and honours since then, including being a multiple recipient ...continued

New Zealand Opera News
CD Review: DIGRESSIONS
Review: Garth Wilshere
June 2018

DIGRESSIONS - Tony Chen Lin (Rattle) (Rat-D080 2018)

It is clear both from his playing and his notes to the recording that Tony Chen Lin is a deep thinker. Raised in Christchurch and initially studying with Goo Ping he won the Christchurch Junior Concerto Competition, the New Zealand Notional Concerto Competition, and was placed 2nd in the 2008 Kerikeri International Piano Competition. He is now making a name on the international circuit.

The programme on his debut CD is eclectic - beginning with Bartok's tough Piano Sonata. Having studied with Peter Nagy in Christchurch and then at the Liszt Academy in Budapest he has a wonderfully innate understanding of Bartok's style in a very clean, exact performance of the difficult work, without sacrificing any of its drama and style.

The Bartok is followed by Bach's French Suite No. 5 in G Major (BVN 816). Again, the clean, purposeful playing immediately arrests the ear. He never forgets that it this is dance music, hence one of the links to the Bartok. Although played on a piano, there is a nod towards authentic performance practice with very light pedalling, ...continued

Elsewhere
CD Review: DIGRESSIONS
Review: Graham Reid
Apr 10, 2018

Tony Chen Lin: DIGRESSIONS

Bartok, Bach and Schumann form the bulk of this debut album by the award-winning China-born, New Zealand-schooled pianist now based overseas. The title piece however is an elusive composition of his own which very slowly comes to life like a flower unfolding and doesn't quite establish any particular motif in its five-plus minutes but suggests a number of directions and teasingly follows few for any duration.

It is an oasis of reflection and as he says in the liner notes he often uses it as hors d'oeuvre before Schumann's Humoreske (which here follows) because it too is a piece which seemingly does not begin.

That said Humoreske is a beautiful, melodic and sometimes reflectively melancholy cycle which is by turns whimsical, sprightly and gently effervescent and at others broods among the joy of life around it, making connection with pleasure only when it suits. Chen Lin captures all of these moods.

The Bartok Piano Sonata BB 88 from '26 opens the album with a work which straddles the worlds of classical structure and folk idioms so there is that earthy second movement which seems to pull ...continued

Radio New Zealand
Masterworks: Pathetique
Christchurch Symphony Orchestra with Tony Chen Lin (piano)
Charles Luney Auditorium
Review: Tony Ryan
Mar 27 2018

Ravel – Piano Concerto in G (1929-1931)

But, even so, the highlight of this concert was Ravel’s G Major Piano Concerto.

The soloist was former Christchurch pianist Tony Chen Lin who, we were told, was making his professional concerto debut with this performance. And what a performance!

This is, technically, a very difficult work, but every colourful nuance and detail was fully projected by the soloist with masterful variety of light and shade and an almost chamber music feel in the way he worked with the orchestra; and the orchestra here were equal stars in the way they brought Ravel’s colourful magic to life.

For much of the piece, I’m aware of watching and listening to the orchestra just as much as the pianist and so many special details were just so brilliantly done. There are just so many solo contributions from the orchestra, but I specially have to mention the CSO’s long-time ‘crack’ percussion section, who also, incidentally, shone in the Leonie Holmes piece.

But Helen Webby’s harp solos were simply ...continued