St. Paul Pioneer Press

The Chopin Society had to change course recently when Canadian pianist Charles Richard-Hamelin, scheduled to play a sold-out concert at Mairs Concert Hall on Sunday, couldn’t perform because his visa petition was denied, despite multiple submissions.

The good news was that a pianist the organization knows well, Reed Tetzloff, who is originally from Minnesota, was planning to play a concerto in La Crosse, Wis., on Saturday. Like any soloist worth their keys, Tetzloff had a concert’s worth of repertoire ready to go, and accepted the Chopin Society’s invitation to perform on Macalester College’s campus in St. Paul.

With a lighthearted style, Tetzloff performed a varied program of early 20th-century music balanced with works by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Johannes Brahms. Throughout, he emphasized a sense of fun, and often chose works that employed pastiche or homage as a way to hark back to other artists and musicians.

After beginning the concert with a robust performance of Erik Satie’s blithe “Poudre d’or (Gold Dust),” Tetzloff then took on the composer’s 1917 parody of a late 18th-century piece of music by Muzio Clementi. Satie’s “Sonatine bureaucratique” features echoes of the earlier composer’s work, flitting in and out of the score as if in conversation between past and present.

As a performer, Tetzloff uses a natural physicality, at times leaning back from the piano as if to take a good look at his hands on the keys, and at other times coiling forward in rapt concentration. He also occasionally looks straight ahead, as if gazing at an imaginary horizon in the distance.

His performance of Mozart’s Sonata No. 13 in B-flat major showed off the musician’s dexterous articulation, as well as a joyful engagement with Mozart’s complexities.

Of all the music in the concert, Brahms’s Two Rhapsodies were the darkest, but Tetzloff approached the stormy material with a light touch. The first, No. 1 in B minor, “Agitato,” began furiously before transitioning into a more airy section. Brahms’ shifting rhythms are dreamlike and inscrutable, and Tetzloff handled them with care. The almost syncopated rhythms in the second Rhapsody foreshadowed the later 20th-century music on the program.

After intermission, Tetzloff performed Igor Stravinsky’s juicy “Tango,” full of discordant moments even in its rich, evocative call to dance. He then performed a work by Charles Ives dedicated to Louisa May Alcott and her transcendental philosopher father, Amos Bronson Alcott, called “The Alcotts,” from Piano Sonata No. 2. Ives inserts hints of Ludwig van Beethoven’s 5th Symphony in the meditative work, and at other times seems to conjure up church bells through the piano.

Then the program turned to George Gershwin, as Tetzloff performed selections from the composer’s “Songbook for Solo Piano.” In many ways, the 12 Gershwin tunes carried the resonant theme for the concert: playful and adept. Between each number, Tetzloff took a moment to refocus his breath before diving into Gershwin’s jazzy lushness.

Finally, Tetzloff performed another quotation. Leopold Godowsky’s Symphonic Metamorphosis on themes from J. Strauss’s “Die Fledermaus” pays homage to Strauss’ whimsical opera in a complicated swirl of fantastical deconstruction. Reinterpreting, reinvigorating and reimagining Strauss’ work in bits and pieces sewn together with sprightly disorientation, the piece soared, and was followed by more than one standing ovation.

-Sheila Regan