Chester Jankowski

Nobuyuki Tsujii at Carnegie Hall

November 6 2025 music reviews, beethoven, piano

A friend who was under the weather gifted us a pair of tickets to see Nobuyuki Tsujii at Carnegie Hall last night. We were unfamiliar with the Japanese pianist, although he had played a sold-out show at Carnegie Hall last March. He was the winner of the Van Cliburn Competition in 2009, and has been blind since birth. Tonight’s show was not sold out, but it was evident that there were many ‘Nobu’ superfans in the audience.

Tsujii opened with Franz Liszt’s transcription for piano solo of Beethoven’s only song cycle, An die ferne Geliebte, op. 98. Liszt wrote over 400 piano transcriptions, some of which expound upon, and take liberties with the original music, and some of which are more ‘strict’—this one falls under the latter category. And because of this, we have and interesting combination: late period Beethoven, but (for the period) comparatively simple, tender, and nostalgic music. A pleasant way to open the evening.

The centerpiece of the first half was Beethoven’s Appassionata, which Tsujii played forcefully. I was a little taken aback in the first movement, when the pianist let the left hand overpower the right hand melody in the second theme group, in ab minor (the parallel minor of the relative major!), which is otherwise a favorite little tune in this work. I think that was maybe my only quibble in the entire concert. (I did have a quibble with the guy sitting across the aisle from me letting his phone go off right at the end of the first movement of the Appassionata, but that’s another story.)

Whenever Tsujii sits down to play a piece, the first thing he does is reach out with both hands to feel the keys and calibrate his position. After that, his playing is not much different from any other player at his level. Nora and I both note at the time that there is something beautiful and moving about a blind musician playing the work of a deaf composer.

After the intermission, another transcription, this time Mikhail Pletnev’s take on The Nutcracker Suite. A delightful crowd pleaser, moving some in the audience to take surreptitious videos.

I was unfamiliar with Prokofiev’s 7th piano sonata, and I’m not generally a huge fan of Soviet-era music, but I was quite struck with the third movement of this piece. It’s a toccata in a relentless 7/8 metre, with an insistent minor 3rd motive in the left hand. Tsujii played the hell out of this piece, and the audience was very much caught up in all the excitement.

First encore: a beaming Tsujii takes his first bows, and then sits down and starts to play the first movement of the Moonlight Sonata. An apt choice, as we are at that moment experiencing an impressive “beaver” supermoon.

Second encore: Tsujii comes back and plays a jazzy, exciting piece that I’m unfamiliar with. Today I learned that it is the first of the 8 Concert Etudes by Nikolai Kapustin, another Soviet composer, although this work is from 1984, close to the end of that era. I was quite taken with this piece, and today listened to the rest of the etudes, as performed by the great Canadian pianist Marc-André Hamelin, who has been a champion of Kapustin’s work.

Third encore: Tsujii is still taking bows, and the crowd is not letting him go, so now he plays another Liszt piece, “La Campanella” from his Grandes Études de Paganini. A virtuoso piece; a few people have now left Carnegie Hall, but the mood is electric for everyone who is sticking it out.

Fourth encore: More bows, and Tsujii is beaming at the response from the crowd. He sits down again and now plays a lovely rendition of Stephen Foster’s Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair, in what I assume is the pianist’s own arrangement. As Tsujii takes more bows, he grins and leans back to close the lid on the piano. We all take the hint. Tsujii waves back at us all graciously as he leaves the stage.