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Review: Debut by a pianist fully fledged

Every so often, Astral Artists presents a concert by a musician who arrives with no prior reputation but showing every sign of being a fully fledged artistic force. So it was with pianist Dizhou Zhao, whose Philadelphia recital debut, presented by Astral Artists on Sunday at the Trinity Center for Urban Life, exuded distinctive personality.

Every so often, Astral Artists presents a concert by a musician who arrives with no prior reputation but showing every sign of being a fully fledged artistic force. So it was with pianist Dizhou Zhao, whose Philadelphia recital debut, presented by Astral Artists on Sunday at the Trinity Center for Urban Life, exuded distinctive personality.

A graduate of the New England Conservatory, this pianist from Shanghai plays with a bright, crystalline sonority that gives him no place to hide technically, supported by a hefty bass sound and a musical sensibility that went well beyond the architectural building blocks of Chopin and Prokofiev, allowing the music to unfold as a living, evolving, organic entity.

Oddly, the first impression was a bit chilly. Zhao opened with two Scarlatti sonatas, initially sounding like a young pianist in a hurry. But in the more reflective Sonata in C major L. 457, he emerged as an artist of utmost sensitivity. Each phrase was a distinctive expressive world that grew out what came before with a combination of intellectual logic and emotional imperative.

Such an approach is exactly what one wants in Chopin's four ballades. Left-hand accompaniment figures pulled more emotional weight than usual, while the right-hand phrasing shamelessly went to the most romantic of climaxes, though the Ballade No. 1 coda was effectively visited by the nihilistic rage of Arthur Rimbaud. The Ballade No. 2 in F major was strangely formal at first, though the deliberation allowed one to perceive the dissonances that find their way into the piece as it goes on. Zhao surpassed himself in Ballade No. 4 in F minor in what was one of the most daringly slow readings this side of Grigory Ginzberg's classic recording, with all the gravity one could want but without taxing continuity.

The biggest challenge was Prokofiev's Piano Sonata No. 8, a great, extremely personal view of life on the Russian side of World War II. It's an uncompromising, unforgiving sonata that can feel more strident than musical. Thanks to Zhao's keen way of revealing the music's narrative line through subtly differentiation of sonority, loudness was eloquent and softness was eerie and unsettling.

The program's unknown piece was a 1965 Sonatina by the little-known Chinese composer Linqing Yang (1942-2013), clearly written at a time when western music wasn't exactly being encouraged. In the piece, Chinese scales and songs meld effortlessly with westernized language akin to Debussy, and one shouldn't be surprised, since "Chinois" is often found at the core of French Impressionism. A lovely piece that should be heard more.

dstearns@phillynews.com.