Say "SEE-mon TERP-chess-key." Say "brilliant."

Simon Trpceski, a 25-year-old Macedonian pianist, has just fired up the
usually staid Sunday matinee audience in Davies Hall, for a variety of
good reasons.  First, he took the tough challenge of the Saint-Saens
Second Piano Concerto, and breezed through it.  Second, he transformed
the showpiece into "real music." Then, for good measure, he responded
to the ovation with an encore, a sublime performance of an otherwise
slender little piece, Rachmaninoff's "Daisies."

all in all, the concert was similar to the experience of the San
Francisco Opera "Onegin" this week, with the discovery of the fully-formed,
outstanding talent of the young Polish tenor, Piotr Beczala, singing
Lensky in his US debut.  Pianist and singer - newcomers, young artists,
both with outstanding talent, great musicality, and loads of charisma.

Trpceski, whose receding hairline makes him look considerably older than
you'd visualize by his reported birthday (Sept.  18, 1979, in Skopje),
is a small, slight figure, without distracting mannerisms, but with an
air of unaffected, self-possessed presence.  His brushing invisible dust
off the piano keys, and just a couple of instances of conducting and
playing simultaneously were so uncalculated and real that they endeared
him to the audience rather than annoying the listeners.

Trpceski's technique and power are awesome, but he doesn't pound
the keys or wrestle the instrument the way many of his colleagues do.
Trpceski and the San Francisco Symphony, conducted by Yan Pascal Tortelier,
achieved an excellent balance, and avoided all burping, gushing pitfalls
of the Saint-Saens score.

Improbably, the concerto became the least effusive work on the program,
sandwiched between Debussy's "Printemps" and not one, but two Respighi
carnival pieces, "Fountains" and "Pines" of Rome.  If you haven't heard
the rarely-played Debussy, the idea of lumping it with Respighi may sound
strange, but the second movement is right up there with the Italian's
excesses.  During the first movement, which is much more "real Debussy,"
the Symphony's first violins produced the smoothest, silkiest sounds I
have heard in many years of attendance in Davies Hall.

Trpceski's Website is at http://simontrpceski.mt.net.mk/; apparently,
he is heading to Sydney next.  The San Francisco concert may be broadcast
on KDFC-FM and www.kdfc.com at 8 p.m. PST, Dec.  7.

Janos Gereben
www.sfcv.org
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