Nakamatsu’s rise to prominence reads like a Hollywood script, almost too fantastic to be true. Practically out nowhere — a high school German teacher, who majored in German at Stanford and has a master’s in education — Nakamatsu won the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 1997, the first American to do so since 1981…Over the years, I’ve heard tales of super-musicians only to be disappointed by reality. Similarly, I had heard of Nakamatsu. But as luck would have it I had never actually seen him perform, so I approached his performance with hesitance. By the end of the Schubert, I was surprised by his virtuosity. After the Chopin, I was a fan. This was as close to absolutely perfect pianism as I’ve encountered anywhere. It was not merely a matter of manual dexterity in action, but a case of superior brain power. Tempos, timbre control, phrasing, accurate dynamics at all times, and overall structural strengths were all first-rate…
