A special evening of music by Almeida Prado at the Embassy of Brazil on Thursday, 25 April 2024 .

Three very fine musicians from the Keyboard Trust ‘stable’ had prepared two of his most significant chamber music works rarely performed in public and it was just a foretaste of the 400 works that Almeida Prado has left us.

The sixth of the 18 Cartas Celestas revealed a very individual sound world written obviously by someone who knew the intimate secrets of the keyboard.Brilliantly played by Ellis Thomas it was just a foretaste for the extraordinary four movement cello Sonata that revealed the colour and style of a highly original composer unjustly neglected.

Whilst some of his piano music has been recorded by Naxos there is as yet no recording of the cello sonata which on tonight’s showing is something that needs rectifying.The concert was video recorded for the Keyboard Trust web site and hopefully this might encourage the powers to be to issue a commercial recording of a very important work to add to the cello repertoire.It was played with great conviction and poetic artistry by Benedict Swindells and Ivelina Krasteva.The cello added another poetic dimension and colour to Prado’s rather spiky almost percussive style of compositions of a stimulating and provocative intellect.

Almeida Prado (1943-2010) was a pianist and composer. He wrote over 400 works and is considered to be one of Brazil’s most important composers.

José Antônio Rezende de Almeida Prado or Almeida Prado (February 8, 1943 – November 21, 2010) was an important Brazilian composer and pianist On his death, the conductor Joao Carlos Martins  stated that Prado had possibly been the most important Brazilian composer ever.He wrote over 400 compositions and won various prizes for his work.

Born in Santos,Sao Paulo  in 1943 he died in there  in 2010, having lived there for the latter part of his life.He referred to his vast set of 18 Cartas Celestes as an “incredible journey”, and the final three were completed just months before his death. Following the luminous Brazilian night skies of No. 13, the poetic references of the final trilogy refer to constellations named after animals, Grecian and Egyptian mythology, and one last homage to a pivotal figure in Brazilian literature. Almeida Prado’s colossal piano cycle Cartas Celestes (‘Celestial Charts’) offers a paradigm of audacious invention but between 1985 and 1991 this prolific Brazilian composer also wrote a set of 14 nocturnes that display the genre’s lyrical impulses. Along with abstract elements and features such as synesthesia, used in homage to his teacher Messaien, the full range of influences can be felt in Almeida Prado’s Nocturnes: Chopin, Scriabinesque colour, bossa-nova, Brahms-like intervals, serenity and radiant songfulness. Ilhas (‘Islands’) is a mystical but programmatic work, the predecessor of Cartas Celestes in many essential element

Welsh pianist Ellis Thomas is rapidly establishing a reputation as a versatile and thoughtful pianist and chamber musician. Acclaimed as a ‘sincere and committed’ musician, offering performances ‘with real understanding’ (Julian Jacobson, Beethoven Piano Society of Europe), Ellis is equally at home with core repertoire as with contemporary and lesser-known works.

     Ellis has performed throughout the UK and is regularly invited to perform at music festivals in England and Wales. In recent years, he has performed in Spain, Germany and Italy, and his performances and interviews have been broadcast on BBC Radio Wales, BBC Cymru, and S4C television. 
     Ellis has been awarded prizes at many competitions including the 2021 Düsseldorf Robert Schumann International Piano Competition, and First Prizes at the Wales International Piano Festival, Gregynog Young Musician, the RIBI National Young Musician and the Wales National Eisteddfod, amongst others. He has had masterclasses with Boris Berman, Imogen Cooper, Pascal Rogé, Yevgeny Sudbin, Till Felner, Péter Nagy and Steven Osborne.

Ivelina Krasteva was born in 1998 in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. She started to play the piano at the age of four. Two years later she was accepted at the National School of Music and Dance in Plovdiv, where she studied with Elena Velcheva until her graduation with distinction in 2017. Ivelina is currently studying for her undergraduate degree as an HWE and WL Tovery Scholar with Ronan O’Hora and Katya Apekisheva at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London.
     Ivelina has won numerous prizes including First Prize and a live streamed recital on Radio Plovdiv from the International Piano Competition ‘Schumann-Brahms’ in Plovdiv, Bulgaria; Third Prize at the Pera Piano Competition in Istanbul, Turkey; Second Prize at The Golden Keys Piano Competition; and Third Prize at the ‘Wiener Pianisten’, Vienna, Austria. In addition to her studies, she has worked with internationally acclaimed musicians, including Itamar Golan, Boris Petrushansky, Paul Roberts, Charles Owen, Noriko Ogawa and Stephan Moeller among others.

Born in Ishihara, Japan, Benedict Swindells moved to Stamford in Lincolnshire and first played the cello at the age of seven. After several years studying with Janet Roberts, he attended Pro Corda, a chamber music course based at Leiston Abbey in Suffolk, where he met his current teacher, Prof. Tim Lowe. At the age of 12, he joined Prof. Lowe’s class at the Guildhall’s Junior Department. After several years, he moved to St Edward’s School, Oxford as a music scholar, while continuing to have cello lessons in London. He is currently continuing his studies with Prof. Lowe as a third-year student at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

The Keyboard Trust is very proud and happy to continue this very fruitful collaboration with the Embassy of Brazil in their tireless and fearless voyage of discovery together.

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/06/16/tyler-hay-and-david-zucchi-celebrate-the-work-of-radames-gnattali-at-the-sala-brasil/

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/05/31/brazilian-embassy-the-tree-of-life-with-pablo-rossi-a-man-for-all-seasons/

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2022/11/30/tyler-hay-and-the-mitsu-trio-at-the-brazilian-embassy-fun-and-games-for-the-joint-anniversary-celebrations-with-the-keyboard-trust/

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2022/07/30/pablo-rossi-a-star-shining-brightly-for-brazil-200/

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2022/03/29/brazil-200-and-keyboard-trust-30-a-collaboration-born-on-wings-of-brazilian-song/

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2021/10/06/brazil-200-celebrations-with-the-keyboard-charitable-trust-on-wings-of-song/

Wonders at the RCM today with the legendary Mikhail Voskresensky. At 88 he played with more vigour and artistry than those a quarter of his venerable age.
After an exhilarating Haydn Sonata in E minor followed by a Kreisleriana the like of which I have only ever heard from Nikolaeva Tagliaferro or Perlemuter
The grand school and great line played with weight .

There must be personality and character quoting Anton Rubinstein who said that music must be created .
And he proceeded to show two young pianists exactly what he meant with a very fine but pallid Liszt Sonata in need of an injection of vitality and passion !
And beautifully played Medtner needing the Angels to fly even higher to find their celestial song.

Thanks to Dmitri Alexeev and Dina Parakhina for bringing such a Colossus to the RCM .

Who could have imagined that at 10 am one of the legendary pianists of our time would appear on stage in London and proceed to give performances of such power and personality that one began to question the date of birth printed in the programme .In this age of I pad aide memoire for senior citizens still in career,it was a lesson to see this very distinguished artist impeccably dressed sit at the piano without any fuss and give performances of orchestral proportions.This was on a Fazioli piano which I doubt has ever been asked to dig deep into its body to find sounds that most pianists of today do not know exist.

One of the last of a great school of pianists who were true ‘Kapellmeisters’ ,recreating music with a freshness and directness as though the ink was still wet on the page. Of course no pages were to be seen because like Nikolaeva who was this artists great friend,as she was mine, music had been digested and lived with and was deep within the very soul of a musician where music was their life’s blood. As he was to say to students who played for him after his recital :”but where is the passion ,the drive ,the theatre that lives within your soul with which you can transmit an infinite range of emotions via this black box full of hammers and strings’.You must be an illusionist but above all you must be an artist with a passionate desire to comunicate.And so it was to just a hand full of early risers that this great artist played as though to an audience of thousands. At 88 ,like Rubinstein, there is a vitality and energy that is generated by a passionate desire to comunicate.I have seen this same passion from Eliso Virsaladze ,Alexei Lubimov,Eduardo del Peyo and of course my teachers Perlemuter and Agosti .

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2018/10/29/elisso-virsaladze-in-latina-homage-to-riccardo-cerocchi/

More recently Oxana Yablonskaya who at 85 after being on the jury of a competition all day in Sicily had time for a cup of tea before giving a recital where numbers had no meaning as she was rejuvenated by the music exactly as we were to witness today.

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2024/04/11/oxana-yablonskaya-la-regina-the-queen-of-the-keys/

Wilhelm Kempff would arrive at the recording studio asking what they would like to hear! A great school of dedicated artists and one wonders why the hall was not full to the rafters for students who have chosen to make music their career.But for real artists music is not just a career but an essential way of a life of dedication and sacrifice because they cannot do less.

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/08/29/kapellmeister-lubimov-leads-us-to-the-very-heart-of-music-with-simplicity-and-mastery/

What a lesson and a reminder of how many ‘bank clerks’ we have on the concert platform these days where real dedicated artists are few and far between.

There was an unusual grandiosity and nobility to the Haydn Sonata in E minor played with bold tone and dynamic rhythmic drive.Crystal clear with phrases shaped like a singer but always scrupulously in style with the times.There were great contrasts too in the development .Robust orchestral ‘forte’ , old school one might say but only because we are used to a more polite Haydn of pallid authenticy! Here there was a rhythmic drive where even the ornaments were like springs unwinding with sparkling brilliance but always within the musical line and conversation that we were overhearing.The music ‘spoke’ with a directness and one phrase answered the other.Even Haydn’s surprise ending was indeed a surprise but revealed a control of sound as the last three notes had different inflections on each. Art that conceals Art indeed . There was an operatic unfolding of the Adagio but perfectly proportioned where the music was played with nobility but also the simplicity and originality of Haydn’s genial invention.’Vivace molto’ the last movement certainly was and as Haydn asks an innocent tongue in cheek sense of humour of charm ,grace and wit. A wonderful sense of balance too where the melodic line had a purity and sense of projection without any exaggeration.The teasing embellishements were played without ever disturbing the relentless forward movement but were with a scintillating style that brought a smile to our faces so teasingly charmed at 10 in the morning by an 88 year old veteran .The 20 year old students were probably still in bed !

The main work was ‘Kreisleriana’ the eight episodes by Schumann dedicated to Chopin .This received a truly monumental performance and I was reminded of Magda Tagliaferro who I had heard at the Wigmore Hall many years ago when she was in her nineties .A tiny lady came floating on stage with bright orange hair and proceeded to turn the piano into a complete orchestra.Similar to today where they great line was the guiding light of an architectural shape where fussy details and personal charms were in second order to the overall message that was being put across with overwhelming drive and power.I have never forgotten that performance and the energy that allowed this wisp of a lady in a cloud of gossamer white chiffon to play five encores ending with Chopin’s Tarantelle!

There was an enormous amount of pedal as Mikhail Voskresensky threw himself into the fray with fearless abandon ,creating an orchestral sound of Philadelphian proportions .This contrasted with the gossamer lightness ,almost without pedal, of the beautiful lyrical central episode where the music was allowed to speak for itself. Helped of course by a very discreet artistic underlining of certain poignant harmonic moments before the return of the burning hot cauldron that was just waiting to erupt again. Beautiful long lines of string quartet richness in the second episode always allowing the music to flow and unwind with such unfettered simplicity .There was a spiky brilliance to the first Intermezzo and a driving sweep to the second.Knotty contrapuntal meanderings were played with a clarity and sense of line that at last made sense of Schumann’s searching of a way back to the opening mellifluous outpouring.

The third episode was more orchestral than the usual note picking precision we are used to. Great clusters of moving harmonies with the triplet figurations merely an accompaniment but that are so often played the other way around and given a musically unjust prominence. He gave a glorious sweep to the central episode with the sumptuous melodic outpouring of expansive long lines and the deep bass notes just opening up the sound and creating a luxuriant wave of sound on which the melodic line emerges with searing romantic intensity.The ‘noch schneller ‘ opened the door for a mighty accelerando of emotional intensity bursting into flames with enormous sonorities and a wild abandon that even in a pianist half the age of our noble pianist would have been breathtaking . There was a simplicity to the string quartet sound of the ‘sehr langsam’ and a simple innocuous purity to the ‘bewegter’.

The fifth episode showed a clarity and rhythmic drive with a passionate outpouring of melody surrounded by pointed counterpoints .There was nobility to the central episode with its driving forward movement and passionate climax only to gradually disappear to a measured whisper. Simplicity and clarity of the melodic line of the ‘sehr langsam’ with its great rhetorical outburst was to dissolve to a heart rending ‘berceuse’ of ravishing whispered beauty. Breathtaking was the only word one could use for the seventh as we were plunged into a wild frenzy of exhilarating declarations and a tour de force of fast moving figurations played at breakneck speed of daring virtuosity.There was an unusual architectural shape to the illusive eighth episode with the deep whispered sonorous left hand and the whimsical playfulness of the right .A romantic sweep to the first episode and an explosion of passionate cries with the second ‘mit aller Kraft’ where the enormous sonorities that Mikhail found were without any hardness but filled with a glorious sumptuous richness and was the true climax of these eight pictures that he had painted with such loving intensity.The syncopated bass contrasted with the whimsical playfulness of the right as it disappeared into the bass of the piano never to re emerge .

Returning fresh and invigorated from this early morning preamble he offered as an encore the Gluck /Sgambati Orfeo that was played with the same great line and sumptuous sounds that we had been treated to all morning by this great artist

Still bursting with energy Mikhail Voskresensky was able with a few well chosen words and theatrical demonstrations to show that music must be created and given character and meaning.’Words without thought no more to heaven go’ Boulanger would quote to us at her masterclasses at the RAM many years ago .It was the same message from this great musician where in just a few words he could illuminate the Liszt Sonata to a very fine Hungarian student Marcell Vadja.

Taking music from being earthbound and giving it a magical life of its own.The opening pages of the Liszt Sonata rather than talking about notes and notation he demonstrated the fearsome cries of Mephistopheles and the gasps that on the page seem merely like scales and accents.He showed what it means to turn black and white into multi colours and how to turn them into drama. How to make Margherita fall passionately in love and to turn music on the printed page into a magic world of dreams.’ Je sens .je joue,je trasmets ‘

A passionate plea for Medtner too pointing out that he was German spending most of his life in England but always with Russia in his heart . Every one of his works is a masterpiece of construction and he showed Lan Hu ,a very fine student of Dina Parakhina, how to differentiate between the melodic line and the myriad of notes that are mere accompaniment. Gilels was the first major figure to play Medtner in 1952 just a year after his death in England ,when he was one of the first to perform the sonata in G minor . I have often described Medtner as being Rachmaninov without the melodies but how wrong I was as the melody is there for those with the artistic sensibility and technical mastery to find it and to allow the celestial angels to sing unimpeded.

A remarkable lesson from a Master who in a few well chosen words with humility and humanity could ignite and inspire these well trained young musicians and show them the beauty that lies in the world of fantasy and artistry that lies beyond the printed page and awaits with a kiss to be awakened.

Here is some information about the theatre in Rome that became a cultural haven for some of the greatest musicians of our time

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2024/03/20/christopher-axworthy-dip-ram-aram/

Sherri Lun

A twenty year old pianist with a curriculum that would be the pride and joy of someone twice Sherri Lun’s age and who is already in her third year at the RAM under the expert guidance of Christopher Elton .
Her pedigree shone through from the very first notes of her KT presentation recital with a Bach Toccata of absolute clarity and chiselled beauty.Knotty twine that she unraveled to reveal Bach’s early genial invention.

Schubert’s great C minor Sonata was the centre piece for this hour long recital on the magnificent Steinway D that is only to be found in the true home of those magnificent instruments in London. Schubert in Beethovenian mood played with dynamic drive and moments of sublime beauty . Schubert tried hard to be tempestuous and imperious like Beethoven in C minor but his seemless mellifluous outpourings always appear even in stormy weather .Rays of light that Sherri played with disarming simplicity and under Elton’s (Christopher not John!) it was of sterling musicianship ,style and above all an architectural shape that gave strength to a masterwork that was to be part of the composers untimely ‘swansong’ .

But it was Cesar Franck that ignited Sherri’s imagination and unlocked a kaleidoscope of colour that she had kept hidden behind her masterly respect for the monumental giants that preceded it .
Playing now with passionate abandon and bathed in pedal she showed us what Anton Rubinstein meant when he described the pedal as the soul of the piano.Masterly playing nowhere more than in the chorale where the chords unwound with golden streams of sounds leading to the beacons that shone at it extremities.A fugue that was bathed in the fantasy that she denied herself in Bach and here was overwhelming in its impact as she played with mastery and passionate abandon.

Fireworks indeed as Sherri unleashed her unabashed passionate abandon on a hall of very distinguished guests who come to these recitals of the Keyboard Trust knowing that ‘trust’ is the key word when great talent is on show.

And the real fireworks Sherri saved for the encore where the luminosity of La Marseillese shone out with purity, glowing as it arose out of the embers of the astonishing display that Debussy could conjure up almost outdoing Ravel for pianistic exertions of a serious kind!

A conversation in public revealed a charming young lady with a massive talent as she described how she had started playing the piano at four and the viola at five.Coming from a family of professional people ,not musicians, she had been touched by a magic spark that must have been lurking in her genes .

Both parents were in the audience and have transferred to London to share their life with their only child.

Discussions over a glass or two of Prosecco together with her teacher Christopher Elton reveal one of the few teachers who have a passion for sharing music with others and that at 80 ( he celebrates in Brighton with his son on Sunday ) after a days teaching at the RAM he still has the energy to listen and support his students in their concert appearances .Deep in discussion with the distinguished film director Tony Palmer between each piece , it just shows that real passion has no age limit .Sherri is not only very talented but very lucky to have found someone who can nurture her talent and allow it to blossom as Gordon Green had done for Christopher and I over half a century ago!

 ‘2020 Performing Artist of the Year’
South China Morning Post

Bach Toccata in G major, BWV 916

1. Presto
2. Adagio
3. Allegro (Fuga)

Schubert Sonata in C minor, D. 958

1. Allegro (C minor)
2. Adagio (A♭ major)
3. Menuetto. Allegro — Trio (C minor)
4. Allegro (C minor)

Franck Prelude Chorale and Fugue in B minor, FWV 21

Steinway Hall
44 Marylebone Lane London W 1U2 DB

Wednesday, 24 April 2024, 6.30pm

Named ‘2020 Performing Artist of the Year’ by the South China Morning Post, 20-year-old Sherri Lun majored in piano and viola as a junior student at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts. She is currently studying with Prof. Christopher Elton at the Royal Academy of Music with a full scholarship supported by the Academy and the Hong Kong Scholarship for Excellence Scheme.

In 2013, Sherri was selected as a Young Scholar of the Lang Lang International Music Foundation. After her concerto debut with the Midwest Young Artists at the Ravinia Festival at age 11, she was invited to perform again at Ravinia the following year, as well as in Millennium Park (Chicago) and at the Fondation Louis Vuitton (Paris), followed by collaborations with the Salzburg Chamber Soloists, Hong Kong Youth Orchestra and the Kölner Kammerorchester.

Sherri has participated in festivals including Oxford, Pianale, Frost Chopin, Beijing International and the Summer Academy at the Universität Mozarteum, Salzburg. Still in her second year at the RAM, Sherri has won the Sterndale Bennett Prize and the 2023 Chung Nung Lee Prize. She has also been invited to perform in both the Academy’s autumn and summer piano festivals, the Bicentenary Chamber Festival and the Bicentenary celebration concert at Wigmore Hall.

Sherri is also a prize-winner in multiple international competitions including the Robert Schumann Competition (Düsseldorf), Zhuhai Mozart, ASEAN Chopin, Singapore and Steinway & Sons Youth. She was also a semi-finalist in the Aarhus International Piano Competition. In Hong Kong, she won numerous competitions and one of her performances was broadcast by Radio Television Hong Kong. In 2017, Sherri was awarded the ‘Highest Scorer of the Year’ prize by Trinity College London for her LTCL recital. Most recently, she undertook a four-recital tour in Malaysia, and released her debut CD, ‘Romantic Reveries’ on the KNS Classical label, featuring works by Schumann and Franck. As an active chamber musician, she regularly performs with the Adatto Piano Quartet and with orchestras as a violist.

Tuesday 23 April 2.00 pm 

It was from the very first notes that Magdalene Ho drew us in to her secret world with the simple beauty of the opening of the Sonata that Beethoven was to write only four years after the tempestuous ‘Appassionata’ Sonata. During this time he had composed one masterpiece after another: the fourth, fifth and sixth symphonies; the fourth and fifth piano concertos; the violin concerto; the Razumovsky string quartets; and the triple concerto. It was as though Beethoven’s deafness and the invasion of Vienna had opened a secret door to the paradise that surely must exist and was to express itself so poignantly in the final trilogy a few years later.

It was a secret world that Magdalene had found the key to as she immersed herself in sounds that enveloped all she did in this short but very intense recital.Almost not wishing to acknowledge the applause after each piece as she was intent on creating an intimate and deep contemplation where there was just her and the music,nothing else existed.The Beethoven Sonata was played with scrupulous attention to the composers very precise instructions.Rests that became as poignant as the meaning she gave to the beautifully shaped phrases.There was a richness to the chords too which contrasted so well with Beethoven’s continuous questions and answers. There was even more luminosity to the melodic line on its return and it with typical Beethovenian impatience that she attacked the ‘Allegro vivace’ that follows. Once again her scrupulous attention to detail and Beethoven’s very precise pedal instructions gave overwhelming authority to this rather capricious movement.The suddenly legato chords of the coda brought a calming spirit to Beethoven’s whimsy and the two beautifully placed chords ‘piano’ and ‘pianissimo’ made Beethoven’s impatience even more of a surprise as with a flourish we were swept away to the final brilliance of the ending.

There was a poignant beauty to the Fauré 6th Nocturne where Magdalene’s superb sense of balance allowed the melodic line to be sustained by the extraordinarily rich bass harmonies.There was a fluidity and luminosity of searing intensity and a maturity way beyond Magdalene’s twenty years.The syncopated episode was indeed ‘molto moderato’ and although I am used to hearing it more ‘Allegretto’ ,in her poetic hands it was so full of deeply felt meaning that it was totally convincing as the tenor voice conversed with the melodic line. There was ravishing beauty as waves of sound allowed a melodic line of wistful beauty to shine unimpeded as it gradually built to the mighty entry of the bass which was breathtaking for its extraordinary depth of sound. This was a tone poem and a sound world that Magdalene understood and conveyed with conviction and a mature sense of fantasy that was truly hypnotic.The 8th Nocturne almost a ‘ pas sur la neige’ with its melodic line of bare essentials was of extraordinary poignancy and depth.It was played with a superb sense of line and balance with a truly haunting ending leading without a break into Fauré’s last great masterpiece for piano ,the Nocturne n.13 in B minor.

A sound world not easy to infiltrate but it is inspiring that this young musician should play it with real mastery and understanding in the composers centenary year.It is a unique world of contrapuntal intensity with sudden rays of light and streams of melodic outpourings of passionate intensity.Magdalene has a wonderful sense of legato where there is a seemless mellifluousness of richly desolate counterpoints and jets of jeux perlé that seem to flow from her fingers like water from a spring.

I was brought up with Perlemuter’s performances of Fauré. He insisted that I tell the public in a recital in Rome that the nocturnes by Fauré that he was playing were those that Fauré ,the Director of the Paris Conservatoire,in whose house he was living ,were sent down to him to try out with the ink still wet on the page.Perlemuter could not abide any sickly rubato or weak fussy playing as was so often the case with the so called Chopin tradition still rampant.He, like Magdalene today presented a Fauré of aristocratic nobility and originality where the sentiments are deeply imbedded within the notes and not just applied on the surface!

In Brahms she brought a burning intensity to the opening Capriccio with a technical mastery and an extraordinary self identification that created and electric energy driving her forward with ever more intensity.There was the pleading of the Intermezzo in A minor with its simple heart rending beauty etched in golden sounds of wondrous purity where cascades of barely whispered sounds just illuminated this wondrous landscape.The Capriccio in G minor followed with its continuous stream of notes at boiling pitch and its sumptuous central episode of sounds of orchestral richness.A disarming simplicity to the questioning and answering of the Intermezzo in E was reconciled with radiance and a kaleidoscope of sounds of glittering beauty like jewels falling from on high to some magic landscape.There was a ghostly apparition of whispered driven gasps in the intermezzo in E minor evolving to a driving intensity as the sombre beauty of the Intermezzo in E brought the sumptuous beauty of a tenor voice answered by gently majestic chords .Blossoming into radiance with long sumptuous melodic lines passing from tenor to soprano before the clouds appeared once again.Springing to life with the final Capriccio in D minor of great romantic sweep played with superb clarity and dynamic technical mastery.

A wonderful recital where Magdalene’s searing intensity and passionate commitment were shared with an audience who were kept spellbound by her genial delving into a magic world of sounds.

It was the fourteenth dance from ‘Davidsbundlertanze’ by Schumann, played as an encore,that relieved the tension and concentration with a performance of beauty and simplicity which created the magic that only a true poet of the piano could ever aspire to.

Malaysian pianist  Magdalene Ho  was born in 2003 and started learning the piano at the age of four. In 2013, she began studying in the UK with Patsy Toh, at the Purcell School. In 2015, she received the ABRSM Sheila Mossman Prize and Silver Award. As part of a prize won at the PIANALE piano festival in Fulda, Germany, she released an album of Bach and Messiaen works in 2019. She was a finalist at the Düsseldorf Schumann Competition 2023 and was awarded the Joan Chissell Schumann Prize for Piano at the Royal College of Music a few months later. In September 2023, she won the Clara Haskil International Piano Competition in Vevey along with receiving the Audience Prize, Young Critics’ Prize and Children’s Corner Prize. She has been studying with Dmitri Alexeev at the Royal College of Music since September 2022, where she is a Dasha Shenkman Scholar supported by the Gordon Calway Stone Scholarship, and by the Weir Award via the Keyboard Charitable Trust. She recently won the Chappell Gold Medal at the RCM

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/11/08/magdalene-ho-the-genial-clara-haskil-winner-at-19-takes-leighton-house-by-storm/

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2024/02/28/magdalene-ho-in-florence-and-milan-the-exquisite-finesse-and-noble-style-of-a-musical-genius/

Fauré’s major sets of piano works are thirteen nocturnes , thirteen barcarolles , six impromptus , and four valses-caprices. These sets were composed during several decades in his long career, and display the change in his style from uncomplicated youthful charm to a final enigmatic, but sometimes fiery introspection, by way of a turbulent period in his middle years. His other notable piano pieces, including shorter works, or collections composed or published as a set, are Romances sans paroles, Ballade  in F♯ major, Mazurka  in B♭ major, Thème et variations in C♯ minor, and Huit pièces brèves. For piano duet, Fauré composed the Dolly Suite and, together with his friend and former pupil André Messager , an exuberant parody of Wagner in the short suite Souvenirs de Bayreuth.Fauré’s stylistic evolution can be observed in his works for piano from the elegant and captivating first pieces, which made the composer famous and show the influence of Chopin, Saint-Saëns, and Liszt. The lyricism and complexity of his style in the 1890s are evident in the Nocturnes nos. 6 and 7, the Barcarolle no. 5 and the Thème et variations. Finally, the unadorned ,essential style of the final period of the last nocturnes (nos.10–13), the series of great barcarolles (nos. 8–11) and the astonishing Impromptu no. 5. Fauré scholars are generally agreed that the last nocturne n. 13 in B minor – which was the last work he wrote for the piano – is among the greatest of the set. Nectoux writes that along with the sixth, it is “incontestably the most moving and inspired of the series.”Bricard calls it “the most inspired and beautiful in the series.”For Pinkas, the work “achieves a perfect equilibrium between late-style simplicity and full-textured passionate expression.”The work opens in a “pure, almost rarefied atmosphere” (Nectoux), with a “tone of noble, gentle supplication … imposing gravity and … rich expressive four part writing.”This is followed by an allegro, “a true middle section in a virtuoso manner, ending in a bang” (Pinkas).The repeat of the opening section completes the work.The eleventh nocturne was written in memory of Noémi Lalo; her widower, Pierre Lalo , was a music critic and a friend and supporter of Fauré and its funereal effect of tolling bells may also reflect the composer’s own state of anguish, with deafness encroaching.The melodic line is simple and restrained, and except for a passionate section near the end is generally quiet and elegiac.The sixth nocturne, dedicated to Eugène d’Eichthal, is widely held to be one of the finest of the series. Cortot said, “There are few pages in all music comparable to these.” It is among the most rich and eloquent of all Fauré’s piano works and one of the most passionate and moving works in piano literature. Fauré wrote it after a six-year break from composing for the piano.Copland wrote that it was with this work that Fauré first fully emerged from the shadow of Chopin,

Johannes Brahms presumably wrote the Fantasies op. 116 at the same time as the Intermezzi op. 117 in the summer of 1892 in Bad Ischl. His sojourn in the Salzkammergut obviously inspired Brahms to write music for solo piano, as a year later he worked on other cycles when he was there. Amongst these late melancholy piano pieces, op. 116 is in particular characterised by opposites. Four “dreamy” intermezzi according to Clara Schumann are juxtaposed with three “deeply passionate” capricci. 

After an early focus on works for solo piano, including the three sonatas that Robert Schumann described as “veiled symphonies,” Brahms tended to employ his chosen instrument, the piano, in collaborative works, producing a variety of duo sonatas (with violin, cello, and clarinet), piano trios, piano quartets, and one piano quintet, as well as two more trios (one with horn and one with clarinet). His final efforts for solo keyboard were published in four sets of shorter works (Opp. 116-119), which appeared between 1891 and 1893.

These four sets of late solo piano pieces are all in effect abstract instrumental songs, though unfailingly idiomatic. (So much so, that he abandoned his attempt to orchestrate the immediately popular Intermezzo, Op. 117, No. 1.) All are in the A-B-A song form typical of character pieces and are as highly concentrated as his greatest songs.

Only the first of these groups (Op. 116) has a continuity that argues for continuous performance. The probable dedicatee of these works, Clara Schumann , with whom Brahms had a rather complicated relationship, praised them as “a true source of enjoyment, everything, poetry, passion, rapture, intimacy, full of the most marvellous effects”.

The Piano Sonata No. 24 Op. 78, nicknamed “à Thérèse” (because it was written for Countess Thérèse von Brunswick was written in 1809.

The second movement is a variation to the ending of the popular patriots song “Rule Brittania!”

According to Carl Czerny, Beethoven himself singled out this sonata and the “Appassionata “ as favourites together with the later ‘Hammerklavier”. After a pause of four years, Beethoven returned to the piano sonata genre in 1809. Unlike its predecessor, the f-minor Sonata op. 57 (the “Appassionata”), this work strikes a new and lyrically cantabile tone that must have been the reason for its tradition-breaking two-movement structure; a slow middle movement would not have provided the necessary contrast to the outer ones. Just as unusual as the general character of opus 78 is its four bar Adagio introduction; this does not directly refer to the subsequent motifs and themes, and serves no other purpose than to “conjure up the atmosphere of the entire sonata in our hearts” (Hugo Riemann).

An hour of superb music making this afternoon in Ealing. Sasha Grynyuk playing Mozart Fantasia in C minor with refined poetic insight,a Wanderer fantasy of dynamic drive and architectural understanding but it was Gaspard de la Nuit that astonished for its total mastery and kaleidoscopic sense of colour.

There was an imperious opening to the Fantasia but combined with great tenderness .The startling contrasts were played with disarming simplicity but always with a menacing twist in the tail as this great drama was played out in an absolutely operatic way. In Sasha’s poetic hands one could envisage the drama unfolding as there was an overall sound even where Mozart writes ‘forte’ and then sudden ‘piano’ and the added gasps of ‘fp’ . Sounds that were always in the context of the personages acting on stage and conversing with one another in an age of civilised mutual anticipation.A piano – Rogers – that at first glance one might have thought not possible to bring so vividly to life ,but its almost fortepiano sound lent much to the music like a beautiful but faded photo with its mellow unpercussive sound.

The Allegro burst onto the scene with dynamic drive with Sasha always keeping the sound under control where the contrasts and rhythmic drive were of more importance than the beauty of the voice that he might have given us on a different instrument. Playing of impeccable style and authoritative musicianship it was the ‘Più Allegro’ that truly ignited the piano with sumptuous rich orchestral sounds of dynamic drive and clarity.The ‘recitativi’ were pure opera as the voices conversed , punctuated only by the comments from the ‘tutti’.The return of the opening was like re visiting a distant landscape, which after a brief reminder took flight as Mozart paved the way so dramatically to the Sonata that it precedes.

The mighty ‘Wanderer Fantasie’ ,too,one might have thought too full of notes for this piano .It is often given to advanced students with the precise goal of acquiring a classical technique.Together with Brahms’ Handel and Beethoven 32 variations the Schubert is one of those works where Delius’s remark about Beethoven being all scales and arpeggios might apply to this most Beethovenian of all Schubert’s piano works. It was Sviatoslav Richer,by many considered one of the finest pianists of all time,who enjoyed the challenge of trying to find the ‘soul’ of unknown pianos that he was to find on his whistle stop tours of desolate towns spread all over Russia.Later of course as a great celebrity he always found magnificent pianos awaiting in the greatest concert halls throughout the world.Later in life Yamaha offered to follow him around together with two technicians wherever he chose to go. But it was the search for sound on unknown instruments that ignited his unique musicianship.An Enigma indeed he was.

It was the same today for Sasha because as the concert progressed the secrets of the instrument were gradually revealed and incorporated into a creative musicianship that could still bring the music vividly to life without any comparisons. It was the orchestral sounds that opened the ‘Wanderer’ that were played with burning intensity as Sasha could now reveal the true nobility of this remarkable work.There was an architectural shape and sweep to the genial transformation of themes, that was to be the inspiration for Liszt and later for his son in law,Richard Wagner. It was the Adagio – ‘The Wanderer’ – that Sasha gave a truly orchestra fullness too with its quartet richness where every strand was of vital importance.The variations that followed were of chameleonic character from the gentle weaving of the first to the explosive second and the ravishing mellifluous beauty of the third .The gently cascading embellishements of the last were transformed into such a typically Beethovenian tempest .A true eruption played by Sasha with astonishing control and virtuosity but above all the sense of balance of a conductor who is listening to the whole and steering us through the maze of notes with intelligence and clarity of vision.There was the rich embroidery of the Scherzo that after the beseeching innocence and questioning beauty of the Trio was to erupt with cascades of notes and driving rhythms leaving us breathless at the foot of the mighty final Fugato. Nobility and dynamic drive were allied to passion and orchestral colours that Sasha played with unrelenting conviction and artistry. His scrupulous attention to the detail in the score allowed the music to rise and fall as the composer has very meticulously indicated. A mighty work restored to greatness as indeed Richter did many years ago with his landmark recording in collaboration with the musicologist Paul Badura Skoda,taking the music as a vehicle for an apprentice and giving it back into the hands of a great artist.

Ravel was obsessed with the mechanics of piano playing and set out to write a work that would outshine even Balakirev’s Islamey for technical difficulty (you will find Sasha’s performance of Islamey in this link to the performance he gave at the National Liberal Club to celebrate 30 years of the Keyboard Trust of which he is a distinguished member https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/06/02/the-gift-of-music-the-keyboard-trust-at-30/)

This was a performance of great clarity where all three episodes were united like a Sonata into a unified whole in a way where even the lack of multi colours on this instrument allowed a much clearer musical line. It certainly did not mean that it lacked character, atmosphere or drive and it was actually one of the finest performances that I have heard for a long time. It was the great ‘old’ school of Perlemuter or Tagliaferro who would show us ,with the ‘weight’ of their true deep legato, a line clearly defined ,never allowing fussy detail to cloud the overall vision.This was in a way the performance that Sasha gave us today.There were of course the enormous number of notes that were played with remarkable mastery but there was a clarity of line that made ‘Ondine’ immediately so enticing. A sparkling brilliance as this water nymph splashed her way in and out of the water that Sasha created with fluidity and luminosity. We were not aware of the remarkable technical hurdles as the music flowed constantly forward like the water it was depicting.The massive climax was played with a clarity ,where the musical line was surrounded by clouds of notes,without any slowing or muddying of the texture.There was a haunting beauty to ‘Le Gibet’ with its insistent bell tolling in Sasha’s hands with continuous almost robotic insistence as the arid landscape was revealed with the delicacy of this devastating atmosphere.’Scarbo’ of course just erupted as this impish gnome got up to his devilish antics. and the composer too adding passages of transcendental difficulty for the pianist, that Sasha played with enviable precision and unrelenting drive.Remarkable how in the depths of the piano there was the desperation of a melodic line of such purity with the wind howling all around as the impish demon escaped to create even more havoc until disappearing like magic into thin air from where he had first appeared.

Fantasia No. 4 in C minor, K. 475 was composed by Mozart  in Vienna on 20 May 1785 and was published as Opus 11, in December 1785, together with the Sonata in C minor K.457, the only one of Mozart’s piano sonatas to be published together with a work of a different genre.

This astonishing Fantasia is probably one of Mozart’s most innovative compositions for solo keyboard. It was composed for Therese Trattner  (1758–1793), and published by Artaria  in Vienna towards the end of 1785, alongside the Piano Sonata in C minor K.457.

Therese (born Maria Theresia) Trattner was the daughter of the court mathematician Joseph Anton Nagel. In 1776, she married the widowed Johann Thomas Trattner, a Vienna publisher and bookseller that Mozart knew well. After Mozart settled in Vienna in 1781, Therese Trattner became one of his first piano students, and surely one of the most talented, she remained so until the composer’s death. In 1784, the Mozarts lived in Trattner’s house on the Graben in Vienna. Well connected in Viennese society, Therese Trattner helped him to organise three subscription concerts here, at which the Piano concertos were performed and which further promoted his reputation as a piano virtuoso in Vienna. She also gave concerts (“academies”) herself in her flat in the Trattnerhof, at which Mozart was present.

Although published together Fantasia K.475 and Sonata K.457 were conceived independently: the rediscovery of the autograph of the two works confirms this.

The Fantasie in C major, Op. 15 ( D.760), popularly known as the Wanderer Fantasy, is a four-movement fantasy for solo piano composed by Schubert in 1822 when only 25 in a life that was tragically cut short by the age of 31.It is widely considered his most technically demanding composition for the piano and Schubert himself said “the devil may play it,” in reference to his own inability to do so properly.The whole work is based on one single basic motif from which all themes are developed. This motif is distilled from the theme of the second movement, which is a sequence of variations on a melody taken from the lied “Der Wanderer”, which Schubert wrote in 1816. It is from this that the work’s popular name is derived.The four movements are played without a break. After the first movement Allegro con fuoco ma non troppo in C major and the second movement Adagio (which begins in C-sharp minor and ends in E major), follow a scherzo presto in A-flat major and the technically transcendental finale, which starts in fugato returning to the key of C major and becomes more and more virtuosic as it moves toward its thunderous conclusion.Liszt was fascinated by the Wanderer Fantasy, transcribing it for piano and orchestra (S.366) and two pianos (S.653). He additionally edited the original score and added some various interpretations in ossia and made a complete rearrangement of the final movement (S.565a).I remember a recent lesson I had listened to of Elisso Virsaladze in which I was struck by the vehemence of the Wanderer Fantasy and the ragged corners that we are more used to in a Beethoven almost twice Schubert’s age .It made me wonder about the maturity of the 25 year old Schubert and could he have had a premonition that his life was to be curtailed only six years later.We are used to the mellifluous Schubert of rounded corners and seemless streams of melodic invention.But surely in the final three sonatas written in the last months of his life the A major and C minor start with a call to arms and only in the last B flat sonata do we arrive at the peace and tranquility that Beethoven was to find too in his last sonata.But the deep rumblings in the bass in Schubert’s last sonata give food for thought that his life was not all sweetness and light.I remember Richter’s long tribulation in the recording studio to put on record as near definitive version as possible of the Wanderer Fantasy with the help of the pianist and musicologist Paul Badura Skoda.

Gaspard de la nuit (subtitled Trois poèmes pour piano d’après Aloysius Bertrand), M.55 was written in 1908. It has three movements , each based on a poem or fantaisie from the collection Gaspard de la Nuit – Fantasies à la manière de Rembrandt e de Callot completed in 1836 by Aloysius Bertrand . The work was premiered in Paris, on January 9, 1909, by Ricardo Vines.

The piece is famous for its difficulty, partly because Ravel intended the Scarbo movement to be more difficult than Balakirev’s Islamey . Because of its technical challenges and profound musical structure, Scarbo is considered one of the most difficult solo piano pieces in the standard repertoire.

The name “Gaspard ” is derived from its original Persian form, denoting “the man in charge of the royal treasures”: “Gaspard of the Night” or the treasurer of the night thus creates allusions to someone in charge of all that is jewel-like, dark, mysterious, perhaps even morose.

Of the work, Ravel himself said: “Gaspard has been a devil in coming, but that is only logical since it was he who is the author of the poems. My ambition is to say with notes what a poet expresses with words.”

Aloysius Bertrand , author of Gaspard de la Nuit (1842), introduces his collection by attributing them to a mysterious old man met in a park in Dijon , who lent him the book. When he goes in search of M. Gaspard to return the volume, he asks, “ ’Tell me where M. Gaspard de la Nuit may be found.’ ‘He is in hell, provided that he isn’t somewhere else’, comes the reply. ‘Ah! I am beginning to understand! What! Gaspard de la Nuit must be…?’ the poet continues. ‘Ah! Yes… the devil!’ his informant responds. ‘Thank you, mon brave!… If Gaspard de la Nuit is in hell, may he roast there. I shall publish his book.’ ”

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2022/07/11/sasha-grynyuk-anniversary-recital-of-a-great-pianist-in-perivale/

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2022/06/10/sasha-grynyuk-at-cranleigh-arts-for-ukraine-joint-fundraiser-for-the-disasters-emergency-committee-and-cranleigh-arts/

And afterwards a birthday celebration for the founder of the Keyboard Trust,John Leech,now entering his 100th year and proud to have established a Trust as a present for his wife Noretta Conci in order to continue her work in helping young artists reach their goal.Sasha just such an artist,still plays every week for Noretta a former assistant to Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli

Tonight is the night and what a night it was with the two divas unexpectedly confronting each other in the Green Room as La Duse is about to appear to a sold out house .

The ghost of Sarah Bernhardt appears and Duse ,the only one that can see her as they unexpectedly share the star dressing room.
Duse at that point tells the theatre manager that she will no longer cancel her performance but egged on by Sarah she will show the public who is the Queen of the boards
Just three people on stage ,the two divas and their manager playing many roles throughout the evening as the dramatic confrontation plays itself out.

The scintillating Bernhardt of Wendy Morgan is contrasted by the morose intensity of Cynthia Straus as Duse.Nick Waring ,a man of many parts,manages to console and appease the two sparing Divas and is infact the hero of the evening.

A bare minimum of things on stage so it is the bravura of the actors that brings this play to life with intensity,wit and imagination.I remember seeing another ‘Duet’ many years ago in west London at the Shepherds Bush Theatre Upstairs.It was a ‘Duet for One ‘ with the dramatic confrontation of Jaqueline Du Pre and her doctor as she tried to come to terms with multiple sclerosis.It went on to be seen on many of the major stages in the world and I would not be surprised to see this Duet take wing as well.Bedford Park once again the cultural haven that it used to be with just this week a scintillating new theatre production in the Tabard Theratre and just over the road a few days ago at St Michaels and all Angels a magnificent recital by one of the finest pianists of his generation.Who knows what the annual Bedford Park Festival will hold in store in June.
Mark Viner at St Michael and All Angels bringing mastery and discovery to Chiswick https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2024/04/18/mark-viner-at-st-michael-and-all-angels-bringing-mastery-and-discovery-to-chiswick/

Superb playing on home ground for one of the finest but most neglected pianists of his generation.Having already many CD’s with five star reviews to his name here he was tonight in the beautiful church in Bedford Park where he also serves.

Liszt and Alkan were both fervent believers and it is in their works that this master pianist excels. However his programme tonight opened with two declared atheists with Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata and Debussy’s Suite Bergamasque.Both were played with impeccable style and intelligence but it was Alkan ‘s ‘Chant d’Amour’ , ‘Le tambour’ and Liszt’s ‘Vallée d’Obermann’ that truly ignited the atmosphere as Mark entered a Romantic world of questioning ,doubt and passionate acceptance.

The first work was the so called ‘Moonlight’ Sonata which was a name penned by the publisher to help boost sales.It has become one of the most instantly recognisable of Beethoven’s 32 Sonatas as the first movement is seemingly easier than his others .It became essential fodder for most aspiring amateur pianists back in the days when the aspedestra and upright piano would reign in the front living room where now sits a giant TV screen!

An unusual church beautifully maintained ,with its elegant pastel colours and rich altar dressings,and that is situated at the foot of the first London garden suburb of Bedford Park.I was brought up here and spent the first twenty five years of my life in Flanders road opposite and I remember very well passing everyday the ‘Tabard’ pub and ‘Mulliners’ the car restorer of Bentley cars ,that stood next to it.

I also heard many great pianists play for the Fayrfax concert society that gave concerts in Chiswick Polytechnic. David Carhart would regularly play concertos with the Chiswick Music Centre Orchestra .I remember the one and only time hearing the Rimsky Korsyakov Concerto from his hands and seeing Harry Isaacs,his illustrious much loved Professor from the Royal Academy, disappear into the Tabard afterwards with his students who included the since renowned accompanist and musicologist Graham Johnson.The Fayrfax included pianists such as Peter Katin,Moura Lympany ,Louis Kentner,Iso Elinson ,Joseph Cooper,Gerald Moore and Sidney Harrison himself who presided over this club with his wife Sydney.

Sidney was eventually to move from Hartington Road (where he lived next to Eamon Andrews of ‘Crackerjack’ and ‘This is your life’ fame) to the Avenue just a stones throw from this magnificent edifice.He was the first person to give piano lessons on television at a time when there was only one channel that broadcast for a few hours each day. Neighbours lucky enough to have a television (that was a large box with a giant magnifying glass ) would invite people in to tune in to see how Peter Croser or Norma Fisher were progressing with their lessons. My mother took me to have lessons with Sidney Harrison who became my mentor and father figure. He took my musical education into hand by taking me to the opera and concerts as well as training me to enter the Royal Academy where I was to continue my studies with him and his great friend and colleague Gordon Green. Eventually proud to see me win the MacFarren Gold Medal,the highest award at the Academy.After my studies in Paris and Rome I came back to reality and began teaching thanks to David Carhart at the Chiswick Music Centre.It had now moved to the top of Belmont School and it fast became part of the West London College of Higher Education by the river in Twickenham.I did though have some private students some of whom were the children of illustrious celebrities living in Bedford Park.Lucy Taylor was my very first pupil and was the daughter of Don Taylor ( who wrote the Exorcist ) and his wife ,Ellen, even more well known as a television playwright .Her best friends were the children of Michael Flanders ,of Flanders and Swan fame.Stephanie and her sister came to me brought by Claudia who was by then the widow of this famous personage .Stephanie was the only pupil whose claim to fame was to fail Grade one piano.Her head was elsewhere ,in economics obviously, as Stephanie Flanders is seen daily on the news talking about the world economic situation.However back to Mark’s wonderful recital .

There was a fluidity that he brought to the opening movement of the Beethoven.It was played in two that allowed the beautifully simple melodic line to float on the wave of the gently flowing accompaniment.A magical sense of balance and architectural shape created exactly the effect that Beethoven would have wanted on pianos of his day that were far less percussive than they later became. Played as Beethoven says ‘senza sordino’ on one string that gives the same etherial effect that Mark created today on an old Bluthner piano ,badly regulated ( as many pianists are wont to bemoan!) but in Mark’s hands became once more an instrument of nobility and pedigree.

There was a lyricism too to the Allegretto and a beautifully shaped Trio of extraordinary style.The Presto agitato of the last movement (which is where most amateur pianists give up in desperation ) was played with dynamic drive and urgency.There was lyricism too and fantasy as he brought the music vividly and beautifully to life. A sense of colour ,helped by the church acoustic, this noble instrument and of course by the artistry of the pianist.There was a unique effect of having heard this work today with the ink still wet on the page.I have often noted that Mark like his great colleague the Liszt expert Leslie Howard,both sit almost motionless as they listen so intently to the sounds they are creating without any superfluous showmanship.Mark is a dedicated musician and his scrupulous attention to the composers indications was immediately apparent from this very first piece.I have never heard the end of the last cadenza played with the three final notes separated by a portamento and it had me hunting in the score for evidence of something I had overlooked ( and most other pianists too ).It brought a poignant calm to the final two Adagio chords before the nostalgia of the coda that is to erupt in typical Beethovenian irascible style.

I do not know the two Alkan works that Mark described first in words and then more importantly in music. Mark is an expert on this composer and President of the Alkan Society having won the International Alkan Competition in Greece a few years ago. Now with numerous CD’s of Alkan’s music to his credit I could just sit back and listen to definitive performances of a composer until recently covered in mystery.Enough said that Alkan was part of those genius musicians Chopin and Liszt who were the true innovators of the modern piano technique.Taking the new inventions in the keyboard instruments of their day as a new lease of life for their compositional invention and poetic fantasy. Chopin on his death bed left his unfinished treatise on piano playing to be finished by his esteemed colleague Alkan.

Two short pieces by Alkan were played with fantasy ,colour and extraordinary virtuosity and was enough to make one want to purchase all the many five star CD’s that were on sale at the door! ‘Chant d’Amour’ was a beautiful lesson in Bel Canto and a tone poem of startling originality. A rare sense of colour and sumptuous golden sounds in the climax with a richness of sound from Mark’s masterly hands.There was a burning intensity to the passionate climax before the return of the nocturnal simplicity of the opening. ‘Le tambour’ was even more remarkable for its extraordinary originality.The bass beating of the drum or was it a heartbeat was played with a driving whispered insistence and showed a remarkable sense of control as the melodic line is gradually floated above it. Opening up to passages of startling virtuosity and excitement before returning to the ever present beating with which it had started. Another miniature tone poem played with total conviction and commitment by a master who the world still has to wake up and discover and to appreciate fully. Mark is similar to Graham Johnson who is the expert on Schubert lieder and who is not only a masterly performer but a great writer and researcher of the genius of Schubert and the poets that inspired him.Mark with Alkan has made a study of this unknown composer a life’s mission writing and even more importantly bringing the actual compositions to public notice rather than just reading stale information in history books!

Mark also has time to rethink and bring to life many of the standard works of the piano repertoire where tradition has brought too great a distance between the composers wishes and a rather more personal view of interpreters of the past .It was just such a point with the most famous of all Chopin’s Polonaises – the Polonaise Héroique – and the emblem for Poland’s independence.It was played with great clarity and after the imperious opening the Polonaise theme was allowed to sing with beauty and poignant eloquence as it built up to the climax. Even the infamous left hand octave passages were played like a breeze blowing over the battlefield with the melodic line always to the fore.A wonderful circular movement too in Mark’s left hand was a lesson for all budding virtuosi where Art conceals Art.The beauty he brought to the long melodic episode before the final triumphant climax was helped by the deep bass notes that Mark struck with velvet gloves .It opened up the piano as it allowed an even more sumptuous glow to the meandering beauty of Chopin’s mellifluous outpourings.Where Rubinstein would lift him self up off the seat at the burning intensity of the final bars ,Mark hardly moved but brought the same ( well almost as Rubinstein was quite unique here!) fervent excitement and exhilaration with which he finished the first part of the concert.

Debussy’s unjustly neglected ‘Suite Bergamasque’ as Mark said was a very early work that has very little to do with his later revolutionary compositions where he too brought new possibilities to music for the ever more evolving grand piano .It is interesting to note that he was also editor of all Chopin’s works. Four movements of which the best known and most loved is ‘Clair de lune’ that Mark told us was originally titled ‘Promenade Sentimentale’! All four pieces were played with ravishing colour and delicacy.There was a glowing warmth to the sound in the ‘ Prélude ‘ and a charming grace and infectious lilt to the ‘Menuet’.There was a fluidity and delicacy to ‘Claire de lune’ ,which is another of those pieces that was on the music stand together with Sinding’s ‘Rustle of Spring’. He brought a refreshing simplicity as the music was allowed to unfold with ravishing sounds due to his exquisite sense of balance.There was a continual forward movement to the ‘Passepied’ with its gentle fleeting charm.

The imaginary landscape of ‘Vallée d’Obermann’ was a magnificent way to finish this recital of ‘Something old and Something new’ a phrase that Semprini would use to open his radio programme!

Obermann, an 1804 novel by the French philosopher, Étienne de Senancour, centers around the mediations of a young, melancholy recluse who retreats into the Swiss Alps to probe profound and unsettling questions. The novel unfolds as a series of letters written by Obermann, the ultimate solitary, Romantic hero. Filled with longing, he is both enthralled and mystified by Nature. He asks:

‘What do I wish? What am I? What shall I ask of nature? I feel; I exist only to waste myself in unconquerable longings…Inexpressible sensibility, the charm and the torment of our futile years; vast consciousness of a nature that is everywhere incomprehensible and overwhelming; universal passion, indifference, the higher wisdom, abandonment to pleasure— I have felt and experienced them all.’

Mark told me afterwards that he had not played this work in public for twenty years and could still put me to shame who has played it for fifty! Thanks Mark for that too!! A wonderful performance of orchestral proportions but also of great poetic license as the searching in music was allowed to unfold with disarming simplicity and a kaleidoscope of colour .One could imagine why Liszt and the Countess D’Agoult would search high and low for it during their visit to Switzerland together in their Years of Pilgrimage.Drama and excitement with recitatives of startling virtuosity until the final murmured return of the opening theme with an ever more ecstatic pulsating of the heart until the final explosion of exhilaration .Cascades of octaves of remarkable difficulty especially if one is to keep the melodic line still intact as Mark did with mastery and intelligence.The final dramatic cadence after a silence of searing intensity was a fitting way to close his recital.

An ovation but no more was expected or offered .Mark is a great artist and knows when to stop!

As you may observe I have heard Mark play before ……people might talk says Mark! But the birth of a great artist is a long and difficult road documented in part here in my own poor words .

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2020/11/15/mark-viner-at-st-marys-faustian-struggles-and-promethean-prophesis/

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2020/03/12/mark-viner-at-st-marys-2/

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2019/03/11/mark-viner-at-st-marys/

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2018/05/05/mark-viner-with-the-camerata/

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2018/03/03/mark-viner-takes-london-by-storm/

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2018/01/18/mark-viner-takes-italy-by-storm/

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2017/02/06/mark-viners-voyage-of-discovery/

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2016/09/22/viners-norma/

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2016/06/04/mark-viner-virtuoso/

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2015/12/29/thalberg-goes-to-the-opera-with-mark-viner/

This was the final concert in a series of six recitals sponsored so generously by the Robert Turnbull Piano Foundation in collaboration with the National Liberal Club’s Asia Circle.It had begun with a greeting to the founder of the Keyboard Trust ,John Leech.Unable to attend this evening but who will be 99 years old in a few day’s time and a greeting from us all was recorded and will be shown to him and his wife Noretta Conci on his birthday of Sunday the 21st April.

Giulia Contaldo enchanted and entranced the audience of the Liberal Club with playing of superb musicianship and a kaleidoscope not only of colours but of intense concentration as she told a story of wondrous marvels.
A Respighi Nocturne of ethereal beauty but also of passionate outpourings of overwhelming intensity
A Debussy of fluidity and aristocratic control allied to a technical mastery that allowed the fleeting lightness of ‘movement’ to sweep across the keys with transcendental mastery.
The passionate intensity she brought to Wagner’s Liebestod was even more astonishing for the palette of colours that she used to paint a picture of burning intensity and searing inner murmurings
But it was in Schubert that her great artistry was revealed to the full with playing of aristocratic control as she allowed Schubert’s mellifluous outpourings to speak with heart rending immediacy and simplicity.

The simple fluidity of the Notturno by Respighi was played with subtle half colours and a sense of balance that allowed the wistful melody to glow on the gentle breeze that she created with infinite care and sensitivity.Growing in intensity with passionate involvement but always a sense of line that guided us through this seemingly innocent little piece that in Giulia’s hands became a ravishing tone poem of jewels that were allowed to shine with purity and beauty.

It was the same fluidity and fantasy that she brought to Debussy.But this was not the more usual impressionistic mist but a performance of virile rhythmic drive played with a kaleidoscope of changing colour that created a picture of the ‘reflections’ that Debussy was depicting in music. A sense of line of intelligence and musicianship but allied to a technical mastery as cascades of notes were merely streams of sound on a wave of sultry beauty.The simplicity and glowing purity she brought to the the sounds in the coda were indeed like drops of crystalline water falling so perfectly onto a canvas, as only a true poet of the keyboard could aspire to. ‘Hommage a Rameau’ was a movement much loved by Rubinstein because it needs an aristocratic sense of control but also a subtlety of sound without any sentimentality.This is like a Greek temple of poignant beauty and a feeling that history has past through the atmosphere that is evoked by such a noble edifice.Giulia had a range of sound from the opening French aristocratic cantabile that was truly Rubinstein’s, but there was also passionate conviction and masterly control as she opened up to the climax with great flourishes over the entire keyboard.The wonderful change of harmony at the end was of whispered secrets of heart rending intensity. In this one piece Giulia showed us her masterly control of the keyboard and a range of sounds that could bring this extraordinary piece to life with the virile intensity that is of such poignant significance.’

‘Movement’ was played with extraordinary clarity and murmured precision as the accents were like signposts in this breeze of sounds.The declamations in the right hand answered by the left were even more surprising over such a murmured atmosphere.Opening up into a transcendental display of rhythmic drive where notes were spread over the entire keyboard with a technical mastery that never allowed the music to become clouded or interrupted.The murmured brilliance of the opening was a never ending undercurrent throughout this movement as the notes gradually moved closer to the top of the keyboard with strands of melody that lit up this stream of sounds with jewel like rays of light.Disappearing into the distance I have rarely heard this movement finish with such mastery and musicianship.This was the Impressionism of vision and virile emotions that only a true musician could find in Debussy who surely is the greatest pianistic innovator since Chopin.

The opening of Liebestod was like a call to arms leading to sumptuous strands of melody that weaved there way forward with ravishing beauty .The clarity of the counterpoints was always perfectly controlled as they grew in ever more passionate intensity.The climax was played with a dramatic force and passionate conviction that was quite breathtaking as indeed it should be.We all knew that this burning cauldron of sounds was about to explode but it was the masterly control that kept us with baited breath waiting for the moment when Giulia would at last succumb to this red hot atmosphere and lose all control with frenzied movements and theatrical command.Allowing the music to gradually die away to a mere murmur where even here in Giulia’s poetic hands there was a sense of balance that allowed the final melodic notes to glisten like jewels as they lay exhausted after such passionate intensity.A remarkable performance where once again Giulia’s sense of architectural shape made such a poignant statement of one unified whole.

The whole of the second half was taken up with Schubert’s penultimate Sonata.A work lasting forty minutes and was one of the last works that the composer was to write before his untimely death.Long neglected after his death because it needs a true musician to be able to mould this great edifice into one unified whole.One who can see the whole architectural shape but at the same time turn Schubert’s seemingly endless streams of mellifluous outpourings into sounds which should have the same inflections as a singer ,where every note has a story to tell of great significance.Giulia gave a superb performance that keep the audience mesmerised from the dynamic opening declamations of intent to the final equally imperative chords that come forty minutes later.It was of course in between that Giulia brought every strand of music vividly to life with poetry,whimsical fantasy,passionate drive and above all with the simplicity of Art that conceals Art.Beethovenian you might say in its rigour and formal construction which is what Schubert was accused of in his own time .But there is a content of Viennese charm and dramatic invention , less irascible and tempestuous that is quite unique to Schubert .It takes a pianist of great musicianship to be able to enter into this world of poetic fantasy and mellifluous beauty without loosing the overall architectural shape of monumental invention and drive.There should be from the first to the last note an undercurrent on which the music evolves and the pianist like a conductor must show his players with flexibility and colour how to fill this vast canvas where the wood must be constructed with the beauty of the trees still intact.

There was absolute clarity to Giulia’s playing with a sense of improvisation as she unwrapped the music before our very eyes and where the music was allowed to flow so naturally as it built up with rhythmic intensity.Some very personal touches too brought the music vividly to life in a true musical conversation .Streams of beautiful seemless scales in the development floated on gently vibrating chords as the music gradually returned to the opening imperious chords.A coda of extreme delicacy where the legato melodic line was accompanied by whispered staccato notes leading to clouds of sounds that brought this movement to a delicate close ready for the poignant simplicity of the Andantino.There was purity and delicacy in the melodic line over the continuous barcarolle like accompaniment .A melodic line of searing intensity as the heart beat so gently underneath.A remarkable control of sound and a masterly control of the pedal that allowed for purity without ever any clouding of the texture .Gradually building up to a storm of truly Beethovenian intensity and drive and a recitativo of heart rending intensity rebuked by the composer with such unusual vehemence until surrendering to the magic return of the main theme.Returning with the most ravishing embellishments and comments that were played with exquisite delicacy revealing an ever more masterly control of sound.She brought sparkling brilliance to the Scherzo and tender refined elegance to the Trio.The ever more delectable return of the Scherzo this time ending with the same finality that owed more to Beethoven than Schubert! The gently flowing Rondo was of subtle shading and beauty as the episodes unfolded with teasing charm and gentle brilliance before burning themselves out.An attempt at restarting the Rondo with Schubert teasingly trying to find a way out which he does with a coda of burning intensity and dynamic brilliance.A final brusque recollection of the Rondo theme leads to the same dramatic opening chords that this time close a story that has spanned all the emotions of the genial invention and mastery of a poet destined to die just a few months later.A performance played by Giulia with mastery and poetry and above all supreme musicianship.

The Sei pezzi per pianoforte (“Six pieces for piano”),P.044, is a set of six solo piano pieces written by the Italian composer Ottorino Respighi  between 1903 and 1905. These predominantly salonesque pieces are eclectic,drawing influence from different musical styles and composers. The pieces have various musical forms and were composed separately and later published together between 1905 and 1907 in a set under the same title for editorial reasons; Respighi had not conceived them as a suite , and therefore did not intend to have uniformity among the pieces. The set, under Bongiovanni, became his first published work. Five of the six pieces are derived from earlier works by Respighi, and only one of them, the “Canone”, has an extant manuscript.

1. Valse Caressante” – (“Tempo lento di Valzer.”)
2. “Canone” –  (“Andantino”)
3. “Notturno” –  (“Lento.”)
4. “Minuetto”
5. “Studio” – (‘Presto”)
6. “Intermezzo-Serenata” – (“Andante calmo”)

Images is a suite  of six compositions for solo piano by Claude Debussy. They were published in two books/series, each consisting of three pieces. The first book was composed between 1901 and 1905, and the second book was composed in 1907. Debussy wrote to his publisher , Jacques Durand about the first series : “Without false pride, I feel that these three pieces hold together well, and that they will find their place in the literature of the piano … to the left of Schumann, or to the right of Chopin… “

Liszt Tristan und Isolde – Liebestod S.447

Tristan and Isolde is a musical drama in three acts written by Richard Wagner between 1857 and 1859, and premiered in 1865. Two years after the debut of the work at the National Theater of Munich, Franz Liszt (who was Wagner’s father in law) made a piano transcription of Isolde’s final aria. The piece, called “Mild und leise”, was referred to as “Verklärung” (Transfiguration) by Wagner. Liszt prefaced his transcription with a four bar excerpt from the Love Duet from Act II, which in the opera is sung to the words “sehnend verlangter Liebestod”. Accordingly, he referred to his transcription as ‘Liebestod’. Later it was designated with the catalogue number S. 447. Liszt’s transcription (which underwent a revision in 1875) became famous in Europe well before Wagner’s opera reached most places.

Tristan und Isolde (Tristan and Isolde),was composed between 1857 and 1859 and premiered at the Konigliches Hoftheater und Nationaltheater in Munich on 10 June 1865 conducted by Hans von Bulow .Wagner referred to the work not as an opera, but called it “eine Handlung” (literally a drama, a plot, or an action).

The score of Tristan und Isolde has often been cited as a landmark in the development of Western music.^[15] Throughout the opera, Wagner uses a remarkable range of orchestral colour, harmony, and polyphony, doing so with a freedom rarely found in his earlier operas. The very first chord in the piece, the Tristan chord , is of great significance in the move away from traditional tonal harmony  as it resolves to another dissonant chord:

Schubert’s last three piano sonatas , D 958, 959 and 960, are his last major compositions for solo piano. They were written during the last months of his life, between the spring and autumn of 1828, but were not published until about ten years after his death, in 1838–39.Like the rest of Schubert’s piano sonatas, they were mostly neglected in the 19th century but by the late 20th century, however, public and critical opinion had changed, and these sonatas are now considered among the most important of the composer’s mature masterpieces.

The last year of Schubert’s life was marked by growing public acclaim for the composer’s works, but also by the gradual deterioration of his health. On March 26, 1828, together with other musicians in Vienna he gave a public concert of his own works, which was a great success and earned him a considerable profit. In addition, two new German publishers took an interest in his works, leading to a short period of financial well-being. However, by the time the summer months arrived, Schubert was again short of money and had to cancel some journeys he had previously planned.

Schubert had been struggling with syphilis since 1822–23, and suffered from weakness, headaches and dizziness. However, he seems to have led a relatively normal life until September 1828, when new symptoms appeared. At this stage he moved from the Vienna home of his friend Franz von Schober to his brother Ferdinand’s house in the suburbs, following the advice of his doctor; unfortunately, this may have actually worsened his condition. However, up until the last weeks of his life in November 1828, he continued to compose an extraordinary amount of music, including such masterpieces as the three last sonatas.

Schubert probably began sketching the sonatas sometime around the spring months of 1828; the final versions were written in September. The final sonata was completed on September 26, and two days later, Schubert played from the sonata trilogy at an evening gathering in Vienna.In a letter to Probst (one of his publishers), dated October 2, 1828, Schubert mentioned the sonatas amongst other works he had recently completed and wished to publish.However, Probst was not interested in the sonatas,and by November 19, Schubert was dead.In the following year, Schubert’s brother Ferdinand sold the sonatas’ autographs  to another publisher, Anton Diabelli, who would only publish them about ten years later, in 1838 or 1839.^[16] Schubert had intended the sonatas to be dedicated to Hummel , whom he greatly admired. Hummel was a leading pianist, a pupil of Mozart , and a pioneering composer of the Romantic style  (like Schubert himself).However, by the time the sonatas were published in 1839, Hummel was dead, and Diabelli, the new publisher, decided to dedicate them instead to composer Robert Schumann , who had praised many of Schubert’s works in his critical writings.

Giulia Contaldo attracted international attention when she replaced Elisso Virsaladze in a performance (broadcast live on BBC Radio 3) of Schumann’s Piano Concerto with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra at Bridgewater Hall, Manchester. ‘A dashing account’ — Guardian
Giulia was born in Florence and graduated from Florence’s Luigi Cherubini Conservatory. She went on to study at the International Piano Academy at Imola where she completed her diploma with Jin Ju in 2019. She subsequently won a scholarship to study for the Advanced Postgraduate Diploma in Piano Performance at the Royal Northern College of Music with Graham Scott and Dina Parakhina and graduated with distinction. In 2021/2022 she studied on the International Artist Diploma Course at the RNCM.Giulia won First Prizes at the 28th J.S. Bach Italian National Competition (S. Levante) and the 15th International Maria Giubilei International Piano Competition. She also won prizes at the International Competition Prémio Internacional de Piano Figueira da Foz (Coimbra), the 32nd Concours Européen de Musique de Chambre organized by FNAPEC (Paris), the Massarosa International Piano Competition and the James Mottram International Piano Competition. In 2022, she won Second Prize and the Classical Sonata Special Award at the Verona International Piano Competition. Also in 2022, she won the Concerto Competition and the Piano Duo Prize at the RNCM — and was awarded the prestigious Gold Medal.As a soloist, Giulia has performed with the BBC Philharmonic, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Manchester Camerata, Orchestra dell’ Arena di Verona, RNCM Symphony Orchestra, Young Musicians European Orchestra, Giovane Orchestra di Abruzzo and the Orchestra del Carmine di Firenze. She has performed at many festivals throughout Europe and at prestigious venues including Bridgewater Hall, Wigmore Hall, Musica Insieme (Bologna), Teatro Alighieri (Ravenna) and the Teatro Filarmonico (Verona).  She is also a passionate chamber musician.Since 2022, Giulia has been continuing her studies at the Haute Ecole de Musique in Geneva with Ricardo Castro.  She is also a Professor at the Conservatorio A. Scontrino in Trapani, Sicily

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/05/18/giulia-contaldo-in-london-at-steinways-for-the-keyboard-trust/

Our series of six concerts at the National Liberal Club :

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/06/06/giovanni-bertolazzi-liberal-club-en-blanc-et-noir-5th-june-2023-a-star-is-born/

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/06/14/adam-heron-at-the-national-liberal-club-an-eclectic-musician-of-refined-taste-and-eloquence/

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/09/05/milda-daunoraite-at-the-national-liberal-club-sparks-flying-with-refined-piano-playing-of-elegance-and-simplicity/

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/11/07/nikita-lukinov-at-the-national-liberal-club-a-supreme-stylist-astonishes-and-seduces/

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2024/03/05/pedro-lopez-salas-at-the-national-liberal-club-with-aristocratic-style-and-artistry/

‘One of Kholodenko’s two most notable qualities as a pianist are his stunning ringing tone, which allows him to leave notes hanging in the air longer than the physics of acoustics would suggest is possible. The other is an opposite crisp and spectacular digital speed.’
Los Angeles Times

‘Vadym Kholodenko’s ear-tickling trills and textural transparency … set the stage for the intimate, subtle and crisply detailed playing to come’Gramophone

The virtuoso pianist presents an unusual recital of two halves: Mozart’s Requiem transcribed for piano and Rzewski’s resistance anthem.

Winner of the 2014 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, the Ukrainian pianist Vadym Kholodenko devotes his concert to two vast, extraordinary works – spanning a narrative from grief to resistance that connects deeply with the spirit of his home country.

He performs Mozart’s Requiem in a little-known, grand-scale transcription by Karl Klindworth, a pupil of Franz Liszt, who managed to encapsulate the beauty and magnificence of the work for chorus and orchestra on the piano alone.

The recital’s other half consists of Frederic Rzewski’s 36 Variations on ‘The People United Will Never Be Defeated!’, the American composer’s ear-boggling transformation of Sergio Ortega’s Chilean resistance anthem.

This truly iconic piece has become the late 20th century’s successor to the giant variation sets of Beethoven and Bach.

Standing ovation for a true ‘tour de force’ of multifaceted playing of prismatic colour and total mastery by Vadym Kholodenko
Klindworth’s transcription of Mozart appeared rather dated compared to the extraordinary vivid and vital Rzewski variations on ‘The People United Will Never Be Defeated’ .How actual can that be as the bombs fall on the cradle of Cristian civilisation last night .
‘An eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth when will it ever end!’
These were the last words my wife declaimed on stage as Electra by Euripides before being struck down by an aneurysm – the silent killer on the stage of our own theatre in Rome!

Exhilarating and quite exhausting performance from a master pianist.
Commissioned and first performed in 1975 by Ursula Oppens who passed by Siena to play to Agosti in 1968 before catching the train to Bolzano where she won the Busoni Competition.
Kholodenko ,winner of Van Cliburn , with courage and resiliance can really show us what it means ‘never to be defeated’.

This is an interview with Ursula Oppens : https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uuarpS_u59Q.

And to Jed Distler’s Between the Keys : https://soundcloud.com/jeddistler/episode-0032-the-people-united-at-40-2015-11-03?in=jeddistler/sets/between-the-keys-archive

The song on which the variations is based is one of many that emerged from the Unidad Popular  coalition in Chile between 1969 and 1973, prior to the overthrow of the Salvador Allende  government. Rzewski composed the variations in September and October 1975, as a tribute to the struggle of the Chilean people against the newly imposed repressive regime of Augusto Pinochet ; indeed the work contains allusions to other leftist struggles of the same and immediately preceding time, such as quotations from the Italian traditional socialist   song “Bandiera Rossa “ and the Bertold Brecht /Hans Eisler “Solidarity Song”

In general, the variations are short, and build up to climaxes of considerable force. The 36 variations, following the 36 bars of the tune, are in six groups of six. The pianist, in addition to needing a virtuoso technique, is required to whistle, slam the piano lid, and catch the after-vibrations of a loud attack as harmonics: all of these are “extended” techniques in 20th-century piano writing. Much of the work uses the language of 19th-century romanticism, but mixes this language with pandiatonic  tonality, modal writing, and serial techniques .

As in the Goldberg Variations , the final variation is a direct restatement of the original theme, intended to be heard with new significance after the long journey through the variations.

Jeremy Chan’s review of the concert can be read here :https://literallylefthanded.com/2024/04/14/vadym-kholodenkos-core-shaking-rzewski-variations/

Rzewski was born on April 13, 1938,to parents of Polish and Jewish descent,and raised Catholic.^[He began playing piano at age 5 and attended Phillips Academy Harvard and Princeton , where his teachers included Randall Thompson,Roger Sessions,Walter Piston and Milton Babbitt . In 1960, he went to Italy on a Fulbright Scholarship where in addition to studying with Luigi Dallapiccola in Florence he began a career as a performer of new piano music, often with an improvisatory element.

In 1966, Rzewski co-founded Musica Elettronica Viva with Alvin Curran  and Richard Teitelbaum in Rome which was conceived music as a collective, collaborative process, with improvisation and live electronic instruments  prominently featured. In 1971, he returned to New York from Italy.

In 1977, Rzewski became Professor of Composition at the Conservatoire Royal de Musique in Liège, Belgium, then directed by Henri Pousseur

In 1963, Rzewski married Nicole Abbeloos; they had five children.While Rzewski never divorced Abbeloos, his companion for about the last 20 years of his life was Françoise Walot, with whom he had two children. He also had five grandchildren.Rzewski died of an apparent heart attack in Montiano Tuscany on June 26, 2021, at the age of 83.Nicola Slonimsky  said of Rzewski in 1993: “He is furthermore a granitically overpowering piano technician, capable of depositing huge boulders of sonoristic material across the keyboard without actually wrecking the instrument.”Michael Schell called Rzewski “the most important living composer of piano music, and surely one of the dozen or so most important living American composers”.

Rzewski plays ‘The People United Will Never Be https://youtube.com/watch?v=xiWwYsWWVSk&feature=shared

At the time of Mozart’s death on 5 December 1791, only the first movement, Introitus (Requiem aeternam) was completed in all of the orchestral and vocal parts. The Kyrie, Sequence and Offertorium were completed in skeleton, with the exception of the Lacrymosa, which breaks off after the first eight bars. The vocal parts and continuo were fully notated. Occasionally, some of the prominent orchestral parts were briefly indicated, such as the first violin part of the Rex tremendae and Confutatis, the musical bridges in the Recordare, and the trombone solos of the Tuba Mirum.What remained to be completed for these sections were mostly accompanimental figures, inner harmonies, and orchestral doublings to the vocal parts.

The eccentric count Franz von Walsegg commissioned the Requiem from Mozart anonymously through intermediaries. The count, an amateur chamber musician who routinely commissioned works by composers and passed them off as his own,wanted a Requiem Mass he could claim he composed to memorialize the recent passing of his wife. Mozart received only half of the payment in advance, so upon his death his widow Costanze  was keen to have the work completed secretly by someone else, submit it to the count as having been completed by Mozart and collect the final payment.Joseph von Eybler was one of the first composers to be asked to complete the score, and had worked on the movements from the Dies irae up until the Lacrymosa. In addition, a striking similarity between the openings of the Domine Jesu Christe movements in the requiems of the two composers suggests that Eybler at least looked at later sections.After this work, he felt unable to complete the remainder and gave the manuscript back to Constanze Mozart.

The task was then given to another composer, Franz Xaver Süssmayr who borrowed some of Eybler’s work in making his completion, and added his own orchestration to the movements from the Kyrie onward, completed the Lacrymosa, and added several new movements which a Requiem would normally comprise: Sanctus, Benedictus, and Agnus Dei. He then added a final section, Lux aeterna by adapting the opening two movements which Mozart had written to the different words which finish the Requiem Mass, which according to both Süssmayr and Mozart’s wife was done according to Mozart’s directions. Some think it unlikely, however, that Mozart would have repeated the opening two sections if he had survived to finish the work.The completed score, started by Mozart but largely finished by Süssmayr, was then dispatched to Count Walsegg complete with a counterfeited signature of Mozart and dated 1792. The various complete and incomplete manuscripts eventually turned up in the 19th century, but many of the figures involved left ambiguous statements on record as to how they were involved in the affair. Despite the controversy over how much of the music is actually Mozart’s, the commonly performed Süssmayr version has become widely accepted by the public. This acceptance is quite strong, even when alternative completions provide logical and compelling solutions for the work..

A musician is known by his programme and it was the three bold blocks that Kenny Fu presented that showed off his serious musicianly qualities.His Schumann was played from the very first notes with style and poetic sensibility but never sacrificing the clarity and chameleonic wistful changes of character that Schumann’s imbues into this work of seemingly improvised fantasy.

There was a rhythmic drive to the ‘sehr rasch und leicht ‘ and even Schumann’s insistence of even more energy was played with a sparkling lightness bursting into moments of rhetoric before finding its way to the magic of the opening.Episodes played without a break as Schumann joins the differing movements together into one unified whole.Kenny showed a wistful sense of poetic understanding in the gently flowing ‘hastig’ and if he just missed the sense of arrival in the spiky chords that follow he brought a sense of magic and colour to the ever changing moods of the Floristan and Eusebius characters that Schumann describes.The ‘Einfach und Zart’ of the third episode was expansive and elegiac before bursting into dynamic energy with an Intermezzo that he played with authority and technical skill as he maintained the tempo even through the infamous octaves that abound.The ‘Innig’ of the fourth that seems almost improvised in character was where the fleeting changes were brought to life with great vitality and poetry.There was fluidity and driving energy in the ‘sehr lebhafter’ and Kenny managed to give a sense of expansiveness as the excitement grew until the ‘Mit einigem Pomp’.It is here that Schumann manages to create a legato melody of searing intensity in this rather militaristic outpouring.There was a strange misreading at the opening of the ‘Zum Beschluss’ but not given any importance as the music was allowed to flow so naturally until the final imperious unwinding of the coda.

Debussy’s Images Book 1 was played with a beautiful fluidity where after the tempestuous outpouring at the climax of ‘Reflets’ Kenny brought a magical stillness to the coda but strangely seemed to miss the resolution of the final chord! However it lead beautifully into ‘Hommage a Rameau’ that he played with poetic freedom and as he said in his introduction a sense of fluidity that pervades all three pieces of Images Book 1. ‘Movement’ too was barely a murmur as it gradually became bathed in sunlight with playing of transcendental drive until disappearing into the distance from where it had first appeared.

It was however the Rachmaninov Sonata that ignited a spark in this young musician.Here was playing of more colour and sumptuous sounds as he obviously identified with the passionate romantic outpourings and cauldron of boiling sounds creating excitement and intensity.Here was playing where the clarity and precision of Schumann and Debussy were followed by playing of searing drive and intensity and considerable technical mastery.It was the same beauty of colour and sense of balance that he showed in the encore of the Bach /Siloti Prelude in B minor.Barely touching the keys he allowed the tenor melodic line to enter as if by magic creating a spell that showed off magical sense of balance and quite considerable artistry.

All week I’ve been sitting at the piano and composing and writing and laughing and crying, all at the same time,” wrote Schumann to his beloved Clara Wieck from Vienna in March 1839. “You will find this beautifully illustrated in my Opus 20, the great Humoreske.” 

The conflicting emotions Schumann felt while composing his Humoreske are reflected in the music’s contrasting moods, or ‘humours’. In a letter of 15 March 1839 to his Belgian follower Simonin de Sire, Schumann provided a hint as to the meaning of the work’s title when he pointed out that the word ‘humoreske’ couldn’t adequately be translated into French. ‘It is a pity’, said Schumann, ‘that there are no good and apt words in the French language for such deeply ingrained characteristics and concepts as Gemütlichkeit, and for humour, which is the happy fusion of the gemütlich and the witty. But it is this that binds the whole character of the two nations together.’ The previous year, in drawing de Sire’s attention to his F sharp minor sonata, Op 11, and the Fantasiestücke, Op 12, Schumann told him: ‘The human heart sometimes seems strange, and pain and joy are intermingled in wild variegation.’

“Do you not know Jean Paul, our great writer? I have learnt more counterpoint from him than from my music teacher”. His “Vorschule der Ästhetik” with its extensive treatment of humour probably occasioned Schumann to think of giving a piano work the title “Humoreske” – thus giving birth to a new musical genre.
The “romantic humour” is not, however, aimed at humour in a modern sense of the word, but rather at a portrayal of the fragility and contradictory nature of the human condition. As if in a kaleidoscope, Schumann juxtaposes the most diverse elements of form and moods. Ernst Herttrich’s revision reflects the latest scholarly findings for this unusual work.

Schumann needed some happy diversion in his life at that particular time: he was very unhappy being separated from Clara but the reason for being in Vienna was to be able to establish in the Austrian capital his journal, Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, which he had founded in Leipzig in 1833. But the city fathers said a resounding “No.” So, what to do other than compose a new keyboard masterwork.

In fact, Schumann in 1839 was close to the end of the line of works for the keyboard, master or otherwise. His creative life had centered virtually exclusively on music for the piano, the instrument on which he envisioned becoming a virtuoso. This dream, however, was shattered when he injured his fingers by way of a contraption he used to strengthen those digits that might have been his means for attaining performing fame. But after his marriage to Clara in 1840 he turned more to songs and then symphonies and chamber music.

1. Einfach Sehr rasch und leicht Noch rascher Erstes Tempo Wie im Anfang
2. Hastig Nach und nach immer lebhafter und stärker. Wie vorher
3. Einfach und zart Intermezzo
4. Innig Schneller
5. Sehr lebhaft. Immer lebhafter
6. Mit einigem Pomp
7. Zum Beschluss. Allegro

Images is a suite  of six compositions for solo piano by Claude Debussy. They were published in two books/series, each consisting of three pieces. The first book was composed between 1901 and 1905, and the second book was composed in 1907. Debussy wrote to his publisher , Jacques Durand about the first series : “Without false pride, I feel that these three pieces hold together well, and that they will find their place in the literature of the piano … to the left of Schumann, or to the right of Chopin… “

Piano Sonata No. 2, op 36 was  composed by Rachmaninov  in 1913, who revised it in 1931, with the note, “The new version, revised and reduced by author.”

Three years after his third piano concert  was finished, Rachmaninov moved with his family to a house in Rome that Tchaikowsky had used.It was during this time in Rome that Rachmaninov started working on his second piano sonata.However, because both of his daughters contracted typhoid fever, he was unable to finish the composition in Rome but instead he moved his family on to Berlin in order to consult with doctors.When the girls were well enough, Rachmaninoff traveled with his family back to his Ivanovka  country estate, where he finished the second piano sonata.Its premiere took place in Kursk on 18 October 1913 ,The sonata is in three interrelated movements:

1. Allegro agitato
2. Non allegro—Lento (E minor—E major)
3. Allegro molto (B-flat major)

When Rachmaninov performed the piece at its premiere in Moscow, it was well received.However, he was not satisfied with the work and felt that too much in the piece was superfluous and in 1931, he commenced work on a revision. Major cuts were made to the middle sections of the second and third movements and all three sections of the first movement, and some technically difficult passages were simplified.

A performance of the original version lasts approximately 25 minutes, while a performance of the revised version lasts approximately 19 minutes.

In 1940, with the composer’s consent, Vladimir Horowitz created his own edition which combined elements of both the original and revised versions.His edition used more original material than revised throughout all three movements.A performance of the Horowitz revision lasts approximately 22 minutes.

From his early solo debut at the Wigmore Hall to his attainment of the prestigious Sir Elton John Scholarship, Kenny Fu holds much potential and promise for a bright future. He has given concerts on three continents and performed extensively throughout UK which include distinguished halls such as the St Martin-in-the-Fields, Kings Place, Wigmore Hall, Assembly Hall and Fazioli Concert Hall. His repertoire choices gravitate toward the late Classical and Romantic Eras where he brings an intense and captivating temperament to the works of Beethoven, Brahms and Rachmaninov. Kenny was a semi-finalist at the Sussex International Piano competition. During his earlier years he was the winner of the Solihull Young Musician of the Year and a Quarter Finalist at the BBC Young Musician of the Year. His reputation as a musician has also extended internationally where he was a International Piano Competition. He has also received guidance from numerous esteemed musicians such as Dimitri Alexeev, Pascal Devoyon, Imogen Cooper, Bernard d’Ascoli and Angela Hewitt. Kenny is looking forward to his Postgraduate studies at the Royal Academy of Music under the tutelage of Professor Tatiana Sarkissova. He is also the recipient of the ‘Myra Hess’ award from Help Musicians UK and is also sponsored by the Warwick Arts fund. 

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2022/06/06/kenny-fu-the-making-of-an-artist-with-poetry-and-intelligence-at-st-marys/