Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) Rondo D-dur KV 485 (1786) Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) / Ferruccio Busoni (1866–1924) Chaconne z II Partity d-moll BWV 1004 (1720) Franz Schubert (1797–1828) Fantazja C-dur D 760 „Wandererfantaisie” (1822) Allegro con fuoco ma non troppo Adagio Presto Allegro
The regal presence of Shiori Kuwahara reminded me of Gina Bachauer or Oxana Yablonskaya. Here was an artist who commanded attention with playing of authority and beauty. Every note had its place in a musical conversation that was of timeless wonder.A beauty of sound that was never percussive even when she was playing with passionate intensity contrasting with moments of ravishing beauty. There were never any hurried moments but phrases that were beautifully shaped even in the most strenuous of passages . It was the playing of a great artist for whom the music speaks with refined good taste together with fearless abandon allowing the music to unfold with simplicity and immediacy.
As Rubinstein declared you must play music that speaks to you directly, you must only play music that you love.
There was no doubt today that all Shiori played today was loved as she was able to transmit this love to a public who dedicated her a spontaneous standing ovation at the end of a long and complex programme. It was for an artist who was able to transmit with extraordinary artistry the aristocratic nobility and refined good taste of what we are more used of hearing from great artists in their Indian summer. We live in an age where quantity takes precedence over quality and it is rare indeed to find an artist barely in her 30’s who can play with seeming simplicity and timeless wonder.
Mozart may be too difficult for adults and too easy for children but when Shiori opened her recital with the D major Rondò it was obvious that here was an artist who could make every note speak with crystalline clarity as she told the tale that Mozart had hidden in so few notes. An operatic feel as she created characters that entered and exited sometimes with refreshing simplicity but also with clouded skies, always with a sense of style and purity as she brought this tone poem vividly to life with an infectious ‘joie de vivre ‘ allowing the ending of whispered beauty to disappear into the depths of the piano.
Busoni’s mighty recreation of Bach’s Chaconne immediate took to the stage with an imposing opening of authority and nobility. Her rhythmic precision was quite exhilarating with the left hand octaves like a wind blowing from afar as her phrasing of the Chaconne theme was shaped with refined finesse. There was an aristocratic beauty to the ‘molto espressivo e legato ‘ as the work took wing with the left hand octaves gradually becoming more and more brilliant. She brought grandeur to the ‘un poco a piacere’ cadenza that dissolved into a quasi improvised meandering ‘dolce espressivo’ of great beauty before the ‘con fuoco animato’. Playing with an extraordinary sense of line as wondrous sounds spun a magical web that mirrors the single string of Bach’s original violin masterpiece for a solo instrument. Noble sounds of deep resounding bass notes were played with dynamic drive and great authority. Trombones of sumptuous beauty were of a refined respectful serenity leading to the ‘Allegro moderato ma deciso e misurato’ that she played with remarkable control. A ‘più sostenuto’ of timeless wonder in layers of sound led to the final triumphant declamation . But even here she stopped in her tracks before placing the sforzando bass D which opened the flood gate to the final noble appearance of the Chaconne theme in all it’s magnificence. This was a performance of absolute fidelity to the score demonstrating a control and mastery that could show us the great architectural shape of one of the greatest and longest works ever written for solo violin.
The Schubert ‘ Wanderer’ Fantasy is one of the key works in the Romantic piano repertoire pointing to a new form where the themes of the traditional Sonata form take on a character in themselves and like actors in a play are completely free to change shape and form. It was this work that was so admired by Liszt, always looking to the future, and it was the birth of the ‘leit motif’ that was to become the anchor on which Liszt’s son in law Richard Wagner was to inspire his music dramas. Shiori brought a remarkable sense of character to the opening pages of the Fantasy where the rests were always of such importance. A driving rhythmic impulse that did not deny ravishing beauty of the lyrical episodes that she played with simplicity and radiance. She brought a refined beauty to the Adagio that she played with full rich poignant sounds and led to the radiant beauty of the variations where the melodic line was always revealed with glowing beauty that gradually built in energy and passionate intensity. She brought exhilaration and excitement to the ‘Scherzo’ that did not deny its dance origins and contrasted with the calm of the Trio that she played with pastoral ease. The return of the ‘Scherzo was marked by even more brilliance as cascades of notes were played with limpet mastery and brilliance. The Fugato entered quite sedately but gradually grew in intensity as the tension rose with masterly dynamic drive and fearless passionate intensity.
A remarkable performance in which this often abused work was restored to the place it deserves with a performance of nobility, beauty and mastery but above all a scrupulous respect for the composers intentions.
The second half of the programme was dedicated to Chopin and was to be repeated a few days later in the garden of Chopin’s birthplace in Želazowa Wola with the addition of the Third Scherzo op 39.
In Duszniki she began the second half with the work she had played as an encore a few days later . The Nocturne op 9 n. 3 was in many ways freer at the beginning of the Chopin group than at the end. There was a feeling of breathless beauty of subtle phrasing of refined good taste . Like a singer Shiori spoke in long breaths that were possessed of a chameleonic sense of colour. Even the tempestuous central episode was played with a passionate intensity that was tempered in the outer episodes by the same sentiments but of intimate whispered nostalgia.
She brought a timeless pastoral beauty to the Third Ballade op 47 with a sense of phrasing where everything was allowed to flow with such simplicity and immediacy. Magical wafts of sound as the Ballade unfolded with nobility and ravishing beauty. There was a timelessness to her playing where even the embellishments were never hurried, as every note like in Mozart had a meaning and was part of a wondrous tale that was unfolding in the hands of a fellow poet of the keyboard. She brought a remarkable build up of burning subdued intensity and an undercurrent of energy leading to the final glorious climax that exploded with grandeur and nobility. A scale with one noble sweep was greeted by the final chords placed to perfection with a musical arch of perfect proportions.
The Fourth Ballade op 52 is one of Chopin’s greatest and most original works. Shiori opened it with radiance and fleeting beauty as the theme was allowed to unfold with whispered beauty. Variations with a continuous forward movement where each one was given a character of brilliance and poignant beauty with an architectural shape that swept us to the final passionate outpouring on a wave of luxuriant sounds. A glorious outpouring played with extraordinary control allied to a passionate intensity and mastery with the final chords played with absolute precision and meaningful shape. Answered by five calming chords that Shiori played with extraordinary composure before the explosion of the coda that was a tour de force of mastery and passionate commitment.
The final work in this Chopin group in Duszniki was the Polonaise Fantaisie op 61. One of Chopin’s last and most original works where he places the Polonaise within a fantasy world of wondrous sound of quasi improvised beauty, An opening where the imposing chords are allowed to vibrate across the entire keyboard and which Shiori played with one natural arm movement. An ominous bass note adds a poignant comment to this etherial opening as the Polonaise rhythm is heard opening up a passionate melodic outpouring of nostalgia and space. A beautifully shaped central episode was where Chopin reintroduces the opening but this time leading to a final passionate drive to the sumptuous conclusion. A noble outpouring that dies away to a whisper as Shiori placed the final single A flat with extraordinary poise and significance.
A standing ovation for the entire audience that left Maestro Palczny strangely seated. Having celebrated recently a very important birthday and having presided over these concerts for many years he may prefer just to sit back and enjoy with his public such a sumptuous feast.
Shiori rose to the occasion with a masterly performance of the Polonaise Héroique op 53 just a Rubinstein would have done at the end of his unforgettable performances.
A recital by Bingbing Jiang of refined playing of poetic beauty with a kaleidoscope of sounds that allowed her to create twelve miniature tone poems from the Preludes Book II by Debussy,that were sculptured with intelligence and extraordinary sensibility and imagination .
The concert had begun, though, with Schubert’s Soirée de Vienne n 6 as seen by Liszt and that she played with commanding authority and beguiling insinuation. A tone palette that ranged from quasi orchestral dissolving into the soft tones of the Viennese waltz. Liszt adding a web of interweaving golden threads that Bingbing played with all the style and charm of another age.
This was just an introduction to a masterly performance of Debussy’s Twelve Preludes Book II.
‘Brouilllards’ were mere wisps of sound played with an extraordinary sense of line despite her magical finesse. They were interrupted only by the recitativi where she underlined the bass shadowing as Debussy specifically asks.
In fact Debussy had also been a music editor and knew the importance of every indication left by composers in the score . Bingbing showed scrupulous attention to Debussy’s very specific demands which she incorporated into her playing of chameleonic sensitivity. She brought mystery and radiance with deep resonant bass notes that gave a glowing beauty to all that she floated above. She brought a dynamic drive to ‘La puerta del Vino’ as Debussy evoked the gates of Alhambra in Granada . Insinuating seductive sounds of passionate intensity but finishing with an ending of whispered poetic meaning played by Bingbing with rare control of sound.
I well remember when Richter first appeared in the west with his playing of Debussy Estampes and Preludes, where it was not the animal like intensity that astonished but his control of quiet sounds that we had never heard before .
Bingbing has a vast range of sounds but it is above all her control when she appears to be barely touching the keys that is so remarkable .
‘Le fées’ bursting into quasi Viennese enticement as Debussy is inspired by ChouChou’s book of J M Barrie’s ‘Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens’. ‘Bruyères’ was played with simplicity and a delicacy of whispered glowing radiance. She certainly caught the character of ‘General Lavine excentric’, with its continual changes and interruptions and even beseeching cries and pompous strident melodies.’La terrasse’ and ‘Ondine’ are absolute gems and masterpieces that Bingbing imbued with a web of golden sounds and an extraordinary architectural shape, as she allowed Debussy to tell us such wonderful tales . Rubinstein would bring great character to Ondine projecting out to the audience whereas Binbing played with an intimacy and intensity that drew us in to her magic world. ‘Pickwick’ was played with pompous audacity as she enjoyed the teasing brilliance of the multifaceted character of ‘S Pickwick Esq the Perpetual President Member of the Pickwick Club.’
‘Canope’ she played with poignant simplicity and it is the Prelude that Fou Ts’ong admired so much for a work where so few notes could mean so much. The double third prelude showed Bingbing’s digital mastery that she could combine with poetic fantasy. ‘Feux d’artifice’ was a tour de force of masterly playing of transcendental brilliance allied to an extraordinary sense of imagination.
When Fou Ts’ong was awarded the Mazurka prize in Warsaw there was an outcry. How could a Chinese pianist understand Chopin Mazurkas better than a native of Poland . As Ts’ong pointed out, the soul has no frontiers and there are the same sentiments in Chopin as in Chinese poetry of which Ts’ongs father was an authority
The recital by Bingbing was an encore to the programme of Classical D International Piano Festival 2026
A lunchtime recital by Tyler Hay at the National Liberal Club in a tropical London enjoying a climate change temperature of 35 degrees. It was the scene of Tyler’s first outing with the monumental Sonata in B minor by Liszt .
He chose to preface the work with eight waltzes by Chopin declaring it impossible or at the very least improper to play an encore after the Liszt Sonata as there can be nothing left to add after such a monumental work …….especially on what surely must be the hottest day of the year.
Likening the Chopin waltzes to a ‘bouquet of flowers’ many of which were never intended for publication. As Tyler said there could have been as many as 37 waltzes but at least seven were lost and many others were never intended for posterity. They are in fact among the most charming and melodious miniatures in the entire piano repertoire.
Many were given by Chopin to admirers or pupils and many variants abound as he added to these precious gifts with the generosity of the ‘Poet of the Piano ‘. Chopin wanted many of the manuscripts burnt after his death and little would he have approved of the fact that in October 2024, the curator Robinson McClellan discovered a previously unknown Frédéric Chopin waltz in the Morgan Library and Museum vault in New York. Written on a postcard-sized manuscript in A minor, the 48-measure piece dates back to 1830–1835 and was authenticated by scholars using paper, ink, and handwriting analysis. Of the presumed 37 piano waltzes, only nineteen (along with one unauthenticated waltz) are numbered and only eight were published ( as Op. 18, 34, 42 and 64) before he died. His desire was that any unpublished works should be burned, but his sister Ludwika and Julian Fontana proceeded anyway to publish Waltzes 9–13 (as Op. 69 and 70). Six waltzes composed 1826–1831 and present in Frédéric’s Paris home were at first preserved but then lost in fire in a 1863 in Ludwika’s house. Another six were eventually published as Waltzes 14–19. These Chopin had given to people without keeping a copy of the manuscripts. Waltz 18 was untitled; it is in 3/4 time and bears some characteristics of a waltz but is marked ‘Sostenuto’. Waltz 17 is not accepted as authentic by the Fryderyk Chopin Institute; to the other five in this group it has assigned WN numbers (29, 18, 28, 53 and 63). Waltz 20 is likewise unauthenticated . Separately, the last variation of Chopin’s Variations on a German National Air (Der Schweizerbub), WN 6, is in the form of a waltz.
Infact only the first, fifth and eighth waltzes of the 8 that Tyler chose to play today had been published. It was the ‘Grande valse brillante’ op 18 that opened the concert and I immediately noticed some very discrete embellishments added to the well known score that had also been included as one of the popular pieces of Chopin that made up the ballet by Glazunov: ‘Les Sylphides’. Applause after the first waltz allowed Tyler to explain that in many of the waltzes he would add some of the embellishments that abound and are published in the new Ekier edition of authenticated Chopin pieces . As an urtext, the Chopin National Edition aims to produce a musical text that adheres to the original notation and the composer’s intentions. All extant sources were analyzed and verified for authenticity, mainly autographs, first editions with Chopin’s corrections and pupils’ copies with Chopin’s annotations. Necessary editorial decisions are documented in each volume’s source commentary. Additionally, a separate performance commentary documents cases where Chopin’s notation may be misunderstood by contemporary pianists, such as realizations of ornaments and pedaling.The edition was completed in 2010, in time for the bicentenary of Chopin’s birth.
The Chopin National Edition consists of 36 volumes in two series, for works published during Chopin’s lifetime (Series A), and for works published posthumously (Series B). A 37th volume (titled Supplement) consists of compositions partly by Chopin, for instance his contribution to ‘Hexaméron’.The “WN” numbers in Frédéric Chopin’s catalogue stand for ‘Wydanie Narodowe’ (the Polish National Edition of the Works of Fryderyk Chopin). Edited primarily by Jan Ekier, this system catalogues all of Chopin’s authentic works—including posthumous and early pieces—in strict chronological order of composition, running from WN 1 to WN 65.
Tyler is building quite a reputation for his ‘ virtuosic programmes and for his witty audience interactions ‘ . But there is a Tyler who pays scrupulous attention to the composers markings delving deeply into the world in which the works he plays were created and it marks him out as a remarkable musician who can be trusted and not just a juggler of notes! This was to become even more apparent with his monumental performance of the Liszt Sonata after this unexpected foray into the world of Chopin’s waltzes.
The waltz op 18 was ornamented towards the end with double notes and added embellishments that were done with such stylistic discretion that I began to doubt my ears even though I have known these waltzes for a lifetime. The waltz de ‘L’adieu’ was played with quasi improvised freedom and again with some unexpected harmonies . The waltz in B minor op 69 n. 2 flowed with beguiling insinuation and where it risked becoming repetitive Tyler added double notes and instead of the usual dotted rhythm the top notes were played quite evenly. The G flat waltz op 70 n. 1 was really an uncontaminated Ecossaises of glowing radiance. The famous waltz in C sharp minor op 64 was played with passionate involvement and with some inner counterpoints that I have never been aware of in quite Tyler’s way . Many artists slightly weigh into the inner notes whilst there is a jeu perlé outpouring above but Tyler seemed to find a different solution which will have me looking at the Ekier edition more closely. The D flat waltz op 70 n. 3 had a flowing beauty of nonchalance and ease. And the last two in E minor op posth and in A flat op 34 n. 1 are well known in the concert hall and Tyler played them with refreshing simplicity and sumptuous ease. The E minor in particular was played with very little pedal towards the end which added to the freshness and vigour of this brilliant waltz, and the jeu perlé at the end of the A flat waltz was played with the anchor in the bass which gave a harmonic richness to the sound. I loved the added bass note too at the sumptuous D flat climax of one of the most exhilarating of the waltzes.
Peter Whyte ,chair of Kettner Concerts
The main work on the programme which gave the title to today’s concert was ‘The B Minor Sonata’. The pinnacle of the Romantic Piano Repertoire that like Chopin’s B flat minor sonata, was of such originality that Liszt’s colleagues criticised it. Schumann had described the Chopin Sonata, one of the composers greatest works , as ‘ four of his maddest children under the same roof’ and the last movement ‘ more like a mockery than any sort of music.’ Schumann had dedicated his Fantaisie op 17 to Liszt who contributed the rights to the Beethoven Monument Fund in Bonn. Liszt in return dedicated this B minor Sonata to Schumann and it was delivered to the house after the composer had been committed to an asylum in Eisenach. Clara Schumann received it and described what she found as ‘ Merely a blind noise- no healthy ideas anymore, everything confused, one cannot find one clear harmonic progression- and yet I must thank him for it. It is really too awful.’
However it was Liszt’s son in law Richard Wagner who recognised the genius of a work where the transformation of themes is combined with the rough outline of Sonata form. Liszt had been inspired by Schubert’s Wanderer Fantasy where a new form was forged, transforming the opening themes and creating what was to become Wagner’s leit motif, the very anchor on which his music dramas were created. As Tyler told us it is a work in which grandeur, drama, passion, exuberance and exhilaration are shared with etherial beauty of ravishing appeasement. Tyler from the very opening page immediately showed us his musical credentials realising that the three opening motifs are but an introduction to the real beginning of the Sonata and a declaration of intent to be played only piano and forte with the grandeur of fortissimo only appearing as we enter the real beginning on the second page. Tyler brought great clarity and simple honest musicianship to a work that is so often played with rhetoric and showmanship. He brought a beauty to the melodic line full of glowing fluidity which contrasted with the rather dry orchestral sounds that preceded the ‘Margherita’ theme. Astonishing technical mastery followed, but always very measured and controlled never forgetting the larger architectural shape of this extraordinarily united work. Very interesting inner counterpoints gave great depth to the sound as he approached the ‘Andante sostenuto’ slow movement incorporating a ‘Quasi adagio’ of poignant beauty and simplicity as it built into a vibrating being of passionate intensity. Tyler played with the aristocratic control of Arrau, never allowing the music to command with empty rhetoric , but it was the inner intensity he gave the music that was of profound nobility and naked passion. There was a stillness and beauty to the simple scales played ‘pianississimo’ with vibrant glowing beauty and if he slightly indulged and lost for a moment the architectural line it prepared us for the extraordinary recapitulation and fugato that appears at the end of this trail of wondrous gold and silver coloured sounds. It now became apparent why in the opening motif Tyler had made such a contrast between staccato and legato, because the whispered staccato at this point linked so well with the ‘Allegro energico’ of the fugato. Building in intensity as the whispered chattering of the counterpoints led to the quasi orchestral outpouring that was of enticing exhilaration.It was at this point that Tyler allowed himself full reign, opening the flood gates to the sumptuous rich sounds that were to signal the return of the opening. A technical mastery of exhilaration and excitement with the notorious double octaves played with a musical intent where Tyler’s mastery was always at the service of the music. The final two pages Liszt had originally conceived as finishing in glory but were substituted by the composer with one of the most poignant and original endings in all music. The genius of Liszt had taken precedence over the showman as these final bars summarise the entire sonata and were played with extraordinary beauty and control by Tyler. The final three chords played with whispered perfection and beautifully shaped before the final B deep in the bass brought this remarkable performance to a moving conclusion.
Moments of collective silence were the sign that Tyler had been able to convey the message of the composer with the grandeur, drama, passion, exuberance , exhilaration and etherial beauty of ravishing appeasement that had been promised.
Ben Westlake co artistic director of Kettner Concerts Mark Viner ,distinguished colleague of Tyler
Tyler’s latest CD of works by John Field has just been released .Field born in Dublin is best known as the inventor of the Nocturne, transforming the expressive possibilities of the piano, and opening a door for composers such as Chopin,Liszt and Schumann
Welcome back Hao Yao with your Classical D showcase concerts
Hao Yao
Day 7 Classical D International Piano Festival with Yichen Yu and co artistic director Leslie Howard
Two major works for piano solo sandwiched in between two much more frivolous encore pieces .
Leslie has long been an advocate of Liszt’s Grosses Konzertsolo, the precursor of the B minor Sonata , and he played it with great weight and the authority of a pianist who has recorded all Liszt‘s piano works on 100 cd’s which is the largest solo artist recording project in the history of classical music and has earned him a place in the Guinness Book of World Records as well as many other awards including from the Hungarian President. Leslie Howard writes :
‘ Liszt’s genius for beautiful titles deserted him only once—the Grosses Konzertsolo is a mere stab at a title for a long work which is not yet a sonata, but no longer a character piece. Forerunner of the B minor Sonata it certainly is, however, and the history of the composition shows that Liszt was much preoccupied with it. The piece was written between 1849 and 1850, and dedicated to Adolf Henselt who professed himself unable to play it, even though Liszt had intended it as a competition piece for the Paris Conservatoire. The original is a simple one-movement Allegro, and the piece also exists in an unpublished version for piano and orchestra (not to be confused with the recently discovered ‘third’ concerto). Some time before the publication in 1851, Liszt expanded the work by adding a slow central section whose material he also worked into the later stages of the piece. Later still Liszt arranged the piece for two pianos under the title Concerto Pathétique and at the end of his life supervised his student Eduard Reuss in the production of a new version for piano and orchestra, to which Liszt added several new passages. In any case, this is an extremely interesting work in its own right, and is unaccountably neglected, especially by students who might well benefit from consulting this piece before tackling the Sonata! ‘
Yichen Yu who had seduced us with his uncontaminated mastery in Brahms 2nd Piano Concerto now astonished with his crystalline purity and transcendental technical mastery in Liszt’s notorious paraphrase of Mozart’s Don Juan.
Leslie Howard writes : ‘Much has been written about the uncanny insight into Don Giovanni which Liszt shows by taking the seduction duet (with variations), the drinking song and the music of the statue of the dead commendatore and weaving a commentary upon the moral pith of the original. Even Bernard Shaw (who dismissed a masterpiece like the ‘Dante Symphony’) was obliged to rate the piece very highly, and indeed the Don has withstood the vicissitudes of public taste and has more or less remained in the repertoire. On this record the fullest possible version of the piece is presented, right down to a short cadenza in the first variation, which is to be found on a leaf in the Library of Congress but which was in fact published in the shorter two-piano version of the work, and actually postulated for inclusion in the solo version in the excellent critico-practical edition of Busoni.’
with page turner Xin Yuan Wang pianist of the first concert of Classical D 2026
Joining forces at the beginning for Moskowski’s Spanish salon pieces one of them reminiscent in many ways of Schumann’s Bilder aus Osten op 66 n.4 and ending with a scintillating account of Liszt’s Grand gallop chromatique.
Leslie Howard writes :’ The Grand Galop chromatique figures prominently in Liszt’s own recital programmes, and its enormous popularity probably accounts for the quick publication of the simplified version and the version for piano duet. But Liszt returned to the concert version on several occasions over the years, adding ossia passages and extending the overall structure. The present version represents his fullest extension of the original. The obvious lightness of the work’s character made this piece an instant crowd-pleaser, but the imaginative undercurrent throws in a marvellous sequence of whole-tones and some wickedly unresolved chromatics at the coda.’
Playing from Leslie’s precious first edition they were a formidable team of youthful bravura and consummate artistry
with the charming and expert restauranteuse LaviniaThe many sided Stephen Maw ex concert bassoonist A Classical D group of artists in the from Yichen Yu and Victoria Wong
Just three works on Max Walsh’s programme, all masterpieces written in different periods but that were linked by the common denominator of this young pianist’s authority and fearless mastery of the keyboard. He has just finished at the Junior Birmingham Conservatoire and is about to embark on full time studies with Norma Fisher at the Royal College of Music. A passion for music that I was aware of when I first heard him last year at the Beethoven Society Masterclass with Boris Giltberg .His uncontaminated wish to discover what was behind the notes of Beethoven’s ‘Les Adieux’ Sonata was refreshing as it was illuminating . Now almost a year later he is giving recitals of authority and remarkable mastery and intelligence and his spoken introductions showed his passionate conviction about what he was to play and what it meant to him. Scriabin’s 5th Sonata was the first work on the programme and as he told me later the reverberant acoustic of St James’s made life a little difficult for him as the quick fire changes of colour and character in the music needed time to be absorbed into the atmosphere. We the audience were not aware of the difficulty he was facing as he managed to weave an architectural line in a work where there are so many chameleonic changes of colour and atmospheres. A crystalline clarity and languid beauty when he ‘caressed’ the keys before indulging in what Scriabin describes as ‘Allegro fantastico’ and ‘Presto tumultuoso esaltato’ together with ‘ebbrezza fantastic! ‘A dynamic drive of knotty meanderings of decadence and perfumed elegance all played with an extraordinary sense of balance and imperious architectural sense of direction. The opening and the ending like a wind passing through the hall played with fearless bravado. A remarkable performance of intelligence, passionate conviction and ravishing beauty.
The Bagatelles op 126 were the last piano pieces that Beethoven wrote, and they are six miniature tone poems where so few notes could mean so much. Beethoven had come to terms with a turbulent life and irascible temperament as he peered into his heart with searing conviction. The first bagatelle carries the indication ‘compiacevole’ ( pleasing) and is a mellifluous outpouring of simple beauty with a glowing silf like cadenza that Max played with knowing delicacy. Leading to a passage where Beethoven reaches out on high with whispered hope and which he even asks to be repeated where Max played with poetic understanding. There is a driving energy to the second ‘Allegro’ where Max’s scrupulous attention to Beethoven’s very precise indications avoided the usual accents from lesser hands and drove the music forward with an inner energy that had a vibrant beauty and urgency to it.The third ‘Cantabile e grazioso’ is a chorale of poignant beauty where Max’s full rich tone was of religious fervour. Long arpeggiated chords created the atmosphere for glowing notes of intensity and simplicity dying away to a coda played on wafts of vibrating sounds in one long pedal that Beethoven specifically indicates ,creating an unearthly ending of timeless beauty. The fourth is a dynamic drive with burning energy leading to a long drawn out pedal note on which Beethoven floats wafts of melody that alternated between the present and the past. The fifth was a simple melody of flowing beauty and pastoral relief. The sixth beginning with an irascible outburst that gives way to fragments floated on a long pedal note alternating with a chromatic dance like figure before bursting into the same irascible outpouring as the beginning. These were the last musings of Beethoven that were of serenity and innocent poetic aspirations that Max understood so well playing with aristocratic authority and sensitivity.
The last work on the programme was by Messiaen with the 15th of his ‘Vingt Regards Sur l’Enfant- Jésus’. Surely one of the most beautiful pieces of the sublime introspection of a true believer. Written in the summer of 1944 as the war was coming to its tragic end it is a cry of joy that there must be something more than just destruction and pain. ‘Le Baiser’ I often liken to Chopin’s Berceuse with its serenity and variations of meandering ravishment. Of course it is a completely different sound world but at its heart the soul is the same.As Fou Ts’ong would say :’the soul knows no fontiers’. Max played it with an aristocratic control and mastery that would be hard to find from a pianist twice his age. What it contained too was Max’s youthful love and passion for the piano and his composure before a stream of notes already in F sharp major but where almost every note has an accidental as Messiaen seeks to imbue the music with his passionate belief in God the all forgiving. There was a luminosity and glowing radiance to the sound wafted around this vast edifice, like the halo depicted above the baby Jesus in pictures from the Florentine renaissance. A solemn beauty and a spell only added to by notes like stars falling as broken glass onto such hallowed ground. Coming to a climax as the ‘Thème de Dieu’ was played ‘avec amour’. Messiaen marking the theme with ‘Le Baiser’ until a final flourish that Max played with masterly conviction. Taking a deep breath as he barely touched the keys with ‘l’ombre du baiser’ and an intricate web of golden sounds embellishing the theme. ‘Rall’ and ‘rall molto’ the composer implores the interpreter, with two final detached chords played pianissimo ‘extrêmement lent.’ A masterpiece played by a youthful master.
No encore was possible after that as it took some minutes before the audience broke the spell with mundane but heartfelt applause .
Max Walsh was born in Birmingham, UK, in 2007. He began studying at the Junior Royal Birmingham Conservatoire at the age of eight and is currently under the tutelage of Jan Loeffler (Head of Keyboard Department). He has been awarded a full scholarship to study Piano and Composition at the Royal College of Music, from September 2026.
In 2025, he won first prize in the Liszt Society International Piano Competition and the Junior Wales International Piano Festival, as well as prizes at the New Talent Festival and the Bromsgrove Young Musicians’ Platform. In response to his Liszt performance, Christopher Axworthy wrote: “A youthful burning passion for music and a young man born to play the piano. He and the piano fit so naturally in a way that cannot be taught and at only 18 his potential is enormous and may know no bounds.” Max was also among the five finalists in the 2025 BBC Young Composer competition, receiving the Highly Commended award.
Max is a new artist at both Talent Unlimited and The Weir Trust via The Keyboard Charitable Trust. Max has performed in several masterclasses, most recently with Boris Giltburg at the Reform Club, London and Giorgi Gigashvili at the Symphony Hall, Birmingham. He has attended several summer schools, where he studied with Julian Lloyd Webber, Joanna MacGregor, Katya Apekisheva, Carole Presland, Murray McLachlan, John Thwaites, and Julian Jacobson.
Max has studied jazz piano with Joe Thompson and Iwan VanHetten, and chamber music with Peter Campbell-Kelly. He is scheduled to perform Ravel’s Left-Hand Concerto in the Bradshaw Hall in June 2026, as well as solo recitals at Regent Hall and St. Mary’s Perivale in late 2026.
Presented in association with Talent Unlimited of Canan Maxton
Max Walsh winner of the Liszt Society Competition 2025
The fourth day of the Classical D International Piano Festival. In the splendid Regent Hall ,filled to the rafters by the indomitable Stephen Maw and his team saw on stage the Canadian- American pianist Victoria Wong hailed by Jed Distler of Gramophone , with ‘ pianistic refinement always getting to the heart of whatever repertoire she plays’
the indomitable Stephen Maw
Today was the second of her all Chopin recitals having played a slightly different programme yesterday in St Marylebone Church
Opening with the mysterious Nocturne in C sharp minor op 27 n. 1 with a beautiful sense of colour and playing of remarkable sensibility and poignancy. I felt it was a little too earthbound, though, because even though written in four it feels as though it should flow more horizontally and naturally, as she was to show us later in the programme with her superb performance of the ‘Andante Spianato.’ However Chopin soon put her on the right path as she entered the atmosphere of the ‘più mosso’ with passionate intensity and vibrancy, even bursting into the spritely mazurka rhythm that pervades much of Chopin’s works. A left hand octave cadenza of searing nobility led to the return of the opening where Chopin’s beautiful counterpoints pushed the music forward with veiled poise and magical luminosity.
The Sonata in B flat minor op 35 is one of the great works of Chopin and of such originality that even Schumann described it as ‘four of Chopin’s maddest children under the same roof’ and found the title ‘Sonata’ capricious and slightly presumptuous. He also remarked that the ‘Marche funèbre’ has something repulsive about it, and that ‘an adagio in its place, perhaps in D-flat, would have had a far more beautiful effect’. The finale in particular caused a stir amongst Schumann and his contemporaries, exclaiming that it ‘seemed more like a mockery than any sort of music.’ and when Felix Mendelssohn was asked for an opinion, he dismissed it with : “Oh, I abhor it.’
It has since been recognised as a masterpiece and Victoria played it with masterly musicianship and extraordinary sensitivity. There has been a debate about the repeat in the first movement , as Chopin added it more for convention than for reason, and many great pianists including Victoria choose to ignore it and go straight into the development. A development built on the bass introduction ( hence the debate about the repeat) which Victoria played with nobility and architectural understanding with full rich chords of sumptuous sound. The ‘sostenuto’ of the second subject was played with aristocratic beauty and good taste allowing the tempo to relax, but not be changed. It allowed the very tight construction to be given a forward movement to the final majestic chords that close the movement. A ‘Scherzo’ that had something of the mysterious about it, but bursting into an energetic dance that had Victoria bouncing on the stool with rhythmic elan.The ‘più lento’ was played with a beautiful fluidity of great sensitivity of natural freedom.
A very sombre ‘Marche funèbre’ , almost too slow, was pregnant with solemn meaning. She created a beautiful arch shape to the long phrases, that in lesser hands can sound rather repetitive, but here were played with a poignancy where left hand trills were like a stab to the heart. The ‘Trio’ was played with a beautiful luminosity and flowed so naturally too. There was a mysterious entry to the last movement where streams of sound were ‘wailing above the graves’ and in Victoria’s hands were ethereal and unworldly of masterly poetic understanding.
The last Five Preludes from the collection of Twenty-four op 28 began with the extraordinary Prelude in C minor,n 20, that has been used as the theme for variations by Busoni and Rachmaninov. A simple chordal progression played by Victoria with remarkable drama and imposing authority gradually disappearing to a whisper as her extraordinary control of sound could reveal the endless layers of diminishing sounds.
A beautiful flowing ‘cantabile’ was played with a sumptuous sense of balance with a gently flowing mellifluous outpouring.. The final B flat of this 21st Prelude becoming the opening note of the 22 nd where octaves became washes of sound, single notes disappeared in a continual flow of passionate intensity. She brought exquisite delicacy to the penultimate prelude that was like gentle washes of water lapping so generously in the radiance of a pastoral landscape. The final tumultuous Twenty fourth Prelude showed Victoria’s mastery of sound and balance. However passionate or intense, the melodic line was revealed rather than battling for its rightful place. A dynamic drive but also a masterly control ending at the bottom of the keyboard with three mighty ‘D’s that Victoria played with her fist.
Xin Yuan Wang had done the same the other day in his Schumann recital !. Chopin marks slight accents but they are certainly not sforzandi as they are three resonating notes , each one different from the other , and of great poignant significance.
The last work in this short lunchtime concert was the ‘Andante Spianato and Grande Polonaise Brillante ‘. The ‘Andante’ was played with a fluidity and natural beauty as the Polonaise erupted with dynamic drive and glitter. Some ravishing playing not least for the style and jeu perlé brilliance that she brought to the Polonaise. Such refined playing of aristocratic brilliance and beauty just I am sure like that which Schumann declared ‘Hats off a Genius’ on the first appearance of Chopin in the west.
artistic director of Classical D , Hao Yao
A single Mazurka played with style, good taste and fantasy closed this all too short recital as Jed Distler says :’ with playing of natural poise and communicative immediacy’.
This annual festival continues until the 15th August bringing a breath of Chinese fresh air to the tropical atmosphere of London.
The Classical D International Piano festival has returned to London where it fills the city each year at the beginning of August with a showcase of superb young Chinese musicians.
Today was the turn of Xin Yuan Wang, bronze prize winner in the 2018 Leeds Piano Competition. Now a recognised artist, feted in China , this is his second appearance for the festival where we could again appreciate his mastery and strong musical personality .
Three works by Schumann in a programme recorded live on the magnificent Bösendorfer piano that sits in the impressive edifice that is St Barnabas Church in Ealing .
Three masterworks op 11, 15 and 20 from the golden years when Schumann produced one piano masterpiece after another from op 1 to op 26 before dedicating himself to song and coming to terms with his dual personality that was to influence his works from an early age .
It is exactly this dual personality the Xin Yuan understood so well, from the sublime opening of the Humoresque and its continuous outpouring of poetic beauty and romantic turbulence. Masterly playing not least for his sense of balance where in one part Schumann writes on three staves to show the musical line enveloped in poetic fantasy. A highly intelligent musicianship where Xin Yuan’s fantasy was always with respect for the score and the composer’s indications. An ‘Intermezzo’ taken at a controlled pace knowing that Schumann would turn the simple single scales into double octaves. But it was the final ‘Innig’ that was played with expansive generosity with flights of etherial fantasy alternating with passages of dynamic rhythmic drive of searing intensity. The most remarkable playing was to come from the ‘Mit einigen Pomp’ where Schumann turns the piano into an orchestra and it was here that Xin Yuan’s true mastery was revealed with an extraordinary use of pedal and finger legato. Creating the extraordinary effect of full orchestra out of which emerges a miraculous melody enveloped by its pompous surroundings. It is one of those moments of pure genius that Xin Yuan revealed with astonishing mastery of sound. An extraordinary moment in the final ‘Zum Beschluss’ where he played the bass B flat with his fist ( Richter comes to mind ). Just showing that there are no such thing as rules for a true artist but only that of musical integrity and total respect for the composer’s wishes.
The ‘Scenes of Childhood’ that followed were no less remarkable for their innocent originality. I am not sure that the opening theme should have been quite so serenely legato as to distort the rhythm but has a story ever been told with such ‘curiosity’ and fantasy with a left had counterpoint taking the reigns with such sumptuous subtle beauty. ‘A blind man’s buff’ all brilliance and lightness and how could one ever resist this ‘pleading child ‘ bathed in ravishing sounds and with tenor counterpoints glistening like jewels from within. Such a ‘joyous event’ was played with masterly sound almost disintegrating at the end as Xin Yuan created such a hesitant farewell. What ‘dreams’ this young man revealed with delicacy and improvised freedom proving that dreams should not be in a straight jacket but free to take the path straight to the composers heart. A very sedate ‘fireside seat’ as he dreamt of the ‘Hobby horse’ that was played as if in the distance gradually getting nearer and nearer. A cloud of beauty enveloped this vast edifice as Xin Yuan allowed his playing to become ‘almost too serious’ and too beautiful ! Whispered beauty of extraordinary poignancy before the shock of ‘frightening us’ as he encountered Schumann’s extraordinary duel personality before ‘falling asleep’ with a slumber of such magic that only a poet could speak from now on. And it was the final episode of the ‘Poet speaking’ that summed up a true dream performance of radiance, beauty and originality.
Schumann’s first sonata op 11 is where the composer’s duel personality is most apparent with a work imbued with nostalgia ,dynamic drive and passionate intensity within a fantasy world that Xin Yuan understood so well. A masterly performance with a superb sense of line and architectural shape allied to a poetic fantasy and kaleidoscopic sense of colour. The continual changes of character in the first movement were played with vibrant intensity and a remarkable controlled mastery of sound. An ‘Aria’ played with poignant beauty and disarming simplicity before the eruption of the ‘Scherzo and Intermezzo ‘ where Xin Yuan could enter so completely Schumann’s extraordinary schizophrenic world with such vibrant conviction. The Final was a triumphant march of submission in which the glorious sounds that Xin Yuan could draw from the piano were of such chameleonic changes that the final triumphant ending engulfed us all in one of those moments on joyous waves of all embracing intensity and beauty.
Yichen Yu Xin Yuan Wang and Hao Yao
Today a lunchtime Chopin Recital in St Marylebone Church by Victoria Wong and in the evening the twenty three year old Yichen Yu will play Brahms Second Piano Concerto.
The third day of the Classical D International Piano Festival showcasing brilliant young Chinese musicians, saw the first of two Chopin recitals by Victoria Wong in the St Marylebone Church opposite the Royal Academy of Music and Madame Tussaud’s.
It was also next to the school which Leonard Stokes frequented before finding fame and many wives in Hollywood as Leopold Stokowski.
I am sure he would have played the mighty organ in this beautiful church and the idea that he is hovering in the shadows, the creator of the Philadelphia orchestra and star of Fantasia not least close friend and collaborator of Rachmaninov, created a presence and an atmosphere that inspired this fine orchestra and soloist to new heights
Tonight it was the turn of the twenty three year old Yichen Yu to play Brahms’s ‘tiny little concerto’ ( it is hard to believe that Brahms had a great sense of humour ).
Talking of which Leopold Stokowski ( Leonard Stokes) was married to Ava Gardner but before that to the pianist ( teacher of Rosalyn Tureck ) Hilda Hickenlooper alias Olga Samaroff!
The B flat concerto is one of the longest in the ‘classical’ repertoire and is really a ‘symphony with piano’.
Yichen found the very fine London City Philharmonic spread eagled before him under the young Chinese conductor Jiayi Pang
The church is blessed with a marvellous acoustic but has some unenviable architectural features that cannot be removed to accommodate comfortably a full blown symphony orchestra .
However Jiayi Pang , with her fluid beautiful gestures, was able to amalgamate her players into one unified whole able to do justice to the drama of the Beethoven ’Corialanus’ overture and Mendelssohn’s atmospheric Hebrides of ‘Fingal’s cave ‘.
This was just a luxuriant warm up to the mighty Second of Brahms.
Yichen Yu, a wisp of a pianist in appearance, but before the keys he became a giant able to bring the necessary weight and strength to Brahms’s uncompromising solo score.
Brahms was a great pianist himself and had produced endless studies for the piano in which the pianist is brought to the very limit of technical perfection. His notorious Paganini studies and Handel variations are the stuff that all aspiring pianists must master and his transcription of the Bach Chaconne for the left alone is only for the very fearless.
But in later life he wrote a series of short pieces from op 116 to op 119 which were the introspective Brahms writing what he described to his close friend Clara Schumann as ‘lullabies of my grief.’
All this to say that there are technical challenges but of poetic significance to a concerto that Brahms himself described to Clara as: ‘ ….. a very small piano concerto with a very small and pretty scherzo.’
It is a massive work that Brahms completed in 1881, 22 years after his first concerto op 15 and it was he that gave the public premiere in Budapest on 9 November 1881, with the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra. It was an immediate success and Brahms performed it in many cities across Europe shortly afterwards. I often wonder if Clara ( the First Lady piano virtuoso and mother to Schumann’s eight children) ever performed it in public?
An introduction of just a few opening bars of pastoral beauty with the horn answered by the piano before the eruption of a cadenza of marathon proportions for the piano before the actual start of the concerto and the entry of the full symphony orchestra.
Leslie Howard and Hao Yao , artistic directors of Classical D with Yichen Yu and Jiayi Pang
Immediately demonstrating a concerto both introspective and aristocratic combined with piano playing of fearless bravura. Yichen Yu was able to combine these two worlds with beautiful luminosity and poetic commitment combined with athletic playing of weight that could compete with the full symphonic sounds creating a masterly combination that is in effect an overgrown chamber concerto.
Yichen throwing off the challenges with great bravura as the impossible amount of notes have to be crammed into such a small space whilst appearing to be part of an aristocratic outpouring of majesty and nobility. Even the treacherous double thirds in the last movement were played as streams of radiant sounds as were the whispered exposed octaves in the ‘Scherzo’.
It was in the ‘Andante’ , despite problems of distance between the players, that Yichen showed his true poetic commitment and refined musicianship as he communed with the superb cello soloist ( not named in the programme, a rose is always a rose!) creating together with the valiant Jiayi Pang the very heart of a concerto written only 16 years before the composers death at the age of 63.
I well remember Yichen Yu’s magnificent recital in this very church last year and look forward to hearing his solo recital in Regent Hall on Monday at 13h. He will perform together with the co artistic director of Classical D Festival , the distinguished veteran pianist Leslie Howard playing solo piano and also joining forces with four hands on one piano.
The fourth day of the Classical D International Piano Festival. In the splendid Regent Hall ,filled to the rafters by the indomitable Stephen Maw and his team saw on stage the Canadian- American pianist Victoria Wong hailed by Jed Distler of Gramophone , with ‘ pianistic refinement always getting to the heart of whatever repertoire she plays’
the indomitable Stephen Maw
Today was the second of her all Chopin recitals having played a slightly different programme yesterday in St Marylebone Church
Opening with the mysterious Nocturne in C sharp minor op 27 n. 1 with a beautiful sense of colour and playing of remarkable sensibility and poignancy. I felt it was a little too earthbound, though, because even though written in four it feels as though it should flow more horizontally and naturally, as she was to show us later in the programme with her superb performance of the ‘Andante Spianato.’ However Chopin soon put her on the right path as she entered the atmosphere of the ‘più mosso’ with passionate intensity and vibrancy, even bursting into the spritely mazurka rhythm that pervades much of Chopin’s works. A left hand octave cadenza of searing nobility led to the return of the opening where Chopin’s beautiful counterpoints pushed the music forward with veiled poise and magical luminosity.
The Sonata in B flat minor op 35 is one of the great works of Chopin and of such originality that even Schumann described it as ‘four of Chopin’s maddest children under the same roof’ and found the title ‘Sonata’ capricious and slightly presumptuous. He also remarked that the ‘Marche funèbre’ has something repulsive about it, and that ‘an adagio in its place, perhaps in D-flat, would have had a far more beautiful effect’. The finale in particular caused a stir amongst Schumann and his contemporaries, exclaiming that it ‘seemed more like a mockery than any sort of music.’ and when Felix Mendelssohn was asked for an opinion, he dismissed it with : “Oh, I abhor it.’
It has since been recognised as a masterpiece and Victoria played it with masterly musicianship and extraordinary sensitivity. There has been a debate about the repeat in the first movement , as Chopin added it more for convention than for reason, and many great pianists including Victoria choose to ignore it and go straight into the development. A development built on the bass introduction ( hence the debate about the repeat) which Victoria played with nobility and architectural understanding with full rich chords of sumptuous sound. The ‘sostenuto’ of the second subject was played with aristocratic beauty and good taste allowing the tempo to relax, but not be changed. It allowed the very tight construction to be given a forward movement to the final majestic chords that close the movement. A ‘Scherzo’ that had something of the mysterious about it, but bursting into an energetic dance that had Victoria bouncing on the stool with rhythmic elan.The ‘più lento’ was played with a beautiful fluidity of great sensitivity of natural freedom.
A very sombre ‘Marche funèbre’ , almost too slow, was pregnant with solemn meaning. She created a beautiful arch shape to the long phrases, that in lesser hands can sound rather repetitive, but here were played with a poignancy where left hand trills were like a stab to the heart. The ‘Trio’ was played with a beautiful luminosity and flowed so naturally too. There was a mysterious entry to the last movement where streams of sound were ‘wailing above the graves’ and in Victoria’s hands were ethereal and unworldly of masterly poetic understanding.
The last Five Preludes from the collection of Twenty-four op 28 began with the extraordinary Prelude in C minor,n 20, that has been used as the theme for variations by Busoni and Rachmaninov. A simple chordal progression played by Victoria with remarkable drama and imposing authority gradually disappearing to a whisper as her extraordinary control of sound could reveal the endless layers of diminishing sounds.
A beautiful flowing ‘cantabile’ was played with a sumptuous sense of balance with a gently flowing mellifluous outpouring.. The final B flat of this 21st Prelude becoming the opening note of the 22 nd where octaves became washes of sound, single notes disappeared in a continual flow of passionate intensity. She brought exquisite delicacy to the penultimate prelude that was like gentle washes of water lapping so generously in the radiance of a pastoral landscape. The final tumultuous Twenty fourth Prelude showed Victoria’s mastery of sound and balance. However passionate or intense, the melodic line was revealed rather than battling for its rightful place. A dynamic drive but also a masterly control ending at the bottom of the keyboard with three mighty ‘D’s that Victoria played with her fist.
Xin Yuan Wang had done the same the other day in his Schumann recital !. Chopin marks slight accents but they are certainly not sforzandi as they are three resonating notes , each one different from the other , and of great poignant significance.
The last work in this short lunchtime concert was the ‘Andante Spianato and Grande Polonaise Brillante ‘. The ‘Andante’ was played with a fluidity and natural beauty as the Polonaise erupted with dynamic drive and glitter. Some ravishing playing not least for the style and jeu perlé brilliance that she brought to the Polonaise. Such refined playing of aristocratic brilliance and beauty just I am sure like that which Schumann declared ‘Hats off a Genius’ on the first appearance of Chopin in the west.
artistic director of Classical D , Hao Yao
A single Mazurka played with style, good taste and fantasy closed this all too short recital as Jed Distler says :’ with playing of natural poise and communicative immediacy’.Young musicians concert on day five of Classical D International Piano Festival.
Young musicians concert on day five of Classical D International Piano Festival. The actor’s church of St Paul’s in Covent Garden is an oasis from the joyous confusion that abounds in these parts
Wandi Qin gave a crystalline account of real poetic beauty and fantasy of Haydn’s E flat Sonata n 52
Yifan Song chose a rather obscure and meandering Polonaise by Liszt played with beautiful if rather over pedalled sounds but his Rachmaninov was all brilliance and light and was a reminder of how so few notes could mean so much more
Ruozhou Wang gave a scintillating account of the last movement of Beethoven’s op 2 n 3 Sonata and closed with an even more masterly account of Chopin’s Polonaise Fantaisie. This annual festival continues until the 15th August bringing a breath of Chinese fresh air to the tropical atmosphere of London.
Xin Yuan Wang presenting the young artists with a certificate from Classical D
Day 6 of the Classical D International Festival with the pianist Jay Cheng playing three Beethoven Sonatas in St Marylebone Church.
An auspicious start to the recording of the 32 Beethoven Sonatas that will be completed in the Beethoven Centenial year 2027.
Jay Cheng chose two early Sonatas but combined them with the mighty ‘Hammerklavier’ Sonata op 106, when the composer over a lifetime brings the Sonata form as bequeathed to him by his teacher Haydn into a new dimension.The piano and the pianist taken to the limit and beyond what the newly evolved piano could do. Beethoven, completely deaf at this moment could imagine the piano doing feats that might have seemed beyond human possibility. Not only a slow movement the length of a regular sonata but a fugue of such knotty twine only the fearless dare to enter this futuristic world. It was in the ‘Adagio sostenuto’ that Jay revealed her musical pedigree and intellectual understanding as she created twenty minutes of magic with passionate intensity and ravishing beauty. The fugue that follows ‘ risoluto ‘ was an intellectual answer to such profound sentiments. Trills that appear all over the keyboard with athletic mastery and scales that are imbued with a terrifying and fearless rhythmic drive all played with great musicianship and technical mastery
The opening played with two hands demonstrated from the beginning that here was a pianist who is a remarkable musician but not willing to take the risks that Beethoven demands . This is not play safe music but a real unrelenting tornado that must never loose that knife edge urgency that was Serkin’s .
She did however reveal a sonata of great nobility and beauty where the bass note that she added ( Beethoven’s piano did not go down that far ) at the recapitulation showed that even she was caught up in this, the grandest of all sonatas . The ‘Scherzo’ too was played a little too sedately but Beethoven steps in with a driving force like a tornado passing right across the keys ending in a tremolando that sends terror down our spines before allowing the Scherzo to go it’s way once more. A remarkable performance, in many ways, that will grow in stature as she takes more risks and allows the music to engulf her rather than direct it with her scrupulous care and intellectual mastery that in this sonata is misplaced!
She had started with two early sonatas . Op 10 n 2 was a favourite of Glenn Gould and is in three tightly knit movements. And the second that she played is the first of his ‘fantasy’ sonatas op 27 where already the Genius of Beethoven is showing it’s head and taking a new direction for the conventional sonata form. op 10 n 2 was played with fluidity and energy combined with grace and style and a kaleidoscope of dynamic contrasts. The second movement I found rather too sedate for it’s ‘Allegretto’ marking, and felt as though it should flow more horizontally as did the second movement of the Sonata that followed op 27 n.1 that is infact marked ‘Allegro molto e vivace’ . A quasi Schubertian Trio was played with all Beethoven’s intrusive comments both serene and provocative . The final Presto was played with a dynamic relentless drive of quite extraordinary clarity and buoyancy .
She brought a serenity and beauty to the ‘fantasy sonata’ with a superb sense of balance allowing the melodic line to be revealed, over sustained vibrating chords. Washes of sound swept over the keys with poetic undulations leading to the return of the pulsating opening. There was a delicacy and precision to the continual undulations of the second movement that she allowed to flow so naturally and she brought the beauty of full rich sounds to the ‘Adagio’ with its poignant outpouring of desolation over a pulsating heart beating with such simple insistence. The last movement had an infectious forward movement that was played with masterly architectural shape where Beethoven’s genial idea of bringing back the Adagio before the scintillating final bars was played with poignant significance and masterly understanding.
An auspicious beginning to project that will do honour to a universal genius.
The beautiful backyard of st Marylebone and the school that Leopold Stokowski frequented Victoria Wong and Yichen Yu applauding their colleague, having both played in this hall a few days ago
Welcome back Hao Yao with your Classical D showcase concerts
Day 7 Classical D International Piano Festival with Yichen Yu and co artistic director Leslie Howard
Two major works for piano solo sandwiched in between two much more frivolous encore pieces .
Leslie has long been an advocate of Liszt’s Grosses Konzertsolo, the precursor of the B minor Sonata , and he played it with great weight and the authority of a pianist who has recorded all Liszt‘s piano works on 100 cd’s which is the largest solo artist recording project in the history of classical music and has earned him a place in the Guinness Book of World Records as well as many other awards including from the Hungarian President. Leslie Howard writes :
‘ Liszt’s genius for beautiful titles deserted him only once—the Grosses Konzertsolo is a mere stab at a title for a long work which is not yet a sonata, but no longer a character piece. Forerunner of the B minor Sonata it certainly is, however, and the history of the composition shows that Liszt was much preoccupied with it. The piece was written between 1849 and 1850, and dedicated to Adolf Henselt who professed himself unable to play it, even though Liszt had intended it as a competition piece for the Paris Conservatoire. The original is a simple one-movement Allegro, and the piece also exists in an unpublished version for piano and orchestra (not to be confused with the recently discovered ‘third’ concerto). Some time before the publication in 1851, Liszt expanded the work by adding a slow central section whose material he also worked into the later stages of the piece. Later still Liszt arranged the piece for two pianos under the title Concerto Pathétique and at the end of his life supervised his student Eduard Reuss in the production of a new version for piano and orchestra, to which Liszt added several new passages. In any case, this is an extremely interesting work in its own right, and is unaccountably neglected, especially by students who might well benefit from consulting this piece before tackling the Sonata! ‘
Yichen Yu who had seduced us with his uncontaminated mastery in Brahms 2nd Piano Concerto now astonished with his crystalline purity and transcendental technical mastery in Liszt’s notorious paraphrase of Mozart’s Don Juan.
Leslie Howard writes : ‘Much has been written about the uncanny insight into Don Giovanni which Liszt shows by taking the seduction duet (with variations), the drinking song and the music of the statue of the dead commendatore and weaving a commentary upon the moral pith of the original. Even Bernard Shaw (who dismissed a masterpiece like the ‘Dante Symphony’) was obliged to rate the piece very highly, and indeed the Don has withstood the vicissitudes of public taste and has more or less remained in the repertoire. On this record the fullest possible version of the piece is presented, right down to a short cadenza in the first variation, which is to be found on a leaf in the Library of Congress but which was in fact published in the shorter two-piano version of the work, and actually postulated for inclusion in the solo version in the excellent critico-practical edition of Busoni.’
Joining forces at the beginning for Moskowski’s Spanish salon pieces one of them reminiscent in many ways of Schumann’s Bilder aus Osten op 66 n.4 and ending with a scintillating account of Liszt’s Grand gallop chromatique.
Leslie Howard writes :’ The Grand Galop chromatique figures prominently in Liszt’s own recital programmes, and its enormous popularity probably accounts for the quick publication of the simplified version and the version for piano duet. But Liszt returned to the concert version on several occasions over the years, adding ossia passages and extending the overall structure. The present version represents his fullest extension of the original. The obvious lightness of the work’s character made this piece an instant crowd-pleaser, but the imaginative undercurrent throws in a marvellous sequence of whole-tones and some wickedly unresolved chromatics at the coda.’
Playing from Leslie’s precious first edition they were a formidable team of youthful bravura and consummate artistry
The many sided Stephen Maw Stephen Maw ex concert bassoonist and now formidable manager of Regent Hall and Charlton House Concerts Lavinia the amazing and charming restauranteuse at Regent Hall A Classical D group of artists in the from Yichen Yu and Victoria Wong
The last day of Classical D International Piano Festival . And what better way than with the Luminara duo joined in music as in life playing as one works by Mozart,Schubert and Ravel with refined musicianship and style
Kaiwen Zhao & Jiachen Qin
Mozart Sonata in B flat K 358 was played with delicacy and style and without the score because this was a performance that lived and breathed as one with charm and grace but above all a sense of balance that created a musical conversation of enticing radiance .
A beautifully flowing ‘Adagio’ with a glowing luminosity anchored on a bass of perfect equilibrium. A spirited ‘Molto presto ’ that revealed a subtle tone palette of extraordinary delicacy and mutual anticipation .
Strangely they chose to use the score for Schubert, maybe for the knotty twine of the fugato and the many twists and turns where Schubert could invent a single movement of intriguing originality and emotivity. Ethereal sounds that I have never heard from a piano duo before because they played with such supreme delicacy and listening and feeling the music as if on the same magical cloud. The minuet was played with great fluidity and the trio with fearless forward movement . A knotty twine of a fugue that they played with the knowing sense of line of real musicians .
Ravel’s ‘Ma mère l’Oye’ strangely played with the score because it was a performance of such radiance and imagination that bar line disappeared as they played in long horizontal lines with no accents but with meaningful leaning into notes with jewel like sounds of ravishment. A bass note in ‘Le jardin féerique’ that was to die for. They created magic that was truly memorable !
Daphnis et Chloé and the Rhapsodie espagnole was where they could truly let their hair down and produce a kaleidoscope of chameleonic sounds that I am sure this very fine Blüthner has rarely been aware of possessing. Sounds in the bass punched out and taken up by the soprano and tenor voice in a quite extraordinary recreation of Ravel’s masterly pianistic orchestration .
Kirill Gerstein after a superb Rachmaninov Third Concerto last week in Verbier with Sir Simon Rattle today brought the same composer’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini to London with the brilliant Thomas Søndergård and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.
A performance that from the very first notes there was an interplay between the soloist and the orchestra. This more than any of Rachmaninov’s concertos is where the soloist and orchestra are at one working and weaving together in an intricate web of Twenty Four Variations . It was noticeable how Gerstein was looking at the orchestral musicians with whom he was having a musical conversation of chamber music proportions. Of course the magnificent Thomas Søndergård, looking very much like Stokowski, with his vividly theatrical movements was following every move and coordinating this overgrown chamber concerto allowing it to grow with an architectural shape and sense of direction.
From the very first octave ‘A’ from Gerstein there was a tumultuous sound of fearless assertion. Immediately dissolving into a single finger outline of Paganini’s theme , played with enticing relish and childlike simplicity. Notes weaving in and out in the following variations in which Gerstein was following and chattering with the orchestra. A great sense of improvisation betrayed Gerstein’s Jazz pedigree as he brought such character to each flourish. The chorale like seriousness he brought to the seventh variation was regally played after the rather flippant ending of the sixth. Suddenly the dynamic drive of the eighth was with fearless abandon and dramatic outcries . The variations now beginning to take serious wing as the rhythms became ever more complex, with Gerstein adding wicked accents that kept the ship on an even keel. The aristocratic simplicity of the single long octaves of the tenth was remarkable for Gerstein’s total commitment and poignant declamations. Dissolving into a music box of continuous sounds before ending with the same simplicity where the whole work is later to be dismissed in a puff of smoke! A cadenza over tremolando strings was played with the freedom of a master improvisor and led to the Minuet that Gerstein and the orchestra played with Kreislerian ease and charm.
A tumultuous interruption of the thirteenth saw Gerstein pushing the orchestra to the limit of their dynamic drive, leading to the scintillating ‘jeu perlé solo of the fifteenth where the orchestra joins him and turns this web of sounds into one of those heart wrenching Rachmaninovian melodic outpourings. The sixteenth was played with beguiling hesitancy as the orchestra and piano created an intricate web of meandering notes. Whispered sounds from the piano in the seventeenth were accompanied by spine chilling tremolandi from the orchestra as suddenly this cloud disappeared and the sun shone through with the glowing beauty of the famous eighteenth variation . A sumptuous outpouring from the orchestra with the piano played with remarkable freedom and passionate intensity.
The spell only broken by the pizzicato of the orchestra mirrored by the piano in an intricate web of knotty twine. Rhythms becoming ever more intense and complex with a brilliant display of playing of an orchestra united with the piano in an unrelenting drive of excitement and exhilaration. Bursting into transcendental cadenzas with the piano played with enormous sonorities and burning conviction and a gradual drive to the final inevitable march to the end, only to be diffused by a simple aside from the piano! That’s all, it’s as simple as that !
In all the playing from Gerstein it was remarkable the depth he could bring to the piano part by pointing occasionally to the thumb of the left hand or the tenor register which gave a sumptuous richness to all he did.
The Prom audience with stamping feet and vociferous applause made it quite clear that our hero was not going to leave without a proper goodbye ! Rachmaninov’s Melodie op 3 n. 3 poured from his poetic fingers with mastery and ravishing beauty. Rachmaninov’s heart beating with intimate insistence as Gerstein intoned the melody of heartrending beauty.
I am fast running out of superlatives for this young man. Since listening to his recital streamed from an empty Philharmonie de Paris during the pandemic I have heard him play many times from Naples to Rome and London. I was even asked five years ago to name a pianist for the historic Amici della Musica in Padua and I had no hesitation in recommending Kantorow. ‘If you do not book him now you will never be able to afford him afterwards! ‘ How right I was as with every performance he commands our attention with his extraordinary musicianship and poetic involvement allied to a fearless technical command that seems to know no difficulties. There are no technical difficulties as such, when you are driven only with a burning desire to communicate what is on the printed page.
I will never forget the recital of two young lads in the Wigmore Hall. A violin recital with Daniel Lozakovich who was celebrating his 23rd birthday unknown to Kantorow, until one of the public shouted Happy Birthday from the hall at the end of their towering performances. Both appeared after the interval to play César Franck without the score such was their affinity and the freedom that they shared together .
A recital in San Carlo in Naples three years ago, before he was well known, with Brahms First Sonata that has never sounded so magnificent and never more justified the title of a ‘veiled symphony’ . Finishing with Volodos’s arrangement of Mozart’s Turkish March which Naples has never heard the like.
In Verbier we heard the same recital and encore – Wagner ‘Liebestod’ that he had played at the Wigmore Hall 125th Anniversary celebrations. A recital that is reviewed below .
In Verbier, though, he had included a fascinating work by Alkan, that was as prophetic as it was problematically repetitive. It was, though, the ideal link between Chopin’s extraordinary Prelude op 45 and the hysterical, hypnotic outpouring of Scriabin’s ‘Vers La Flamme.’ An incredible performance of Scriabin just as the Liszt Variations that opened the concert had been. I heard sounds that I have never heard from the piano before with playing of an earth shattering intensity that had me own the edge of my seat and worried for the health of an elderly audience not used to such a diabolical accumulation of X certificate sounds.
Tomorrow he closes the Verbier Festival with the work that won him the Tchaikovsky Competition – not the first concerto but the second. Hold on tight because this will be quite a ride!
I was asked the other day who was my favourite pianist . An impossible question but on thinking I did say that the only pianist I would travel a long distance to listen to is without doubt Alexandre Kantorow. As Schumann declared on the arrival of Chopin in Vienna :’ Hats off gentlemen, a genius!’ Or as a major Parisian critic wrote on the arrival of Horowitz in the ’30’s :’The greatest pianist alive or dead’.
As Rubinstein rightly said, in art there is no such thing as the best or number one …….but there are artists that very occasionally arrive on the scene who can illuminate scores that we thought we knew intimately . Today for me they are Alexandre Kantorow and Yunchan Lim both in Verbier this week as they were for the Wigmore Hall Celebrations . A hall that thanks to Artur Rubinstein is now in it’s 125 year and is going from strength to strength as in 1976 a 90 year old Rubinstein ,who had made his London debut there in 1912, had implored us to save the hall from demolition. Rubinstein that like everything he touched turned to gold.
Luca Lione is back in town with Warren- Mailley Smith’s Grand Tour of Italian piano music.
Warren Mailley-Smith with Luca Lione
Two Waltzes by Rendano and Puccini were enough to set the scene in the intimate candlelit space of St Mary Le Strand. “Piccolo Valzer” was published in September 1894 and the inspiration for the work was suggested by the rocking of a boat on Lake Massaciuccoli, where Puccini loved to go fishing. It was subsequently re-elaborated by the composer and became one of the best known opera arias, Musetta’s solo “Quando me n’vo” in “La Bohème”. Played with glowing radiance and warmth by this young Italian pianist already on his third visit to London and now a fully fledged Professor at the Trapani Conservatory in Sicily.
This was combined with a contemporary of Puccini , Alfonso Rendano with his Valzer Triste that was more elaborate than Puccini’s but no less heartrending and exquisitely played by Luca a fellow Calabrian. The warmth and intense emotions are very much part of the Italian operatic make up as Luca showed us today with playing of whispered ravishing beauty and he was happy to play by great request the Puccini once more as an encore.
The concert had also included three Sonatas by Scarlatti with some scintillating playing in K 322 and 455 with its intricate repeated notes played with jewel like brilliance, contrasting with the unexpected intensity of the early K.77.
Of course no visit to Italy would be complete without a visit to the magical city of Venice and it was with Chopin’s Barcarolle that Luca was able to show us the mastery and poetic beauty of perhaps the greatest work of Chopin, with it’s continuous outpouring of song floating on the gentle undulation of the waves in a lagoon that was of Chopin’s dream of a city that he never actually visited.Luca paired it with the longest of Chopin’s Nocturnes ,op 48 n. 1, that is a true tone poem, where the bel canto of Bellini is transformed into a dramatic outpouring of passionate intensity and poetic inspiration. It was in these two works of Chopin that Luca could reveal his mastery and commanding authority allied to a sensibility of glowing beauty and simplicity.
Of course he chose to close his Grand Tour recital with the turbulent Sonata in F sharp minor op 26 n 2 by Clementi. Clementi an Italian transferred for most of his life to London where he developed a piano bequeathed to the world by Bartolomeo Cristoferi and transformed it into an instrument that had a range from the human voice to the sounds of a full orchestra. Clementi was not only a piano manufacturer and publisher but a virtuoso pianist and composer of over one hundred Sonatas.His Gradus ad Parnassum is still the diet for so many aspiring young pianists who wish to learn the tricks of the trade! And it was the tricks of the trade that Luca was able to show us with the scintillating brilliance and masterly control that he brought to this Sonata that brought this short visit to Italy to a brilliant close.
ChristopherAxworthy-MusicCommentary 