Having recently won one of the two top prizes at the Royal College of Music in London together with Misha Kaploukhii, the artistic director of La Mortella ,Lina Tufano immediately invited them both to play in this paradise of music and nature that was an oasis for the Waltons whose express wish was to give a platform to talented young musicians at the start of their careers.
This was Misha last weekend :
A standing ovation for Magdalene Ho on the Walton’s estate of La Mortella ……..The artistic director Lina Tufano exclaiming that she is one of the greatest talents to have ever graced this paradise .
Beethoven’s seemingly innocuous ‘A Thérèse’ sonata in her hands was of Serkin like intensity .
Nocturnes by Fauré where the composers somewhat inconclusive final utterings were today given a burning intensity and glowing aristocratic meaning .
Brahms’ elusive op 116 were a passionate outpouring of dynamic drive but even more of intimate confessions of sublime beauty.
An encore of Liszt’s Tarantella was a breathtaking homage to Naples that had welcomed this genius of the piano with open arms.
A programme that I had heard recently in London and had written an appreciation as well as including the video recording from that other remarkable oasis for young musicians that is St Mary’s.
Here at la Mortella is the paradise that the Waltons have bequeathed to a much bruised and abused world to remind us with what simplicity real beauty can be revealed.
Not only are there the exotic plants in a botanical garden that Susana has created but also the platform that her husband wanted to offer to young musicians who have dedicated their youth to their art and are just in need of a place to share these delicate jewels with a public thirsting for something they have yet to discover. La Mortella is not a Paradise Lost but one where one can find that elusive but ever more important thing that is called a ‘soul’.
And it was Magdalene today who showed us from the very opening notes of one of Beethoven’s favourite Sonatas how a whole world can be opened up and shared.There was an extraordinary clarity and expressiveness to the opening ‘Adagio cantabile’ that Magdalene played with conviction almost as if in a trance.
It was this ‘seance’ that captivated the audience and held them in her spell for the entire concert.Some things cannot be taught but are gifts that are in the genes of a rare few and may reveal themselves in many fields but it is this total dedication and conviction that gives the impression that in that moment this is the most important thing on earth. A hypnotic tension that Magdalene certainly has as she is totally absorbed but also can captivate and cast a spell on all around her . There was a rhythmic flow to the first movement as though riding on a wave of sound that flowed relentlessly forward. A kaleidoscope of sounds that were always noble and full even when she found the most etherial of whispered golden strands. The ‘Allegro ma non troppo’ was hard on the heels of the first movement with a burst of energy and electric drive that I have only ever experienced from Rudolf Serkin. It marked a frenzied drive that swept all before it in a performance of breathtaking exhilaration and liberation.
A scrupulous attention to the precise indications that scatter Beethoven’s scores meant that this was an artist of intelligence and maturity and above all an artist that one can trust! 7Taking the notes off the printed page and returning them to the sounds that the composer had in his head at the moment of creation is the true art of an interpreter. Pollini, who we celebrated in Rome a few days ago, showed us with selfless dedication for so many years what it means to be the servant of a master.
Emanuel Ax pays homage to the Genius of Maurizio Pollini
Perlemuter’s score of the first nocturne
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,had 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!
Magdalene played three of Fauré’s thirteen Nocturnes starting with the beautifully poetic sixth nocturne where the melodic line is allowed to sing unimpeded by the counterpoints that can obscure the later ones in lesser hands. It was an outpouring of simple aristocratic sounds of poignant poetic meaning. The gentle stream of the morning chorus in the ‘Allegro moderato’ may have been the inspiration for Messiaen a hundred years on and here was a sumptuous stream of sounds on which the melodic line could float so magically.There were sudden washes of sound where notes no longer existed as Magdalene took us into a land that obviously spoke so deeply to her. Rarely have I heard this rather inconclusive sound world of Fauré speak with such eloquence and simplicity. Even the more elusive later Nocturnes were given a musical line and meaning that is very rare indeed. In the eleventh she depicted a desolate landscape of searing intensity and the mysterious final words of Fauré with his thirteenth and last Nocturne opened with whispered tones. Searching for a path that she found with the clouds lifting and sudden rays of bright light allowed to gleam as she played with breathtaking conviction and passionate abandon opening a gate to a masterpiece that is rarely revealed by lesser mortals.
Brahms’s seven fantasies op 116 is a masterwork but not always easy to perform complete in public as it requires extreme concentration not only from the performer but also the audience. Magdalene succeded even more than on the previous occasion I had heard her and the cheers that greeted her final Capriccio just showed how she had been able to takes us on a voyage of discovery holding us in the same trance that she herself was obviously experiencing.There are the three explosions of passionate orchestral sounds in the Capriccios but in the Intermezzi there is an intensity and deeply moving meaning to every note that Magdalene magically transmitted to us as she depicted a world where the music spoke with such touching eloquence.
There was an explosion of passion and delicacy with the first Capriccio in D minor, an outpouring of intensity and exhilaration.The beautiful sweeping left hand octaves were just like a wind blowing across this red hot terrain. A gentle pleading in the A minor intermezzo was with a full string quartet sound that contrasted with the glistening etherial ‘non troppo presto’ that Brahms implores to be played ‘molto piano’ and ‘legato’. Bursting into flames again with the G minor Capriccio with the glorious nobility of ‘un poco meno Allegro’ Trio with its sumptuous abandonment of rich golden sounds. This was truly a full orchestra of Philadelphian richness. Following on with one of Brahms’s most poignant utterings: the Intermezzo in E where so few notes can say so much in Magdalene’s sensitive hands. An ‘una corda’ that was a whispered secret miraculously shared with us as we awaited every note with baited breath, the wafts of sound glistened in this autumnal landscape. ‘Andante – Allegretto con grazia ed intimissimo sentimento’ are Brahms indications for the gentle lilting question mark of the Intermezzo in E minor answered by the sombre brooding in the major of the ‘Andantino teneramente’. Magdalene brought great meaning to this strangely unsettled world with its gloriously flowing central episode that opens the gate for ever more whispered confessions. A transcendental control of sound to the final seemingly infinite arpeggio with a top note that truly pointed to an unearthly world on high . Sumptuous sounds and passionate conviction were thrown off with the ease of a great virtuoso in the final Capriccio in D minor with its meandering search of superfine clarity and whispered drive until the final explosion of sumptuous nobility and brilliance.
Magdalene who in these days has been playing Chopin’s first piano concert in Switzerland and a recital in Trieste had not thought that she might have been asked for an encore. An encore was demanded by an audience who had no intention of letting this young genius go so easily. The Tarantella ,the last of Liszt’s Venezia e Napoli suite of three pieces, was the answer and it was a breathtaking example of virtuosity and style. If the beautiful central Neapolitan song was a little slow it was because she too was enjoying the sunlight that suddenly was shining brightly after Brahms’s deep brooding and introspection. A work that her former teacher Patsy Fou ( the widow of the great Chinese pianist Fou Ts’Ong) told me that she had not played since she was 12 !
Roberto Prosseda pays tribute to the genius of Chopin and the inspirational figure of Fou Ts’ong
Returning to her own world of deep introspection and selfless denial Magdalene played a second encore demanded by an ever more enthusiastic public.The Intermezzo in A op 118 n.2 was played with tenderness and the sumptuous rich intimacy of a pianist who knows what playing with weight really means.
‘Chapeau’ or to quote Schumann :’Hats off Gentlemen,a genius! ‘
Genius knows no limits as it is a continual inspiration for all those caught in their illuminating rays.
‘ Catch a falling star ‘ so the song goes and what a perfect combination of Genius in Paradise – stars to be cherished indeed.
And today opening with Mozart’s C minor Sonata with a nervous energy and subtle dynamic range that brought this masterpiece vividly to life as I have rarely heard before. Amazingly Magdalene told me afterwards that it was the first time she had performed this work in public! There were incredible subtle inflections of refined artistry that were quite unexpected from a pianist still only twenty years old. A rhythmic drive but of its time with a humanity and sense of civilised passion and a startling range of sounds judged to absolute perfection always with the architectural shape of the whole sonata in view.
An Adagio of disarming simplicity and beauty where the music was allowed to speak with a human voice of the most refined ‘bel canto’.It was pure magic as the poignant understatement of the final chords were like heartbeats pulsating deep in the depths of the keyboard .
Beethovenian irascible changes of character in the ‘Molto allegro’ were followed by Mozart’s unmistakable melodic outpouring of utter simplicity. Magic was in the air as she allowed Fauré’s etherial D flat nocturne to fill this hall that today was full to the rafters unknowingly congregating to celebrate Fauré’s birthday (12th May 1845).
And today Magdalene had a little secret up her sleeve with two encores in the style of the scintillating playing of Lhevine,Hoffman,Godowsky or Rachmaninov .Playing of the Golden Era of Piano Playing when at the end of a recital pianists would allow themselves to indulge in playing of teasingly beguiling half shades and technical wizardry. I had suggested to Magdalene that she could finish on a high with some pianistic acrobatics instead of another tribute to Fauré that she had suggested .Well she locked herself away with a piano for five minutes whilst she brushed up some pianistic lollipops that she had not played for quite sometime.
She gave a ravishing performances of beguiling half colours and a sumptuous sense of balance with Schubert’s ‘Standchen’ in Liszt’s beautiful transcription.And finally letting her hair down with Saint- Saens ‘Etude en forme de valse ‘ played with tantalising, teasing style and subtle virtuosity that was greeted with a standing ovation for a pianist the like of whom this hallowed hall has never seen before.
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
Gabriel Urbain Fauré
12 May 1845, Pamiers ,France – 4 November 1924 ,Paris
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,
7 May 1833 Hamburg – 3 April 1897 (aged 63) Vienna
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 (Op
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”.
Ludwig van Beethoven
17 December 1770. 26 March 1827 (aged 56). Vienna
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).
The Piano Sonata No. 14 in C minor K.457, was composed and completed in 1784, with the official date of completion recorded as 14 October 1784 in Mozart’s own catalogue of works.It was published in December 1785 together with the Fantasy in C minor K.475 as opus 11 by the publishing firm Artaria ,Mozart’s main Viennese publisher.The sonata is in three movements:
- Molto allegro
- Adagio
- Allegro assai
The title page bore a dedication to Theresia von Trattner (1758–1793), who was one of Mozart’s pupils in Vienna. Her husband, Thomas von Trattner (1717–1798), was an important publisher as well as Mozart’s landlord in 1784. Eventually, the Trattners would become godparents to four of Mozart’s children.
It was composed during the approximately 10-year period of Mozart’s life as a freelance artist in Vienna after he removed himself from the patronage of the Archbishop of Salzburg in 1781 and is one of the earliest of only six sonatas composed during the Vienna years.It is only one of two sonatas Mozart wrote in a minor key, the other being the in A minor K 310 , which was written six years earlier, around the time of the death of Mozart’s mother. Mozart was extremely deliberate in choosing tonalities for his compositions; therefore, his choice of C minor for this sonata implies that this piece was perhaps a very personal work.