ChristopherAxworthy-MusicCommentary

Herman Med Cerisha at La Mortella where the Walton’s offer a platform for young musicians in the paradise that they created together on the island of Ischia. They now survey the scene from the highest point of their estate adding their blessings to the many young musicians that are given a platform here in the Bay of Naples.

Today it was the turn of the twenty year old Italian born pianist, Herman Cerisha, who has for the past six years been guided by Florian Mitrea in the UK at the Purcell School and is now completing his studies at the Royal Academy. It was Prof Deniz Gelenbe judging the Beethoven Competition at the RAM, who had tipped me off about the remarkable talent of this young man.

Lina Tufano always ready to encourage great talents immediately invited him to play at La Mortella. It was her great friend Susana Walton who was particularly keen to encourage and help talent at a very early stage. The Walton Foundation was specifically created by Susana ,Lady Walton to honour the memory of her husband and their legacy that they had created together.

Sir William’s centenary was celebrated in 2002 in the presence of his Majesty King Charles and now this year we celebrate Susana’s centenary with a series of concerts in many parts of the world including a performance of the Walton cello concerto at the Proms. In the quarter of a century that Susana was left on her own she has been an indefatigable promoter of her adored husband and their work together, and single handed has made their estate grow into a thriving cultural centre of excellence where La Mortella is truly a jewel shining brightly on the world stage.

Their legacy is assured, as Lady Walton very mischievously added, because no one would want to evict them from an estate where the two founders were actually buried !

Herman presented his credentials before even touching the Steinway that was lain before him. A true artist is known by his programmes, just as a painter is, by his canvas, and the three masterworks that Herman presented immediately showed that here was a very serious musician who thought more of the composer than himself.

Beethoven’s ‘Waldstein’ Sonata was followed by Schubert’s magical A minor sonata before the explosion of Prokofiev’s 7th, the second of his three War Sonatas. Even the encore of Beethoven’s Bagatelle op 126 n 3, that he dedicated to Lady Walton, showed a rare eclectic musician who preferred to delve deeply into one of the last thoughts of a universal genius, rather than titivate the senses with a showpiece of sparkling brilliance.

These three master works I have heard Herman play in London and below is a detailed review of those performances . Herman is an artist, whilst understanding the structure and beauty of these works, he also tells me that he is particularly stimulated by an audience and together discover even more details and poetic moments on a wondrous voyage of discovery. As Picasso told his friend Rubinstein when the great pianist had commented that the subject of his latest canvasses was always the same. Picasso admonished him by saying that it was true, but that it was he that changed and could see the same objects in a different light every time he looked at them.

It was Delius who dismissed Beethoven as being all scales and arpeggios but what scales and arpeggios they become when seen through the eyes of a universal genius! Herman played with a dynamic rhythmic drive allowing the tension to wane for the second subject but not the overall pulse that Herman had created with such whispered vibrancy. He even discovered some very beautiful inner counterpoints that shone like jewels in a well worn landscape that he illuminated with a beguiling half light. An ‘Adagio’ played with poignant whispered intensity where the rests became of crucial importance and the change of colour on the non legato notes chasing each other across the keyboard with languid weight, were of orchestral colour. In fact all through his performance, whilst paying scrupulous attention to the composers markings there was a clarity and a masterly use of the pedals that became another section of the orchestra that he was conducting with such authority. This introduction suddenly was called to attention with a rather abrupt G that Herman knowingly dissolved onto a flowing web of sounds held in the long pedals that Beethoven had inherited from Papà Haydn, his original mentor. Wonderful rich bass chords gave great depth to the ever increasing sound of the contrasting episodes until the explosion of jewel box brilliance of the coda. Herman fearlessly playing the glissandi as Beethoven indicates where many pianists are afraid of covering the keys with blood on a keyboard with more weight than in Beethoven’s day. Serkin, always so scrupulous, would surreptitiously lick his fingers before attempting to obey his master.

Schubert was played with very careful pedalling never disturbing the gentle gasping wave of sounds that accompanied his genial mellifluous outpourings. Dynamic outbursts played with rhythmic precision and musicianly beauty but always with the architectural shape mind. Within this framework he could also add the freedom of poetic intensity passing from burning passion to sublime simplicity and radiance. The ‘Andante’ was where the rests became of crucial importance as the beauty of the melody was interrupted by whispered menace. The ‘Allegro vivace’ was played with streams of golden notes woven together with an intense rhythmic drive before bursting into strident declarations of intent. Schubert always has a surprise in store and the beauty of his melodic invention that interrupts this perpetuum mobile was even more remarkable for the beautiful finger legato that allowed Herman to play the accompaniment with unusual clarity that it became a duet between two voices of his orchestra. Herman displayed transcendental mastery with the infamous double octaves with which Schubert, in Beethovenian vein, abruptly brings to a close such poetic musings. It was here with the final four chords, each played with a different colour and poetic shape, that Herman showed us that these chords usually played with a final sigh of relief, today were played as belonging to the poetic musings of a great artist.

Prokofiev 7th Sonata was played with a kaleidoscope of colour as the first movement unfolded with violence mixed with harrowing beauty . An ‘Andante’ of opening radiance and sumptuous beauty before erupting and taking us to a land of desolation and desperation . The ‘Precipitato’ was a ‘tour de force’ of palpitating brilliance, where Prokofiev throws everything into the arena but never abandons the desperation and repeated insistence of the advancing troupes.

Beethoven’s ‘trifle’ op 126 n 3 was played with a simplicity and poetic beauty where at the end of a turbulent life Beethoven, like Mozart, could express so much with so little. Herman’s masterly use of Beethoven’s long pedals took us to a world that the composer could already envisage on the horizon, and am sure would have brought a knowing smile to Lady Walton to whom it was dedicated by Herman, in her centenary year.

Susana Walton 100 celebrations with Guy Johnston and friends

First evening:

L.V. Beethoven – Piano Sonata no.21 in C major, op.53 “Waldstein” (23 minutes)
F. Schubert – Piano Sonata in A minor D784 (19 minutes)
S. Prokofiev – Piano Sonata no.7 in B-flat major, op.83 (19 minutes)

Second evening:

L.V. Beethoven – Piano Sonata no.21 in C major, op.53 “Waldstein” (23 minutes)
F. Chopin – Scherzo no.3 in C sharp minor, op.39 (8 minutes)
F. Chopin – Ballade no.4 in F minor, op.52 (12 minutes)
S. Prokofiev – Piano Sonata no.7 in B-flat major, op.83 (19 minutes)

Herman Med Cerisha with playing of overwhelming authority and poetic beauty ‘A unique pianist who stands out for his originality and sincerity’

Herman Med Cerisha at St James’s Piccadilly ‘Masterly playing of intelligence and poetic beauty at the service of the composer’

2026 is the centenary of the birth of Lady Susana Walton, a woman of extraordinary charisma, patron, creative soul and guardian of one of the most enchanted places in the Mediterranean: the La Mortella Gardens of Forio. Born in Argentina in 1926, Susana Gil Passo met and married the English composer William Walton in 1948. Together, they chose Ischia as their refuge and home of life. Here, with the help of the famous landscape architect Russel Page, Susana started a project that would occupy her all her life: creating a wonderful garden, a source of inspiration for the composer, in which to pour out his creativity, his love for plants and his artistic sensitivity. After her husband’s death, Lady Walton devoted all her energy to the care and enhancement of La Mortella, transforming it into a place not only of extraordinary beauty, but also into a lively cultural centre with music as its beating heart. Today the William Walton and La Mortella Foundation, which she strongly wanted, continues to protect its spirit, welcoming over 90,000 visitors a year and hosting concerts, masterclasses, conferences and botanical initiatives that keep her vision alive.

Guy Johnston and Mishka Momen Rushdie conquer Bechstein Hall in the name of Beethoven

Ileana and Joan 3rd December

Mishka Rushdie Momen a timeless message of comfort and beauty

1. Sostenuto assai – Allegro ma non troppo
2. Scherzo: Molto vivace – Trio I – Trio II
3. Andante cantabile
4. Finale: Vivace

The Piano Concerto in C is a concertante work by Ralph Vaughan Williams  written in 1926 (movements 1 and 2) and 1930–31 (movement 3). During the intervening years, the composer completed Job:A Masque for Dancing and began work on his Fourth Symphony. The concerto shares some thematic characteristics with these works, as well as some of their drama and turbulence.The work was premiered on 1 February 1933 by Harriet Cohen , with the BBC Symphony Orchestra directed by Sir Adrian Boult . The Finale was edited shortly thereafter and the work was published in 1936. The concerto was not well received at first, being considered unrewarding to the soloist. Though the piece provides ample opportunity for virtuosity in all movements, Vaughan Williams treated the piano as a percussion instrument as did Béla Bartók and Paul Hindemith during this period, with the texture at times impenetrably thick.

While the concerto was rated highly by some—Bartók, for one, was extremely impressed—Vaughan Williams took the advice of well-meaning friends and colleagues and reworked the piece into a Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra , adding more texture to the piano parts with the assistance of Joseph Cooper  in 1946

The concerto has three movements :

1. Toccata : Allegro moderato – Largamente – Cadenza  
2. Romanza: Lento
3. Fuga chromatica con Finale alla Tedesca

The concerto begins with driving, energetic music from the soloist set against a threatening, rising theme in the orchestra. A faster, more scherzo-like idea, shared out equally between piano and orchestra, soon contrasts against the opening music. These two blocks of music alternate, forming the basis of the entire movement. It is as though the traditional dialogue between soloist and orchestra has been supplanted by a more generalised dialogue of musical types. At the movement’s climax, a brief and thunderous piano solo is joined by the full orchestra. However, the orchestra suddenly cuts off to leave the piano musing alone in a short lyrical cadenza. This leads without a break into the slow movement

The romanza is more delicate, providing the listener with hints of Vaughan Williams’s previous studies with Maurice Ravel. Vaughan Williams here quoted the theme from the Epilogue of the third movement of Arnold Bax’s Symphony n. 3

Again without a pause from the previous music, the closing movement begins with a fugue that is linked to a waltz finale by flights of virtuosity from the piano soloist. It closes with the ensemble repeating themes from the first two movements, and then abruptly closes

William Walton’s  Cello Concerto (1957) is the third and last of the composer’s concertos for string instruments, following his Viola Concerto  (1929) and Violin Concerto (1939). It was written between February and October 1956, commissioned by and dedicated to the cellist Gregor Piatigorsky, the soloist at the premiere in Boston  on 25 January 1957.

Initial responses to the work were mixed. Some reviewers thought the work old-fashioned, and others called it a masterpiece. Piatigorsky predicted that it would enter the international concert repertoire, and his recording has been followed by numerous others by soloists from four continentsWalton had been regarded as avant garde in his youth, but by 1957, when he was in his mid-fifties, he was seen as a composer in the romantic tradition, and some thought him old-fashioned by comparison with his younger English contemporary Benjamin Britten . After his only full-length opera, Troilus and Cressida (1954), Covent Garden  announced that his next major work would be a ballet score for the 1955–1956 season. The ballet, a version of Macbeth, fell through, because Margot Fonteyn, for whom it was intended, did not warm to the idea of playing Lady Macbeth. By the time an alternative subject was agreed, Walton was committed to writing a cello concerto and his ballet score never materialised.The commission for the concerto was $3,000 – a substantial sum at the time. Walton commented that as a professional composer he would write anything for anybody, but “I write much better if they pay me in dollars”.

The concerto, commissioned by the cellist Gregor Piatigorsky followed the conventional concerto form to the extent of having three contrasting movements. As with his earlier Violin Concerto, written for Jasha Heifetz , Walton worked in close collaboration with the soloist while composing the work, mostly by correspondence between the composer from his home on Ischia and the cellist, touring internationally. Piatigorsky remarked that the world in the 20th century got its cello concertos from England – those of Elgar and Delius  and then Walton.The premiere was postponed from December 1956 because Piatigorsky was ill. It took place at Symphony Hall, Boston , with the Boston Symphony Orchestra  conducted by Charles Munch . It received its first British performance within weeks, on 13 February 1957, again with Piatigorsky, this time with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Sir Malcom Sargent at the Royal Festival Hall  The work was first recorded shortly after the premiere, with the original forces.

The concerto is in three movements, but does not follow the conventional concerto form of a brisk opening movement followed by a slow movement: like Walton’s earlier concertos for viola and violin, the Cello Concerto has a moderately paced opening movement followed by a much quicker central scherzo. The three movements are: Moderato – Allegro appassionato- Tema ed improvvisazioni (Theme and improvisations).The third improvisation is a brilliant orchestral toccata; The fourth, for unaccompanied cello, is marked “rhapsodically” (rapsodicamente), and has wide fluctuations of speed; it ends with high trills, which merge into the coda.

The coda refers back to themes from the first movement, first an upward-striving figure from its central section and then the opening melody, before the theme of the finale returns in compressed from, leading the movement towards a quiet, luminous ending, and a bottom C from the cello, but during the composition Piatigorsky hankered after a more bravura ending. Walton composed two alternative ones, but the original quiet conclusion was played at the premiere and has remained the standard version.

In 1974 the composer reconsidered the ending and wondered if Piatigorsky (and Heifetz, who shared the cellist’s view) might have been right. Walton composed a third ending and sent it to Piatigorsky, but by then the cellist was mortally ill and he never performed it.The original ending has remained the standard one.

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2026/02/08/herman-med-cerisha-at-st-jamess-piccadilly-masterly-playing-of-intelligence-and-poetic-beauty-at-the-service-of-the-composer/

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2026/01/23/nikita-burzanitsa-in-florence-a-birthday-celebration-with-the-mastery-of-a-poet-of-the-keyboard/

Shunta Morimoto bringing youthful mastery and magic to Walton’s Paradise

Igor Levit showing us that Brahms First concerto may be a duel between piano and orchestra but proving today with refined whispered playing that duels can also be won with gentle persuasion where beauty and radiance can defeat brute force and violence.

From Levits very first notes the whispered radiance of the piano entry created an overwhelming effect of surprise and astonishment. It was this that Levit, the poet of the keyboard, needed to express to contrast the overwhelming effect of the startling octave assault that Brahms shocks us with as the piano really does compete with the orchestra with nobility and dramatic chameleonic changes of gear.

An arresting first movement simply marked ‘Maestoso’ but it was of remarkable daring in its day as this was a true piano symphony, not the traditional question and answer but a unified cry of radiance and defiance. Levit is one of the finest and most knowledgeable musicians of our day as his master classes at the Royal Academy of Music in London can testify . https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2022/04/05/igor-levit-at-the-royal-academy-of-music/

A cross between Levin and Schiff for historical knowledge but all Levit for the simple joy and mastery that he shares with all those that come within his radius. And tonight he was just one of the remarkable musicians on stage in the Santa Cecilia Hall in Rome. Discreetly moving with the music and sharing knowing looks with the players as their music making revealed secrets that can only happen in live music making.

A slow movement where Levit’s barely audible ethereal sounds were contrasted with the sumptuous richness that Harding could entice from his magnificent players. Hardly allowing the deeply pensive notes of the Adagio to die away as Levit catapulted us into the Rondo with burning Hungarian verve with a finale that was all Brahms’s youthful exhilaration and breathtaking excitement .

And after such a revelatory performance Levit allowed Mendelssohn to console us with his Adagio non troppo op 30 n 3 from Book two of his Songs without Words . Levit drawing us in to listen to whispered secrets as he had with Brahms, but this time there were no shock tactics but the simple consolation of a poet of the keyboard.

We may be used to the noble rich sounds of Rubinstein or Arrau or the animal excitement of Serkin but Levit like Lupu in this hall in 1976 can still make us relive this remarkable work with the shock tactics of its day.

Igor Levit at the Royal Academy of Music

Levit and Volodin the ‘likely lads’strike gold with Debussy and Rachmaninov

The Amazing Mr Levit

It was good to be able to listen to Nicolas Giacomelli again having been at his graduation recital last June at the Accademia of S Cecilia, where he was completing his studies with Benedetto Lupo.

Presenting now his new CD at Roma 3 in their Young Artists Series that gives a stage to young musicians at the start of their career.

Two masterworks by Schumann op 13 and 16. The Symphonic Studies and Kreisleriana, compositions only separated by Kinderszenen op 15 and followed by the Fantasy op 17, written in a period when Schumann was training under Friedrick Wieck to become a virtuoso pianist . One masterpiece after another poured from his pen from op 1 to op 28 until he damaged his hand with a finger stretching contraption, and was from then on to dedicate himself mainly to chamber music and symphonic works.

The Symphonic Studies were dedicated to Sterndale Bennett ( the English pianist who was to become the first director of the Royal Academy in London). Kreisleriana was dedicated to Chopin, who Schumann had announced on the arrival of the teenage Polish emigré in Vienna, with ‘Hats off a Genius’.

But the main inspiration was to be the daughter of his teacher, the child prodigy, Clara Wieck . Much to her father’s consternation she was to become Schumann’s wife and mother of their eight children and the inspiration for most of his compositions before a nervous breakdown and his early death in an asylum.

Nicolas chose the first, unrevised version of the Studies, which excluded the five posthumous studies often incorporated into the main version, mainly encouraged to be included in the final edition by Brahms, after Schumann’s death, a close family friend in an intimate triangle of artistic endeavour! It includes some variants in the last variation too where the repetitive march like finale is interrupted by a melodic interlude based on the theme ‘Proud England,rejoice’ from Marschner’s Opera based on Sir Walter Scott’s ‘Ivanhoe’ and was a homage to the dedicatee William Sterndale Bennett. I noticed in Nicolas’s performance, a slight variant in the first variation too, that I had not been aware of before.

Nicolas played the opening theme rather slowly for its ‘Andante’ marking, making this ‘composition of an amateur’ vertical and ponderous rather than flowingly horizontal. It was the theme of Ernestine von Fricken’s father, whose daughter had been an ex flame of Schumann, depicted as ‘Estrella’ in his ‘Carnaval’ op 9! The variations and studies were played with great seriousness and solidity but sometimes lacked the dynamic contrasts and lighter touch that Schumann indicates in the score . There was a passionate intensity to the second variation where the melodic line was allowed to sing with vibrant rhythmic emotion. Bringing out the bass in the repeat to create more variety in a sound world that was always of passionate intensity and dynamic drive. It was in the fourth variation marked ‘scherzando’ that Nicolas remained rather earthbound rather than allowing his hands to flutter over the keys. Agosti described the seventh variation as a ‘Gothic Cathedral’ and this suited Nicolas’s monumental conception giving it a vibrant use of the pedal and a heavily marked bass anchor. The eighth variation, Schumann marks ‘Presto possibile’ and Nicolas played with transcendental mastery making easy fare of the fast moving chords but then the slower chords of the eighth, although played ‘con energy’ seemed unnecessarily ponderous. The ninth variation is a beautiful ‘bel canto’ inspired by Chopin which Nicolas played with radiance and beauty and if he played the climax with overpowering passion it was with great conviction and a variety of sounds that had been missing elsewhere. The Finale was indeed ‘Allegro Brillante’ and was a ‘tour de force’ of forward movement to the final pages of excitement and dynamic drive in a performance that was more symphonic and percussive than pianistic and melodic.

Kreisleriana began with passionate intensity taking Schumann’s marking ‘Ausserst bewegt’ rather literally, with a rather overpowering dynamic range, but Nicolas managed to keep the tempo throughout allowing the passion to die down for the beautiful lyrical central episode. The second movement, sehr innig, is the longest and is interrupted by two interludes of spiky brilliance and flowing passionate intensity before returning to the ‘very heartfelt’ opening. In Nicolas’s attempt to make the piano sing the pedal was sometime overclouded and a real finger legato with weight would have given more control and clarity. In the third movement Schumann’s marking of ‘aufgeregt’ was taken rather literally as though ‘agitated’ was always passionate and it could have benefitted from a lighter less dramatic touch, but there was beauty in the weaving melodic outpouring of the central episode. Some contemplative playing in the fourth movement played ‘langsam’ but with flowing beauty.The fifth movement Schumann marks ‘lebhaft’ but Nicolas chose to play it with much more spiky brilliance and although played with great control it missed something of it’s fleeting elegance and style. The sixth movement Nicolas suddenly allowed the piano to sing with a beautiful sense of balance of glowing radiance. The seventh Schumann simply marks ‘sehr rasch’ and Nicolas certainly gave a fearless performance of extraordinary velocity but it was more of a tornado than a west wind and could have benefitted from more shape and tonal contrasts. The last movement was played with a capricious sense of style with the long bass notes interrupting the whimsical melodic line that Nicolas played with clarity and knowing impertinence. If the two intervening episodes were played with overpowering passion it was obviously the mood that Nicolas was in today with the white teeth of this powerful Fazioli concert piano staring up at him and just encouraging him to pounce with all his youthful mastery and power.

It was in the two French encores that Nicolas could relax and give exquisite performances of colour and style of La Veneziana by Gounod and the charm and delicacy of Wély’s salon caprice ‘Etincelle’.

Benedetto Lupo ‘Il Re di Roma taming his young Lions with mastery, poetry and above all humanity’

Gounod: La Veneziana (Barcarolle) in G Minor CG 593

Louis James Alfred Lefébure-Wély – L’Étincelle, Op.109 (Caprice)

His playing was virtuosic, and as a performer, he was rated above eminent contemporaries including César Franck. His compositions, less substantial than those of Franck and others, have not held such a prominent place in the repertory.

Lefébure-Wely was awarded the Légion d’honneur in 1850. His contemporary, César Franck became better known as a composer, but was not as highly regarded as an organist. Adolphe Adam commented, “Lefébure-Wely is the most skilful artist I know”; Camille Saint-Saëns, Lefébure-Wely’s successor at the Madeleine, observed, “Lefébure-Wely was a wonderful improviser … but he left only a few unimportant compositions for the organ.” He was the dedicatee of the “12 études pour les pieds seulement” (12 Studies for organ pedals alone) by Charles-Valentin Alkan and of the “Final en si bémol” for organ, op. 21, by Franck.

Among 200 compositions Lefébure-Wely wrote works for choir, piano, chamber ensemble, symphony orchestra and an opéra comique, Les recruteurs (1861).

‘ Carsen filled the space with visionary poetic beauty as the four main components delved deeply into their souls ……………….time stood still such was the intense atmosphere created with earth and air rather than bricks and mortar, by a director and company who could transmit such emotions with poignant immediacy………..’

A timeless production at Rome Opera of Handel’s Oratorio ‘The Triumph of Time and Disillusion’ directed by Robert Carsen. “Leave the spine and collect the rose” “Lascia la spina, cogli la rosa” from George Frideric Handel’s 1707 oratorio ‘Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno’ (The Triumph of Time and Truth) is a variation of “gather ye rosebuds,” advising the listener to leave behind the thorn (the pain, the struggle, or the fleeting, worldly pleasures that cause pain) and take the rose (the beauty, virtue, and true joy).

The aria is sung by the character Pleasure (Piacere) Anna Bonitatibus to cajole a young woman named Beauty (Bellezza) Johanna Wallroth . Pleasure argues that one should enjoy the beauty of life without dwelling on the pain or the constraints of time, urging her to seize the moment of pleasure.The overarching theme is the transience of life, with Time, Ed Lyon, and Truth, Raffaele Pe, trying to persuade Beauty to abandon false, fleeting pleasures and follow the path of virtue. Written by Cardinal Benedetto Pamphilj for the twenty two year old Handel on his arrival in Rome in 1707 it has been given a refreshingly new lease of life by Robert Carsen in a production that has been able to maintain faith to Cardinal Pamphilj’s parable brought to life by the beauty of Handel’s score with the Rome Opera Orchestra conducted by Gianluca Capuano.

Lighting, mirrors and many young dancers filled the space with visionary poetic beauty as the four main components delved deeply into their souls. A production where time stood still, such was the intense atmosphere created with earth and air rather than bricks and mortar, by a director and company who could transmit such emotions with poignant immediacy .

The Triumph of Time and Truth is the final name of an oratorio  by George Frideric Handel  produced in three different versions across fifty years of the composer’s career:In 1706, the young Georg Friedrich Handel (1685-1759) went to study with Italian musicians. Among the many personalities he met in the most prestigious salons of Rome, he became friends with Cardinal Benedetto Pamphili (1653-1730), poet and philosopher. The latter presented him with a secular oratorio libretto: Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno (The Triumph of Time and Disillusionment). The poet’s inspiring language and the opportunity to create a lyrical work that could circumvent the papal ban on performing an opera in Rome were two inevitable reasons for Handel to compose his first oratorio. Premiered in June 1708 at the palace of the cardinal and great patron Pietro Ottoboni, the work confronts four allegories: Beauty, influenced by her friend Pleasure, is finally convinced that she cannot escape her cruel destiny, which is to grow old and then die, by the all-powerful Time and the wise Disillusionment. Often revised, up to an English version in 1757, Handel did not hesitate to re use certain airs for other of his works. This is why some consider Il Trionfo to be his first and last oratorio.

https://youtu.be/xd6QQ8LUKXk?si=mlEG5_qiX3ph-VF8

Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno (The Triumph of Time and Disillusion), HWV 46a

Handel’s very first oratorio, composed in spring 1707, to an Italian-language libretto by Cardinal Benedetto Pamphili  . Time and Disillusion are personified (thus spelled with an initial capital even in Italian). Comprising two sections, the oratorio was premiered that summer in Rome. One of its famous arias is Lascia la spina, cogli la rosa (Leave the Thorn, Take the Rose), later recast as “Lascia chi’s ping”(Leave Me to Weep) in the opera Rinaldo  and for Pena Tiranna in Amadigi di Gaula.

Il trionfo del Tempo e della Verità (The Triumph of Time and Truth), HWV 46b

Revised and expanded into three sections in March 1737, the work also had its name adjusted. Handel was by that time living in England and producing seasons of English-language oratorio and Italian opera. This version premiered on March 23, received three more performances the next month, and was revived on one date in 1739.

The Triumph of Time and Truth, HWV 71

In March 1757, possibly without much involvement from the blind and aging Handel, the oratorio was further expanded and revised. The libretto was reworked into English, probably by the composer’s prolific last librettist, Thomas Morell , while John Christopher Smith Jr.probably assembled the score. Although Jephtha(1751) is considered the composer’s true last oratorio, this third version of Il trionfo comes later.Isabella Young  sang the role of Counsel (Truth) at the premiere.

Anna Bonitatibus gets to the heart of Rossini

A fascinating new programme from Noah that he wanted to try out on his neighbours in Perivale. A programme that demonstrated his musicianship and transcendental mastery of the keyboard.

C.P.E. Bach was the fifth child and second surviving son of J.S. Bach sometimes known as the Berlin or Hamburg Bach to distinguish him from his younger brother J.C. Bach known as the ‘London’ Bach . He was an influential composer working at a time of transition between his father’s Baroque style and the Classical style that followed. He was the principal representative of the ‘sensitive style’ whose keyboard music is a forerunner of the expressiveness of Romantic music , in deliberate contrast to the statuesque forms of Baroque music. It was exactly this sense of style that Noah captured from the very first notes with a scintillating opening of cascade of brilliance. Playing with a pulsating energy and glowing mastery contrasting with the beauty of the ‘Adagio’ that was played with purity and simplicity, the long melodic lines allowed to flow with and architectural shape and refined musical line. A playful Allegro with deep notes adding an anchor to the scintillating streams of notes that flowed from Noah’s hands with masterly ease.

C.P.E Bach had been an influential pedagogue writing his “Essay on the true art of playing keyboard instruments”, which influenced Haydn,Mozart and Beethoven. So it was doubly interesting to hear Mozart’s C major Sonata K 333 played immediately afterwards . Mozart could say so much with so little as this sonata demonstrates with its refined elegance and subtle delicacy. Noah played the opening ‘Allegro’ with a crystalline beauty, the ornaments glowing like jewels as Noah’s superb fingers were like springs unwinding with brilliant clarity. An ‘Andante’ of flowing beauty of refined good taste and luminosity. The ‘Allegretto’ played with a delicacy and elegance where every note had a meaning and was part of a satisfying whole. Mozart may indeed have been influenced by C.P.E. Bach but added the refined invention of genial inspiration.

Noah brought the same simplicity and glowing beauty to ‘La Folia’ theme of Rachmaninov’s ‘Corelli’ Variations dedicated to Fritz Kreisler his violinist duo partner. ‘La Folia’, was inot composed by Arcangelo Corelli, but was used by him in 1700 as the basis for 23 variations in his Sonata for violin, violone, and harpsichord in D minor, Op. 5, No. 12. Hence the dedication to Kreisler. ‘La Folia’ was popularly used as the basis for variations in Baroque music and even Liszt used the same theme in his Rhapsodie Espagnole S. 254 (1863). Rachmaninov wrote to another friend, the composer Nikolai Medtner, in 1931: “I’ve played the Variations about fifteen times, but of these fifteen performances only one was good. The others were sloppy. I can’t play my own compositions! And it’s so boring! Not once have I played these all in continuity. I was guided by the coughing of the audience. Whenever the coughing would increase, I would skip the next variation. Whenever there was no coughing, I would play them in proper order. In one concert, I don’t remember where – some small town – the coughing was so violent that I played only ten variations (out of 20). My best record was set in New York, where I played 18 variations. However, I hope that you will play all of them, and won’t ‘cough’.”

Noah played all twenty variations today with poetic beauty and scintillating brilliance.There was no coughing in Perivale and Noah could allow us to hear his first outing of this work with playing of great precision and rhythmic drive. Immediately emerging himself into the brooding character of the ‘Minuet’ third variation, before the beautifully sung fourth , with its etherial comments played with simple knowing ease by Noah. A dynamic drive to the fifth lead straight into the intricate knotty twine of the sixth and the majestic explosion of sounds, on the pedal note of D, in the seventh .The eighth was even more agitated and played with a Rachmaninovian sumptuous brilliance ending with cascades of notes sweeping across the keys. Capricious meanderings of the ‘Adagio misterioso’ and the radiant harmonies of the ninth were played with languid beauty spread over the entire keyboard. A pulsating rhythmic energy to the tenth with typical vituosistic Rachmaninovian embellishments of transcendental difficulty bringing savage rhythmic drive to the eleventh. A pulsating syncopated rhythmic energy to the twelfth before the chords of the thirteenth played with sumptuous full sounds by Noah . The improvised ‘Intermezzo’ was played with a ravishing palette of colour and masterly use of the pedal as it dissolved into ‘La Folia’ now in the major key of D flat. Noah played it with glowing simplicity as it unwound into the fifteenth with pastoral simplicity.Taking wing again with the sixteenth and swirls of notes leading into the calm of the seventeenth where the theme was floated on a gently moving bass. The last three variations were a ‘tour de force’ of dynamic drive and brilliance with Noah throwing himself into the fray with fearless abandon until arriving on the repeated bass ‘D”s as the theme was allowed to float magically on this wave of whispered beauty. A remarkable first outing for Noah of a work of transcendental difficulty where he can already steer us through such knotty twine with intelligence and poetic understanding.

Liszt’s sixth Hungarian Rhapsody has long been a warhorse for virtuosi with its infamous repeated octaves which Noah played with remarkable mastery and brilliance. Excitement and brilliance mounted to fever pitch when the octaves passed into the left hand with streams of notes shooting across the keys above. But Noah is a remarkable musician who could also bring ravishing beauty to the central episode and a rhythmic energy to the opening Hungarian dance rhythms. Creating a miniature tone poem and not just a showpiece of empty virtuosity .

Described as masterful, deeply emotional and dramatic in his pianistic style by BBC Radio, London based British-Chinese pianist Noah Zhou is the first ever British born Laureate of the Rachmaninoff International Piano Competition. Generously supported through his childhood by the Eileen Rowe Musical Trust, he has since graduated with 1st Class Honours from the Royal Academy of Music, where he was awarded the Sir Elton John Scholarship, and where he studied with the Emeritus Head of Keyboard, Christopher Elton. During his time as a student, Zhou was awarded multiple top scholarships and grants from The Hattori Foundation, Countess of Munster Trust and the Drake Calleja Trust.

Zhou has been a top prizewinner in over 15 national and international piano competitions, and first came to media attention when he was awarded the Royal Philharmonic Society of Great Britain’s Duet Prize for Best Young Instrumentalist in 2018. Since then he has frequently performed in concerts all across the world, and made his debut recital at London’s Wigmore Hall in January 2025. Just prior, towards the end of 2024, Zhou was invited to give the first international premiere of a new work by the celebrated South American female composer Angel Amparo, in Ibague, the musical capital of Colombia. 

In past seasons, Zhou has collaborated with numerous orchestras, including the Phion Orchestra of the Netherlands; the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Ukraine; the Brazilian National Symphony Orchestra; the Orquestra do Algarve; the State Academic Symphony Orchestra of Russia (named after Evgeny Svetlanov); the Danube Symphony Orchestra; the Manchester Camerata; the Pazardzhik Symphony Orchestra; and the Malaga Symphony Orchestra, and has performed under the batons of conductors such as Antony Hermus; Douglas Bostock; Ivan Nikiforchin; Vitaliy Protasov; Roberto Tibiriçá; András Deák; Ronald Corp; Grigor Palikarov; Stephen Threlfall; and Victor Eloy Lopez Cerezo, amongst others. 

Noah Zhou at the Wigmore Hall Royal Academy of Music Series ‘Fearless music making of beauty and exhilaration’

Noah Zhou at St Mary’s A tiger on the rampage with artistry and total mastery

Haydn’s very grandiose Sonata in E flat has long been the one favoured by great virtuosi such as Horowitz or Richter and it was good to see a musician like Inna opening her programme with such a noble work. She imbued it with measure and musicianship, from the opening imposing declaration to the haunting playful fairy horns that Papà Haydn could depict with such subtle genial use of the sustaining pedal. The piano was in evolution and Haydn took advantage of the many new features to add special effects in his later sonatas. The Sonata n. 50 for example has a music box effect where Haydn specifically asks for long held pedal effects. Inna has a palette of colours in her very sensitive fingers that she used with knowing good taste and musicianship. Everything she played had a luminosity and sound of timeless brilliance. From the arresting opening to the magical horn calls and the seamless stream of notes that flowed so naturally from her hands. An ‘Allegro moderato’ which she played with control and simplicity allowing the music to unfold with great fluidity. There was a simplicity to the ‘Adagio’ that she played with refined delicacy and embellishments that were thrown off with knowing ease as she played with authority and beauty, where rests became as important as the actual notes in creating a musical line of poignant significance. The ‘Presto’ Finale was thrown off with masterly ease as the questioning opening was allowed to take wing with a ‘joie de vivre’ of irresistible exhilaration and impish good humour.

Chopin’s Fourth Ballade is the Pinnacle of the romantic piano repertoire and it is a poetic unfolding of a theme and variations from an innovative genius. Inna played it ,from the first notes, with a beautiful flowing tempo allowing the opening introduction to sing with aeolian harp radiance. The theme was played with luminosity and simplicity, the deep bass notes adding a reassuring anchor to the variations as they unfolded with ever more passionate intensity. There was a natural crescendo to the work which never drew attention to itself but was a vibrating natural forward movement leading to the final embellishments that Inna allowed to blossom with jewel like beauty. Building to the climax with remarkable control and musicianly understanding and final chords played with sumptuously fulfilling exhilaration. A silence that was as potent as the passionate climax and five whispered chords before the transcendental antics of the coda where even here, Inna could steer her way though this maze of notes with masterly control and architectural understanding.

This was a performance like with the scherzo, that restored the original inspiration of a composer of innovative genius, who could create such masterpieces of extraordinary poetic originality.

Inna brought great clarity to these three tone poems that make up Debussy’s Images Book 1. Her limpet like touch could extract a kaleidoscope of sounds within the keys without ever having to alter the rhythmic drive of the music that Debussy could describe with the precision of a composer who had also edited all the works of Chopin. Inna gave a flowing sense of architectural shape of great emotional strength with cascades of notes on which she floated the melodic line with masterly clarity. A very poignant ending of delicacy and glowing radiance with the final cadence depicted by Debussy with knowing mastery as we could almost see the fish disappearing into the depths with this final limped splash. ‘Hommage a Rameau’ was played with aristocratic nobility as she phrased in large spans depicting the monumentality of this extraordinary piece. A dawn awakening of whispered beauty gradually built in intensity until dying away to an ending which was floated on a cloud of dreamlike mystery. Driving rhythms to ‘Movement’ played always with a glowing beauty of inner intensity never frenzied brutality. A melodic lined etched on these glowing sounds of luminosity was shaped with masterly control as it spread over the entire keyboard only to disappear into the distance as the vibrating sounds continued.

Some aristocratic playing of glowing beauty and radiance from a pianist who could restore this much abused work to its rightful place as a masterly work of great orginality. A musician more concerned with interpreting the composers very precise indications than using his work as a showpiece for empty virtuosity. Inna is a master pianist, as she was able to demonstrate with a jeux perlé brilliance in the central episode. After the opening of drama and the radiant beauty of her glowing bel canto she was able to play with great simplicity the chorale like central episode imbuing it with poignant meaning as discreetly, and with refined good taste, she underlined inner counterpoints giving great depth to the sound. Building in intensity and brilliance but always under the control of a musician who can show us the overall architectural line. There was exhilaration and excitement too in the final pages but always listening to the sounds she was producing and shaping the music with masterly control .

Some extraordinary playing from Mayumi Sakamoto showing once again her pianistic class, with performances of radiance and beauty, but also of intelligence and authority. She had played Grieg once before in Perivale and shown her complete understanding of the style and poetic meaning of Grieg’s Norwegian roots. Playing of great freedom creating an atmosphere of pastoral beauty with the radiant purity of sounds of glowing beauty. Rarely have the bird songs been allowed to ring out with such glistening freedom. There was a noble beauty to ‘Ase’s Death’ full of rich sounds played always with natural flowing movements. Her beautiful dress of Japanese fabric just adding to the vision of beauty that she was depicting in sound. ‘Anitra’s Dance’ was played with beguiling rubato with its teasing ending before the ‘Mountain King’ was heard deep in the bass. She brought great character to the opening melody deep in the bass that she gradually allowed to grow in intensity with masterly control and scintillating excitement.

I have rarely heard Schumann’s ‘Widmung’ played with such poetic beauty. There was an expressive shape to her playing never loosing sight of the architectural line but filling it with delicacy and a sumptuous palette of sounds. A momentary prayer was played with simplicity and radiance as passion and rhythmic drive gradually spread over the entire keyboard with an outpouring of poetic mastery.

There was a very bold opening to the Bach Chaconne with playing of glowing nobility and it was here that she showed her masterly musicianship, maintaining a rhythmic drive through all the contrasting episodes of sumptuous rich sounds contrasted with crystalline brilliance. An extraordinary range of sounds and colours but never loosing sight of the architectural line of one of the greatest works ever written for the violin. Busoni has added a more orchestral sound than could be obtained on the solo violin creating a masterpiece for the piano, where Bach and Busoni go hand in hand with masterly construction and creation. Mayumi brought her extraordinary mastery to this work with astonishing brilliance as from the deeply expressive chorale and the whispered sounds of the solo violin she could build up the sound with masterly control without ever allowing the sound to harden. The ending was played with excitement and exhilaration as she brought a glowing nobility to this masterwork.

It was in Tchaikowsky that she brought all her orchestral colours to play with astonishing brilliance and if the transcriptions of Liszt and Thalberg were described as for three handed pianists this was indeed for four or five. Not content with Pletnev’s genial transcription she added things of her own to these four pieces that she had chosen from Tchaikovsky’s Ballet. She brought a languid beauty and a rhythmic drive to the middle two movements and the final was played with astonishing embellishments that seemed to streak across the keys with extraordinary technical mastery.

I have never seen the audience in Perivale so enthusiastic as they had been witness to playing of rare intelligence and beauty. Little could they have imagined that Mayumi would offer two encores of showpieces for the piano that were ,as Dr Mather said, only for super fearless virtuosi such as Arcadi Volodos or Yuja Wang.

Liszt’s ‘La Campanella’ was played with a glowing brilliance and a sense of style of the pianists of the Golden Age of piano playing. Jeux perlé seamless runs were contrasted with passion and dynamic drive but always under the perfect control of a master.

Mozart’s Turkish March, in the diabolical elaborations of Arcadi Volodos, was played with old style virtuosity and Horowitzian wizardry that was truly breathtaking.

It brought this remarkable recital of mastery and poetic beauty to a scintillating end introducing us once again to this charming master pianist of intelligence and class.

Born in Japan, Mayumi Sakamoto made her orchestral debut with her hometown orchestra at the age of eleven. At eighteen, she became a semi-finalist at the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. She graduated from Tokyo University of the Arts, receiving the Douseikai Prize and the Yomiuri Prize in 2006. From 2005, she studied at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hannover in Germany as a scholarship student of the Rohm Music Foundation. She obtained the K.A. degree (Diploma in Artistic Training in Music) in 2007 and completed the Soloist Diploma Course with the Orchestra Prize in 2013. She was later invited to give master classes at the same institution and worked as an instructor of chamber music as well as an assistant to Professor Einar Steen-Nøkleberg. 

She won First Prize at the International Music Competition in Cologne in 2011, also receiving the Prize of the WDR Rundfunkorchester Köln and the Special Prize from the Music Students. She also won First Prize and the Prix d’Oslo at the International Edvard Grieg Piano Competition in Norway, and the Highest Prize and Best Performance Prize for a work by Scarlatti at the Pausilypon International Piano Competition in Italy. She has received prizes at numerous international competitions, including the Top of the World International Piano Competition, the Andorra International Piano Competition, the Leeds International Pianoforte Competition, and the Scottish International Piano Competition, and was a diploma recipient at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. 

Deeply committed to education, she served as a lecturer at Tokyo University of the Arts from 2016 to 2021. She is currently a lecturer at Kyoto City University of Arts and a visiting researcher at the Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto University. She has recorded Mozart’s piano concertos with the WDR Rundfunkorchester Köln and Grieg’s Piano Concerto with the Göttingen Symphony Orchestra. She has performed widely in Europe, the United States, and Japan, and her performances are praised for their bold yet delicate expression and rich tonal colours. 

Mayumi Sakamoto at St Mary’s ‘A superb pianist of great intelligence and class’

The St Matthew Passion BWV 244  is a  sacred oratorio  written in 1727 for solo voices, double choir and double orchestra, with libretto  by Picander . It sets the 26th  and 27th chapters of the Gospel of Matthew (in the Luther Bible) to music, with interspersed chorales and arias . It is widely regarded as one of the masterpieces of Baroque sacred music . The original Latin title Passio Domini nostri J.C. secundum Evangelistam Matthæum translates to “The Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ  according to the Evangelist Matthew

The St Matthew Passion is the second of two Passion settings by Bach  that have survived in their entirety, the first being the St John Passion first performed in 1724.

Little is known with certainty about the creation process of the St Matthew Passion. The available information derives from extant early manuscripts, contemporary publications of the libretto, and circumstantial data, for instance in documents archived by the Town Council of Leipzig.

First version (BWV 244.1, previously 244b)

In Leipzig  it was not allowed to paraphrase the words of the Gospel in a Passion presentation on Good Friday A setting of the then-popular Brockes Passion libretto, largely consisting of such paraphrasing, could not be done without replacing the paraphrases by actual Gospel text. That was the option chosen by Bach for his 1724 St John Passion. In 1725 Christian Friedrich Henrici, a Leipzig poet who used Picander  as his pen name, had published Erbauliche Gedanken auf den Grünen Donnerstag und Charfreytag (“Edifying Thoughts on Maundy Thursday  and Good Friday”), containing free verse suitable for a Passion presentation in addition to the Gospel text. Bach seems to have stimulated the poet to write more of such verse in order to come to a full-fledged libretto for a Passion presentation combined with the Passion text chapters 26 and 27 in the Gospel of St Matthew.

Since 1975, it has usually been assumed that Bach’s St Matthew Passion was first performed on Good Friday 11 April 1727, although its first performance may have been as late as Good Friday 1729, as older sources assert.The performance took place in the St,Thomas Church  (Thomaskirche) in Leipzig. Bach had been Thomaskantor (i.e., Cantor, and responsible for the music in the church) since 1723. In this version the Passion was written for two choruses and orchestras. Choir I consists of a soprano in ripieno voice, a soprano solo, an alto solo, a tenor solo, SATB chorus, two traversost, two oboes, two oboes d’amoreo, two oboes da cacciatore , lute, strings (two violin  sections, violas and cellos), and continuo (at least organ). Choir II consists of SATB voices, violin I, violin II, viola, viola da gamba cello, two traversos, two oboes (d’amore) and possibly continuo.

At the time only men sang in church: high pitch vocal parts were usually performed by treble choristers. In 1730, Bach informed the Leipzig Town Council as to what he saw as the number of singers that should be available for the churches under his responsibility, including those for the St. Thomas Church: a choir of twelve singers, plus eight singers that would serve both St. Thomas and the Peterskirche. The request was only partially granted by the Town Council, so possibly at least some of the Passion presentations in St. Thomas were with fewer than twenty singers, even for the large scale works, like the St Matthew Passion, that were written for double choir.

In Bach’s time, St. Thomas Church had two organ lofts: the large organ loft that was used throughout the year for musicians performing in Sunday services, vespers, etc., and the small organ loft, situated at the opposite side of the former, that was used additionally in the grand services for Christmas and Easter. The St Matthew Passion was composed as to perform a single work from both organ lofts at the same time: Chorus and orchestra I would occupy the large organ loft, and Chorus and orchestra II performed from the small organ loft. The size of the organ lofts limited the number of performers for each Choir. Large choruses, in addition to the instrumentists indicated for Choir I and II, would have been impossible, so also here there is an indication that each part (including those of strings and singers) would have a limited number of performers, where, for the choruses, the numbers indicated by Bach in his 1730 request would appear to be (more than?) a maximum of what could be fitted in the organ lofts.

The St Matthew Passion was not heard in more or less its entirety outside Leipzig until 1829, when the twenty-year-old Felix Mendelssohn performed a version in Berlin, with the Berlin Singakademie, to great acclaim. Though most remained the same, Mendelssohn did edit parts of the passion to satisfy the taste of the time. Due to the changes in addition with other circumstances the reception was a success. Mendelssohn’s revival brought the music of Bach, particularly the large-scale works, to public and scholarly attention (although the St John Passion had been rehearsed by the Singakademie in 1822).

Sterndale Bennett 1845 edition of the Passion was to be the first of many (as Adolph Bernhard Marxand Adolf Martin Schlesinger’sone in 1830), the latest being by Neil Jenkins (1997) and Nicholas Fisher and John Russell (2008). Appreciation, performance and study of Bach’s composition have persisted into the present era.

In 1824, Felix Mendelssohn’s maternal grandmother Bella Salomon had given him a copy of the score of the Passion. Carl Friedrich Zelter had been head of the Sing-Akademie since 1800. He had been hired to teach music theory to both Felix Mendelssohn and his sister Fanny. Zelter had a supply of J. S. Bach scores and was an admirer of Bach’s music but he was reluctant to undertake public performances.

When Felix Mendelssohn was preparing his revival performance of the Passion in 1829 in Berlin (the first performance outside Leipzig), he cut out “ten arias (about a third of them), seven choruses (about half), [but] only a few of the chorales,” which “emphasized the drama of the Passion story … at the expense of the reflective and Italianate solo singing.”

In 1827, Felix and a few friends began weekly sessions to rehearse the Passion.One of the group was Eduard Devrient, a baritone and since 1820 one of the principal singers at the Berlin Royal Opera.^[ Around December 1828 – January 1829 Devrient persuaded Felix that the two of them should approach Zelter to get the Sing-Akademie to support their project. Devrient was especially enthusiastic, hoping to sing the part of Jesus as he eventually did. Zelter was reluctant but eventually gave his approval; that of the Singakademie board followed.

Once the fuller group of singers and the orchestra were brought in, Devrient recalled, participants were amazed at “the abundance of melodies, the rich expression of emotion, the passion, the singular style of declamation, and the force of the dramatic action.”The 20-year-old Felix himself conducted the rehearsals and first two performances by the Singakademie.

Their first performance was effectively publicized in six consecutive issues of the Berliner Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung, founded and edited by Adolf Bernhard Marx. It took place on 11 March 1829 and was sold out quickly. There was a second performance on 21 March, also sold out. In a third, on 18 April, Zelter conducted, and soon there were performances in Frankfurt (where a previously projected performance of the Passion had been upstaged by those in Berlin) and in Breslau and Stettin.

William Sterndale Bennett became a founder of the Bach Society  of London in 1849 with the intention of introducing Bach’s works to the English public. Helen Johnston (a student at Queen’s College ,London ) translated the libretto of the Passion, and Bennett conducted the first English performance at the Hanover Square Rooms London on 6 April 1854 (the same year that it appeared in print by the Old Bach Society (Alte Bach-Gesellschaft). The soloists included Charlotte Helen Sainton-Dolby.

In the early 1820s, the director of the Berlin Singakademie, Carl Zelter, got hold of a copy of Bach’s  St Matthew Passion and rehearsed some of the choral movements in private. By great good fortune, two of his singers were Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn . In April 1829, despite strong opposition from some quarters, the twenty-year-old Mendelssohn, with the help of Zelter and his friend the actor Eduard Devrient, mounted the work’s first modern performance, albeit in an abbreviated form, given to mark what was then thought to be the centenary of its first performance. This Easter-time Berlin presentation was a stunning success and was followed by others. These led directly to a complete reassessment and revival of interest in all of Bach’s music for, baffling as it seems nowadays, Johann Sebastian Bach had fallen into near obscurity since his death nearly 80 years earlier.

There had already been a long history of Passion music – that is musical settings telling the story of the final, short period in the life of Jesus. (‘Passion’ is derived from the Latin verb ‘patior’ meaning ‘to suffer’ or ‘endure’, from which we also get ‘patience’ and ‘patient’.) Every year for Good Friday Vespers, a Passion would be performed in one of Leipzig’s two principal (Lutheran) churches, St. Thomas and St. Nicholas. These performances would mark the high point of the church’s year.

Features two orchestras and two choruses

We know Bach wrote an earlier setting when he was the ducal concertmeister in Weimar (1714-1717) though this has not survived. In 1725, two years after he took up his appointment of cantor at St. Thomas’s, he wrote the Passion According To St. John. What followed two years later was an altogether grander, more magnificent setting. For instance, whereas the St John Passion had a mere continuo accompaniment (harpsichord or organ), its successor had an orchestra with Christ’s words accompanied by strings (an effect that has been compared to a halo around the Saviour’s head). And not just one orchestra – but two. In Bach’s time, St Thomas’s had two organ lofts – the larger of the two accommodating the musicians for Sunday services throughout the year, the smaller loft used for the additional numbers needed for the music at Christmas and Easter. Bach wrote his Passion to use both these performance spaces. Thus, the score is laid out for Chorus 1 and Orchestra 1, Chorus 2 and Orchestra 2.

Bach did not act as his own librettist for the St Matthew Passion. The story was arranged by Christian Friedrich Henrici, a postal official in the city who wrote verses using the pseudonym of Picander. A local Lutheran preacher, Salomon Deyling, supervised the writing of the text, using the 26th and 27th chapters of St Matthew’s Gospel (in his manuscript, Bach underlined the words of the Scripture with red ink). The speeches of various characters – Commentator (soprano), Evangelist (tenor), Christ (bass), Peter (bass), Judas (bass), and so forth – are represented by various solo singers.

In addition to the Bible story and Picander’s texts for the recitatives, arias, and other sections, Bach interspersed the work with his own harmonizations of old chorale melodies and texts. These would have been well-known to the congregation of St Thomas’s, the oldest dating back to the early 16th century. The best known of these, often referred to as the Passion Chorale, is ‘O Haupt Voll Blut Und Wunden’, usually sung in English to the words ‘O Sacred Head Sore Wounded’. It’s a melody originally written by one Hans Leo Hassler (1562-1612). Bach uses it no less than five times in the course of the St Matthew Passion, each time presenting it in a new way, with different words, keys, and harmonizations (he also used it – twice – in the Christmas Oratorio and in several cantatas)

It is a theatrical concept, a drama

Thus, the whole work is structured as a repeated pattern of Biblical narrative, comment, and prayer. It is a theatrical concept, a drama. It is even written in two Parts (or two ‘Acts’) with an interval (indeed, for the work’s first performance a sermon was preached between the two Parts) – and that is one reason why its first performance in Leipzig met with decidedly mixed reactions. This was an unorthodox way of presenting religious history and not the kind of thing that the more devout members of the congregation / audience felt was appropriate for a church, the feeling being that the work was too ‘operatic’.

Highlights to look out for are the alto aria ‘Buss Und Reu’ (‘Penance And Remorse’), one for soprano, ‘Blute Nur, Du Liebes Herz! (‘Bleed Now, Loving Heart!’); the sublime alto aria with violin obligato ‘Erbame, Dich’ (‘Have Mercy’), a second soprano aria ‘Aus Liebe Will Mein Heiland Sterben’ (‘Out Of Love My Saviour Is Willing To Die’); the blood-curdling moment when the mob calls for Barrabas to be freed and Christ to be crucified; and the final number in the Passion, the double chorus ‘Wir Setzen Uns Mit Tränen Nieder’ (usually translated as ‘In Tears Of Grief’).

Until 1975, it was held that the first performance of Bach’s St Matthew Passion was on Good Friday 1729. Scholars now agree that an early version was first heard two years earlier, a second version in 1729, a further revised version in 1736 and a final one – the one we hear today – in 1742.

One of his most complex and profound creations of Western music

It is almost miraculous that the complete renaissance of Bach’s music which took place after 1829 was due to the performance of a work that had been quite forgotten yet is regarded today as one of his most complex and profound creations of Western music. It is also, as Mendelssohn himself noted wryly, somewhat ironic that “it took an actor and the son of Jew to revive the greatest Christian music for the world!”

Some ravishing playing again from Salome of intelligence and poetic beauty. One of Liszt’s greatest works restored to its rightful place in the hands of a pianist who pays scrupulous attention to the composers indications but also can imbue them with the poignant beauty of a true believer. ‘Bénédiction de Dieu dans la Solitude’ is the third of Liszt’s ten Harmonies poétiques et religieuses S.173, a cycle of piano pieces written in 1847 at Woronińce the Polish-Ukrainian country estate of Liszt’s  mistress  Princess Carolyne von Sayn-Wittgenstein, and were published in 1853.They are inspired by the poetry of Alphonse de Lamartine ( as was Liszt’s Symphonic Poem Les Préludes ) and together with the Two Légendes ( written 10 years later) are works of a fervent believer but also of a master craftsman.There is none of the superfluous showmanship of the greatest pianist the world has ever known, but there is the poetic searching soul of a musical genius in works that are all too often neglected. They are works of a composer happy still to delve into the sound world of his time and to use the evolving piano to the full, as his colleague and rival Thalberg was to do, much to Liszt’s irritation.

There was the famous duel in the Parisian Salon of the Princess Belgiojoso on 31st March 1837, between these two giants of their day, in which the Princess very diplomatically declared Thalberg a great pianists, but Liszt unique.

Liszt however was never content to just accept convention and in later life was to look to a future sound world that was indeed prophetic.It might well have been the sound world of Scriabin, another genial composer searching for his ‘star’ via a multicoloured world of remarkable originality.

Salome allowed the tenor melody to emerge accompanied by bird like flutterings of radiance in the right hand that she played with remarkable fluidity considering their difficulty. Building to a climax of sumptuous full sounds of passionate intensity. Leading to a pastoral awakening of refreshing simplicity gradually building with a burning intensity bursting into a cascade of notes spread over the keyboard with jeux perlé mastery.The melody returning to the tenor register with bird like beauty leaving a final ‘bénédiction’ of poignant beauty that Salome played with rare sensibility.

There was a glowing luminosity and purity to the sound as Scriabin’s poetic and prophetic fantasy world was played with a kaleidoscope of colour.The brooding insistence of Scriabin’s diabolical insinuations gradually encompassing the entire keyboard with a transcendental display of masterly playing. A passionate declaration of intent as this ‘Black Mass’ cauldron of sounds reached boiling point, with a masterly display of dynamism and also of a musician who could steer us through such murky waters with crystalline clarity. Salome managed to find the architectural line and sense of direction of fragments pieced together piece by piece before returning to the bleak opening landscape and whispered ending of troubled uncertainty.

Pictures is so often given performances forgetting that it was written for the piano in mind, where a sense of balance and range of sounds is fundamental in disguising the fact that the piano is a percussion instrument. In the right hands and with a sensitive sense of balance and touch it can be made to sing and talk as expressively as the human voice. It was this that came across in Salome’s beautiful performance, where her musicianship and innate musicality allowed her to find colours and sounds of unusual expressiveness, never resorting to brute force but searching for colour. Nowhere was this more evident than in ‘Baba Yaga’ ,the penultimate picture, that was played with dynamic drive but with quite restrained volume which allowed for more contrasting sounds, and where volume was substituted for intensity and sense of line. She had started her visit to the Victor Hartman Exhibition, that had inspired Mussorgsky to write in only three weeks this work dedicated to his friend who had died prematurely, with a promenade of simplicity imbued with a certain nobility. Leading into the diabolical antics of the ‘Gnome’ that she immediately played with rhythmic bite and great character, alternated with languid yearning and ending with a ‘Gnome’ that became almost too hot to handle as it exploded into a flash of brilliantly played notes. A lazy stroll to the next picture of the ‘Old Castle’ where Salome was able to create a nostalgic atmosphere with a beautiful duet between the hands as it disappeared into the mist. A rumbustious promenade, moving on now to the next picture of children squabbling in the ‘Tuileries’, played with impish spirit and lightweight vitality. The lumbering ‘Bydlo’ appeared on the scene with great resonance, beautifully contrasted with the central episode before it lumbered its way into the distance and it was here that Salome’s control of sound produced some quite masterly effects. An etherial walk to the glowing brilliance of the ‘Chicks’ with playing of rhythmic vitality, the clucking trills thrown off with fearless brilliance and beautifully shaped. ‘Goldberg’ entered with his austere authority played with great clarity as was the simple reply of Schmyle. ‘Goldberg’ now in the bass with a beautifully shaped melodic line before the subdued interruption of the simple Promenade. Salome brought a scintillating brilliance to ‘Limoges Market’ with playing of masterly virtuosity bringing an unusual clarity to the driving climax that was so rudely interrupted by the noble vision of the ‘Catacombs’. These were played without any exaggeration but with simple resonance and beautifully conceived reverence. ‘Baba Yaga’ burst onto the scene without the usual brute force but with a musical intensity that was even more compelling. It was the same with the vision of the ‘Great Gate of Kiev’, where Salome’s sense of balance and palette of sounds combined with her great musicality to astonish and amaze us with the colours and glowing brilliance with which Mussorgsky could describe such a noble edifice.

A remarkable performance not for its brute force but for her masterly playing of control and musicianship that could bring character and style to a well worn showpiece so often brutalised in lesser hands.

Georgian pianist Salome Jordania has rapidly emerged as one of the most compelling pianists of her generation, celebrated for her technical command, poetic imagination, and profound musical insight. In 2025, she was named one of Georgia’s Forbes 30 Under 30 in the Arts and Style category. She has performed as a recitalist, chamber musician, and concerto soloist across Europe, Asia, and the Americas, including Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Austria, Israel, the Netherlands, Japan, Mexico, and the United States. Her festival appearances include Piano aux Jacobins, Les Grands Interpretes, L’Esprit du Piano, Piano en Valois, Festival de Musique de Menton, Palazzetto BruZane, Batumi International Piano Festival, Texas International Piano Festival, Tel-Hai Festival, GijonPiano Festival, Yamaha Rising Stars in Tokyo, and the IKIF Rising Stars Series in New York. 

Salome has won over 30 international prizes, including top honors at the Jose Iturbi Competition, Etoiles du Piano, Georges Cziffra Award (Vienna), Chopin National Competition (Georgia), Norma Fischer Prize (USA), Yamaha Prize (France), Goldene Taste (Frankfurt), and Silver Medal at theIKIF Competition (New York). She was the sole winner of the New York Concert Artists Competition, which led to her acclaimed debut recital at Berlin Philharmonie in 2023. 

She has performed with leading orchestras including the Georgian Philharmonic, Orquesta de Valencia, Moscow Virtuosi, SLO Symphony, Orchestre de Picardie, Orchestra Giuseppe Verdi, Armenian National Philharmonic, and Potsdam Philharmonic. An active chamber musician, Salome is a member of the Amsterdam-based trio The Graces, whichhas performed at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Grachten Festival, and Settimane MusicaliInternazionali in Italy. In 2025, she made her Wigmore Hall duo debut, launching a UK tour. 

Salome studied at Juilliard (B.M.), Yale (M.M., Charles S. Miller & Yale Alumni Prizes), and Guildhall (Artist Diploma, supported by the Steinway & Sons Scholarship). Her highly anticipated debut soloalbum with La Dolce Volta, centered on Liszt’s Sonata, is scheduled for release in 2026. 

Salome Jordania A supreme stylist of passionate intensity and intelligence

Keyboard at Eight ‘Stars shining brightly at Milton Court ‘ Rose Mclachlan ,Jeremy Chan and Salome Jordania