ChristopherAxworthy-MusicCommentary

I have listened to Sherri play over the past two years since she played at Steinway Hall for the Keyboard Trust, and each time I am astonished by her musical integrity and mastery. She has now added an authority and sense of weight that she has acquired from these extra years at the Royal Academy where she has gained in experience and maturity. Her impeccable playing today was that of a true artist who can now fly high and hold her own on the world stage. Not only was there a pianist who prepares her scores with scrupulous attention to the composer’s intentions but with a technical mastery and palette of colours she also has much to say as her musical personality shines through all she plays. Nowhere more than in her choice of programme that she very eloquently introduced as a programme that was based on works inspired by composers of the past.

Busoni’s wife was famously introduced as Mrs Bach-Busoni, so well known were the transcriptions of Bach that were responsible for bringing Bach into the concert hall with works that can these days seem excessive. His most often played transcription is the Bach Chaconne that Sherri included in her programme and unlike Brahms’s very faithful transcription for the left hand, Busoni reworks Bach’s genial work for solo violin turning it into a magnificent piece in it’s own right for solo piano. Sherri opened with one of Busoni’s most beautiful transcriptions of the chorale preludes: ‘ Ich Ruf zu dir ,Herr Jesu Christ’.There was a timeless beauty as her sumptuous sense of balance allowed the chorale melody to sing with angelic beauty but always anchored to a noble bass of sumptuous richness. A maturity and sense of control that allowed the work to unfold with natural flowing beauty with a whispered coda of poignant significance.

A completely different sound world opened up as Bach’s mighty ‘ Chaconne’ was played with strength and grandeur. An extraordinary technical mastery that allowed her to play with great fluidity with a kaleidoscopic palette of sounds. The same rock like solidity that I remember from Michelangeli who inspired me to learn it in my teens when I should have known better! After the haunting beauty of the ‘molto espressivo e legato’ the left hand octaves were played with lightweight brilliance, keeping a rock like tempo where Busoni warns ‘ non affrettare’ as she brought this opening to a brilliant conclusion.There was a poignant simplicity to the ‘sostenuto’ that followed building to a animated episode where Busoni does in some way imitate the solo violin with playing ‘con fuoco ed animato’. Sherri playing with crystalline clarity building in intensity to the triumphant declamation of the theme that she played with sumptuous full sounds of commanding authority. This was contrasted with the beautiful tenor melody that Busoni marks ‘quasi tromboni’ which are obviously trombones made in heaven. A great sense of control with a very deliberate Allegro moderato ma deciso and a gradual building in tension until the final overpowering declamation of this masterly chaconne.

The Ravel waltzes were a homage to Schubert who had written two sets with the same title. Ravel had prefaced his with a quotation from his friend, the poet Henri de Régnier  : “…le plaisir délicieux et toujours nouveau d’une occupation inutile” (‘ the delicious and forever-new pleasure of a useless occupation’.) They are a series of eight waltzes written in 1911 in impressionistic and modernist style. Rubinstein had given one of the first performances in Spain that were famously booed, but that he deliberately played again as an encore ,much to the dismay of his adoring public! Sherri played them with fearless abandon and poetic intensity. The strident opening was played musically with insinuating counterpoints just adding a web of colour to this first waltz. She brought a beautiful luminosity to the second with a masterly use of the pedals creating a luxuriant sound where clashing harmonies were played with poetic intent.The third was of childlike simplicity of lilting beauty and the fourth was just a wave of sounds. She brought a sense of nostalgia to the fifth with insinuating French refinement as the sixth became a lumbering dance of awkward movements. The seventh is the longest and a miniature tone poem with it’s questioning opening before taking flight with Viennese delight, building to a passionate climax that immediately dissolved into a multicoloured whispered outpouring before the final explosive climax. The eighth is a magical ‘Épilogue’ that Sherri played with ravishing sounds of languid beauty.

The Brahms Handel Variations are often given to students to perfect technical mastery combined with musical understanding and it is a masterwork that Sherri revealed in all its glory today. A technical mastery that allowed Sherri to bring colour and shape to each of the twenty five variations with playing of fearless technical command but also of poetic beauty. A crystal clarity to Handel’s theme led to the first variation of dynamic drive and euphoric rhythmic energy. A flowing freedom to the second played with a seemless legato as she brought elegance and graceful playfulness to Brahms’s syncopations in the third. A crisp clarity to the outburst of octaves of the fourth as the change of key brought a beautifully expressive change of character to the fifth and the whispered conversing of overlapping octaves played with a beautiful horizontal legato. Great vitality to the seventh and eighth with its driving forward movement and an imperious authority to the ninth. A brilliant chase over the entire keyboard for the tenth and a beautiful flowing outpouring of the eleventh with some pointed harmonies just adding depth to the sound. The delicate left hand horn call of the twelfth was followed by the grandiloquence of the thirteenth. The treacherous sixths of the fourteenth were played with masterly ease and were followed by the fifteenth to seventeenth of capricious audacity. She brought a beautiful reawakening of improvised beauty to the eighteenth and a lilting rhythm to the elegant question and answer of the dance movement of the nineteenth. A quasi orchestral build up was interrupted by the unexpected eloquence and pastoral beauty of the twenty-first and second . At the twenty third variation Sherri started the impetuous build up to the mighty triumphant outpouring of the theme of the twenty fifth. The fugue with which this work ends was played with masterly authority and aristocratic control which brought this remarkable performance to an ending of great exultation.

Showing no sign of tiredness after such an imposing programme she was happy to play an encore of her own transcription of a song by Ponce : ‘Estrellita’ that she played with great abandon and beauty.

Sherri Lun, named ‘2020 Performing Artist of the Year’ by the South China Morning Post, has garnered acclaim for her “pinpoint clarity and convincing bravura” (Chicago Tribune). Selected as a 2025/26 Kirckman Artist, Sherri is also supported by the Keyboard Charitable Trust, Lang Lang International Music Foundation, and KNS Classical, with whom she released her debut CD album in 2023. Since making her concerto debut at the Ravinia Festival at age 10, she has performed in major venues including Wigmore Hall, Fondation Louis Vuitton, and Millennium Park. Having performed extensively across Europe, Asia, and the US, Sherri’s current 2026 season marks her solo debuts at Bridgewater Hall, Wigmore Hall, Kings Place, Brighton Festival, alongside concerto appearances in the UK and Italy. Sherri has appeared with ensembles such as the Salzburg Chamber Soloists, Munich Chamber Orchestra, Cologne Chamber Orchestra, and been broadcasted on Radio Television Hong Kong. In 2025, she was nominated by Dame Imogen Cooper to join the Lieven Piano Foundation.  

Sherri won First and Audience Prizes at the 2024 Birmingham International Piano Competition, and is also a 2025 Royal Over-Seas League award winner, following top prizes at the Robert Schumann (Düsseldorf), Zhuhai Mozart, and Steinway & Sons Youth Piano Competitions. Most recently, she was awarded the Special Prize from the Mozart Society Munich at the ARD International Music Competition. At the Royal Academy, she won consecutively the Sterndale Bennett (2022), Chung Nung Lee (2023), and Harold Craxton (2024) Prizes. 

Born in 2003, Sherri majored in piano and viola as a junior student at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts. She is currently pursuing her Master’s Degree with Prof. Christopher Elton as a Leverhulme Scholar while holding external scholarships from the Craxton Memorial Trust, Help Musicians UK Rupert Heggs Award, and the Countess of Munster Musical Trust.

Sherri Lun at Steinway Hall for the Keyboard Trust Mastery,passion and intelligence of twenty year old pianist.

Sherri Lun Keyboard Trust Italian Tour 2025 Part 1 and Part 2

The Strand Rising Stars Series – Sherri Lun The magic and artistry of a star shining brightly

A full house for Zeju Fan on one of the hottest days of the year. The debut recital of this 23 year old Chinese pianist who for the past six years has been perfecting his studies with William Fong at the Purcell School and now graduating this summer from the Royal Academy. Having received his early training from the Beijing Academy for young musicians Zeju Fan was able to cope with the quite considerable difficulties of Beethoven’s ‘Waldstein’ Sonata which Delius was to dismiss as all scales and arpeggios !

There was much more to Zeju Fan’s performance as his architectural understanding and palette of colours imbued this work with the driving intensity and the genial invention of a composer who in his midlife had taken the simple form of his mentor Haydn and transformed it into a work of symphonic proportions .

From the very first notes there was a whispered driving energy but above all a tempo ‘con brio’ that could encompass the entire movement without any variation in tempo. Contrasts in dynamics where in the development leaning on the bass harmonies gave much more impact to the impatient outbursts of the composer . The introduction, Adagio molto, to the final rondo was played with timeless wonder where his orchestral sense of colour was used to poignant effect. The final ‘g’ allowed to resonate as it became the first note of a beautiful bell like rondo melody on an undulating whispered bass. Contrasting episodes became ever more intense and technically profuse with Zeju Fan playing with fearless clarity and brilliance. The final coda erupted with music box vitality, Zeju Fan playing the glissandi with masterly ease as he allowed the melodic line to float on a wave of trills that were to become so significant as the composer reached his final years. Not just trills but waves of vibrating sounds that in the next century would signify the ‘star’ for Scriabin.

Even more remarkable was the Sonata op.1 by Berg

I had first heard this sonata as a student in this very hall from the magical hands of Shura Cherkassky. It is a masterwork of knotty twine but also with a very concise construction needing a chameleonic sense of colour. Passionate outbursts are the culmination of these strands that are woven together with seeming random, but are in fact a very tightly constructed masterpiece. Zeju Fan managed to imbue this work with extraordinary sensibility and passionate intensity with an architectural understanding that gave great strength to a work that in lesser hands can seem to be a work in progress.

It was the same understanding and technical mastery that he brought to two of Ligeti’s intricate studies . From the insistent repetition of notes of the tenth with its perpetuum mobile of Reich like insistence that Zeju Fan played with extraordinary mastery and a concentrated intensity of burning conviction . To ‘Musica’ n 7 with the remarkable continuous bass outpouring of whispered insistence with a beautifully glowing melody above, revealing Zeju Fan’s technical control and masterly use of the pedal.

Zeju Fan is a very passionate young man and the Sonata by Liszt is like giving a red rag to a bull . It was here that from the extraordinary whispered opening he seemed to switch off all the remarkable intelligence and masterly control of the two ‘B’s’ and was wallowing in the romantic outpourings and virtuosity of the Liszt Sonata . There were many beautiful things and some fearless passionate outbursts but it was Liszt himself who had scratched out his first ending of the sonata that finished in a blaze of glory. He substituted it with one of the most extraordinarily prophetic pages in all the Romantic repertoire. It is of a completely original form using the opening three themes as the leit motif throughout the Sonata, transforming the conventional Sonata Form into a container for the Romantic outpouring of operatic characters. A form that Schubert had found for his Wanderer Fantasy that had inspired Liszt and was in turn to inspire Liszt’ s son in law Richard Wagner.

However even if it was not the same maturity as his Beethoven or Berg it was the passionate outpouring of a young artist who loves music and is transmitting that love to the public with quite considerable mastery.

Zeju Fan is a London-based pianist whose recital programmes are conceived as carefully structured artistic arguments.

Trained at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing and the Purcell School, he studied with William Fong on full scholarship at the Royal Academy of Music, where he continues as a postgraduate artist from September 2026. Under Fong’s direction, he has developed a discipline of clarity and control, pursuing the expressive potential of each phrase through detailed, structural work rather than surface effect.

His programming reflects a sustained engagement with musical form and its transformation. He is drawn to programmes that trace a continuous arc: from the structural certainty of late Classicism, through the dissolution of post-Romantic language and the fragmentation of Modernism, to the large-scale expressive architecture of Liszt. Each work in such a sequence reshapes the listener’s perception of what precedes it.

Alongside his solo work, Fan is an active chamber musician, with a particular commitment to the cello–piano duo and piano quintet repertoire. He is a member of Talent Unlimited, a London-based organisation supporting emerging professional musicians.

www.zejufan.com

A fascinating programme from Jamie Cochrane for the Keyboard Trust at Steinway & Sons yesterday. A young man with already a first from Oxford and his Dip Ram for postgraduate studies at the Royal Academy where he was mentored by William Fong and Michael Dussek .

An eclectic programme from a thinking musician with just two works : Schubert’s penultimate Sonata paired with Godowsky’s rarely heard Passacaglia in B minor that is based on the opening theme of Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony .

The Schubert Sonata showed Jamie’s architectural understanding combined to a crystalline clarity and poetic beauty. Playing of authority and masterly control as he allowed Schubert’s mellifluous outpourings to live in harmony with the imperious outbursts of the opening ‘Allegro’. A glistening beauty to the ‘Andantino’ of refined playing where even Leslie Howard was to compliment him on the intelligent use of the pedals that could combine clarity with harmonic understanding. A ‘Scherzo’ that was played with scintillating ‘ joie de vivre ‘ which contrasted with the simple pastoral beauty of the Rondo . A coda ,Presto, showed off Jamie’s fearless technical command as he brought this masterwork to a heroic ending. It was to be one of the last works of the composers 31 years with a trilogy of Sonatas that like Beethoven was to be his ‘Schwanengesang.’

Some remarkably mature playing of intellectual and poetic understanding that was to be followed by the opening theme of the Unfinished Symphony alla Godowsky.

A performance of this rarity in the concert hall, that Jamie played with passionate conviction and remarkable technical mastery. As Jamie was to say in the conversation with Leslie Howard at the conclusion of his recital, he has a musical curiosity that wants to discovery many unusual works left inexplicably on the shelf of the piano archives .

After his exhilarating and scintillating performance of Godowsky, Jamie was left alone with Schumann, as the poet was allowed to speak with poignant beauty.

https://youtu.be/UroWVTDb8Oo?si=X3W-auYCUilBsjII

Leopold Mordkhelovich Godowsky Sr. 13 February 1870 – 21 November 1938 was a virtuoso pianist, composer and teacher, born in what is now Lithuania to Jewish  parents, who became an American citizen in 1891. He was one of the most highly regarded performers of his time, known for his theories concerning the application of relaxed weight and economy of motion within pianistic technique – principles later propagated by his pupils, such as Heinrich Neuhaus. He was heralded among musical giants as the “Buddha of the Piano”. Ferruccio Busoni claimed that he and Godowsky were ‘ the only composers to have added anything of significance to keyboard writing since Franz Liszt.’ Godowsky was one of the most highly regarded pianists of his time, praised by listeners, colleagues, and critics alike. Artur Rubinstein remarked that it would take him ‘five hundred years to get a mechanism like Godowsky’s.’ Many of Godowsky’s original works are considerably difficult to perform; the Passacaglia which consists of 44 variations, cadenza and fugue on the opening theme of Franz Schubert’s ‘Unfinished’ Symphony was declared to be unplayable by Vladimir Horowitz, who claimed it would require six hands to perform.

Elisabeth Leonskaya one of the elite trio of Russian women pianists that includes Eliso Virsaladze and Oxana Yablonskaya all now in their Indian summer .They all have something in common that they do not play the piano but the piano plays them .

After a lifetime dedicated to music with humility and mastery music pours from their being as they place their long drawn out arms above the keys allowing the music to be transmitted to us with a simplicity and directness that I can only remember hearing from Kempff and Agosti .

Tonight we were at the Barbican to listen to the last sonatas of Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert that Leonskaya transmitted to us with the experience of a lifetime of delving into the very core of their creation . A simplicity and directness that united the audience in this vast Symphony Hall and drew us into a magic world where time stood still as we lived together an extraordinary moment of creativity of which we too were an integral part.

Ending with the slow movement of Mozart’s Sonata ‘Facile’ K 545. As Schnabel famously said ‘ too easy for children but too difficult for adults’.

With Madame Leonskaya it was simply sublime!

A disarming simplicity to her public appearance as she is a servant at the service of the composer. Walking on stage and seated at the piano immediately she opened the D major Mozart with a whispered understated opening of disarming simplicity. She was giving us an architectural view of this movement so often played like a call to arms. She was leading to the remarkable development where Mozart completely transforms this opening into a multitude of varying patterns, from a knotty twine of counterpoints to sounds that seemed like horn calls from one mountain top to another. An extraordinary range of layers of colour and a poetic vision that was simple and radiantly beautiful. Bursting into the recapitulation like rejoining an old friend , with the same whispered ease with which she had opened, adding a meandering coda where Mozart’s final words were this cell like figure that had been the pivot on which all revolved and evolved. Leonskaya showed us the simplicity of Genius without any underling or overstating . It is exactly what I remembered as a student listening to Kempff, the supremely humble Kappelmeister.

A chiselled ‘Adagio’ of luminosity and weight with a disarming simplicity as washes of sound are dispensed with, until a melody of subtle beauty appears and lingers with nostalgia and simple flowing radiance.A gentle jeu perlé of jewel like perfection was thrown into the wind with knowing mastery as this movement came to the gentlest of endings.

A simplicity to the ‘Allegretto’ with its subtle question and answer played always of buoyancy and flowing naturalness. A crystalline clarity and sense of orchestral harmonic outpourings but always returning to the disarming simplicity of the rondo theme.

The opening of Beethoven’s last Sonata was played with imperious strokes not of showmanship but of the exasperation that this sonata must have meant to the composer. Three great declarations played with the minimal of fuss and only ‘forte’ as fortissimo is still to come after this momentous introduction. The final flourishes to these three outburst thrown off with natural ease as she got on quite simply to the next one. It was the clashing dissonances that she was pointing us to, as she gradually found release in the major key with a quite undemonstrative arrival note. It was the following opening motif where she really threw herself fully into the fray, just as she was to do with the tumultuous earth shattering ending of the recapitulation of the Schubert Sonata . The music was allowed to unfold like water boiling at 100 degrees ( as Perlemuter aptly said) but in Leonskaja’s hands it was what was immersed in the water that was of such importance, the rest was mere detail. Her arrival at the development with three simple strokes but it was the prolonged rests in-between that were so overwhelming as we waited with baited breath for Beethoven’s knotty fugato and the final triumphant outpouring of the theme in all its imperious glory. The ending thrown off with nonchalant ease as this was just an introduction to the profound outpouring that was to follow.

‘Adagio molto semplice e cantabile’ flowed with glowing beauty of radiance and timeless simplicity. As though suspended in space each variation was shaped with a flowing beauty and extraordinary inner intensity. The tempo never changing as we were on a planet where the rarified air even after a momentary explosion was of otherworldliness. A beautiful simplicity to the intricate weavings and meanderings as the undercurrent of sounds were ever present . with the bass vibrations . The melodic line eventually allowed to shine with radiance and subtle calm until the final trill where Leonskaja managed to bring a jewel like precision and beauty to this final apparition etched in stone surrounded by etherial unworldly sounds . That Beethoven had these sounds in his head and could write them down for posterity was miraculous as he reached for his star with a whispered farewell.

I was reminded today of Agosti playing this Sonata in Rome on one of the rare occasions that we managed to persuade him to leave the privacy of his studio in Siena and share his discoveries with a larger world. No rhetoric or showmanship but allowing the music to unfold with disarming simplicity delving ever more deeply into the genial mind of a composer who could convey so much with so little.

The opening of Schubert’s B flat sonata like the opening of Beethoven 4 is where the whole scene is set in an opening of disarming simplicity .To come on stage and open with such a statement with ease and naturalness as though it had begun already before you sat down is the ideal that all pianists strive for…….and rarely succeed! With Leonskaja, like everything she did, it was with a naturalness and ease as she opened her arms to caress the keys. A whispered radiance to this opening song of destiny with the deep rumble in the bass leaving a slight unease. The final rumble with four very clearly pronounced notes in the bass took us to a mellifluous outpouring of simple beauty and the generous return of the opening theme. Leading to an impulsive outcry where Leonskaja very subtly slowed the tempo for the etherial duet between the voices that followed. A simple ländler appears on the scene with a ‘joie de vivre’ of infectious jeu perlé leading to a flourish thrown off with apparent gentle dismissal ( as in the opening Beethoven) before the ominous menace of the crucial bars of the repeat before the ritornello. Ever more menacing as Leonskaja like a mad woman threw herself into the keys with demanding authority of overwhelming effect. The gentle return of the opening was like a relief from this sudden vision of madness.

The ‘Andante sostenuto’ was a lesson for all would be pianists as the relaxed waving of arms just painted a beautiful background to the disarming simplicity of the melodic line that was captured within. The gentle chorale in A major was played with whispered understatement where Leonskaja allowed the beauty of the music to speak without any underlining. The return of the opening was even more poignant as Leonskaja added even more subtle detail to the landscape that she was painting in sound.

The ‘Scherzo’ played pianissimo with a radiance and simplicity as it was allowed to sing its song without any fuss, just unwinding with natural exuberance. Schubert’s bumps in the night ‘fzp’ in the Trio were played not with sharpness but with a fullness of sonority that did not disturb the melodic line but like the trill at the opening made one realise that all was not well with the world.

An imperious ‘G’ played with luminosity announced the simple outpouring of the ‘Allegro’ that Leonskaya played with generous ease. Bursting into a long mellifluous outpouring that she allowed to flow across the keys with radiance and a wonderful sense of balance where the melodic line emerged from the inner harmonies that were unfolding. ‘Fortissimo’ in Schubert is all too rare and when it occurs Leonskaja knows he means business and threw her whole body into these passionate outpourings that suddenly erupt, but are short lived as they dissolve as fast as they arrive, ending in the simplicity of a lilting dance spread over the entire keyboard with disarming ease. Suddenly a question mark as the theme is interrupted and our pivotal G turns to G flat and then F before resolving on G and a coda off lightweight brilliance played with extraordinary clarity in duplets up to the final two simple chords.

The slow movement from Mozart’s Sonata Facile just made us wonder why we do not hear such disarming simplicity and mastery on this stage more often. It can remind us that all the world is a stage and the men and women merely players, a lesson so desperately needed these days where quantity takes precendence over quality!

Elisabeth Leonskaja at the Wigmore hall A great lesson of humility generosity and mastery

Oxana Yablonskaya the return of La Regina, a sparkling jewel in the crown of Trapani

Elisso Virsaladze in Latina “Homage to Riccardo Cerocchi “

I have heard Mariamna play many times over the past year as she prepared for her Master’s Degree at the Royal College of Music under its Head of Keyboard director, Vanessa Latarche. I have heard her play many works including those that she played today which you can read more fully about in the links below. But amazingly in record temperatures she rose to new heights with a recital of pianistic and stylistic perfection.

I remember her playing the Bach in a masterclass at the RCM and she asked me my opinion of her playing as she had been confused by conflicting influences. I told her that there was no right or wrong way to play Bach but it must convince and convey the message within the notes. Should one play authentcally on an instrument that Bach would not have known in his time or should one take advantage of all the possibilities of colour and power that a modern instrument could provide? There is a way to decide and that is with a knowledge of style which allows natural musicianship and individuality, space to bring the notes to life.

Bach’s music is based on the song and the dance which is the way of Angela Hewitt ,Tatyana Nikolaeva or Andras Schiff . But there is also the school of Rosalyn Tureck , known as the High Priestess of Bach because of the monumental rock like solidity of her playing. But at the base of all interpretations is faithfulness to the composers markings and above all a sense of communication of total conviction. Anyone who saw Rosalyn Tureck bouncing on the seat in the Gigue from the First Partita as I did on the stage of the RCM when she gave a memorable lecture on the interpretation of Bach would question the so called ‘etiquette’ that is added to performers of note.

And so it was today that Mariamna played Bach’s beautiful First Partita with a radiance and beauty as she allowed the Prelude to unfold with pastoral ease. A beautiful fluidity to the ‘Allemande’ which she also brought to the ‘Courante’ where her lightweight non legato was shared with legato counterpoints of jewel like brilliance. The ‘Sarabande’ was played with timeless wonder and poignant beauty leading to the Minuet 1 of graceful delicacy with teasing ornaments added with great taste. The Minuet 2 was played with subdued colour but with ornaments of crystalline clarity with a joyous sweep into the return of the first Minuet. She brought a refined brilliance to the Gigue which she played with exhilaration and refined exuberance. This is one of Bach’s most perfect works and was played with elegance, intelligence and beauty.

A rarity in the concert hall these days are the 32 Variations in C minor where one is more likely to hear the 33 Diabelli Variations, one of Beethoven’s last works for the piano. Beethoven was not happy with the C minor variations and it was not published in his lifetime, but there are some remarkable performances by Emil Gilels, Annie Fischer and Murray Perahia that can testify to the validity of this underrated work. It is made up of 32 mostly technically based variations that if played as exercises can become rather obvious and boring. But if played with poetic fantasy and a sense of architectural shape it can become a miniature tone poem of remarkable beauty. From the very first imperious opening Mariamna played with authority but also a very sensitive sense of balance bringing a beauty and shape to this dramatic C minor theme . The variations unfolded with great contrasts between the lyrical and rhythmic, a remarkable sensitivity and masterly use of the pedals allowed the work to reach the swirling mysterious brilliance of the final variation.

The two Scherzi I have heard Mariamna play recently but today I heard the culmination of a work in progress . She brought an aristocratic brilliance to these two works but at the same time a poetic timeless beauty that allowed Chopin’s Bel Canto to soar and breathe with poetic mastery . A lightweight ‘jeu perlé’ to the Fourth with flights of fantasy of glowing brilliance with refined playing allied to moments of breathtaking lyricism. She brought a languid beauty to the central episode of both Scherzi where her sense of rubato and architectural shaping brought a noble strength to some of Chopin’s most beautiful melodies. A breathtaking brilliance to end both of the Scherzi but always with masterly control and a magisterial sense of balance which meant the sound never became hard or percussive but full of sumptuous rich Philadelphian sounds.

Opening Liszt’s 12th Rhapsody with two hands as she gave an imperious opening to one of Liszt’s most popular works. Dissolving into a tenor melody of stylistic beauty as she began to produce a subtle virtuosity of beguiling mastery with a palette of colour and sounds that were of another age. A final outpouring of grandeur and masterly authority brought this recital to an exhilarating end.

On the hottest day of the year and in a beautiful floor length gown one might have been forgiven if she did not feel able to offer more. But Mariamna is a real professional and was delighted to be able to share her discoveries just a little longer with a church full of people who preferred to sit indoors listening to music rather than outdoors listening to the traffic! The slow movement from Schumann’s G minor Sonata op 22 was played with whispered radiance and beauty and was a wonderful way to end an hour of magical music making from an artist to watch out for.

Born in 2001 into a musical family, Mariamna Sherling has emerged as one of the most compelling young pianists of her generation. Her musical formation began in Moscow, where she studied at the Gnessin School of Music, before continuing her education at the Moscow Conservatory, graduating under the guidance of the renowned pianist and pedagogue Natalia Trull. She is currently based in London, where she is completing a Master of Performance at the Royal College of Music, studying with Vanessa Latarche, one of the UK’s most respected piano professors. 

Sherling’s international career took shape at an early age. In 2014, she attracted attention with her victory at the Young Virtuosos Competition in Sofia, marking the beginning of a series of major international successes. These included first prizes at the George Gershwin International Piano Competition in New York in 2015, followed by further top awards at the Carl Maria von Weber International Piano Competition in Dresden and the Lyon International Piano Competition in 2021. Her artistic profile has continued to deepen through prizes and distinctions at the Hastings International Piano Concerto Competition, the Santa Cecilia International Piano Competition in Porto, and the Piano Competition for Composers of Jewish Heritage in Hannover. Most recently, she has been recognised at the Bach Competition in Leipzig and the Campillos International Piano Competition in 2025. 

Alongside her competition successes, Sherling maintains an active and expanding performance career. She has appeared as a soloist with a wide range of orchestras and has collaborated with distinguished conductors including Vladimir Spivakov, Yuri Bashmet, Rory Macdonald, Natalia Stets, Sergei Stadler, Osvaldo Ferreira and Nayden Todorov. Her orchestral engagements have included performances with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Elbland Philharmonie Sachsen, the Orquestra Filarmónica Portuguesa and the Orchestra Sinfonica Città di Grosseto. 

Her artistic development is supported by a number of prestigious awards and scholarships, including the Christopher Hogwood Scholarship, the Steinway Scholarship, support from the Drake Calleja Trust and the Robert Turnbull Piano Foundation. Together, these honours affirm her position as an emerging artist of distinction on the international concert stage. 

Mariamna Sherling at Bechstein Hall Kissed by the Gods with beauty and poetic artistry

Mariamna Sherling Graduation Recital ‘ A scintillating voyage of discovery ‘

Mariamna Sherling at Steinway & Sons for the Keyboard Trust playing of fearless brilliance and burning authority

More masterly playing from Angela Hewitt on the eve her Trasimeno Music Festival amazingly in it’s twenty first year. Angela who was awarded the Wigmore Hall Medal in 2020 considers the Wigmore as her second home playing many time each year to her adoring public, having made her debut at the Hall over 40 years ago and has given well over 80 performances since. She turns her refined artistry to the joy and wonder of works from the heart of her repertoire, crowned with the awe-inspiring expressive shifts of Bach’s Second Partita.

Beginning with Mozart Sonata in B flat K 570 that she played with crystalline clarity and refined phrasing of radiant simplicity and ‘joie de vivre’. Playing of great weight with leisurely discreet ornamentation on the repeat. An authoritative full stop as the operatic second subject took centre stage with radiant beauty. There was a playful question and answer of the opening theme before the whispered measure elegance of the recapitulation. The Adagio was played with a string quartet richness of sound of poignant beauty with the mellifluous central episode played with disarming simplicity and radiance. If the Allegretto seemed a little slow it was because it was with such infectious buoyancy where everything was played with measured elegance and extraordinary clarity. A scrupulous attention to Mozart’s few markings led to a very bold ending of great effect.

A rich palette of sounds with a sense of timeless wonder as the ‘Pastoral Sonata’ was allowed to unwind with simplicity and luxuriant beauty. Building to a climax of Beethovenian outbursts that Angela played with dynamic drive and imperious authority dissolving always into this scenario of peace and pastoral simplicity. An ‘Andante’ that was a lyrical outpouring with its question and answer central episode played so eloquently, maintaining the same tempo as the Andante opening, which gave great strength to the architectural shape of a movement that Beethoven was particularly fond of. A beautiful meandering variant of the opening was allowed to flow across the keys with undulating insinuation where Angela’s scrupulous attention to Beethoven’s indications dissolved into a coda of remarkable originality and exquisite beauty. A whispered opening to the ‘Scherzo’ contrasted with Beethoven’s sudden unexpected outbursts and gave great energy to this extraordinarily capricious movement . Angela brought a grace and lilting beauty to the Rondo. Played with extraordinary clarity building in intensity with knotty counterpoints before returning to the gently ornamented rondo theme. The coda was played with extraordinary energy and a remarkable ‘fingerfertigkeit’ of brilliance and exhilaration.

Angela even chose another early Beethoven Sonata as an encore, playing the slow movement of the ‘Pathétique’ op 13 with the same song and dance elements that illuminated her masterly playing with remarkable freshness and originality. It is the same song and dance elements that Angela is renowned for with her Bach performances which are played with a touching simplicity and natural rhythmic impulse. This Agagio cantabile was not only remarkable for the beauty and simplicity of her phrasing but also the contrast she brought to the central episode that was of orchestral conception as the cellos conversed with the violins before the return of the Adagio with the undulating violas carrying us forward on wings of song.

As Angela had said in her brief Green Room interview she had listened to her recording of the Schubert Waltzes just to make sure that they were in fact danceable, as Angela as a child had also been trained as a dancer. And in fact they were twelve miniatures of contrasting images of insinuation, nobility, nostalgia and exuberance played with a palette of colours that brought each one exquisitely to life.

In Haydn’s own words he had written the Fantasia or Capriccio in C :’ In a moment of great good humour I have completed a new Capriccio  for fortepiano, whose taste, singularity and special construction cannot fail to receive approval from connoisseurs and amateurs alike. In a single movement, rather long, but not particularly difficult.” It is based on the Austrian folk song D’ Bäurin hat d’Katz verlor’n (“The farmer’s wife has lost her cat”) and Angela imbued it with spontaneity and hi jinx of refined exuberance where her self identification brought it vividly to life with an infectious ‘joie de vivre’.

Ending with Bach’s Partita n. 2 in C minor BWV 826 as she said it finishes with such a sense of exhilaration that rather than opening the recital she had decided to close her recital with a work that she has played many times in this very hall . The six movements Sinfonia Grave adagio – Andante, Allemande ,Courante, Sarabande ,Rondeaux and Capriccio were all imbued with the song and the dance . These were not monuments to be admired from a distance but works of compelling rhythmic energy with moments of poignant beauty all played with a clarity and mastery that Angela is renowned for. She had in fact taken her Bach Oddyssey, born at the Wigmore Hall, on a highly acclaimed world tour that has consolidated her position as one of the finest Bach players of her time.

Angela Hewitt An inspired display of hope from despair moves and exults at the Wigmore Hall

Angela Hewitt in Haslemere ‘A radiant light shining brightly’

Angela Hewitt – The 100th Anniversary season of the Accademia Chigiana in Siena.Bach shining brightly with intelligence,ravishing beauty ……and wit.

Angela Hewitt casts her spell over Rome

Angela Hewitt for the glory of Bach.The pinnacle of pianistic perfection

Angela Hewitt at the RCM a light of radiance and simplicity

‘Magic moments ‘ on the Spada farm where beauty music and friendship are linked on wings of song. Thanks to Massimo Spada and his ever growing family who together with Mario Montore and the young artists from their Avos Project kept us spellbound on this balmy night on the eve of the Giornata della Musica.

Guided with charm , extraordinary sensitivity and intelligence by Gaia Vazzoler as she lead us through a world of Music and Nature.

Man may change but nature remains a constant presence and consolation as we were guided from prophetic words to the magic world of music.

All this with tasting of the typical local produce between these two worlds

Worlds that were illuminated by the ‘Pines of Rome ‘ in the transcription by Respighi himself and played by Francesco Bravi and Adriano Leonardo Scapicchi in a consolidated duo playing as one. https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2025/06/17/bravi-scapicchi-duo-at-st-marys-seminating-the-infernal-heat-of-the-eternal-city/

Schubert Lieder superbly sung by Sylvia Schwartz with her refined duo partner Mario Montore .

Of course such a feast needs celebrating and it was Saint -Saëns with his Zoological Fantasy that provided the fun and games for nine expert soloists guided from the piano by Massimo Spada.

Donkeys braying, pianists annoying , a ravishing swan swanning it in this balmy atmosphere, elephants awkwardly dancing the can can and even a cuckoo appearing unexpectedly from the window as she looked on with a smile on her face .

But it was the final parade where there was a free for all of exhilaration and masterly playing that by overwhelming demand had to be repeated .

Even Beatrice Rana had put Margherita to bed and came to join in the fun led by her Massimo !

Twilight had turned to night and it was time to leave this paradise uplifted as we ventured back to the Eternal City just 50 miles down the road.

‘Onde Sonore’ by Giancarlino Benedetti Corcos inspired by tonight’s works

Can it really be five years since I last ventured into these parts ?

Rana and Spada – The crossing of swords with sublime music making in Viterbo

Bravi- Scapicchi – Some Enchanted Evening- A duo playing as one with artistry and mastery.

Tamila I remember playing Prokofiev second concerto with the local orchestra in Ealing when she was studying in the UK. Playing of technical mastery that could only have been acquired from her very early training at the Moscow Conservatory. Now with many qualifications to her name from illustrious institutions including the Royal College in London and Bern University she has completed her studies with a Doctorate from the Northwestern University in America. She is based now in Chicago and St Mary’s Perivale were happy to create a special date for her on this flying visit.

Today she was playing just two masterworks by Schubert and Schumann with Ravel’s ravishing Jeux d’eau offered as an encore. Playing of simplicity and beauty where Tamila allowed the music to unfold with the natural radiance and beauty of a true musician.

The first of Schubert’s early Impromptus opened with an imperious chord that immediately dissolved into a melody of simple purity and innocence. A question and answer as demanding chords replied to the beseeching innocence of this simple voice. Bursting into one of Schubert’s mellifluous melodic outpourings of a simple melody accompanied by a flowing left hand figure, with a glistening duet between two voices of Viennese charm. Building to a tumultuous climax that Tamila played with controlled passion and searing intensity. A short lived storm as the lone voice of the opening returned with the simple chime of a bell, as this miniature tone poem dissolved into the distance. The second Impromptu opened with streams of undulating notes that Tamila played with a jeu perlé of brilliance and beauty. Washes of sound that gradually built to a savage dance of swirling brilliance before returning to the opening of serenity and undulating beauty. The dance erupting once more at the end with even more intensity and fury bringing this seemingly innocent stream of sounds to a dramatic ending of great exhilaration. The G flat Impromptu is a melody of great beauty that Schubert floats on a florid accompaniment and that Tamila played with simple radiance and beauty. Shaping the melodic line with great intensity and at times disarming simplicity allowing the music to float on wings of song with aristocratic persuasion . The final Impromptu was where the melodic line was played surrounded by embellishments of glistening beauty. A central episode played with great intensity on a pulsating bed of passionately vibrating chords before returning to the opening of disarming simplicity with the embellishments becoming ever more present.

The second work was the series of 18 dances that Schumann penned in a moment of masterly inspiration . They are amongst the most beautiful things that he was to write in this period of a continual outpouring of pianistic masterpieces from op 1 to op 26. Tamila played them with the same simplicity and poetic beauty that she had brought to Schubert. There was a clarity to the opening where her mastery of the pedal allowed for a range of sounds from a lightweight jeu perlé to the glistening flowering of the melodic line. A sense of improvisation of flowing beauty and simplicity that was capricious and seductive – a potent combination indeed! A glowing beauty to the melodic line as Eusebius was left to dream with timeless wonder. Florestan at this point bouncing onto the scene with impish good humour looking back to certain ‘butterflies’ of yore as they were allowed to invade this capricious parade. A passionate outpouring followed, played with dynamic drive before Eusebius entered with an ever more beguiling curiosity that Tamila played with teasing ambiguity. Tamila showed all her technical mastery with a brilliantly light left hand of driving rhythmic persuasion as syncopations almost managed to slow down this continual chattering of knotty twine adding a coda of brilliant etherial energy. Eusebius entered again with playing of glowing mellifluous beauty where Tamila allowed the music to unfold with timeless beauty. A cat and mouse game that Tamila played with lightweight brilliance and great rhythmic intensity. A swirling energy of Circus fun unwound with impertinent insistence before its capricious curtailing. An almost Brahmsian outpouring to the ‘Ballade’ of the tenth dance was played with sumptuous rich sounds and an extraordinary sense of architectural shape. Eusebius again with Tamila’s wise words of disarming simplicity where capricious leaps were played with mastery and infectious charm. A romantic outpouring of chordal declamations was played with passionate intensity with a beautiful central chorale that Tamila filled with glorious rich sounds. The fourteenth dance is one of Schumann’s most beautiful creations and Tamila played it with a crystalline purity of seamless ravishment. Interrupted by deliberately placed chords bursting into a glorious passionate wave of sounds on which was floated a melodic line of growing intensity. A hesitant capricious outpouring of lightweight chords that Tamila played with clumsy and lightweight brilliance as they were allowed to sink into the epilogue of magical etherial sounds. Schumann looking back with nostalgia remembering the moments we had shared together of past beauty. Soon shaken out of this indolence by a passionate outpouring of ever more intensity that was short lived as it dissolved into a whisper leaving the final delicate waltz played with extraordinary subtlety by Tamila as the bass struck midnight and it was time to pull a curtain over such heartrending beauty.

A remarkable performance by Tamila where musical intelligence and technical mastery were combined with poetic fantasy with an extraordinary kaleidoscope of sounds.

Ravel’s Jeux d’eau was a wonderful way to finish this hour of magic that Tamila had brought to Perivale from Chicago . Streams of beautiful sounds were allowed to flow from Tamila’s masterly fingers with glowing luminosity and ravishing poetic beauty.

Award-winning pianist Tamila Salimdjanova has been described as “a veritable tour de force” by Serenade Magazine. She gained international recognition after winning both First Prize and the Audience Award at the BNDES International Piano Competition in Rio de Janeiro. Her additional honors include top prizes at the Birmingham International Piano Competition, Massarosa International Piano Competition, Lagny-sur-Marne International Piano Competition, Animato International Piano Competition, Campillos International Piano Competition, and Virtualoso Piano Cleveland. She was also a semifinalist at the Arthur Rubinstein, Leeds, and Montreal International Piano Competitions. 

Her solo engagements have taken her to major international festivals and venues including the Radio France Festival in Montpellier, Pianos-Folies du Touquet, and Festival de Inverno Campos do Jordão, with performances at Salle Cortot, St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Sala São Paulo, Bern Casino, Basel Casino, San Francisco Symphony Davies Hall, and Theatro Municipal do Rio de Janeiro, among others. 

Ms. Salimdjanova made her orchestral debut at age nine with the National Symphony Orchestra of Uzbekistan, performing Mozart’s Piano Concerto K.450. Since then, she has appeared with orchestras including the Brazilian Symphony Orchestra, Orquestra Sinfônica da Bahia, Morocco Philharmonic Orchestra, Thames Chamber Orchestra, and Biel Solothurn Symphony Orchestra. 

A passionate chamber musician, she frequently collaborates with distinguished artists and regularly performs with her violinist brother, Askar Salimdjanov. She is currently Artist in Residence of the Nova Linea Musica concert series in Chicago. 

Born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, into a distinguished musical family, Ms. Salimdjanova began her studies at the Uspensky Lyceum and continued her education at the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory, Royal College of Music, Bern University of the Arts, and Northwestern University, where she earned her Doctor of Musical Arts degree.

Robert McDuffie brings his Rome Chamber Music Festival back to the Eternal City in the beautiful month of June, that he has been doing since he first fell in love with the city in 2003. Now firmly established since 2022 in the historic Teatro Argentina McDuffie brings an eclectic choice of repertoire where established artists and exceptional emerging performers join forces to fill this noble edifice with music once more .

The historic Teatro Argentina that has stood in the centre of Rome since 1732 and hosted the premiere of the Barber of Seville in 1816 and the concerts of the Accademia di Santa Cecilia for a period after Mussolini had demolished the Augusteo to bring to light the Mausoleum on which it had arisen.

An eclectic choice of music that saw the first night presenting two works by Vivaldi and Handel that had received their premieres in Rome.

Vivaldi’s Sinfonia in C was first performed in 1724 at the nearby Teatro Capranica and the cantata by Handel Aminta e Fillide was written for the Marquis Ruspoli ‘s Arcadian Academy in 1707. There were no opportunities of writing opera in that period and so the cantata form flourished with Handel writing a secular cantata each week for Ruspoli’s outdoor meetings held during his soggiorn in the Eternal City from 1707 to 1710.

Another work written in 1936 by Samuel Barber whilst on a scholarship at the American Academy in Rome was his only string quartet. Its first performance in December that year was at the American Academy of Villa Medici . The slow movement was subsequently orchestrated for string orchestra and as the Adagio for strings was launched to fame by Toscanini in 1938 with his NBC Symphony Orchestra.

All this had been prepared by McDuffie but first he had taken up his violin and opened the festival with Saint-Saëns Fantaisie for Violin and Harp . As an old man Saint -Saëns wrote it whilst touring the Mediterranean for the Eissler sisters, receiving its premiere though in London’s Aeolian Hall on July 3rd 1907 .

Mc Duffie and Virginia Vignera playing without the score as the music wove in and out in an extraordinary cat and mouse performance showing us what chamber music playing is really about .

Superb chamber music playing followed with the Barber Quartet played by four players that played as one, such was their mutual anticipation and mastery . After the interval a large group gathered around David Belkovski’s harpsichord as he drove this magnificent ensemble to heights of refined and at times passionate music making .

Maddalena De Biasi and Lilliana Zolotoukhina were the two sopranos in the Handel Cantata who added great theatricality to their extraordinary wide ranging tessitura.

Welcome back to Rome ……Robert McDuffie we have missed you.

And a second evening full of surprises and more extraordinary masterly performances.

Villa Lobos ‘Bachianas brasileiras’ with the radiant beauty of Silvia Porcellini’s insinuatingly suggestive voice of velvet richness accompanied by eight ‘cellos Followed by a string octet playing Bruch’s last work completed just a few months before his death in 1920.The original manuscript passed from Bruch’s heirs to Rudolf Eichmann in 1938 and only reappeared in 1986 in America and was eventually donated in 1996 to the Austrian National Library making this masterwork available to the public for the first time. Masterly playing of passionate conviction and radiant beauty gave birth to a work that has been lost for too long.

Roma Chamber Music Festival 2024 The Eternal city resounds to the sound of music

The final work was Brahms Piano Quartet in A op 26. A long complicated work that these fine players together with Marta Puig at the piano held the audience spellbound and brought the second evening of sumptuous music making to a radiant close.

ROME CHAMBER MUSIC FESTIVAL- Superb music making returns to Teatro Argentina

Derek Wang A master story teller of passion and beauty

Graduation recital day for four quite considerable artists who receive their final accolade from the historic Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome

As their remarkable mentor Benedetto Lupo says ‘ each one must now find his own way ‘ .

And what better training than from an artist of a rare humanity and sensibility and how lucky they are to have uncovered with him the first steps of a very difficult career in the music profession .

Four superb recitals justly all awarded very high marks and one even given full marks and honorary mention.

Jaeden Izik-Dzurko already Gold medal winner of Leeds and Montreal decided he wanted to delve deeper in the score and become not just top of the class but an artist that like vintage wine would mature with age. Today I have never seen Jaeden give so much of himself, as did Federico Pische.

I had heard Federico three years ago and today I heard a true artist who listens to himself and has found his own very original way of swimming horizontally in sound .

The sounds he produced in Rameau even had Mauro Buccitti purring as this new Steinway D had proven that the choice of Benedetto Lupo and Andrea Lucchesini really deserved the accolade of the ‘L.L Steinway’ ( the initials of these two remarkable artists )

Pier Carmine Garzillo gave an extraordinarily intelligent performance of the Liszt B minor Sonata . Playing of fearless authority but above all of a musician following scrupulously Liszt’s very precise instructions. One or two additions of an odd bass octave or a double handed trill at the recapitulation turned out not to be arbitrary showmanship but as he told me afterwards were the express wishes of the composer as handed down to a pupil.Thanks to Maestro Garzillo from the class of Francesco Nicolosi, for this very interesting documentation.

Leslie Howard replied to my curiosity like this : ‘Horowitz had similar bad taste. These things were not done with any kind of imprimatur from the composer I think we can be quite sure that Bülow didn’t mess with the score, and even Sauer only made a few suggestions that may be safely discarded!’

I had studied the Sonata with Sidney Harrison ( winning the coveted Liszt Scholarship at the Royal Academy as a teenager ) but had also studied it later with Agosti ( Busoni) and Perlemuter ( Cortot) but had not been aware of this edition until today. What a hive of knowledge is shared amongst these very talented young musicians delving ever deeper into the mystery of Genius.

In fact today we not only heard masterly technicians but much more importantly master musicians of integrity and humility in front of the scores handed down to us by genial composers. We live in an age of quantity rather than quality. Of showmanship rather than interpretation. Here at the Accademia there is an air of discovery of delving deeply into the score to discover the real meaning behind the notes as bequeathed to us. Andras Schiff simply exclaims that a lifetime is not enough to discover the real meaning in the repertoire he chooses to dedicate himself to.

Benedetto Lupo points these young artists on the path of a voyage of discovery that will last a lifetime. The principles of humility and integrity of a great interpreter :’ Je sens , je joue, je trasmet ‘ was the title of an interview in Le Monde de la Musique and together with Rubinstein’s famous plea it underlines the principles of a true artist. https://youtu.be/gex0sOR7XZ0.

The world of an artist is unique where music can speak louder than words even if Senancour came close with ‘Obermann’, as Liszt appreciated. But it needs a special key to unlock the fantasy, intelligence and dedication that Benedetto has in his hands ready to share with his young aspiring colleagues.

‘What would I?  What am I?  What must I ask of Nature?….Every cause is invisible, every aim deceptive; every form changes, all continuance comes to an end….I feel, I exist simply to be the prey of untamable desires, to be besotted by the spell of a fantastic world, and to stand aghast at its dazzling falsity.‘ Senancour.

Nowhere more was this evident than in the eclectic choice of Federico Manca with Berg, Vine and Prokofiev Sonatas . Berg’s knotty twine given a path that illuminated and intensified a masterpiece so often allowed to meander instead of showing its real face . The set piece by Stojanov, a Bulgarian composer almost unknown, was a work that lent itself to being a preface to Prokofiev’s Eighth sonata that is a great song to humanity and the last of the War Trilogy of Sonatas .

Jaeden Izik-Dzurko at the Wigmore Hall with Mastery and poetic fantasy

Federico Pische The authority and integrity of a young artist

Lupo reigns at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia – If music be the food of love ……..this is the place for me

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

Lupo/Gatti in Florence Lift up your hearts