Very distinguished audience for Leslie Howard’s stimulating Masterclass at the RCM. Many students of Ilya Kondratiev present and making copious notes with their ‘Apple’pencils.
Vitaly Pisarenko,Sasha Grynyuk,Ilya Kondratiev and Leslie Howard himself all happy to see their ninety year old ‘piano mummy ‘ listening carefully to everything that was said and played.
Noretta Conci-Leech founder of the Keyboard Charitable Trust of which Leslie is one of the founding trustees and artistic director,she has a lot to answer for!
Leslie beguiling his predominantly Chinese audience with his down to earth way of expressing his extraordinary scholarship and mastery of the piano.To hear him describe Glinka’s magical ‘The lark’ as a tree with tinsel but a tree with solid roots was so refreshingly simple and surely recalls Chopin’s own description of that elusive much abused word ‘rubato’.
Anton Rubinstein described the pedal as the soul of the piano as Leslie knows well having made a premiere recording of his four sonatas adding even more neglected masterpieces to the catalogue together of course with his 100 cd set of the works of Liszt.
And it was the pedal and scrupulous attention to the original intentions of the composer that was the valuable message we were reminded of today.
Phoebe Liu played a scintillating Liszt Tarantella -no mean feat at 10 am!
And Antonio Morabito played six studies op 25 by Chopin with the others tucked up his sleeve for another occasion.As Leslie said you need courage to play this pivotal work in front of your colleagues.Rising to the occasion this young man with a degree in philosophy showed just what it means to dedicate yourself not only to art.
Maestro Winnicki played The Lark by Glinka and Rachmaninov’s rousing Etude Tableau op 39 n 9. And rousing it was too on this very bright Fazioli in one of the nicest halls in London with our wonderful hostess Vanessa Latarche.
Ever vigilant as she brings students worldwide to the Royal College to be filled with the scholarly musicianship and technical expertise of which we had a glowing example this morning
ChristopherAxworthy-MusicCommentary 