Mese: giugno 2023

Another memorable occasion for the second in the series of six recitals presenting aspiring young pianists by the Keyboard Trust together with the Robert Turnbull Foundation at the National liberal Club for the Asia Circle directed by Yisha Xue
A beautiful Club where legend has it that Rachmaninov and Moiseiwitch gave recitals in its glorious past history.

As Janet Berridge of the Liberal Club proudly told us that with the acquisition of a magnificent Steinway Concert Grand great music is again being heard in these hallowed surrounds.
What better than to give a platform to the stars of tomorrow on their long journey to Parnassum!
What better indeed than in the company of Beethoven,Bach and Chopin when played by a young pianist like Adam Heron who is such a superb communicator and musician

An evening where pure music was allowed to pour from his fingers with a simplicity and beauty without any pianistic gymnastics or anything other than communicating the very essence and soul of great music as bequeathed to us by these universal giants.
An early Beethoven Sonata where Adam was content to allow the music to unfold following in the tradition of Haydn and Mozart.This was before the trials and tribulations of a turbulent life which would take Beethoven into new uncharted territory with an eventual vision of the peace and paradise that was awaiting him at the age of only 57.
A Bach Italian Concerto played with vibrant urgency and clarity with the sublime simplicity of the Andante in which Adam etched the melodic line with disarming aristocratic simplicity.

Chopin’s Funeral March Sonata where indeed the third movement was played with such inevitability by Adam that made it so apparent that the ravishing beauty of the Trio was obviously Chopin’s own vision of Paradise that he was to reach even before his 40th birthday.Chopin’s graphic depiction of the wind blowing over the graves with the extraordinarily original last movement was given by Adam a remarkable sense of line and musical shape of a movement that not even Schumann could make head or tail of .Schumann had described the sonata as “four of his maddest children under the same roof” He also remarked that the Marche funèbre “has something repulsive” about it, and that the last movement “seems more like a mockery than any sort of music”.
Adam’s simple musicianship brought this masterpiece vividly to life and had infact been the hallmark of this hour long recital of three great masterpieces that Adam shared so generously with us.

A beautiful appreciation of a very special talent by Prof. Christopher Elton,Adam’s distinguished former teacher at the Royal Academy,was crowned with a short encore by a visibly moved Adam .

James Kreiling shared his memories of Robert Turnbull and the Piano Foundation created in his memory which has given the Keyboard Trust the possibility to present young musicians on the first steps of a ladder.A journey without any ending as the true artist is he who seeks an unattainable Utopia.
It is this voyage of discovery that is the very essence of music as we were shown today by the simple unadorned musicianship that Adam shared with us.

Nikita Lukinov will be playing in the En Blanc et Noir Festival Lagrasse,France in a collaboration with the Keyboard Trust on the 10th July.A beautiful programme for a unique setting that can be seen in this video :https://youtu.be/iVLS7LKaQNs
Beethoven op.2 no 3 (25) — interval — Tchaikovsky, “Meditation” op.72 (5); Chopin, etude 10 op.25 (4) ; Scriabin, 2 Poems op.32 (5) ; Scriabin, Valse op.38 (5); Prokofiev, “Pas de Chale” and “Amoroso” from ‘6 pieces from Cinderella’ op.102 (9)
https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/06/05/nikita-lukinov-at-st-marys/

Programme notes by Adam Heron

Sir Edward Elgar (1857 – 1934)
In Smyrna (1905)
In addition to his famed choral and orchestral works, Sir Edward Elgar produced several compositions for the piano. Excluding the Concert Allegro (1901) and the unfinished Piano Concerto (1913), they are typically intimate works; devoid of the quintessentially Edwardian extroversion and grandeur for which he is renowned, and instead conceived for the living room rather than the concert platform. From the witty Sonatina (1889) to the more wistful Adieu (1932), each purveys a sense of delicacy as well as vulnerability, whilst remaining steadfastly faithful to his distinctive harmonic sound-world. One of the most enigmatic of these compositions is In Smyrna, which takes its inspiration from the Mediterranean cruise on which Elgar embarked during the Autumn of 1905 aboard the Royal Navy vessel HMS Surprise, with his friend Frank Schuster. Upon docking in the Ottoman settlement of Smyrna, which is now the city of İzmir in modern-day Turkey, Elgar took the opportunity to step ashore and visit one of the local mosques. Inspired by the beauty of Islamic architecture as well as the sound of the Adhan echoing throughout Smyrna, Elgar felt compelled to document a musical memoir of his experience. In his sketchbook, In Smyrna appears atop the subtitle In the Mosque. The miniature work opens with a distant right-hand tremolo, effectively depicting the cool waves gently stroking the hull of his ship.

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 – 1827)
Sonata in C-minor Op. 10 No. 1 (1798)

1. Allegro molto e con brio
2. Adagio molto
3. Prestissimo
   It is possible to assert that both Ludwig van Beethoven and the key of C-minor are symbiotically
   intertwined with one another; two co-dependent entities which, across many historiographies of Western Classical Music, have remained almost synonymous. Some of the most formidable Beethovenian compositions appear in this key, including the Coriolan Overture Op. 62 (1807), the Symphony No. 5 in C-minor Op. 67 (1808), and the Sonata in C-minor Op. 111 (1822), to name a just a few. The Sonata in C-minor Op. 10 No. 1 (1798) represents an early example of the volatile turbulence that characterises Beethovenian pianism. Not dissimilar from how Robert Schumann (1810 – 1856) depicts his dichotomous personalities of Eusebius and Florestan, Beethoven contrasts the virulent force of his Sturm und Drang style with a distinctively tender sublimity to which the German author E. T. A. Hoffmann (1776 – 1822) consistently refers. The erratic drama of the first movement appears so far removed from the serene spirituality that engulfs the second, whilst the Prestissimo finale exhibits a powerful sentiment of anxiety and incessant momentum.

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 – 1750)
Italian Concerto BWV 971 (1735)

1. Allegro 2. Andante 3. Presto
   The percussionist Ed Stephan once asserted that “Bach is the original Jazz boss”. When presented with such a bold work as the Italian Concerto (1735), it is easy to understand why. Boasting an abundance of thrilling virtuosity and unmistakable dance-like syncopations, the work is an unfailingly popular component of the pianistic canon. It is also interesting to note that the Italian Concerto exhibits one of the rare instances when Bach explicitly provides dynamics for a keyboard player, due to the work having been conceived for a double-manual harpsichord; the versatility of which enables the musician to achieve stark contrasts between forte and piano. As a result of this, it is generally accepted that Italian Concerto represents an example – some might assert a model – of orchestral writing as conceived for a solo keyboardist. Bach demonstrates a thorough mastery of the Italian concertante style; showcasing frequent alternations between the extrovert tutti sections and the more intimate ripieno passages, in addition to showcasing his characteristic aptitude for dance music; quite extraordinary for a composer who never had the opportunity to leave Germany, let alone visit New Orleans in the Jazz Age
2. 
   Frédéric Chopin (1810 – 1849)
   Sonata No. 2 in B-flat Minor Op. 35 (1839 Grave – Doppio movimento. Scherz. Marche funèbre: Lent. Finale: Presto
   Chopin composed the harrowing third movement from his Sonata No. 2 in B-flat Minor Op. 35 (1839) as a stand-alone work in 1837. It has since become an iconic masterpiece in itself, featuring a characteristically ominous depiction of both solemnity and mortality, interspersed with the hauntingly profound stasis of its middle section. It was another two years before Chopin composed the outer three movements, finally culminating in a gargantuan Sonata of significant musical and cultural importance. The cryptic opening chords of the Sonata seem to revive the spirit of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 – 1827) in his aforementioned Sonata in C-minor Op. 111 (1822). It is perhaps for this reason that the Chopin Sonata No. 2 often appears somewhat atypical amongst his more popular works, deeply inspired by brooding Faustian metaphors, and forever indebted to the musical legacy of Beethoven. Yet despite being a work that remains largely rooted in the contrapuntal traditions of the Old German School – the theorist Heinrich Schenker (1868 – 1935) famously proclaimed Chopin to be an “honorary German” – the Sonata demonstrates a uniquely idiosyncratic medium of expression that is well beyond its time. From the stormy Scherzo that in its main sequences appears to depict a nefarious and hellish dance, to the near-atonal gusts of wind that echo throughout the fleeting Finale, Chopin clearly showcases an inimitable artistic voice.

Chopin completed the Piano Sonata n.2 in B flat minor op 35 while living in George Sand’s manor in Nohant some 250 km (160 mi) south of Paris ,a year before it was published in 1840. The first of the composer’s three mature sonatas (the others being the Piano Sonata n.3 in B minor op 58 and the Sonata for Piano and Cello op 65).In a letter on 8 August 1839, addressed to Fontana, Chopin wrote:I am writing here a Sonata in B flat minor which will contain my March which you already know. There is an Allegro, then a Scherzo in E flat minor, the March and a short Finale about three pages of my manuscript-paper. The left hand and the right hand gossip in unison after the March. … When the sonata was published in 1840 in the usual three cities of Paris,Leipzig and London,Paris ,the London and Paris editions indicated the repeat of the exposition as starting at the very beginning of the movement (at the Grave section). However, the Leipzig edition designed the repeat as beginning at the Doppio movimentosection. Although the critical edition published by Breitkopf &Hartel (that was edited, among others, by Franz Liszt, Carl Reinecke , and Johannes Brahms)indicate the repeat similarly to the London and Paris first editions, almost all 20th-century editions are similar to the Leipzig edition in this regard. Charles Rosen argues that the repeat of the exposition in the manner perpetrated by the Leipzig edition is a serious error, saying it is “musically impossible” as it interrupts the D♭ major cadence (which ends the exposition) with the B♭ minor accompanimental figure.However, Leikin advocates for excluding the Grave from the repeat of the exposition, citing in part that Karol Mikuli’s 1880 complete edition of Chopin contained a repeat sign after the Grave in the first movement of the Piano Sonata No. 2. Mikuli was a student of Chopin from 1844 to 1848 and also observed lessons Chopin gave to other students – including those where this sonata was taught – and took extensive notes.Adam plays the repeat without the Grave introduction

Adam Heron was born in Hong Kong of Nigerian-Filipino descent and subsequently adopted by his Irish mother.Acclaimed by The Sunday Times for the verve and spirit of his performances, Adam Heron is swiftly earning a reputation as one of the most innovative pianists of his generation.Adam rose to prominence following his television debut in 2018 as a ‘BBC Young Musician’ piano finalist and went on to win the 2020 Harriet Cohen Bach Prize. He has given solo recitals at leading international venues including the Center for Arts in Cairo and the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Mumbai. Performances in the UK have included such venues as Hampton Court Palace, the Royal Albert Hall, Snape Maltings Concert Hall, Southbank Centre, St George’s Bristol, St Martin-in-the-Fields, The Holburne Museum and Wigmore Hall.He has attended masterclasses with renowned pianists including Anne Queffélec, Imogen Cooper, John Lill, Paul Lewis, Stephen Hough and Yevgeny Sudbin.Festival appearances include The Aegean Arts International Festival (Greece), The Cayman Arts Festival (Cayman Islands), The Cheltenham Music Festival (UK) and The GAP Arts Festival (Ireland).Adam appears regularly in the media including on BBC Radio 3 and specialist broadcast platforms such as Colourful Radio. He has worked with leading presenters including Katie Derham and Sean Rafferty.In addition to his solo work, Adam is also a collaborative pianist, composer and conductor. He has performed with eminent musicians such as saxophonist Amy Dickson, double-bassist Chi-chi Nwanoku CBE, violinists Christopher Quaid and Daniel Pioro, sopranos Francesca Chiejina and Yaritza Véliz, as well as cellists Laura van der Heijden and Jamie Walton. In 2016, the Chineke! Orchestra invited him to become one of its first concerto soloists, and he has since worked with leading conductors including David Curtis, Jonathon Heyward, Pete Harrison and Timothy Carey.Adam is a laureate of the Stefano Marizza International Piano Competition in Italy and the International Piano Competition HRH Princess Lalla Meryem in Morocco, where he additionally received the Prix Spécial from the Embassy of France in Rabat for his command of French music.As a recipient of the Hargreaves and Ball scholarship, Adam studied with Christopher Elton at the Royal Academy of Music in London, before pursuing a Master’s Degree in Music at the University of Cambridge.Supported by the Keyboard Charitable Trust, Irish Heritage, The Hattori Foundation, the Macfarlane Walker Trust, Talent Unlimited Foundation and The Tillett Trust, Adam currently studies with Penelope Roskell in London.

Adam Heron at Steinway Hall for the Keyboard Trust

Adam Heron delights in Dulwich with Schumann Piano Concerto review by Angela Ransley

HHH Concerts and The Keyboard Trust a winning combination of youthful dedication to Art

Next concert in the En Blanc et Noir series at the National Liberal Club Monday 4th September 6.30 pm MILDA DAUNORAITE. https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2022/10/19/milda-daunoraite-youthful-purity-and-musicianship-triumph-in-florence/

More remarkable playing in the Pitti Piano Festival with 17 year old Massimo Urban.
A student of Vincenzo Balzani who already reveals an intellectual curiosity and an extraordinary technical command similar to that many years ago of the genial Andrea Bacchetti.
What he misses in weight he makes up for with a scintillating jeux perlé of remarkable natural ease and a musicality allied to an intelligence and refined sense of colour.
His playing was ideally suited to the rarely played Schumann Allegro op 8. The Mendelssohnian washes of colour were mere moving harmonies brought to life with a rhythmic drive on which floated Schumann’s magical melodic invention.A sense of architectural shape made sense of a piece that has suffered from less intelligent hands.Played with the musical intelligence and refined beauty as in today’s enlightened performance it should be much more often heard in the concert hall.

Chopin’s Héroique Polonaise was brilliantly played but the aristocratic nobility was not yet in our young pianist’s vocabulary.The famous left hand octaves were quite remarkable for their lightness and speed but this is the cavalry and the military march that they accompany was a little lost in this misty atmosphere.The ending was played with remarkable agility and excitement but the nobility and grandeur that Rubinstein gave so inimitably to it will have to wait until his youthful exhilarance and ‘joie de vivre’ turns into something darker and deeper.
The three Rachmaninov Etudes tableaux were remarkable for their washes of chameleon like changes of colour but the sense of line was sometimes forfeited for a remarkable dexterity that was always of ravishing beauty and never just empty note spinning but needed more overall direction.
The most successful was the E flat minor study that Massimo had told us he found the most difficult.
It was exactly for this reason that he gave a truly memorable performance full of passion,sumptuous sounds and real poetic understanding.The final bars in particular,like those of the Liszt B minor sonata,I have rarely heard with such poetic meaning.

His exemplary introduction to the Liszt Sonata was mirrored in a remarkably intelligent performance where Liszt’s precise indications were scrupulously noted.His youthful enthusiasm and extraordinary technical facility led him,though,to take the fugato too fast for the orchestral clarity that Liszt demands and it became a bit of a showcase for the pianist not the composer.
However there were many beautiful things in a remarkable but still youthful performance,not least the final page which is the most extraordinary page in all of Liszt’s vast output.The composer suffered for this page having scratched out his original triumphant ending and substituted it for a visionary page which sums up the entire sonata in so few meaningful notes.
Massimo’s own composition played as a much requested encore just underlined the prodigious and rare talent of this young man still remarkably in his teens.

Shunta Morimoto- Pitti Piano Festival Florence – The inspired recreation of a great artist

Wonderful to realise that our ‘little’ Shunta has grown into a mature artist.Discovered at the Van Cliburn as a child prodigy,when his performances went viral on the net,he has now,at the ripe old age of eighteen,joined the ranks as one of the most astonishingly profound interpreters of his generation.
His superb performances of Beethoven 4 and Liszt 1,recently,with the RPO as winner of the Hastings International Competition gave some idea of his maturity added to an already extraordinary technical command. https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/05/06/shunta-morimotos-all-or-nothing-performance-of-liszt-with-aristocratic-nobility-and-brilliance/

But no one could have imagined the refined aristocratic performances that we were privileged to hear yesterday in the great Sala Bianca of Palazzo Pitti in Florence.
From the opening Bach Chromatic Fantasy of such monumental authority.There were moments of breathtaking beauty but always with an overwhelmingly inevitable drive that drew us on to this tidal wave of magnificence.I have not heard the like since Agosti would intone his teacher Busoni’s refined edition in his studio in the Chigiana in Siena.

A Polonaise Fantasy of nobility and poetry.An amazing freedom that made us aware of the improvised inspiration that Chopin was to reach at the end of his short life.
The A minor mazurka was added because Shunta felt that this was just the right transition to Rameau.This usually bitter sweet mazurka was given a nobility and strength that made of it a moving tone poem gliding in and out on a murmured wave of undulating sounds.
The opening of the Rameau was of the grandeur and nobility of its age.Fearlessly ornamented because Shunta has studied deeply the performance practices of the period.A nobility that was a barely whispered memory on its repeat.The clarity of the dance that followed where from a mere whisper Shunta added voice after voice until the joy and exhilaration of the entire population was hypnotic and quite overwhelming.
Liszt’s Dante Sonata was a true Symphonic Poem in this teenager’s demonic fingers .But it was more than in his fingers it was in his soul as his whole body was involved in a recreation that all those present will never forget.

A standing ovation and cries for more but as Shunta said I already played the encore of the Mazurka and that was enough.
A feast fit for a King …noblesse oblige ….as we cheer the arrival of one of the greatest interpreters of his age …….

Shunta Morimoto takes London by storm ‘I have a dream’ a poet speaks through music

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Shunta Morimoto – A colossus bestrides Villa Aldobrandini as it had when Liszt was in residence – complete review with Tokyo link to Schumann op 13

Misha Kaploukhii plays Liszt at the RCM A Sea Symphony Concert…..Youth and music a joy to ‘behold’!

The indomitable Canan Maxton of Talent Unlimited presents two superb young artists in the magnificent surrounds of St James’s Piccadilly.
An oasis of peace just a stone’s throw from Piccadilly Circus.

Some magnificent playing of real artistry from Misha Kaploukhii whose playing I have heard twice over the past year or so. https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2022/10/13/misha-kaploukhii-plays-rachmaninov-beauty-and-youthfulness-triumph/. This is not the usual barn storming Rachmaninov but playing of ravishing colour and imagination where each one of these miniature tone poems was brought vividly to life with fantasy and a transcendental control sound.Not only velocity but more importantly Misha knew how to delve deep into the notes and extract a meaning that allowed the music to speak so eloquently.There was certainly astonishing agility with the jeux perlé playing of the sixth study.Notes that just shot over the keyboard like a gust of wind out of which glistened and gleamed fragments of a melodic line.

Such nobility he brought to the seventh with it’s sumptuous almost too important pomposity bursting into a festive ‘joie de vivre’.
Delicacy and fluidity of the eighth on which floated a melodic line of searing nostalgic intensity only to be awakened by the imperious majesty of the opening of the ninth.Greeted by a cauldron of red hot sounds very reminiscent of the sound world of Scriabin with its flaming intensity.Never loosing sight of the overall musical line as the music was swept along with Misha’s youthful passion.The strident first study that could almost be Prokofiev or Shostakovich with its spiky military stance.But there was radiance with the sumptuous rays of light that suddenly appeared with the second study.The third was remarkable for it’s sense of line and a control of sound where the ravishing beauty of the murmuring meno mosso was indeed a momento to cherish.There was playful ‘joie de vivre’ in the fourth with its obstinate false start and remarkable sense of line as all the components magically were knitted together.

It was a refreshing surprise to hear the superb guitar of Michael Matthews in the second half of this short concert.
In Rome we would often invite guitarists to play for us in our Euromusica concert series.I remember being so impressed by the Duo Assad.David Russell was a much awaited annual event of concert and masterclasses.Julian Bream,Oscar Ghiglia and John Williams were amongst the stars too.
Today it is all too rare to find a guitar recital in a regular concert series so it was refreshing to be able to admire the beautiful sound and superb musicianship of this young guitarist today .I can only listen and admire what I heard and hope that in the future there will be many more guitar recitals in a church that has an ideal resonant acoustic.

Misha Kaploukhii, pianist and flautist was born on the 5/12/2002 and is an alumnus of the Moscow Gnessin College of Music, where he studied in the piano class of Mikhail Egiazarian. Misha is currently studying at the Royal College of Music; he is an RCM and Robert Turnbull Piano Foundation scholarship holder generously supported by Talent Unlimited charity studying for a Bachelor of Music with Professor Ian Jones. He also gained inspiration from lessons and masterclasses with musicians such as Claudio Martínez Mehner, Dmitri Bashkirov, Jerome Lowenthal and Konstantin Lifschitz. Misha already has experience of performing with orchestras internationally including his recent debut in Cadogan Hall with the Rachmaninoff 1st Piano Concerto and his overall repertoire includes a wide range of solo and chamber music. Recently, Misha has won prizes in the RCM concerto competition (playing Liszt’s 2nd Piano Concerto) and in the International Ettlingen Piano Competition.

Born in the UK, Michael Matthews’ flamboyant and expressive performances are placing him at the forefront of the young generation. He has been praised for a rigorous technique alongside his natural creativity by leading figures in the field. His concerts are communicative, unpredictable and provocative. He brings a new identity to traditional repertoire as well as verve and dynamism to contemporary and lesser-known works. In his youth, Michael studied with teacher and performer Rob Johns. He has subsequently performed in recitals, masterclasses and competitions across the country and abroad. From 2021, Michael continues his postgraduate studies at the Royal Academy of Music under a scholarship. In the spring of 2017, Michael gave his debut performance of Joaquin Rodrigo’s Concerto de Aranjuez and performed Fantasia para un Gentilhombre in 2019. In 2018 Michael was chosen by the Tillett Trust to give recitals across the UK during the 2018/2019 season. He was also selected by the Concordia Foundation to perform in outreach projects and recitals in central London and abroad. In 2019-2020 Michael studied with Paolo Pegoraro at the Segovia Guitar Academy in Pordenone, Italy. In 2019 Michael was awarded the Sir John Manduell Prize at Bromsgrove International Musicians Competition for the best performance of a contemporary work. He was supported by Help Musicians UK in 2020 and was selected by Talent Unlimited and the Countess of Munster Trust trust in 2021. Recent engagements include giving masterclasses at St Andrews and Hull universities and recitals at Brighton Festival, King’s Lynn Festival, St James’s Church Piccadilly and his debut appearance at the Wigmore Hall.

https://youtu.be/wUyPfoO2NuQ

Masterly playing at the RCM today with Jose Navarro Silberstein’s Artist Diploma Final Recital
Astonishing range of colours and invention in CPE Bach’s extraordinary Fantasy in F sharp minor .
A truly masterly performance of Schumann’s Davidsbundler,what it missed in charm and grace it gained in Beethovenian drive and searing intensity .
But it was the Ciclo Brasileiro that was truly mesmerising as he seduced and ravished the senses with the red hot intensity of the barbaric dance rhythms. I have not experienced the like since Rubinstein would turn ‘baubles into gems’ of his friend and prodigy Villa Lobos .
These were more that just gems but jewels in a crown to cherish for a lifetime.

Jose Andres Navarro at St James’s Piccadilly

Magnificent Schubertiade from Chloe Jiyeong Mun in the Harold Acton Library in the British Institute in Florence.
The eight Impromptus played with such rapt concentration and subtle ravishing beauty that you could have heard a pin drop such was the atmosphere created.
Winner, like Martha Argerich,of both Geneva and Busoni competitions when only a teenager.Just twenty four hours before the recital she was still working with Andras Schiff in Berlin extracting the secrets together that are hidden deep in the music and that only very few can find the key to.
A musical feast was guaranteed for this last recital of the season with three past winners of Busoni presented in collaboration with the Keyboard Trust.
An old Bechstein that she adored and gave her the means to transmit the magic world of Schubert with freedom and beauty.
Whispered secrets drew the audience in to her with the intimate confessions of a composer who was to have such a short life on this earth but who lives on forever in his seemingly endless outpouring of poetry of poignant beauty.
The magic carpet that had brought her to Florence at the last minute from Berlin was waiting to whisk her off to Korea during the night.A vision of beauty that descended on Florence for only a few hours but for which all those present will always be eternally grateful.

A sumptuous feast of music and not only, thanks to the Gammell’s who had also prepared a culinary feast.
If Music be the food of love ……perchance to dream ….please play on …..the world is in such need of poetry and beauty.

Schubert Impromptus are a series of eight pieces for solo piano composed in 1827. They were published in two sets of four each: the first two pieces in the first set were published in the composer’s lifetime as Op. 90; the second set was published posthumously as Op. 142 in 1839 (with a dedication added by the publisher to Franz Liszt ).The third and fourth pieces in the first set were published in 1857 (although the third piece was printed by the publisher in G major, instead of G♭ as Schubert had written it, and remained available only in this key for many years). The two sets are now catalogued as D. 899 and D. 935 respectively. They are considered to be among the most important examples of this popular early 19th-century genre.

Chloe Mun at the Duszniki Chopin Festival Refined perfection and aristocratic simplicity

Ludwig van Beethoven

Sonata no. 4 in E-flat major, Op. 7

I. Allegro molto e con brio

II. Largo, con gran espressione

III. Allegro

IV. Rondo: Poco allegretto e grazioso

 

Ferenc Liszt

Totentanz: Paraphrase on Dies Irae, S. 525

Recueillement. Vincenzo Bellini in memoriam, S. 204

Hungarian Rhapsody no. 12 in C-sharp minor, S: 244/12

Sonata no. 4 in E flat major, opus 7: Beethoven himself named this pianoforte sonata Grande Sonate because it was published by itself in 1797 – unusual for the time. It remains his second-longest sonata, behind the Hammerklavier Sonata op 106. Beethoven’s pupil (and Liszt’s teacher) Carl Czerny wrote: “The epithet appassionata would fit much better to the Sonata in E flat op. 7, which he wrote in a very impassioned mood”. It may be that the reason behind such passionate music was the composer’s attraction for his dedicatee, the then 16-year-old pupil Anna Luise Barbara Countess von Keglevich, and it is possible be that her father had commissioned Beethoven to write the work for her.

Totentanz (Dance of the Dead): Paraphrase on the ‘Dies irae’, S126 for pianoforte and orchestra is notable for being based on the Gregorian hymn Dies irae as well as for its many stylistic innovations. The piece was completed and published in 1849, and later revised twice (1853-9 and early 1880s. All these versions were also prepared for two pianos). In the late 1860s, Liszt published a version for pianoforte solo, S525. Some of the titles of Liszt’s pieces, such as Totentanz, Funérailles, La lugubre gondola and Pensée des morts show the composer’s obsession with mortality, as well as his profound Christian faith, these things being apparent from Liszt as a teenager right up until his last days – more than 50 years later.

In the last movement of the Symphonie fantastique by Berlioz the medieval (Gregorian) Dies Irae is quoted in a shockingly modernistic manner. In 1830 Liszt attended the first performance of the symphony and was struck by its powerful originality. Liszt’s Totentanz presents a series of variations on the Dies irae – a theme that his will have known since 1830 at the latest from Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique. As an early biographer noted, “Every variation discloses some new character―the earnest man, the flighty youth, the scornful doubter, the prayerful monk, the daring soldier, the tender maiden, the playful child.” A second theme, beginning at variation 6 – taken from the Prose des morts in the Catholic breviary – is itself varied before the first theme returns at the end of the work.

Recueillement (Recollection), S204 (1877) was a gift to the Italian composer Lauro Rossi. It weaves arpeggios around a rising scale before settling into very simple, chordal writing. Written in memoriam Vincenzo Bellini (of whom Liszt had made famous paraphrases of his opera Norma, La sonnambula and I puritani, as well as the variations Hexaméron, on another theme from I puritani). Simplicity and sensitivity before a final salute from the older Liszt, dispelling any image of earlier keyboard wizardry, but revealing nonetheless the author of some of the most naturally grateful and percipient pianoforte music of all time.

The twelfth of the nineteen Rapsodies hongroises, S244/12 (c1847) is dedicated to Josef Joachim (who was Liszt’s principal violinst in the Wemar court orchestra, and with whom he later made a version of the piece for violin and pianoforte) is one of the most often played in recital and was a work that Anton Rubinstein and other great virtuosi would often include in their programmes. Liszt draws on five different folk themes to produce one of his most ingenious Hungarian Rhapsodies. It offers a unique mix of melancholy, glittering keyboard acrobatics and stormy, rousing dance. It became so popular that the original version was later arranged for orchestra, and for pianoforte four hands. Liszt collected Hungarian folk-songs and Zigeunermusik over many years – without particularly distinguishing between folk-song and gypsy band ‘standards’, and he was strongly influenced by this music that he had heard from his earliest days, with its unique gypsy scale, rhythmic spontaneity and direct, seductive expression. He went on major song collecting expeditions in 1840 and 1846, and he knew many composers of gypsy tunes, who often transpired to be members of the Hungarian upper middle class. The large scale structure of each was influenced by the verbunkos, a Hungarian dance form in several parts, each with a different tempo. Within this structure, Liszt preserved the two main structural elements of typical Gypsy improvisation―the lassan (“slow”) and the friska (“fast”).

Complimenti a Caterina Isaia e Giovanni Bertolazzi che questa sera al Museo Teatrale Alla Scala di Milano, come ieri al Teatro La Fenice di Venezia, hanno emozionato il pubblico in una Sala Esedra sold out!
Il Salotto Musicale, realizzato in collaborazione con il Museo Teatrale alla Scala, torna a settembre…grazie a tutti e al prossimo appuntamento con l grande musica dei migliori giovani talenti italiani!

Complimenti a Caterina Isaia e Giovanni Bertolazzi che questa sera al Museo Teatrale Alla Scala di Milano, come ieri al Teatro La Fenice di Venezia, hanno emozionato il pubblico in una Sala Esedra sold out!
Il Salotto Musicale, realizzato in collaborazione con il Museo Teatrale alla Scala, torna a settembre…grazie a tutti e al prossimo appuntamento con l grande musica dei migliori giovani talenti italiani!

Giovanni Bertolazzi triumphs on the Keyboard Trust tour of USA October 2023 Virginia-Washington-Philadelphia- Delaware – New York

Tuesday 6 June 3.00 pm 

Nikita barely had time to try two notes on the piano due to a delayed flight from Glasgow but it was time enough for him to give masterly performances of the two important works on his programme.Nikita has done much to create funds for the Ukraine relief fund and so it was particularly poignant that he should have chosen to close his recital with the ‘Great Gate of Kiev’.Two important works played with great authority and a sense of character that brought them both vividly to life and communicated so simply and directly.The occasional expression on his face gave some hint of how he was living every moment of his music making but it was the kaleidoscope of sounds and mastery of architectural shape that was so compelling.With great charm exclaiming after the Beethoven that now he had warmed up he was ready for ‘Pictures’!But it was a masterly performance of Beethoven that we were treated to where his intelligent musicianship helped him to delve deeply into Beethoven’s score following scrupulously the composers instructions.Mussorgsky was given a monumental multi faceted performance of superb control and mastery.It was ,though,in his encore of the Tchaikowsky Meditation from his newly released CD that showed off his subtle artistry and beguiling charm.From the simple opening to the tumultuous passion of the climax his magnetism held us enthralled as he shared with us the ravishing beauty of this little tone poem

Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 3 in C major Op 2 n. 3 was written in 1795 and dedicated to Joseph Haydn It was published simultaneously with his first and second sonatas in 1796.It is often referred to as one of Beethoven’s earliest “grand and virtuosic” piano sonatas.All three of Beethoven’s Op. 2 piano sonatas contain four movements, an unusual length at the time, which seems to show that Beethoven was aspiring towards composing a symphony.It is both the weightiest and longest of the three Op. 2 sonatas, and it presents many difficulties for the performer, including difficult trills, awkward hand movements, and forearm rotation. It is also one of Beethoven’s longest piano sonatas in his early period.It is second only to the Grand Sonata op 7 also published in 1796

Pictures at an Exhibition is based on pictures by the artist, architect, and designer Viktor Hartmann. It was probably in 1868 that Mussorgsky first met Hartmann, not long after the latter’s return to Russia from abroad. Both men were devoted to the cause of an intrinsically Russian art and quickly became friends. They met in the home of the influential critic Vladimir Stasov, who followed both of their careers with interest. According to Stasov’s testimony, in 1868, Hartmann gave Mussorgsky two of the pictures that later formed the basis of Pictures at an Exhibition.

PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION

Promenade l
The Gnomes
Promenade ll
The Old Castle
Promenade lll
The Tuileries: Children’s dispute
after play
Bydlo
Promenade IV
Ballet of the unhatched chicks
Two Polish Jews: Rich and poor
Promenade V
The market at Limoges
Roman Catacombs – With the dead
in a dead language
Baba Yaga: The Witch
The Heroes Gate at Kiev

Hartmann’s sudden death on 4 August 1873 from an aneurysm shook Mussorgsky along with others in Russia’s art world. The loss of the artist, aged only 39, plunged the composer into deep despair. Stasov helped to organize a memorial exhibition of over 400 Hartmann works in the Imperial Academy of Arts in Saint Petersburg in February and March 1874. Mussorgsky lent the exhibition the two pictures Hartmann had given him, and viewed the show in person, inspired to compose Pictures at an Exhibition, quickly completing the score in three weeks (2–22 June 1874).Five days after finishing the composition, he wrote on the title page of the manuscript a tribute to Vladimir Stasov, to whom the work is dedicated.The music depicts his tour of the exhibition, with each of the ten numbers of the suite serving as a musical illustration of an individual work by Hartmann.Although composed very rapidly, during June 1874, the work did not appear in print until 1886, five years after the composer’s death, when a not very accurate edition by the composer’s friend and colleague Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov was published.

Mussorgsky suffered personally from alcoholism, it was also a behavior pattern considered typical for those of Mussorgsky’s generation who wanted to oppose the establishment and protest through extreme forms of behavior.One contemporary notes, “an intense worship of Bacchus was considered to be almost obligatory for a writer of that period.”Mussorgsky spent day and night in a Saint Petersburg tavern of low repute, the Maly Yaroslavets, accompanied by other bohemian dropouts. He and his fellow drinkers idealized their alcoholism, perhaps seeing it as ethical and aesthetic opposition. This bravado, however, led to little more than isolation and eventual self-destruction.

Heralded for “magic of music-making at its finest” (Keyboard Charitable Trust) and praised as “Exceptional talent” (The Scotsman), Nikita Lukinov resides in Scotland. In recent years he performed at Wigmore Hall, Usher Hall, Southbank Centre, Kings Place and Fazioli Hall. In the 2022-23 season Nikita gave recitals at the Steinway Hall in London, British Institute in Florence, embassy of the City of Hamburg representing Steinway&Sons pianos, Hastings International Piano Series, Vaduz Rathaussaal in Liechtenstein, “Celebrity recitals” concert series in Shrewsbury and completed a tour of 6 concerts in Scotland.In April 2022 in Shrewsbury, UK, Nikita gave a recital in aid of Ukraine. Another concert of this nature was in Berlin in December 2022. More than £10,000 was raised from these events. In January 2023 Nikita won the “Walcer Prize” Competition at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and had his solo recital debut at the Usher Hall in Edinburgh.Nikita is one of the musicians at the Talent Unlimited and Live Music Now Scotland schemes. A disciple of the Russian Piano School Nikita Lukinov started his musical education in Voronezh, Russia. Nikita is currently pursuing his Master’s Degree at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland on a full scholarship from ABRSM in the class of Petras Geniušas. Since October 2022 he is also a teacher in the piano department, being the youngest senior staff in the UK Music Conservatoires at this moment. On June 1st, 2023, Nikita will have a release his debut CD “Kaleidoscope”.

Nikita Lukinov plays breathtaking charity recital for Ukraine in Berlin.

Nikita Lukinov at Bluthner Piano Centre for the Keyboard Trust Liszt restored to greatness.

Nikita Lukinov at St Mary’s a masterly warrior with canons covered in flowers

Nikita Lukinov Shrewsbury and Market Drayton

https://youtu.be/9L9Vc0ebt7o. Part 1 https://youtu.be/tu92-VR3YdM. Part 2

‘If musik be the food of love………play on ‘ as Dr Moritz von Bredow reminded us in his brief words of thanks to Noretta and John Leech.For it is their great love not only for each other but of music that with vision and determination they have shared with innumerable young artists.Sharing with them a sense of duty,humility and integrity that gives weight and meaning to their artistry.A maturity that is born ‘on wings of song ‘ as Maestro Pappano so eloquently pointed out.

But it was the reverential minute of silence at 7 o’clock broken only by the magic strains of the Aria from the ‘Goldberg Variations’ that spoke louder than any words.Sir Antonio Pappano playing with exquisite luminous sound,the repeats allowed to whisper as he just seemed to dust the keys allowing the genius of Bach to cast a spell on this distinguished gathering.As Maestro Pappano was to say in his short speech after listening to six of the finest young musicians from the Keyboard Trust:the variety of sounds that can be produced from this black box of hammers and strings is remarkable.Technical proficiency and mastery aside it is the difference of sound and character that each one brought to the same instrument that is remarkable.

To quote from the ‘little red book’ masterminded by the indomitable John Leech is a message from Sir Antonio Pappano the honorary Patron and opens this ‘bible’ and sets the scene for all that lies within.

“‘The Gift of Music’ is a love story in the best operatic tradition:Love of music above all.Love and determination to create a unique gift to hand to those you hold dear.Love and compassion for those born to make music but unable to find their proper role.How well I know the plot of this book,having been captured by it myself years ago.Even on the threshold of the Trust’s fourth decade the story remains compelling,strong enough and relevant to be carried forward to create a brighter future for us all.Guidance,patience,vision and opportunity have come together so that an astonishing number of musicians have been able to flourish under the wing of The Keyboard Trust.Long May it endure!”

Never more so than this evening where the crystalline sounds and mastery of style of Leslie Howard were immediately in evidence.What better title could there be than ‘Mes joies’,as an enticing web of golden sounds were spun by a true master.Hardly moving but with concentration focused on every note ,so reminiscent of Rubinstein in his later years where all the flamboyance and showmanship of his ‘youthful years’ had been condensed into the very notes themselves .Seated as in a favourite armchair allowing us to share the wonder of discovery as every note had a significance and meaning.Rosalyn Tureck once said to me when one of her friends commented that at the age of 78 she had given a note perfect performance of the Goldberg variations:’But,darling I don’t play wrong notes ‘.Of course the meaning was far from that of note picking proficiency but that every note belonged to a chain that created the whole architectural shape dedicated to Bach’s genius .Moura Lympany too,from the Matthay school,spoke of thinking of chains that she linked together.https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2022/02/16/leslie-howard-masterclass-at-the-r-c-m-scholarship-and-mastery-shared/.

They were mirrored by the rich velvet sonorities of great intensity of Jayson Gilham with Medtner’s ‘Stimmungsbilder op 1 n.1’.A sumptuous performance on this magnificent Steinway ‘D’ which allowed the winner of the Montreal International Competition to show the subtle strands and hidden melodic lines of a still neglected composer who is buried in Hendon Cemetery.Before his success in Montreal Jayson had played in our series of all the Rachmaninov works for piano and orchestra that the KT was invited to give in Rossini’s home town of Pesaro.He gave a remarkable performance of the fourth concerto in the uncut original version on the recommendation of Leslie Howard.He learnt it especially for the occasion and was able to give three impeccable performances in Ancona,Pesaro and Fabriano. https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2015/05/26/rachmaninoff-festival-ancona-2015/

Leslie Howard was proud to present the winner of the 2021 Weir Trust,Oscar Colliar,who is in his second year as Organ Scholar in Cambridge.He gave a very musicianly account of great clarity and shape of June and November from Tchaikovsky’s ‘The Seasons’.

This was followed by all the passion and fire of Pablo Rossi with a performance of ‘Widmung’ of burning intensity and Villa Lobos’s scintillating ‘0 Polichinelle’ .A work that Artur Rubinstein would often play and it was with his same sense of communication that he enflamed his audience.Joan Chissell had said ‘Mr Rubinstein turned baubles into gems ‘ Pablo was the first pianist I had heard in 2005 when Noretta seeking to console and distract me with music after the dramatic events of my life,invited me in to Steinway Hall to hear this young boy from Brazil.He was the first of many artists that I was able to invite to play in Rome and from then on the concert activity in our theatre in Rome became ever more entwined with the activity of the Keyboard Trust.(This is all explained more fully in the ‘red book’). Sixteen years on,after his studies in Moscow with Eliso Virsaladze (on the advice of Noretta ) and with Jerome Rose in New York we can now hear how this young Rubinstein look alike ‘could mature in music ‘ – to use Pappano’s own very eloquent words – and not only look like the great master but have the same power of communication allied to a professional training that will carry him into the great concert halls of the world https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2022/07/30/pablo-rossi-a-star-shining-brightly-for-brazil-200/

Michail Lifits,winner of the 57th Busoni Competition ( a competition that Noretta has frequented every year since the very first edition in 1949 when her great friend and now trustee of the KCT,Alfred Brendel was awarded 4th Prize!) Mischa was also recipient of the KCT Annual prize winners concert at the Wigmore Hall in 2011 having completed KCT tours in USA,Italy and even Mexico.I heard him in 2013 in the beautiful Auditorium in Foligno and was immediately struck not only by the beauty of sound but the kaleidoscopic colours he found in the Rachmaninov Corelli Variations.Now with a flourishing career and newly appointed Professor at the Franz Liszt University in Weimar he flew in especially to pay homage to two people that he is much indebted to in so many ways.His performance of the much overplayed Chopin First Ballade was a revelation on how such a work can come alive as new in the hands of a true artist.The authority and clarity of thought ,the aristocratic architectural vision was masterly and had me wanting to check the score once again to relive the magic that had allowed him to bring new life to such a masterpiece.

There would have been many encores had we heard a performance of that stature in the concert hall but tonight we were called to order by our Chairman Geoffrey Shindler and our indefatigable Chief executive Sarah Biggs.Stop watch in hand it is thanks to them that the evening in The National Liberal Club ran so smoothly with caos all around as London was about to welcome our beloved Queen back home on her last great journey.

Chloe,teenage winner of both the Geneva and Busoni International competitions (the only other pianist to do that was Martha Argerich) ,flew in especially for this celebration from her adopted home in Salzburg.The rarified perfection and fluidity of her playing created an enormous effect in her all to short appearance playing only ‘Reflets dans l’eau’.Only! It was a true jewel of ravishing voluptuous sounds from extreme delicacy to passionate abandon.I accompanied Chloe on the American tour where I could witness the bond with her audiences of a true artist as she looked with dagger like concentration at the notes but then wafting on with the same genial simplicity of Martha Argerich.Elena Vorotko,our co artistic director,was in tears after her performance of Beethoven’s penultimate sonata op 110 at her prize winner’s Wigmore recital in June 2017.I implored her to play the 14th of Schumann’s Davidsbundler but there was a complicity between her and Sarah that I could not budge.It is here in this link to the performance she gave in Poland this summer: https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2022/08/12/chloe-mun-at-the-duszniki-chopin-festival-refined-perfection-and-aristocratic-simplicity/

Vitaly Pisarenko,winner of the Utrecht Liszt Competition at the age of 20 and a top prize winner at Leeds in 2015.With a worldwide career opening up and now a much sought after teacher at the Purcell School for highly gifted young performers and as assistant Professor to his much admired mentor Dmitri Alexeev at the Royal College of Music.I am glad to see that there is a poster in the ‘red book’ in which the KCT were invited to Aquila in Italy in 2013 to spend a weekend sharing youthful enthusiasm and bringing much needed distraction and relief to a community that had been so cruelly struck down by an earthquake.Noretta’s dear friend Claudio Abbado gave the first concert in a hall that had be newly donated by the people of Trento and constructed by the walls of a city that lay in ruins.Mey Yi Foo,Pablo Rossi and Vitaly Pisarenko were chosen to represent three different nations by Noretta and John following in Abbado’s footsteps in bring the Gift of Music to an oppressed community.Bringing all the youthful spirit of hope and enthusiasm that these three young artists had in abundance.Fabbrini ( Pollini’s piano technician had donated the piano -Pollini too a close friend of Noretta).

It was when this young Ukrainian pianist touched the piano in a ravishing performance of Siloti’s Prelude in B minor that Noretta and I looked at each other and it was love at first hearing.A pianist of such simplicity but of such refined playing of sounds that rarely others can reach.Playing of an intelligence and the aristocratic sense of style of another age -The Golden Age of piano playing.This was ten years ago in which time Vitaly has played every tour and venue of the KCT including the Wigmore Hall.The great accompanist Graham Johnson insisted on going back stage in the interval to meet the man who could turn a piano that he knew only too well into a magic box or rarified sounds with Ravel’s Miroirs.It had Graham running to Cadogan Hall a few months later to hear his Ravel G major Concerto.’Gretchen am Spinnrade’ was played with such subtlety and rarified sounds from the barely audible to the most enormous sonorities of refined passion ……and then back again.Gretchen at her wheel still whispering in the distance with playing of incredible precision at a level of pianissimo that I have only ever heard from Richter.

The great pianists are not those that play the fastest and loudest but it is those dedicated few that can play the quietest with total control.A mastery that requires total dedication.Vitaly’s unique artistry is gradually being discovered by a public who realise that it is quality not quantity that reaches the soul.A very classical performance of Liszt’s capricious play on Schubert’s Soirées de Vienne was admirable for its pianistic perfection but it was Gretchen that will haunt me for a long time to come!https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2021/09/13/bewitched-and-amazed-by-vitaly-pisarenko-in-colombia/

Sasha Grynyuk was born in Kyiv and now lives in London where he won the Gold Medal at the Guildhall and went on to win a considerable number of International Competitions including the Grieg in Bergen.Every Friday will see him at the mews of Noretta and John,a new score in hand.John waiting until the end of their musical session to be instructed on computer literacy or whatever other hi jinks are the latest fashion.They have befriended him in his hour of need as his parents fled the Ukraine only able to fill a car with belongings knowing full well they may never see their homeland again.Sasha flew to Cracow to meet them and drive them back to the Oxfordshire countryside where they have found refuge.Sasha recently found happiness too ,much to the delight of Noretta and John, in the arms of the extraordinary Katya Gorbatiouk.

All this to say that Sasha is like a son to John and Noretta and a rock on which they can rely in moments of uncertainty.He is not only a wonderful human being but also a remarkable pianist who leaves Noretta astonished every week with his mastery of all the Beethoven sonatas and Concertos and many other things besides.One of these being one of the most transcendentally difficult show pieces for piano by Balakirev .His famous Islamey op 18 that strikes terror into all those that dare to trespass.Ravel even tried to out do him in writing Scarbo – the last of his suite Gaspard de La Nuit.A work that Noretta’s own mentor Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli has left his own indelible mark in historic recordings.

To sit down from cold and burst into Islamey is a feat in itself.It would normally come as the icing on the cake after a long recital programme.However orders were orders and if Islamey exceeds the allotted five minutes it certainly could not be preceded by even the shortest of pieces.Little did we know that whilst Sasha was conquering his Everest her majesty the Queen was passing by below.A scintillating performance that just missed the wild abandon and depth of sound that Sasha would normally regale us with.Sasha’s prize winner’s Wigmore in 2013 opened and closed with a magical piece by Arvo Part that gave an overall shape to a container of Mozart,Beethoven and Gulda and made me aware of what an extraordinary artist he was.Bryce Morrison,the distinguished critic and pianophile, played me a while back a recording and asked me to guess who it was.A scintillating display of classical music in jazz idiom that was quite breathtaking in its audacity – it was Play Gulda with Sasha Grynyuk!Sasha has dedicated himself tirelessly to helping his co nationals by arranging and giving benefit concerts for the Ukrainian relief fund.https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2022/06/10/sasha-grynyuk-at-cranleigh-arts-for-ukraine-joint-fundraiser-for-the-disasters-emergency-committee-and-cranleigh-arts/

And so we were coming to the end of this extraordinary evening that was described as a book launch but I think we were all aware that it was much more than that.

Elena spoke of the formation of the Historical Instrument Section of the KCT which she has been responsible for creating and has already helped reach recognition artists such as Jean Rondeau.This activity is progressing with extraordinary rapidity as there was obviously the same need of creating a bridge between young artists and their potential public.The KCT could not have been more poetically described than by Moritz von Bredow or so clearly expressed by Geoffrey Shindler.Our chairman looking to the future as John and Noretta have always done saluting our loyal and indispensable donors and thanking them all and delighted in seeing them honoured in the pages of the book.

It is to the book we return for the final comment from one of the greatest musicians of our time now in his 100th year.Menahem Pressler was moved to write an introduction that could have not been clearer or more to the point :’The young artists entering the orbit of Noretta and John,having been carefully selected ,are nurtured and advised according to their individual needs,repertoire is chosen with great care and they become part of a big family.This is truly a love affair,and the story of its birth and development so beautifully told by John Leech in ‘The Gift of Music’ is a wonderful read.

P.S.The last words most go to John and Noretta who write :

‘Last night was an overwhelming display of musical ability, colour – and affection: a moving review of what our labours with the Keyboard Trust have meant to young lives – as well as our own.’

But as the night wore on, other qualities were called into play by the momentous events that were changing the structure of the city around us. Noretta and I had to wait for a solicitous police vehicle to escort us out of the forest of barricades. Sarah, Richard, Pablo, Moritz and Sasha nobly deployed to the compass points more likely to bear a stray cab, even under by then streaming rain.

When eventually one was found, the heavy police presence had to approve access and clear the way. By this time most of the barricades were already in place, and the final leg of the mercy mission had to be negotiated on a heavily laden police transport. Effusive thanks are due to all those involved in this midnighht mission. It was the kind of effort that friends might well make; last night, against the background of royal mourning and teeming rain it acquired an almost symbolic significance.

The degrees of sadness and selflessness shown by all our friends and company were certainly worthy both of the occasion and its profoundly historic background.  All of us were conscious of the passage of great events, modestly accompanied by our small event of personal significance.

With our glowing thanks to all our friends, for last night’s acts of heroism as well as over the last 30 years,

Noretta and John, with love.’

The last word must be from the master himself penned just before midnight last night …….no pumpkins for John or Noretta!

Perfection fired by genius! Completeness beautifully etched, the whole story rounded, the affection clearly displayed on its sleeve. What a remarkable story, most expertly recounted – without an ending, but measuring its beating pulse!Viva! Viva! Vivat the Spirit of Music!!!

Thank you, Chris, for showing us how vigorous that Spirit is still becoming!

Love,

Noretta and John

A chronicle of events in a year in the life of the Keyboard Trust https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2022/09/06/point-and-counterpoint-from-5th-october-2021-to-25-august-2022/

Caroline von Reitzenstein writes :

Dear Family and Friends,

It’s hardly possible that a year has passed since my father John Leech left us on November 22nd, 2024 at the age of 99.

We finally received the completed video recording of the Celebration of Life which many of you were able to participate in and reconfirmed that John’s was indeed a Life Extraordinarily Well Lived.

Please see the link above to the video which you can also find on the memorial website we created as an ongoing tribute to my father’s life www.johnleechvr.com. Please visit it if you haven’t already, and feel free to contribute your own thoughts and memories. We shall also be adding it to the Keyboard Trust website www.keyboardtrust.org.

I send all of you my very best wishes for a joyful and healthy holiday season.

Love,

Caroline