Superb live stream from Warsaw………a historic Erard piano with Pedro López Salas playing Mozart Concerto K.467 with superb rhythmic drive and infallible precision.
But this was allied to a simple pure musicality of great character which brought Mozart’s world vividly to life with operatic charm and style.

The aristocratic poise he brought to the famous ‘Elvira Madigan’slow movement was all the more poignant without any of the fussy ornamentation that seems to have inflicted poor Mozart these days.

Pure great Mozart nowhere more so than in the last movement of the Concerto and his Sonata K. 330 played as encore with disarming simplicity and moments when he dared step back and allow the music to speak for itself with a smile on its face with the same beguiling charm and ‘joie de vivre’ of Mozart’s opera characters.
Of course aided by a superb orchestra of period instruments guided by the concert master of overwhelming personality and rhythmic drive.
Mozart on period instruments played with real character and the ‘sturm und drang’ of concealed passion and drive ,not afraid of the music but consumed by it .

Yes please this is an example to us all of how Mozart could be played respecting the period but not being intimidated by it.Let’s not forget the wonderful Martina Pastuszka directing from the violin but more than directing she was living music with dance and song as she moved with a mastery of someone with music that was inhabiting her very being.Transmitting it to her superb orchestra of semi period instruments (brass and wind) of the (Oh!) Orkiestra .
Pedro and she and all their colleagues became one as the very operatic meaning of Mozart was transmitted through them to us thirsty for such enticing musical integrity and inspiration and dare I add ‘authenticity!’

Pedro had never played a historic instrument before but he wrote to say how much he was learning living with the instrument for a few days before the concert.Living,learning and transmitting – what greater lesson of true artistry could there be than that?

Pedro Lopez Salas at St Mary’s -The magic box of colours of a great artist

Well we were to find out after the interval as Aleksandra Swigut took us quite literally by storm as like a woman totally possessed by the music she re created the Grieg Concerto with a mastery and overwhelming conviction that was truly breathtaking.There is the famous story of Liszt sight reading the concerto that the composer had brought to show the master.Of course Erard was the preferred piano of Liszt and listening and being literally submerged and involved in Aleksandra’s performance today I could not help thinking of how this performance must have been similar to that which had so astonished the composer and has become part of history.

I have heard Aleksandra Świgut before in Cremona on a Fazioli concert grand …….of course I admired much of what she did but was a little reserved as I found it a bit over expressive and I can now say even gushing.https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/08/25/aleksandra-swigut-in-cremona-settembre-2022/. I would never have said that had I not heard her performance today which was so convincing and overpowering that I am indeed bewitched,bothered and not a little bewildered.It was quite simply the re birth of the Grieg Concerto for me as I sat on the edge of my seat – listening in Italy via the superb streaming offered by the Chopin Foundation.

Of course Rubinstein made it his own in his Indian Summer where he would sit back and allow the music to pour from his fingers with his inimitable golden sound and aristocratic poise and at key moments injections of startling youthful passion and vitality.Curzon too brought great authority as did Richter,Lipatti,Arrau and many other great pianists.But what I experienced today was so totally overwhelming as the seductive beauty of the second subject or the time she took in the cadenza ravished and surprised me .Not to mention the sublime beauty and nobility of the slow movement and the all or nothing approach of a woman possessed in the last movement .This was quite simply the most convincing performance I have ever heard.Martyna directing with her arms entwined in the music as Aleksandra’s arms were sculpting the music in the air too and then both plunging fearlessly into the fray.

I had been told that Aleksandra dedicated herself more to historic instruments and how right they were where her total mastery was quite mesmerising.I am not a great fan of bringing these historic instruments into modern day concert halls which they were not born to inhabit.Original instruments in halls that they had never known could exist.As Tortelier said to me with his inimitable sincerity that he would play with gut strings on original instruments when they could show him a recording studio or hall of the same period!I have heard Andras Schiff recently play the Brahms piano concertos on a Bechstein that Brahms would have known – conducting from the keyboard too as he says it is sometimes nice to play without the policeman!The concerts in the Royal Festival Hall did not help the instrument and although the first concerto worked better than the second it was an interesting brave experiment from a thinking musician but they were not the glorious concertos that I remember from the hands of Gilels or Anda.Today Aleksandra proved me wrong as she literally threw herself fearlessly into the piano but knowing all the secrets of un synchronised hands, spread chords and mighty glissandi rather than individual notes.

Suddenly this beautiful looking instrument became a live living beast like the one that Liszt used to famously devour.This was also a Grieg concerto of chamber music proportions as the orchestra was listening and waiting as phrases were allowed all the natural time to expand and blend.A conductor who was indeed a policeman of masterly freedom and control – relaxation in tension – now I know what it really means!

An encore after that would seem superfluous and an anticlimax but then we were not counting on such a great artist to guide us into the Hall of the Mountain King.The mad woman of Erard was finally let loose in a performance that struck fear into me and for an instrument that I am used to seeing treated with ‘kid’ gloves instead of a Bodicea on her flaming chariot.It is recorded and available to watch …….please do ….words do not do justice to such an overwhelming experience