Mese: gennaio 2024

The seventh of eleven recitals in Formello by Ivan Donchev in his Beethoven Cycle that Formello is bravely championing and which are eagerly followed by a large and appreciate audience.
Ivan ,like his beloved mentor Aldo Ciccolini is a stylist but with a classical background that allows him to smooth out some of the more irascible sharper edges of Beethoven with his real searching musicianship which as the title to this recital announces is both of passion and vision.ivan is a thinking musician with a heart of gold and before the concert I could see him referring to the Arrau edition of the sonatas which as he says is an urtext that refers also to many other editions.It is as near a complete guide to Beethoven’s world as one could hope for and despite a rather muffled piano Ivan was able to transmit the very essence of the well known ‘Waldstein’ and ‘Appassionata’ sonatas with simplicity and integrity.

He even surprised us with a remarkably clear performance of the Sonata op 54 ,that rather neglected partner in this trio of Sonatas from this crucial middle period of a Beethoven’s creative life.
‘Without Mozart Beethoven would probably not have existed’ quite rightly declared Ivan at the end of this Beethoven marathon.Announcing an encore that he wanted to dedicate to Mozart on this weekend that would celebrate his birth on the 27th January 1756.

The Adagio from the sonata in F K.332 was played with disarming purity and simplicity where finally after the ‘sturm und drang’ of the highly tempered Beethoven the disarming simplicity of Ivan’s playing was of etched gold as he allowed the music to unfold with such naturalness.Almost without pedal Ivan had found the soul of this troublesome piano and after three very fine performances of Beethoven where Ivan like Beethoven battled with adversity he had now found a world where the music could unfold with the simplicity of a child but with the wisdom of a mature musician.Allowing the sounds to unfold with the same flexibility of a bel canto singer I was indeed reminded of the aristocratic musicianship of Aldo Ciccolini where warmth,humanity and musicianship were combined with elegance and style…………………

The Waldstein sonata has always been the one that closest resembles Delius’s rather rude remark that Beethoven is all scales and arpeggios!An element of truth of course can be found in the Waldstein sonata op 53 as indeed it can with the Emperor Concerto op 73 written just five years later during the period where Beethoven had interrupted his chronicle of Sonatas .

His trilogy that Ivan presented today was to lead to op 78 and 81a that in turn was to be the gateway to the miraculous last period when Beethoven’s turbulent life had been tampered by the loss of his hearing.He could envisage the paradise that was awaiting and was miraculously able to described in music and bequeathed to postering with his final trilogy op 109,110 and 111.

This rather muffled instrument did not allow Ivan the absolute clarity of Beethoven writing where a precision and rhythmic drive are the characteristics of the Allegro con brio.With his fine musicianship and sense of style he managed to shape the music into an architectural whole even though he was forced to find some rather unusual counterpoints in the second subject ornamentation that were a musicians answer to resolving a problematic instrument and making musical sense in a stylistic way.It was a very interesting voyage of discovery of a true musician that at all costs could make the music speak where the composers intrinsic message was of paramount importance.The all too short Adagio introduction to the Rondo was played with a flowing tempo that quite rightly was looking forward to the long bell of G that would toll and be miraculously transformed by the Genius that was Beethoven into the mellifluous outpouring of Schubertian beauty bathed in pedal ( that Beethoven specially indicates and that Ivan scrupulously noted ).The contrasting episodes ever more technically challenging were played with dynamic energy but Ivan had to add more pedal than necessary to give the architectural shape and harmonic meaning to an instrument that he had not yet completely conquered.The coda prestissimo was the contrast that Beethoven intended and opened like the true music box that Beethoven’s teacher Haydn had indicated in his C major Sonata many years before.That great much missed musicologist Piero Rattalino had discussed with Ivan the famous glissandi octaves that appear before Beethoven waves his magic wand and where trills are transformed into magic cloud on which Beethoven’s vision of paradise could ride unimpeded by the mere ‘scales and arpeggios’ so rudely dismissed by a less universal genius.Should one attempt the alternating glissandi and rely on a good instrument and strong fingers ( lubricated in Serkin’s case with a very deft lick before taking the plunge) .Or like Kissin with an equally deft jump with both hands and play them like scales.Ivan has taken Rattalino’s advice in choosing a tempo in which they can be played as very lightweight octaves .It was this that had decided the tempo not only of the prestissimo coda but also of the tempo of the Allegretto Grazioso Rondo and in turn the Adagio molto introduction.For a thinking musician these are all considerations that must be taken into account with the humility and integrity of a performer at the service of the composer.

Ivan rose to the challenge and had now conquered the piano and discovered the secrets that all pianos have hidden away in this black box of hammers and strings.Beethoven would indeed take a hammer to some instruments in frustration of the inadequate instruments of his time where his Genius could already foresee the possibilities of the instruments that were still to be perfected.

The Sonata op 54,the so called poor member of this trilogy,suddenly in Ivan’s hands became the masterpiece that it truly is.Ivan had found more incisive rhythmic bite and the contrast in the first movement between the gracious minuet of ‘mutual anticipation’ (as Menuhin was wont to describe the English character) contrasting with the tumultuous irascible outbursts of completely different character.This was indeed Floristan rudely interrupting Eusebius and was one of the finest and most persuasive performance I have heard.The perpetuum mobile of the second movement of great difficulty was give a musicianly shape and indeed was a true Allegretto .Like the opening of the Waldstein this was more of a stylistic solution as absolute precision and clarity were not possible.It was shaped with the same intrinsic character but clarity and the all important silences were not always possible without interrupting the unending flow of notes that poured from Ivan’s finely trained fingers.

A superb performance of the ‘Appassionata’ in which Beethoven’s very precise indications were scrupulously noted. The long held pedal in the first movement before the coda was a moment of real rest before the storm and on this instrument was particularly poignant.Unfortunately an instrument where the dynamic energy within the rests are of such searing importance as Ivan did play the opening trill followed by a rest exactly as written but the electric shock of silence was weakened by the rather muffled sound .Certain passages in the first movement he had to give more rounded edges making music as a supreme stylist rather than an intellectual perfectionist.One must admire Ivan too for not playing safe as he played Beethoven’s vast arpeggios with one hand rather than dividing them as lesser mortals ( pianists!) do .If you want to play safe don’t play Beethoven say I and more importantly so does Arrau!The second subject was particularly beautiful on this instrument but the blurring at the end of the long desolate scale to Beethoven’s rumbustuous outburst of dynamic drive was weakened by having to add pedal and slow it down rather than being rudely interrupted as Beethoven’s irascible temperament caused him to shut and open doors with an abruptness that was not of his age.

A beautiful Andante con moto anticipates the string quartet writing of the last movement of op 109.It was played with intelligence and beauty as the variations flowed so easily from one to the other before the ‘bump in the night’ shock of an interruption and the gust of wind as Beethoven joined this slow movement to the final Allegro ma non troppo.Here again the control and technical ease with which Ivan played this perpetuum mobile was remarkable for the shape and style that he could add without ever altering the intrinsic pulse .Of course for a true musician like Ivan the ritornelli by the composers are not just suggestions but demands for a repeat usually with more intensity.The accelerando into the presto coda was exciting because the Allegro had indeed been ‘non troppo’ so Ivan was able to play the coda with a precision and indeed now remarkable clarity.He should actually have kept the pedal on to the end as Beethoven asks which paradoxically the piano would have accommodated happily this time.I think an artist of Ivan’s stature can and should be allowed some artistic license after such an exemplary display of respect for the composer he is the humble servant of.

I look forward now to Ivan’s performance of the Sonatas op 27 and 28 in nearby Velletri on the 25th February on the 1876 Pleyel piano beautifully restored by its proud owner Ing Giancarlo Tammaro who was present tonight to applaud this very fine artist and maybe check that he would not break his much loved period instrument!No fear of that with a musician who listens to what he is playing with intelligence,humility and mastery and it is sure to be an exhilarating voyage of discovery!

Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 21 in C major, Op. 53, known as the Waldstein, is one of the three most notable sonatas of his middle period (the other two being the Appasionata op.57and Les Adieux op 81a ) Completed in summer 1804 and surpassing Beethoven’s previous piano sonatas in its scope, the Waldstein is a key early work of Beethoven’s “Heroic” decade (1803–1812) and set a standard for piano composition in the grand manner.

The sonata’s name derives from Beethoven’s dedication to his close friend and patron Count Ferdinand Ernst Gabriel von Waldstein , member of Bohemian noble Waldstein family (Valdštejn). It is the only work that Beethoven dedicated to him.It is also known as L’Aurora (The Dawn) in Italian, for the sonority of the opening chords of the third movement, thought to conjure an image of daybreak.

The Waldstein has three movements:

1. Allegro con brio
2. Introduzione: Adagio molto The Introduzione is a short Adagio that serves as an introduction to the third movement. This replaced an earlier, longer middle movement, later published as the Andante favori ,Wo0 57.
3. Rondo -Allegretto moderato

The Piano Sonata No. 22 in F major, op .54, was written in 1804 It is contemporary to the first sketches of the fifth Symphony and is one of Beethoven’s lesser known sonatas, overshadowed by its widely known neighbours

“the whole work is profoundly humorous, with a humour that lies with the composer rather than with the childlike character portrayed by the music. No biographical details are known as to whether Beethoven thought of any person or household divinity in connection with this sonata; but its material is childlike, or even dog-like, and those who best understand children and dogs have the best chance of enjoying an adequate reading of this music; laughing with, but not at its animal spirits; following in strenuous earnest its indefatigable pursuit of its game whether that be its own tail or something more remote and elusive; and worthily requiting the wistful affection that is shown so insistently in the first movement and even in one long backward glance during the perpetuum mobile of the finale.” Donald Tovey

Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 23 in F minor, op57Appassionata, was composed during 1804 and 1805, and perhaps 1806, and was dedicated to Count Franz von Brunswick. The first edition was published in February 1807 in Vienna .It was not named during the composer’s lifetime, but was labelled in 1838 by the publisher of a four-hand arrangement of the work. Instead, Beethoven’s autograph manuscript of the sonata has “La Passionata” written on the cover, in Beethoven’s hand.

It has three movements:

1. Allegro assai
2. Andante con moto
3. Allegro ma non troppo – Presto

Ivan Donchev’s extraordinary recreation of Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony at Villa Torlonia

In our latest collaboration with theKeyboard Trust (UK), we are thrilled to present the brilliant young Danish/Polish pianist Filip Michalak in concert in the Library, with a delightfully diverse repertoire:

Filip Michalak at St Mary’s ‘something old but oh so new in a great artists hands’

Filip Michalak in London for The Keyboard Charitable Trust

PROGRAMME: 

Domenico Scarlatti (Napoli, 1685-Madrid, 1757):

Sonate K 213 in D minor , K 38O in E major, K 466 in F minor

Fryderyk Chopin (Żelazowa Wola, 1810-Paris, 1849):

4 Mazurkas  Op. 30

n.1 in C minor,n.2 in B minor,n.3 in D flat ,n.4 in C sharp minor 

César Franck (Liegi, 1822-Paris, 1890): 

Prélude,Choral et Fugue  M 21

Franz Schubert (Vienna, 1797-Vienna, 1828) transcribed by Franz Liszt (Raiding, 1811-Bayreuth, 1886)

Ständchen (Serenade)

Sergej Rachmaninov (Onega, Velikij Novgorod, 1873-Beverly Hills, 1943) transcribed by Vyacheslav Gryaznov (Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Unione Sovietica, 1982)

Vocalise Op 34 n. 14

Astor Piazzolla (Mar del Plata,  1921-Buenos Aires, 1992):  Oblivion

Libertango.

Fascinating recital by the young Danish pianist Filip Michalak who certainly had a tale to tell. In the series of star pianists from the Keyboard Trust in collaboration with the British Institute in Florence he presented a programme originally conceived as a panorama of styles and emotions from the baroque to the present day .

In reviewing it in London a year ago I had given it the title of ‘Something Old -Something New ‘
https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/04/26/filip-michalak-at-st-marys-something-old-but-oh-so-new-in-a-great-artists-hands/
A slightly modified programme today as this young man had fallen in love with Franck’s Prelude Choral and Fugue which was now the centre piece of his panorama.
Fascinating stories on and off stage as this is a young man with something to say.

A Polish father who had fallen in love with Denmark and transferred his life there .A young singer with a visiting Polish choir had caught his eye and they decided to live happily every after together in Denmark.Filip appeared on the scene shortly after and of course was brought up bathed in Polish culture together with that of Denmark.

It was this mixture that was immediately evident in his performance of the four Chopin Mazukas op 30. Chopin too had been an exile but had never lost his nostalgic yearning for the traditional music of his homeland.Filip played them with the sense of improvised freedom of fantasy,delicacy and above all an insinuating rhythmic flexibility that is inborn and cannot be just learnt.The great bell like toll of the third mazurka was played with such commanding authority as it burst into infectious dance with its quixotic changes of character as he reached out to the deeply brooding fantasy of the fourth. The rhythmic drive of the second was played always with the beguiling style as to the manner born.

Polish pianists always assume that only they can understand the nostalgic world of the mazurka.So it came as a great shock and indeed a great lesson when the Chinese pianist Fou Ts’ong was awarded the Mazurka prize in the Chopin competition in Warsaw in the early ‘60’s.As T’song explained this anomaly later saying that it was because a soul is universal and does not know borders.The soul that is found in Chinese poetry ( of which his father was a renowned expert who had committed suicide together with his wife during the cultural revolution ) is the same soul that inspired Chopin in his early lifelong exile from his homeland.

Filip Michalak had opened his programme with three Scarlatti Sonatas in this beautiful room with a view.Surrounded by the books in the ‘Harold Acton Library’ that the great aesthete had bequeathed to the British Institute,he opened with the whispered delicacy of the Sonata in D minor.It immediately demonstrated his artistic sensibility drawing us in to eavesdrop in this intimate atmosphere rather than projecting out to the audience that had filled the hall.Magical sounds poured from this matured Bechstein piano of 1890 ,that like the wonderful Riserva Chianti that we were offered by the sponsor afterwards,had matured well and there was a knowingly warm glow to the sound of a wondrous music box.This contrasted immediately with the sparkling brilliance of the well known Sonata in E.With its horn calls of gentle rhythmic insistence it was played with the same elasticity that Filip was to bring to the Mazurkas that followed.It was Chopin who had described to his noble women students who flocked to him for lessons ,that ‘rubato’ ,that very elusive elasticity of tempo,was like a tree with the roots firmly placed in the ground but with the branches free to sway and move with the breeze that passes through them above.

It was exactly this that this young artist demonstrated with the Sonata in F minor that followed.Etherial arpeggios were gently transformed into a beguiling melody of great yearning.These too were a great lesson of a stylist who could see that the simple notes of Scarlatti although limited to the plucked instruments of his time were conceived (like with Bach) with the human voice in mind where the song and the dance were the very basis of the fantasy of a Genius.A genius who could pen over five hundred sonatas each with their individual character and architectural shape.There are of course two schools of thought :those that conceive these works as monumental that should be played with reverence and respect for the performance practices of the inferior instruments of their age.There are those ,like our young poet today,who believe that Scarlatti like Bach had a heart and soul that beats with the same human sensibility in every age and where customs and performance practices should be known and respected but not at the expense of the inner meaning – or dare I say soul – in the moment of creation.Food for thought maybe but was left behind with the magisterial performance of Cesar Franck’s Prelude Choral and Fugue that followed.

This was now the centre piece of Filip’s rich panorama that he shared with us.This was the sumptuous outpouring of a true believer that was conceived in one long arch culminating in the fugue where the contrapuntal genius of Franck allowed him to combine the three themes that had been transformed from the opening declamation.He was able to join them together at the very climax of this work with exultation and exhilaration to the glory of our maker!This was after the return of the etherial opening with the theme magically floated on a wave of moving sounds becoming ever more intense until bursting into the climax.It requires a transcendental technique too because Franck had a hand span that was much larger than the norm – which was confirmed by Filip who was eavesdropping at the door during my short introduction to his recital! Filip managed to keep the rhythmic energy at boiling point despite all these difficulties maintaining a remarkable sense of line with the swirling mass of notes out of which the themes emerge.Before this tumultuous final fugue there had been the choral of disarming simplicity as the opening theme was revealed at the end of long arpeggiated chords like bells shining brightly at the end of each glissando like chord.The final page of the fugue was played with burning excitement and transcendental control and the two final chords aristocratically placed with the same nobility of the organist of Sainte Clotilde in Paris.

After the exhilaration and virtuosity of Franck it was as though Filip was now liberated of his new passion and was free to return to his panoramic story of ‘Something Old and Something New’.Two songs by Schubert and Rachmaninov transcribed for the piano were played with a golden etched sound that held the audience spell bound.The genius of Liszt combined with Schubert created a magic atmosphere as the melodic line was mirrored with exquisite sensibility on a wave of gently moving harmonies.Rachmaninov’s ‘Vocalise’ was even in the original a ‘song without words’ and this transcription by Gryaznov took me by surprise not only for the sublime beauty of the opening but also for the unexpected passionately contrapuntal orchestral climax that then just dissolved to a whisper leaving a trail of magic silence that was ‘golden’ indeed.Now our young Danish Prince could let his hair down with the ravishing,enticing and hypnotic sounds of the Nuevo Tango of Piazzola.

‘Oblivion’ just filled the silence created by the ‘Vocalise’ where the language changed but the intense sentiment was the same until the piano just burst into flames with the driving hysterical rhythmic energy of Libertango.A ‘tour de force’ of stamina and technical mastery built to fever pitch until a red hot glissando shot from one end of the piano to the other and had him and many members of the public on their feet in astonished enthusiasm.

By great demand Filip was happy to take us to calmer pastures where Brahms’ sheep were safely left to graze.The beautiful waltz in A flat op 39 n. 15 just confirmed that a thing of beauty is a joy for ever.A work like Liebestraum or Fur Elise that was heard in every parlour where there once stood proudly a piano but whose place has now been taken over by a giant TV screen!

What a coincidence that only two days ago Evgeny Kissin had chosen this same beautiful waltz like today as a farewell gift to a doting audience in Rome.

Kissin in Rome ‘Mastery and mystery of a great artist’

Kissin had moved on to Paris and London and our young poet will move tomorrow to the Tuscia University in Viterbo .The concert will be streamed live and will conclude this short tour that the KT is proud to have shared with such a talented young artist at the start of his career.

Italian composer Domenico Scarlatti (1685–1757) wrote 555 solo keyboard sonatas throughout his career. Circulated irregularly in his lifetime,these are now recognized as a significant contribution which pushed the musical and technical standards of keyboard music.These sonatas for solo keyboard were originally intended for harpsichord,clavichord or fortepiano and there are four sets of catalogue numbers:

• K: Ralph Kirkpatrick (1953; sometimes Kk. or Kp.)
• L: Alessandro Longo (1906)
• P: Giorgio Pestelli (1967)
• CZ: Carl Czerny

• Chopin based his mazurkas on the traditional polish folk dance also called the mazurka (or “mazur” in Polish). However, while he used the traditional mazurka as his model, he was able to transform his mazurkas into an entirely new genre, one that became known as a “Chopin genre”He started composing his mazurkas in 1825, and continued composing them until 1849, the year of his death. The number of mazurkas composed in each year varies, but he was steadily writing them throughout this time period.Over the years 1825–1849, wrote at least 59 compositions for piano called Mazurkas. Mazurka refers to one of the traditional Polish dances.There’s also a great deal of passion in the mazurkas; some of them are as demanding, physically and intellectually, as Chopin’s longer ballades or scherzos. Robert Schumann immediately grasped the embedded nationalism, characterising the Polish dance rhythms, modes and bagpipes as a rebuke to Russia: ‘If the mighty autocrat of the north knew what a dangerous enemy threatened him in the simple tunes of Chopin’s mazurkas,’ he wrote, ‘he would forbid this music. Chopin’s works are canons buried in flowers.’

Prélude, Choral et Fugue, FWV 21 was written in 1884 by César Franck with his distinctive use of cyclic form.Franck had huge hands ,wide like the span of emotions he conveys,capable of spanning the interval of a 12th on the keyboard.This allowed him unusual flexibility in voice-leading between internal parts in fugal composition, and in the wide chords and stretches featured in much of his keyboard music.Of the famous Violin Sonata’s writing it has been said: “Franck, blissfully apt to forget that not every musician’s hands were as enormous as his own, littered the piano part (the last movement in particular) with major-tenth chords… most pianistic mortals ever since have been obliged to spread them in order to play them at all.”The key to his music may be found in his personality. His friends record that he was “a man of utmost humility, simplicity, reverence and industry.” Louis Vierne a pupil and later organist titulaire of Notre-Dame, wrote in his memoirs that Franck showed a “constant concern for the dignity of his art, for the nobility of his mission, and for the fervent sincerity of his sermon in sound… Joyous or melancholy, solemn or mystic, powerful or ethereal: Franck was all those at Sainte-Clotilde.”In his search to master new organ-playing techniques he was both challenged and stimulated by his third and last change in organ posts. On 22 January 1858, he became organist and maître de chapelle at the newly consecrated Sainte Clotilde (from 1896 the Basilique-Sainte-Clotilde), where he remained until his death. Eleven months later, the parish installed a new three-manual Cavaillé-Coll instrument,whereupon he was made titulaire.The impact of this organ on Franck’s performance and composition cannot be overestimated; together with his early pianistic experience it shaped his music-making for the remainder of his life.Many of Franck’s works employ “cyclic form”, a method aspiring to achieve unity across multiple movements. This may be achieved by reminiscence, or recall, of an earlier thematic material into a later movement, or as in Franck’s output where all of the principal themes of the work are generated from a germinal motif. The main melodic subjects, thus interrelated, are then recapitulated in the final movement.

His music is often contrapuntally complex, using a harmonic language that is prototypically late Romantic , showing a great deal of influence from Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner . In his compositions, Franck showed a talent and a penchant for frequent modulatory sequences, achieved through a pivot chord or through inflection of a melodic phrase, arrive at harmonically remote keys. Indeed, Franck’s students reported that his most frequent admonition was to always “modulate, modulate.” Franck’s modulatory style and his idiomatic method of inflecting melodic phrases are among his most recognizable traits.

Franck had huge hands (evinced by the famous photo of him at the Ste-Clotilde organ), capable of spanning the interval of a 12th on the keyboard.This allowed him unusual flexibility in voice-leading between internal parts in fugal composition , and in the wide chords and stretches featured in much of his keyboard music (e.g., his Prière and Troisième Choral for organ). Of the Violin Sonata’s writing it has been said: “Franck, blissfully apt to forget that not every musician’s hands were as enormous as his own, littered the piano part (the last movement in particular) with major-tenth chords… most mere pianistic mortals ever since have been obligated to spread them in order to play them at all.”

The key to his music may be found in his personality. His friends record that he was “a man of utmost humility, simplicity, reverence and industry.” Louis Vierne, a pupil and later organist titulaire of Notre-Dame, wrote in his memoirs that Franck showed a “constant concern for the dignity of his art, for the nobility of his mission, and for the fervent sincerity of his sermon in sound… Joyous or melancholy, solemn or mystic, powerful or ethereal: Franck was all those at Sainte-Clotilde.”Unusually for a composer of such importance and reputation, Franck’s fame rests largely on a small number of compositions written in his later years.

Vocalise” is a song by Sergei Rachmaninov , composed and published in 1915 as the last of his 14 Songs or 14 Romances, op.34.Written for high voice (soprano or tenor) it contains no words, but is sung using only one vowel of the singer’s choosing . It was dedicated to soprano singer Antonina Nezhdanova but is performed in various instrumental arrangements more frequently than in the original vocal version.

Oblivion is an instrumental work by Astor Piazzolla. Composed in 1982, it was originally arranged for bandonéon, piano and bass, but its growing success over the years inspired many reprises for piano solo, clarinet, orchestra, and even a spoken version, all of which you can find in our catalog! The piece was commissioned and featured in the 1984 film Enrico IV (“Henry IV”) by Marco Bellocchio. Adapted from the eponymous theatrical piece by Luigi Pirandello, the plot tells the story of a man who, after losing conscience, thinks he is the famous king. The piece became popular from the film and lives to this day through concert performances. Piazzola elicits an atmospheric and haunting ambience in his composition, evoking the image of oblivion.Libertango was recorded and published in 1974 in Milan.The title is a portmanteau merging “Liebertad” (Spanish for “liberty”) and “tango”, symbolizing Piazzolla’s break from classical tango to tango nuevo.

A tour de force of transcendental pianism showed the other side of this young pianist in Bacewicz’s monumental 2nd Sonata of 1953.

A virtuoso performance not only for the keyboard command but for the amazing kaleidoscope of sounds that he could find in this rather dry acoustic.” (Recital at Steinway Hall in London)

The young danish/polish classical pianist, Filip Michalak is an active soloist and chamber musician. He has performed across Europe in countries such as Poland, Germany, England, France, Italy and all Scandinavian countries and has future engagements in more European countries, China and Middle East. Filip is a 1st prize winner at “Stars at Tenerife” in Spain and has won numerous prizes in his home country, such as 1st prize in the “Nordjyllands Talentkonkurrence” and several prizes in the “Steinway Festival”. In 2017 he became a finalist of the “8th Nordic Piano Competition” and was later that year a semi-finalist in “St. Priest International Piano Competition” in France.

He recently won “The Chopin Prize Competition” at Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM) and was also one finalists of the annual Gold Medal Competition at RNCM. In 2021 he was accepted to one of the biggest piano competition in the world in Leeds and was nominated for the Vendome Prize. 

Filip is currently an artist in The Keyboard Charitable Trust in London and has already performed in venues in London and Frankfurt for the Trust. 

He recently performed Beethoven’s 5th Piano Concerto with Shrewsbury Sinfonia in October 2021.

In 2013 he performed “Rhapsody in Blue” by G. Gershwin at the opening ceremony of the new concert house “Musikkens Hus” in Aalborg in Denmark. In 2016 he performed an arrangement of Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition” for piano and orchestra with Ingesund String Orchestra. 

Filip is also an active chamber musician playing with all different ensembles. Future engagements include a concert tour in China with violinist Kehan Zhang and performances with his duo partner mezzo-soprano Lovisa Huledal in Sweden. He is the Artistic Director of Södertälje Chamber Music Festival in Sweden which had its first edition in 2019 and has just had its 3rd edition in August 2022.

During his career, he has attended several masterclasses with well-known pianist and professors as John O’Conor, Boris Berman, Yoheved Kaplinsky, Sergejs Osokins, Ferenc Rados, Claudio Martinez Mehner, Mikhail Voskresensky, Olli Mustonen, Marianna Shirinyan, Alexander Ghindin, Alesandro Deljavan, Vitaly Berzon, Valentina Lisitsa, Graham Scott, Alexey Lebedev, Ilya Maximov, Niklas Pokki, Peter Jabloski and Peter Friis Johansson. 

In 2013 he started at The Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen in prof. Niklas Sivelövs class. Later on in 2015 he received many scholarships to study abroad and for 3 years he was a student of prof. Julia Mustonen-Dahlkvist at Ingesund Musikhögskolan in Sweden and simultaneously he was pursuing his master-degree at Royal College of Music in Stockholm. Filip has finished his Post Graduate Diploma (PGDip) at Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester with prof. Graham Scot. Furthermore he continued studying with prof. Julia Mustonen-Dahlkvist as an Artist in Residence of the Ingesund Piano Center until 2022.

Currently Filip is one of 9 pianist in the “Gabriela Montero Piano Lab” Academy and is mentored by the world famous pianist, composer and improviser Gabriela Montero.

Nato a L’Aquila nel 1999, consegue nel 2017 il diploma di Pianoforte con il massimo dei voti e menzione d’onore presso il Conservatorio “A. Casella”, con i Maestri Mara Morelli e Orazio Maione. Si perfeziona successivamente presso la Scuola di Musica di Fiesole con Andrea Lucchesini e presso l’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia con Benedetto Lupo. Particolarmente interessato al panorama musicale del Novecento e della Contemporanea, collabora con importanti realtà come il PMCE, l’Ensemble Novecento e il “Cantiere Internazionale d’Arte” di Montepulciano. Sia come solista che come componente di formazioni da camera, ha tenuto concerti per l’Accademia Filarmonica Romana, la stagione dei Giardini “La Mortella” di Ischia, la Società Aquilana dei Concerti “B. Barattelli”. Frequenta attualmente il biennio specialistico di Composizione e nel 2023 è risultato vincitore del “Premio Casella”.

Some quite extraordinary playing from this young pianist who I remember hearing at the S.Cecilia Academy in the final examination recital of the class of Benedetto Lupo..I remember being impressed by his playing but nothing like today listening to him in concert with no one to judge him but the audience. I was completely overwhelmed by his authority and technical mastery but above all by his artistry and musical integrity. Having left ‘school’ and embarking on a career he has freed his wings and allowed his remarkable talent to take flight.Lucky us who have discovered this wonderful series at Roma 3 where they are able to give a platform to such star performers at the beginning of their career. I am not a great fan of Prokofiev as I find his percussive use of the piano and march like rhythms too overwhelming as his music is too often used as a vehicle for displays of virtuosity,strength and stamina. But there is another side to Prokofiev,the lyrical and melodic ,as Jacobo very eloquently pointed out.This is especially true with the earlier pieces like the Visions Fugitives op 22 or the first movement of the second piano concerto op 16.

Even in his tour de force of the ‘Toccata’ there was a quite considerable range of sounds and colours.There was ,of course,the insistent mesmerising drive of the opening played with great clarity where every strand of this intricate web of sounds was of extraordinary simplicity.There was drama too with enormous sonorities that rode on this continual living rhythmic drive that was always technically impeccable. It took courage and was quite a feat to open a concert with such a notoriously tricky piece. His musicianship allowed the architectural shape to be so clear amid all the challenges and hurdles that were strewn in his path.

Jacobo chose to show us the fantasy and beauty of the ‘Tales of an Old Grandmother’ with its four movements full of changing character and imagination.The kaleidoscopic colours that Jacopo was able to find showed a quite refined technical mastery able to create continually changing landscapes.The capricious suggestive sounds of the ‘Moderato’ with its very atmospheric melody bathed in long held pedals contrasted with the impish opening and ending and was immediately followed by the ‘Andantino’ of beauty and fluidity.The insistent impish bass of the ‘Andante assai’ on which floated a tenor melodic line opened up to a beautiful mellifluous outpouring of searing intensity which was matched by the magical sounds that Jacopo was able to find in the ‘Sostenuto’ with his kaleidoscopic range of sounds and colours.

The 8th Sonata unlike it’s companions of the ‘War Trilogy’ is more lyrical than percussive and is the work above all others where the two worlds of violence and peace can live together with moments of searing beauty contrasting with devilish virtuosity.Jacopo was able, with his superb musicianship,to shape the four movements into one architectural whole.From the long haunting and even daunting first movement to the beguiling laziness of the long drawn out waltz of the ‘Andante sognando’ to the spiky energy ,virtuosity and orchestral colours of the ‘Vivace’.This was an extraordinarily convincing performance of a very elusive masterpiece that Jacopo was able to transmit with quite remarkable authority.His spoken eloquence and intelligence was only matched by playing that underlined what he had said but also added much more where words are just not enough.Action speaks louder that words.And music takes over where words are just not enough.Q.E.D.

The Toccata op 11

The Toccata in D minor, Op. 11 was written in 1912 and played by the composer on December 10, 1916, in Petrograd.It is an extremely difficult showpiece and according to the biography of the composer by David Gutman,Prokofiev himself had trouble playing it because his technique, while good, was not quite enough to master the piece. This fact is not universally accepted, however, and his performance as reproduced in 1997 for the Nimbus Records series The Composer Plays is certainly virtuosic.

The toccata genre has undergone great change since Bach’s time. Originally denoting works of recitative or improvisatory character, since the 19th century the emphasis has been on a continuous pulsating rhythm. In Prokofiev’s masterpiece, composed in 1912, this rhythm grows into a hammering motoric drive that dispenses with developed themes or motifs. That which seems fascinating and enthralling to us today came as a shock to the critics of that time. But there were also proponents such as Prokofiev’s friend Nikolai Myaskovsky, who wrote of the Toccata: “It is a fiendishly clever thing, edgy, energetic and full of personality”.

Tales of an Old Grandmother op 31 is a set of four piano pieces and was composed in 1918 and premiered by the composer himself on January 7 the following year in New York City, probably at Aeolian Hall.It has an approximate duration of ten minutes and it was first published by Gutheil in Moscow in 1922.It was composed during Prokofiev’s exile in the United States after the outbreak of the Russian Revolution. An arrangement for orchestra also exists.Prokofiev’s pianistic output of this period is scarce since he put all his efforts into composing his opera The Love for Three oranges . He also composed, around that time, Four Pieces, Op. 32. Both were written in order to mitigate his economic situation because of the delay of the opera’s premiere;however, he did not obtain the money in royalties he expected for them.

The set of works describes an old grandmother narrating tales to her young grandson who listens carefully in her lap. It is full of nostalgia, with all the movements written in minor keys.

The work comprises four untitled movements:

1. Moderato (D minor)
2. Andantino (F-sharp minor)
3. Andante assai (E minor)
4. Sostenuto (B minor)

Sergei Prokofiev’s Piano Sonata No. 8 in B♭ major, op .84 is the third and longest of the three ‘war sonatas’ it was completed it in 1944 and dedicated it to his partner Mira Mendelson , who later became his second wife.The sonata was first performed on 30 December 1944, in Moscow by Emil Gilels

In March 1939, Prokofiev began working seriously on a cycle of three piano sonatas, the Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth, to be known later in the West as the “War Sonatas.” The circumstances of their composition were summed up by Mira Mendelson, Prokofiev’s partner for the last twelve years of his life, “In 1939 Prokofiev began to write three piano sonatas… working on all ten move- ments at once, and only later did he lay aside the Seventh and Eighth and con- centrated on the Sixth.” It took Prokofiev five years to complete the cycle, from 1939 through 1944.

During the summer of 1944, in a state of great optimism, Prokofiev worked on both his Fifth Symphony and the Eighth Sonata. These two works represent not only the distillation and perhaps culmination of Prokofiev’s creative life, they might also be deemed metaphors for his country’s past history, the hopelessness of the early war years, and finally, victory. Indeed, both works embody what he called “an expres- sion of the greatness of the human spirit.” The first theme group of the opening movement, derived from melodies from his music for the film The Queen of Spades (Op. 70), consists of three different melodic profiles. Following a bridge section, a new theme in G minor flows into the allegro of the development. The recapitulation restates the first theme slightly modified.

Much of the thematic material of the second movement was taken from the ball scene in his incidental music for Eugene Onegin (Op. 71). Its dream-like quality is ex- pressed in its marking: Andante sognando, “slow and dreamy.”

The third movement, Vivace, is a bril- liant, fast sonata-rondo form, forging ahead with an extensive middle section and coda.

Leonardo Pierdomenico A master at St Mary’s A memorable recital by a great artist

Impossible to arrive on time for this concert with Erica Piccotti who was recently a guest in my house in London with Leonardo Pierdomenico for concerts together at Bob Boas Salon and at the RAM for the prestigious Cello Gold.

I am happy to enclose an article I wrote about them on that occasion.

I was supporting a very talented young pianist Jacopo Petrucci from the school of Benedetto Lupo who I had recently heard in Florence in his complete Beethoven Series :

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/12/07/lupo-gatti-in-florence-lift-up-your-hearts/)

Jacopo unfortunately for me was performing the other side of this ‘Infernal’ City for Roma 3 ‘s magnificent ‘Young Artists Piano Solo Series’ that offers a platform to many super talented young pianists (https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2024/01/25/__trashed/) Jacopo had also been a student of Orazio Maione in l’Aquila before taking wing and flying down to Rome .Orazio whose mother’s 100th anniversary we celebrated in Naples recently.

Naples pays homage to Annamaria Pennella

I had done my homework though for one of my favourite works .

The Double Concerto op 102 was Brahms’ final work for orchestra. It was composed in the summer of 1887, and first performed on 18 October of that year in the Gurzenich in Cologne, Germany.Brahms approached the project with anxiety over writing for instruments that were not his own.He wrote it for the cellist Robert Hausmann , a frequent chamber music collaborator,and his old but estranged friend, the violinist Joseph Joachim .The concerto was, in part, a gesture of reconciliation towards Joachim, after their long friendship had ruptured following Joachim’s divorce from his wife Amalie ( Brahms had sided with Amalie in the dispute.)

The concerto makes use of the musical motif A–E–F, a permutation of F–A–E, which stood for a personal motto of Joachim, Frei aber einsam (“free but lonely”).Thirty-four years earlier, Brahms had been involved in a collaborative work using the F-A-E motif in tribute to Joachim: the F-A- E Sonata of 1853.

Joachim and Hausmann performed the concerto, with Brahms at the podium, several times in its initial 1887–88 season, and Brahms gave the manuscript to Joachim, with the inscription “To him for whom it was written.” Clara Schumann reacted unfavourably to the concerto, considering the work “not brilliant for the instruments”.Richard Specht also thought critically of the concerto, describing it as “one of Brahms’ most inapproachable and joyless compositions”. Brahms had sketched a second concerto for violin and cello but destroyed his notes in the wake of its cold reception.Later critics have warmed to it: Donald Tovey wrote of the concerto as having “vast and sweeping humour”.

Casals and Thibaud recorded it with Cortot conducting in 1929: https://youtube.com/watch?v=90h1x-Rd9bE&feature=shared

Words cannot do justice to the three monumental performances we heard today from Evgeny Kissin.Who would have thought that Beethoven op 90 and Chopin Nocturne op 48 n 2 and the F minor Fantasie would appear like new as they were recreated before our incredulous eyes by a pianist who from a leggendary child prodigy passing through sometimes questionable interpretations has now in his first half century become one of the greatest artists I have ever heard.
This is a man in love above all with the sound of the piano but also with his evident joy to be able to share his voyage of discovery with an audience. Only from Sokolov have I heard such pianistic and musical perfection.If sometimes the tempi were slow and the music was not allowed to take wing it was because every note and every rest was pregnant with meaning.’Tempo di Marcia’ the Fantasie it was not ……but it was by a strange paradox that it was mesmerising in the way that in convincing himself he drew us in to this recreation and we too were hypnotised ravished and following with baited breath the conversation between interpreter and composer.The central episode of the nocturne became monumental instead of incidental but as Curzon said on hearing Radu Lupu in Leeds :thank God I lived to hear that!

Beethoven op 90 where the punctuation was so precise but orchestral in its precision and contrapuntal clarity.There were remarkable contrasts between the military and the liquid purity of the melodic.Beethoven’s search for a way back became a hide and seek of suspense. The second movement flowed so mellifluously with a truly wondrous sense of balance as the melodic line floated indeed on magic wings of song.The left hand rests too became so important and infact every detail was noted like a Toscanini or Boulez at the helm of the Philharmonic.
The lights dim and this voyage of discovery continues ……..

I thought nothing could have ever compared to my memory of Michelangeli playing Brahms Ballades until tonight where there was obviously magic in the air.The sublime heights Kissin reached will remain with me for a long time as Michelangeli had over fifty years ago.The fourth Ballade, ‘Andante con moto’ it was not but what does that matter when he could delve into the very soul of this sublime creation.Reverberations appeared as if the whole piano was vibrating out of which emerged a melodic line that was truly breathtaking .The Ballades had opened with such delicacy and beauty with the bass sustaining and adding another dimension to the wonderful legato that defied the fact that this black box was merely hammers hitting the strings.How was it possible that in Kissin’s hands tonight it became a wondrous box of jewels that glittered and sang with the same expressiveness of a Schwarzkopf.This is the illusion that a great artist after years at the helm can arrive at :Nirvana finding a wondrous world that others can never reach.A gradual rise in tension was suddenly released with the return of the opening theme even more legato with staccato left hand like pizzicato strings of an orchestra that suddenly took on a sinister appearance .Yes, Kissin with just ten fingers could find the sounds that only Walter could find with a full Symohony orchestra.In the second Ballade the clouds parted and the rising sun illuminated a beautiful pastoral scene and there was a ravishing beauty of poignant purity.It contrasted with the orchestral central episode only to have an even more wondrous appearance of the opening melodic line but with calm and reconciliation after the storm.The third Ballade opened with a startling reawakening of rhythmic precision and insistence but also with kaleidoscopic sounds.Purity and luminosity of religious intensity was of disarming simplicity in the central episode.

Prokofiev’s Second Sonata immediately followed after rapturous applause for Brahms but Kissin deciding to stay on stage this time.A completely different sound world opened up of the fantasy of a true world of dreams.A melodic line of amazing clarity appeared amongst the multicoloured sound world that had suddenly been unleashed.Rhythmic drive of the second movement with its spiky notes pointed with deadly precision was followed by the restless driving meanderings of great intensity of the Andante.The final movement brought this great gust of wind to an exciting end.
An ovation from a hall that I have rarely seen so full even for other pianistic giants like Sokolov or Volodos.Kissin who indeed had been ‘kissed’ by the Gods tonight played a Chopin Mazurka op 67 n.4 in A minor of refined purity and ravishing beauty that you could feel two thousand people united in following every subtle move that the melodic line was allowed to take with an almost improvised freedom and elasticity that I have not heard since Rubinstein.
Prokofiev’s March from ‘The Love for Three Oranges’ of course was a staggering tour de force of control and of dynamic range but it was the Brahms Waltz in A flat op 39 n.15 ,that Kissin wanted to send us away with,that was of such sublime beauty that I never expect to hear the like again ………until this masters next appearance!
Like Richter he can take a melodic line at such slow tempi because he can find so many different sounds within each note .It may mean some unorthodox changes of tempi that are hardly noticeable or of importance because the voyage is so beautiful that to stop and stare like with his Rachmaninov 3rd just a month ago is such a refreshing change from the usual speed mongers that occupy too often our concert halls.A thing of beauty is indeed a joy forever applies here stronger than ever.
The first time I heard Richter in London it was not his demonic energy or unorthodox technical genius that surprised so much as how quietly he could play and what control of sound never loosing the overall architectural shape of the music.
Kissin has arrived at a maturity now that for me marks him out as the only reason why live performance of well worn masterpieces can still be one of the most stimulating artistic experiences.

Most of Beethoven’s piano sonatas are in three or four movements, but this one has only two. Both are provided with performance instructions in German. A few of Beethoven’s works of this period carried similar instructions in place of the traditional Italian tempo markings.

1. Mit Lebhaftigkeit und durchaus mit Empfindung und Ausdruck (“With liveliness and with feeling and expression throughout”)
2. Nicht zu geschwind und sehr singbar vorgetragen (“Not too swiftly and conveyed in a singing manner”)

The restless character of the first movement has been described by Tovey as “full of passionate and lonely energy “ and Charles Rosen , wrote of its “despairing and impassioned” mood.Andras Schiff hears Bach’s influence in the “beautiful counterpoint ” that unfolds in the development^.

The second movement is a gentle sonata – rondo movement in E major
where its Romantic character, foreshadows Schubert as has long been noted by numerous musicians.

According to Wilfred Mellers , “Opus 90 belongs neither to [Beethoven’s] middle nor to his late phase and Denis Matthews sees it as having “more claim to kinship with the great sonatas of the last period than to the previous ones.” Hans von Bulow declared that this is the work “with which the series of pianoforte works of the Master’s so-called ‘last period’ begins.”Schiff has drawn attention to the apparent connection between the ending of this sonata, which closes in the key of E and the E major chord that opens the Sonata in A major, Op. 101, composed in 1816n declaring that : “If I go into the next sonata it sounds like a continuation of the previous one.”

The Ballades, Op. 10, were written by Brahms in his youth. They were dated 1854 and were dedicated to his friend Julius Otto Grimm. Their composition coincided with the beginning of the composer’s lifelong affection for the pianist and composer Clara Schumann, who was helping Brahms launch his career. The Scottish ballad “Edward” from J. G. Herders anthology of folk songs “Stimmen der Völker in Liedern” made such a deep impression on Brahms that, as he told a friend, the melodies came to him effortlessly.

Dein Schwert, wie ist’s von Blut so rot? Edward, Edward!
Dein Schwert wie ist’s von Blut so rot, und gehst so traurig her? – O!
O, ich hab’ geschlagen meinen Geier todt, Mutter, Mutter!
O, ich hab’ geschlagen meinen Geier todt, und keinen hab’ ich wie er – O!

Why does your Brand sae drop wi’ blude, Edward, Edward,
Why does your Brand sae drop wie blude, and why sae sad gang ye, O?
O, I hae kill’d my hawk, sae gude, mither, mither,
O, I hae kill’d my hawk, sae gude, and I had nae mehr but he, O

“Edward” provided the motif for the first of four ballade compositions, musical tales of a dramatic romantic nature that were linked with memories of Clara Schumann for Brahms. Julius Grimm, to whom the pieces were dedicated, also said that “the Ballades are really for her”. Robert Schumann was very enthusiastic about his young colleague’s composition. Chopin had written the last of his four Ballades only 12 years earlier, but Brahms approached the genre differently from Chopin, choosing to take its origin in narrative poetry more literally.

They are arranged in two pairs of two, the members of each pair being in parallel keys . The first ballade is one of the best examples of Brahms’s bardic or Ossianic style; its open fifths, octaves, and simple triadic harmonies are supposed to evoke the sense of a mythological past.

1. D minor. Andante
2. D major. Andante
3. B minor. Intermezzo. Allegro
4. B major. Andante con moto

The tonal center of each ballade conveys an interconnectedness between the four pieces: the first three each include the key signature of the ballade that follows it somewhere as a tonal center, and the fourth ends in the key signature of D major/B minor despite cadencing in B major.

Brahms returned to the wordless ballade form in writing the third of the Six pieces for piano op 118 . His Op. 75 vocal duets titled “Ballads and Romances” include a setting of the poem “Edward”—the same that inspired Op. 10, No. 1.

Sergei Prokofiev’s Piano Sonata No. 2 in D Minor, Op. 14, was written in 1912 and published 1913, it was premiered on 5 February 1914 in Moscow with the composer performing.Prokofiev dedicated the work to his friend and fellow student at the St Petersburg Conservatory, Maximilian Schmidthof, who committed suicide in 1913. It covers a huge emotional range: from Romantic lyricism to aggressive brutality’.

1. Allegro ma non troppo – Più mosso-Tempo Primo
2. Scherzo.Allegro marcato
3. Andante
4. Vivace – Moderato – Vivace

The Fantaisie in F minor, Op. 49, by Chopin was composed in 1841, when he was 31 years old and the most harmonious year in his stormy relationship with the author George Sand (the pen name of Amandine-Aurore-Lucile Dupin, Baroness Dudevant) From Chopin’s letters it is known that he used the name “fantasy” to show some sort of freedom from rules and give a Romantic expression.Frédéric Chopin continued the tradition of a self-contained movement in his Fantaisie.This Fantaisie is considered one of his greatest works.Scholars have long been trying to figure out the mystery of Chopin’s one and only solo Fantasie. The highly individual form is a puzzle to all who prefer more traditional genre concepts. Is it a sonata movement, a rondo, or even a free combination of character movements such as march, recitative or chorale? Chopin lovers have no need of such considerations, seeing that nobody would ever dare to doubt that this Fantasie is one of the greatest works from his pen. After completing the composition, Chopin wrote “The sky is bright, but my heart is afflicted by sorrow”. This gloomy contrast pervades the Fantasie. It is an exceptional work from every point of view

Kissin the Conqueror

Kissin- The Conqueror

Sasha Grynyuk never fails to surprise and astonish with his superb musicianship and impeccable technical mastery.Today was even more astonishing to learn that he had transformed one of the most awkward piano concertos into a beautiful chamber work that could stand by side with one of the great works in the chamber repertoire.He not only played the Dvorak Concerto without the score but he had also reduced the full orchestral part to a string quartet so this beautiful concerto can be heard more often in the concert hall.Richter too never failed to astonish on his first appearances in the west not only with his pianistic perfection but also with his repertoire choices.He chose this concerto for his London orchestral debut and went on to make a landmark recording of it with Carlos Kleiber.I have never seen it programmed since in London or at least so very rarely.So it is thanks to Sasha for allowing us to hear this beautifully mellifluous work today.An orchestra of four beautiful young lady musicians who played with the same superb musicianship ,listening to each other as in the concerto there was a question and answer between the soloist and the orchestra.There is a pastoral character to the concerto that I had never been aware of with a continuous outpouring of melodic invention unmistakably traditional Czech .There were moments of passionate outbursts but like Grieg they were never overpowering but more of intensity than dramatic.The Andante in particular where the chiselled beauty of the piano rose above the harmonious warm background of the strings who were always ready to burst into melody .The dynamic opening of the solo piano in the Allegro reminded me of Brahms’ first Concerto with its dance like energy.There were moments of brilliance from Sasha but played with such musicianship that the actual technical mastery never drew attention to itself but just added to the overall architectural shape of the ‘quintet’.The cadenza too was astonishing for its pure musical shape created by cascades of notes played with such ease and naturalness.

Some superb playing from his four companions too with the searing intensity of Urska Horvat’s cello matched by the simple beauty of Kesari Pundarika’s viola.The superb violins of Sue In Kang and Ana – Elisabeta Popesu- Deutsch.

They all joined together in a performance of the Schumann Quintet that I have rarely heard played with such simplicity and clarity.What it lacked in the burning intensity of Rubinstein and the Guarneri Quartet all those years ago it gained in an architectural shape with playing of simple superb musicianship.Rubinstein as his solo career was coming to an end played the Brahms and Schumann Quintets in the Festival Hall and I remember Rubinstein well into his 80’s running on stage as he plunged into the first chords of the Schumann taking his colleagues very much by surprise.But of course he had this way of injecting energy into his beautiful playing like sudden electric shocks when he would even lift himself off the piano stool.Today there was the same superb playing but with musicians listening to each other and with modesty and humility showing us the simple beauty of all they played.

Winner of over ten international competitions, prizes and awards, Sasha was chosen as a ‘Rising Star’ for BBC Music Magazine and International Piano Magazine . His successes also include First Prizes in the Grieg International Piano Competition and the BNDES International Piano Competition, in addition to winning the Guildhall School of Music’s most prestigious award – the Gold Medal – previously won by such artists as Jacqueline Du Pré and Bryn Terfel.Sasha has performed in many major venues including Wigmore Hall, Barbican Hall, Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Bridgewater Hall (Manchester), Wiener Konzerthaus, Weil Recital Hall (Carnegie Hall, New York), Teatro Real (Rio de Janeiro) and Salle Cortot (Paris). He has performed with such orchestras as the Royal Philharmonic, Bergen Philharmonic and Orchestra Sinfonica Brasiliera. His recording of music by Glenn Gould and Friedrich Gulda for Piano Classics was chosen as the record of the month for the German magazine Piano News and shortlisted for the New York Classical Radio Award. Among Sa sha’s ongoing projects are performances of Shostakovich’s original piano score for the 1929 silent film The New Babylon , which he premièred at LSO St. Luke’s and later performed at Leif Ove Andsnes’ Rosendal Festival, Norway. Born in Ukraine, Sasha studied at the Guildhall School in London. Sasha is a Keyboard Trust artist and currently benefits from the artistic guidance of its founder Noretta Conci-Leech.

Dvořák composed his piano concerto from late August through 14 September 1876. Its autograph version contains many corrections, erasures, cuts and additions, the bulk of which were made in the piano part. The work was premiered in Prague on 24 March 1878, with the orchestra of the Prague Provisional Theatre conducted by Adolf Czech with the pianist Karel Slavkovsky . The first performance in England was with soloist Oscar Beringer at the Crystal Palace on October 13 1883.

While working on the concerto, Dvořák himself realized that he had not created a virtuosic piece in which the piano does battle with the orchestra. Dvořák wrote: “I see I am unable to write a Concerto for a virtuoso; I must think of other things.” What Dvořák composed instead was a symphonic concerto in which the piano plays a leading part in the orchestra, rather than opposed to it.

In an effort to mitigate awkward passages and expand the pianist’s range of sonorities, the Czech pianist and pedagogue Vilem Kurz undertook an extensive rewriting of the solo part; the Kurz revision is frequently performed today.

The concerto was championed for many years by the noted Czech pianist Rudolf Firkusny , who played it with many different conductors and orchestras around the world before his death in 1994. Once a student of Kurz, Firkušný performed the revised solo part for much of his life, turning towards the original Dvořák score later on in his concert career.

Leslie Howard who has recorded all of the works of Liszt declared “… there is nothing in Liszt that is anywhere near as difficult to play as the Dvořák Piano Concerto – a magnificent piece of music, but one of the most ungainly bits of piano writing ever printed”.

The concerto is scored for solo piano and an orchestra consisting of 2 flutes ,2 oboes , 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons , 2 horns, 2 trumpets , timpani , and strings .It has three movements:

1. Allegro agitato
2. Andante sostenuto
3. Allegro con fuoco

• Championed by Sviatoslav Richter which he recorded with Bavarian State Orchestra conducted by Carlos Kleiber . EMI Great Recordings of the Century (catalog no. 66947)He also made his much awaited orchestral debut in London with it in the Royal Albert Hall together with the Chopin Andante spianato and Grande Polonaise

Schumann composed his piano quintet in just a few weeks in September and October 1842, in the course of his so-called Year of Chamber Music. Before 1842 Schumann had completed no chamber music at all, with the exception of an early piano quartet composed in 1829. Following his marriage to Clara in 1840, Schumann turned to the composition of songs, chamber music and orchestral works. During his year-long concentration in 1842 upon chamber music he executed the three string quartets, Op. 41, the piano quintet, Op. 44; the piano quartet, Op. 47; and the Phantasiestückefor piano trio, Op. 88. Schumann’s work in that year was buoyant in character as he had begun his career primarily as a composer for the keyboard; after his detour into writing for string quartet, according to Joan Chisell, the “reunion with the piano” which the piano quintet provoked gave “his creative imagination … a new lease on life.”

He dedicated the piano quintet to his wife Clara. She was due to perform the piano part in the first private performance of the quintet on the 6th December 1842 at the home of Henriette Voigt and her husband Carl.However she fell ill and Felix Mendelssohn stepped in, sight-reading the “fiendish” piano part.Mendelssohn’s suggestions to Schumann after this performance led to revisions to the inner movements, including the addition to the third movement of a second trio.

Clara Schumann did play the piano part at the quintet’s first public performance, which took place on the 8th January 1843 at the Leipzig Gewandhaus

Sasha Grynyuk Anniversary recital of a great pianist in Perivale

https://youtube.com/live/qDyZy3ZN0wk?feature=shared

Wonderful to watch these two very fine pianists and to know that the life and music of their piano duo has kept apace with their growing family.A programme from the Russian repertoire of succulent Rachmaninov and sumptuous Tchaikowsky with a complete change of mood for an encore of Piazzola’s hypnotic and sizzling Libertango.

The Six Morceaux are among the earliest of Rachmaninoff’s mature works. Rachmaninov had graduated from the Moscow Conservatory in 1892, and-only two years later had already made a reputation for himself as a pianist and composer. These little pieces reflect themes of yearning and display some of Rachmaninov’s famous intricate passagework. The Morceaux are often considered as the forerunners of his later 13 Preludes, Op. 32, from 1910.They were played with sensitivity,colour and character.The ‘Barcarolle’ with the beauty of the melodic line ever more intense and cascades of arpeggios from Gala accompanying her husbands majestic chordal melody in the tenor register of this fine Steinway piano .I too had played this instrument some years ago in duo with Lydia De Barberiis and it has aged well – like good wine,a fine vintage matures especially if looked after with the love and care of Professor Ricci,the artistic director and creator of this series for almost thirty years

A rhythmic drive and crystalline sounds in the ‘Scherzo ‘ and some delicate colouring from Gala with Diego offering an abrupt surprise ending.’The Russian melody’ was played with simplicity and childlike innocence and just contrasted with the delightful dance of beguiling charm of the ‘Valse’.A delicate accompaniment from Diego and the elastic fluidity from Gala.A passionate outpouring in the ‘Romance’ was contrasted with the etherial pedal effect of the echoing in ‘Glory’ a traditional Russian melody.

And so to the Ballet music of Tchaikowsky which they have recorded.A very fine CD which they had invited me to write the sleeve notes for and that I was delighted to have the opportunity to delve into the archive and find out more about such famous melodies.

There was the drama of the opening of ‘Swan Lake’ as the story unfolds.The ‘Dance of the Swans’ with the delicacy of Diego’s accompaniment to Gala’s charm and kaleidoscope of colours bringing vividly to life the deliciously elegant swans before the excitement that they brought to the ‘Hungarian Dance’ finale.

‘Sleeping Beauty’ made a brief appearance in an early transcription by the youthful Rachmaninov with an opening of great expectation and its beautifully shaped melodic line.A curtain raiser for the ‘Nutcracker’ that we are more used these days in hearing in the two hand virtuoso arrangement by Pletnev rather than the more sober but no less exciting four hand arrangement of Langer.A ‘Sugar plumb fairy’ of wistful lightness and a build up of sound as cascades of notes passed from one player to the other with ease and sense of showmanship that this music demands.Beautiful bell like sounds of a luminosity and gentle insistence with their hands barely touching the keys and a whirlwind of rhythmic drive.Diego brought great character to the bass strides on which Gala added the magic melody of Chinese delight!A glorious outpouring of familiar melodies with the ‘Flower Waltz ‘ with arabesques of Romantic delight and exhilaration.

I have said it before but it is even more remarkable now how these two artists can play as one with a sense of balance as they listen to the music they are creating together with such sensitivity and love .

Il Duo pianistico a 4 mani Gala Chistiakova e Diego Benocci si è formato nel 2014, quando i due pianisti si perfezionavano presso l’Accademia Pianistica Internazionale di Imola.

Diego Benocci è nato a Grosseto, ha iniziato gli studi musicali presso l’Istituto Musicale della sua città con il M° Giuliano Schiano. Si è diplomato presso il Conservatorio “G. Frescobaldi” di Ferrara e ha concluso il corso di laurea presso il Conservatorio di Stato “L. Cherubini” di Firenze nella classe della Prof.ssa Maria Teresa Carunchio e l’Accademia Pianistica Internazionale “Incontri col Maestro” di Imola sotto la guida del M° Enrico Pace e del M° Igor Roma.Tiene regolarmente concerti in tutta Europa e in Asia come solista, musicista da camera e suona con orchestre in importanti festival.

Gala Chistiakova è nata a Mosca in una famiglia di musicisti. Ha iniziato i suoi studi di pianoforte a 3 anni con sua madre Liubov Chistiakova. Dal 1993 al 2005 ha studiato alla Scuola Centrale del Conservatorio di Mosca intitolato a Pëtr Il’ič Čajkovskij con i professori Helena Khoven e Anatoly Ryabov. Nel 2014 Gala ha terminato il Conservatorio di Mosca e un corso post-laurea in una classe del professor Mikhail Voskresensky. Nel 2011 ha iniziato i suoi studi presso l’Accademia Pianistica Internazionale “Incontri col Maestro” (classe del Prof. Boris BorisPetrušanskij) in Italia. Vincitrice di oltre 30 concorsi internazionali, vive oggi con il marito Diego Benocci a Grosseto dove dirigono insieme il Festival Musicale Internazionale “Recondite Armonie” e il Progetto di Scambio Culturale “Giovani Musicisti del Mondo”. Nel 2022 sono stati nominati codirettori artistici e docenti del festival IMOC a Grosseto.

Il duo ha un vasto repertorio e ha tenuto concerti in Russia, Italia, Francia, Portogallo, Germania, Regno Unito, per numerose stagioni musicali internazionali riscuotendo ovunque grande successo di pubblico e di critica.  

Nel 2021 in duo hanno vinto la borsa di studio all’Accademia Chigiana nella classe della prof.ssa Lilya Zilberstein. Hanno collaborato come duo con orchestre sinfoniche e da Camera e recentemente si sono esibiti al Conservatorio Čajkovskij di Mosca, alla Weston Recital Hall di Oxford, al Festival International de Musique de Chambre Est Ouest in Belgio, al Madeira Piano Festin Portogallo e in un concerto straordinario per G. Armani a Londra. 

Il loro primo CD con musiche di Čajkovskij è stato pubblicato nel 2021 dall’etichetta italiana OnClassical e le loro registrazioni sono state trasmesse in più occasioni su Rai Radio 3. 

Di recente il duo è risultato vincitore del primo premio assoluto e del premio “Marche Musica” al XXXI Concorso Pianistico Internazionale “Roma”

Gala Chistiakova and Diego Benocci in Viterbo A duo that plays as one with beauty and style.

The tour continues …….The Ritz Abano Terme Sala dei Specchi…….we could have danced all night !

The lap of luxury but here more than any other venue on this tour a very small but appreciative after dinner audience ……as Boris Berman would say :’If they don’t want to come you can’t stop them! ‘
Well we didn’t but joined them in the hot outside pool and fabulous White Glove’s Restaurant .

A shorter programme was heard resounding from the beautiful Steinway in the sumptuous Sala dei Specchi.Our dashing young Russian /Scottish virtuoso played his heart out as always and the Schumann Studies were even more full of the subtle sounds and beauty of a supreme stylist.The posthumous studies were indeed strands of gold as they found their real home in this refined atmosphere where beauty was reflected a thousand fold.

‘Sleeping Beauty’ was just the right piece to send us on our slumbers contemplating the multi-coloured breakfast that awaited accompanied by the delicate sounds of the ‘Moonlight’ Sonata discreetly played.Wafting our way again into the hot springs and for those who were foolhardy enough to raise their head there was a minus one temperature waiting to bite it off .

Now ready for the most important concert of this short KT tour for the Squeglia’s historic ‘Incontro sulla Tastiera ‘ in the Teatro Comunale in Vicenza.

Here is a very fine review of a special occasion on what Nikita described as the best instrument he has ever played on – Sokolov likes it too – che non guasta as they say in these parts!

Nikita’s Schumann ‘studies  are canons covered in flowers because he is a supreme stylist …as Schumann was a supreme poet and called them ‘Symphonic’ ……………Studies.

The study ‘Presto Possible’ that everyone fears and more often than not stumble through  he plays perfectly and it just goes to  show his pianistic credentials and  artistic choices- in a word :a real artist.A fine review from someone who really listens but just  needs clarifying on one or two rather fundamental artistic points .

The ravishing ever youthful Marie Antonietta Squeglia, a long – time friend and colleague of Noretta Conci, invites one of the most enticing pianists from the KT stable to give a recital in her prestigious concert series that she holds every season in the Teatro Comunale during the winter months and the historic Teatro Olimpico in the months where heating is no longer needed or indeed allowed.

It was only Rosalyn Tureck who was allowed heating in this historic wooden edifice of Palladio but surrounded by good looking young firemen though …which of course she loved! She was less enamoured by the Borgato piano seated on stage that she was told was Radu Lupu’s favourite instrument .’Tureck only plays Steinway ‘ was her imperious reply as a match worthy of the cup final was played out to the bitter end !

The final concert of this short KT tour with Nikita’s sparring partner Isabella Rossellini in the extraordinary cultural centre that is the Teatro Comunale in Vicenza.

The main 900 seat theatre full to the rafters for a new one woman play and the smaller 400 seat theatre almost as full for Nikita’s final recital for the KT’s 20th Anniversary concert with the Incontri sulla Tastiera.
A concert dedicated for the past eight years to the memory of the mother of Ermanno Detto the ever generous sponsor of the concerts that Fernanda Muraro Detto used to frequent.

Maria Antonietta Squeglia the driving force behind the Incontri concerts was unfortunately laid low with broken vertebrae but her daughter Raffaella was there in her place as was Antonella Bartolomucci who introduced the concert.
Ermanno Detto was our genial host as was the President of Incontri Enrico Hullweck ,ex- Mayor of Vicenza who had battled for many a year to bring to completion this extraordinary modern complex.

A magnificent new Steinway concert grand from the son of Zanta whose father is still the custodian of the magnificent old Steinway in the Sala Dei Giganti in Padua .This piano is the preferred piano of Sokolov and Nikita too said he had never played such a fine instrument .

What could be better for this final concert and Nikita rose to the occasion with performances of subtle beauty and a feeling of recreating works that he had played for four consecutive days.
There were some very subtle shadings and more time taken as certain corners were given an elasticity that can only happen when the performer and audience are united as one.This is surely the reason for live performances especially of well worn masterpieces.
There is an interaction between artist and audience which can illuminate and still find unexpectedly new things without distorting the overall structure or betraying the fidelity to the composer’s intentions .The ‘Gothic Cathedral’ variation ( n. 7 ) was a case in point as the opening majesty gave way to a timelessness like looking in wonder at a monumental edifice.

Nikita could also play much quieter (strange paradox on a larger piano) with whispered sounds of ravishing beauty that drew the audience to him rather than he having to project the sound to them.
Longer silences and held chords daringly allowed more time without breaking the subtle line that holds an interpretation together.Like the man on the high wire daring to risk all in moments when everything seemed to come together so naturally right.One must have the courage to risk and dare as a solo performer – playing safe is something you do in the recording studio as you search for the perfect performance .On stage you are in the circus arena which is only for the very few courageous souls that are prepared to risk all for moments of discovery and recreation.Not necessarily the note picking accuracy that are essential for studio recordings that are going to be listened to over and over again.

Public performance as Nikita showed us today needs to have an element of the showman that can reduce the public to tears and at the drop of a hat have them laughing or seduced by refined sounds and atmospheres.The music must be a living thing when the curtain goes up and the audience must be in your hands to be led on a voyage of discovery together into the very world of the composer they are transmitting.
I often quote the title of an article written in ‘Le Monde de la Musique’ about Shura Cherkassky which summed up in few words his extraordinary artistry : ‘Je joue, je sens, je transmets.’
Nikita today proved himself worthy of this supreme stylist but also with an extraordinary intelligence that could hold together as one Mussorgsky’s monumental ‘ Pictures.’ They were multi-coloured pictures of extraordinarily different character but at the same time pictures that were housed under the same roof of this gallery.There were moments of almost inaudible sounds in the ‘Old Castle’ as there were terrifying outbursts when ‘Baba Yaga’ comes into view.The final pages of the ‘Great Gate’ were breathtaking in their gloriously rich sounds allowed to reverberate around the hall like the echo in a great Cathedral.
The charm and ease that he gave to the encore ‘Un poco di Schumann’ by Tchaikowsky was with the same ease and style that he had brought earlier to three pieces from ‘The Sleeping Beauty Suite.’
It was piano playing of another age where showmanship is combined with the real technical mastery of a kaleidoscope of sounds in each finger.A heart and soul of gold but a mind and fingers of computer – like precision and intelligence – another paradox but then music is a world which is born and takes flight where words are just not enough.

Two triumphs under one roof Isabella Rossellini and Nikita Lukinov united in this magnificent city where Palladio had constructed the first covered theatre. And so as not to frighten the audience he painted clouds on the roof …Italy really is the Museum of the World as Rostropovich so rightly declared and like all art a true Voyage of Discovery.

A stage at the Comunale that we will be sharing with Isabella Rossellini who will be performing her much awaited one woman show on the stage next to ours.

And so a magic carpet will fly our dashing young prince away to the Isle of Man where he will delight even more enthusiastic KT followers with his superb performances of Schumann,Tchaikowsky and Mussorgsky -and also a masterclass and introductory talk for the enthusiastic music lovers on this sceptered Isle

The Symphonic Studies Op. 13, began in 1834 as a theme and sixteen variations on a theme by Baron von Fricken, plus a further variation on an entirely different theme by Heinrich Marschner.The first edition in 1837 carried an annotation that the tune was “the composition of an amateur”: this referred to the origin of the theme, which had been sent to Schumann by Baron von Fricken, guardian of Ernestine von Fricken, the Estrella of his Carnaval op. 9. The baron, an amateur musician, had used the melody in a Theme with Variations for flute. Schumann had been engaged to Ernestine in 1834, only to break abruptly with her the year after. An autobiographical element is thus interwoven in the genesis of the Études symphoniques (as in that of many other works of Schumann’s).Of the sixteen variations Schumann composed on Fricken’s theme, only eleven were published by him. (An early version, completed between 1834 and January 1835, contained twelve movements). The final, twelfth, published étude was a variation on the theme from the Romance Du stolzes England freue dich(Proud England, rejoice!), from Heinrich Marschner’s opera Der Templer und die Judin based on Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe (as a tribute to Schumann’s English friend, William Sterndale Bennett to whom it is dedicated )The earlier Fricken theme occasionally appears briefly during this étude. The work was first published in 1837 as XII Études Symphoniques. Only nine of the twelve études were specifically designated as variations. The entire work was dedicated to Schumann’s English friend, the pianist and composer, and Bennett played the piece frequently in England to great acclaim, but Schumann thought it was unsuitable for public performance and advised his wife Clara not to play it.The highly virtuosic demands of the piano writing are frequently aimed not merely at effect but at clarification of the polyphonic complexity and at delving more deeply into keyboard experimentation.

• Theme – Andante [C^♯ minor]
• Etude I (Variation 1) – Un poco più vivo [C^♯ minor]
• Etude II (Variation 2) – Andante [C^♯ minor]
• Etude III – Vivace [E Major]
• Etude IV (Variation 3) – Allegro marcato [C^♯ minor]
• Etude V (Variation 4) – Scherzando [C^♯ minor]
• Etude VI (Variation 5) – Agitato [C^♯ minor]
• Etude VII (Variation 6) – Allegro molto [E Major]
• Etude VIII (Variation 7) – Sempre marcatissimo [C^♯ minor]
• Etude IX – Presto possibile [C^♯ minor]
• Etude X (Variation 8) – Allegro con energia [C^♯ minor]
• Etude XI (Variation 9) – Andante espressivo [G^♯ minor]
• Etude XII (Finale) – Allegro brillante (based on Marschner’s theme) [D^♭ Major]

On republishing the set in 1890, Johannes Brahms restored the five variations that had been cut by Schumann. These are now often played, but in positions within the cycle that vary somewhat with each performance; there are now twelve variations and these five so-called “posthumous” variations which exist as a supplement.

The five posthumously published sections (all based on Fricken’s theme) are:

• Variation I – Andante, Tempo del tema
• Variation II – Meno mosso
• Variation III – Allegro
• Variation IV – Allegretto
• Variation V – Moderato.

• Moderato.

In 1834, Schumann fell in love with Ernestine von Fricken, a piano student of Friedrich Wieck, and for a time they seemed destined to marry. The relationship did not last—Schumann got cold feet after he learned that she had been born out of wedlock—but it inspired some notable music. Carnaval, Op. 9, a set of character pieces for piano, is based on a four-note motive derived from the name of Ernestine’s home town. The Etudes symphoniques, Op. 13, are variations on a theme by Ernestine’s father, Ignaz Ferdinand von Fricken, a nobleman and amateur composer. Of course, Schumann eventually transferred his affections to Clara Wieck, and it was she who gave the first performance of the Etudes symphoniques, in 1837. The piece was published by Haslinger that same year, with a dedication to the English composer William Sterndale Bennett rather than to Ernestine. A revised version appeared in 1852.

Our manuscript is a sketch that includes the theme and variations 1, 2, 5, 10, 12, as well as five others that were not published until 1873, in an appendix edited by none other than Johannes Brahms. It formerly belonged to Alice Tully (1902–1993), the philanthropist whose name graces a concert hall in Lincoln Center. She gave it to Vladimir Horowitz (who counted Schumann’s music among his many specialties in the piano repertoire), and two years after his death, his widow Wanda Toscanini Horowitz donated it to Yale. The other principal manuscript source for this piece belongs to the library of the Royal Museum of Mariemont, in Belgium.

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.

Concert Suite from the Ballet ‘The Sleeping Beauty’
Prologue
Dance of Pages
Vision
Andante
Fairy of Silver
The Pussed Tom-Cat and the White Cat
Gavotte
The Singing Canary
Little Red Riding Hood and Wolf
Adagio
Finale

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.

Padua today is resounding with music played by young musicians at the start of their careers.
The opening season of the Pomeriggi Musicali series for Agimus at four and the eleven o’clock opening season of the Domenica in Musica Series that the genial Artistic director Filippo Juvarra has envisioned over the past 33 years to give a platform to young winners of major Italian competitions.

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2022/07/15/two-young-giants-cross-swords-in-verbier-giovanni-bertolazzi-and-nikita-lukinov
Giovanni Bertolazzi had played in Padua last month ( https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/12/13/giovanni-bertolazzi-homage-to-zoltan-kocis-a-giant-returns-to-celebrate-a-genius/) and Nikita Lukinov invited by the Keyboard Trust ( https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/11/07/nikita-lukinov-at-the-national-liberal-club-a-supreme-stylist-astonishes-and-seduces/) will play for Agimus in Padua for Elia Modenese later today ( and Monday at the Ritz Abano Terme) he will also play in the Teatro Comunale in Vicenza on Tuesday where Jakob Aumiller had recently been awarded first prize in the 12th edition of the Lamberto Brunelli Competition in the historic Teatro Olimpico of Vicenza.It was as winner of that competition that he was asked to open the season today.A very tall young man trained at the conservatory in Trento and headed he tells me to complete his studies in America.

The distinguished professor of piano at the Padua Conservatory Lorella Ruffin (the mother of Leonora Armellini) was also with us today to applaud this young musician.
An almost full hall in this historic Sala dei Giganti where the true star is a piano the like of which I have never heard before.Kept in trim by that magician Zanta it was the preferred piano of Richter on which he would often prepare his programmes for his recordings in the historic Teatro Bibiena in Mantova where he was obliged to play the Yamaha that was to follow him wherever he went in the last years of his life.

Perlemuter had played here too in 1983 when Filippo rang me up to ask if this great pianist of whom Italy had only read about in books would play in Padua in his season.

Vlado Perlemuter and the inseparable Joan became friends after his debut in the Ghione theatre and then in Padua and Filippo or I would accompany them around Italy to play until his 90th year!
https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2017/12/19/in-praise-of-joan-2/
I was backstage in the Wigmore Hall at the last concert he gave in a long and difficult career .Joan was with me and I was left holding Vlado’s stick as he raced onto the platform (thus allieviating his ‘guillotine syndrome’ from which he had suffered all his long life) to play the Chopin Four Ballades for the last time.

Jakob from the very first notes of Scriabin’s Fifth Sonata revealed his artistry and mastery in a performance of dynamic drive and subtle sense of colour.A fluidity of whispered beauty contrasting with a dynamic almost diabolical rhythmic energy with his fiery temperament allowed full reign.A youthful passion where on occasion his heart took over from his head and we momentarily lost the sense of line that pervades all of Scriabin’s subtly perfumed sound world.The deep bass notes of this magnificent instrument were merely touched by Jakob’s sensitive hands and just opened up the sonorities adding ever more luminosity to this magic world of colour.

Let me just say that Jakob is more a Brahms man than Beethoven and it was the youthful Brahms Scherzo op 4 that gave us today one of the finest performances I have ever heard of a work unjustly neglected in the concert hall (It was the work that preceded the oft over played F minor Sonata op 5!).Jakob gave a performance of style and colour but also of precision and dynamic drive.There was a great sense of character that he brought to each of the contrasting episodes with orchestral colour and an architectural line that gave an orchestral strength to this youthful work.There was a rhythmic drive that did not exclude moments of repose before bursts of dynamic energy.The opening motif was played with a precision and weight that was to be the hallmark of this remarkable performance.

Beethoven’s Waldstein Sonata almost justifies Delius’s rather clever dismissal of Beethoven as being all scales and arpeggios! It is of all the middle sonatas the one that requires an unrelenting sense of drive with a rhythmic precision of Swiss manufacture.Jakob gave a fine performance but his sense of style and musicality was added to a performance where weight and Toscanini style precision should have been the sine qua non of this extraordinarily energetic and virtuosistic work.The slow movement – the introduction to the Rondo – was played too delicately and beautifully as was the Rondo theme that is transformed so magically from the last note of the introduction.It was played with a beauty that was on the surface and not deep down in the very roots of these miraculous almost orchestral outpourings of Schubertian mellifluous beauty.The tempestuous episodes were played with the precision and drive that the Rondo theme lacked.The coda was played at a very fast pace but there were moments when the energy sagged as he tried to make Beethoven’s arpeggios too beautiful instead of bursting with energy.The first movement Allegro con brio was played at a speed that he managed to maintain without having to slow down for the second subject but was just too fast for the intricate weaving around the second subject to be anything but atmospheric.

Anyone who had heard Serkin play this work will never forget his burning energy and drive and a coda played at the same breakneck speed of Jakob but without conceding any stylistic smoothing out of Beethoven’s rough edges.Not only Serkin was exhausted after such a performance but we,the audience,were too!
The silences in Beethoven are so important and full of energy as Alim Beisembayev showed us the other day in London with an Appassionata ( the twin of the Waldstein ) in which the silences created the energy for what came immediately afterwards.( https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2024/01/06/alim-beisembayev-at-the-wigmore-hall-bewitched-and-enriched-by-the-man-on-the-high-wire/).
However it was a fine if rather immature performance that with his exciting studies that he said were in view in America will add weight and depth to his already quite considerable talent.
Three Etudes Tableaux op 39 by Rachmaninov closed the programme and showed to the full Jakob’s kaleidoscopic sense of colour and passionate commitment together with a technical mastery that brought these miniature tone poems vividly to life.

The first in E flat minor was played with searing intensity and a dynamic range that was remarkable.Helped by this magnificent instrument the return of the theme in the tenor register with tumultuous accompaniments above and below was breathtaking in it’s youthful passionate commitment.The whispered ending just prepared us for the beauty of the study in C minor where the melodic line was allowed to float with such ravishing beauty on a wave of mellifluous changing harmonies.Even an unexpected tumultuous interruption was incorporated into a picture that Jakob knew how to share with us.The final call to arms of the D major etude showed off the technical mastery and passion that this young man was able to convey as the chimes of the great bell tower nearby began striking the hour.(Filippo always advises the artists to finish just before midday to their peril ).
A mystery encore had us all trying to guess who the composer could be of this beautiful harp like salon piece .Was in Sinding,Grieg,Chaminade or even early Debussy?
The riddle was solved in the Green Room afterwards and it turned out to be an early Prelude from the pieces op 12 by Prokofiev!
It was played with the charm,colour and natural musicianship that had been the hallmark of this very talented young artist.

Tuesday 9 January 2.00 pm

Some very musicianly and intelligent playing from Víctor Braojos as you would expect from the class of Martin Roscoe at the Guildhall where Victor now holds a junior fellowship.A fascinating programme that as he so eloquently told us was based of improvisation and free form.

Opening with the beautiful belcanto of Schubert’s G flat impromptu his credentials were immediately revealed in a performance of simplicity and beauty.A sense of balance that allowed the melodic line to sing so eloquently over the crystal clear flowing accompaniment.There was subdued passion and ravishing moments but above all an aristocratic sense style keeping the tempo until the final poignant notes with masterly control and intelligence.

Three preludes by Cortes were a UK premiere and only the second public performance,the first having taken place in the USA.Three beautifully crafted pieces of sadness and melancholy played with the same simplicity as Schubert .An outpouring of fantasy and beauty, played without the score,these three works by his compatriot obviously had a deep significance for Victor.

All these short pieces were but a’ prelude’ to the two major works on the programme:Cesar Franck’s Prelude,Choral and Fugue and Beethoven’s last of his 32 Sonatas ,op 111.Both were played with remarkable control and architectural shape.
The Cesar Franck was played with fluidity and flowing tempo as one complete whole with a great sense of line and drive .Silences that were so poignant in meaning as they punctuated the fragments that Franck so masterly combines into one tumultuous climax of exultation and burning excitement.The superbly played knotty twine of the fugue lead to an exhilarating climax and the explosion of a cadenza that gradually dissolves into the wafts of lapping sounds of the opening Prelude. It was on these wonderfully fluid sounds that the magical reappearance of the opening theme is allowed to float.It was all played with superb control and beautiful articulation but also with artistry and poetic significance.It was the same beauty that he had brought to the choral with its regal outpouring of chiselled sounds before the celestial spread chords on which floats the melodic line.It was played with great authority and purity of sound the same that he was to find for Beethoven’s great Arietta and variations that close the Sonata op.111.

I was surprised that he split the hands in the opening three declarations of op 111 but it in no way diminished the grandeur of this opening before the burning cauldron of the ‘Allegro con brio ed appassionato’.Both the introduction and the Allegro were played with solidity and rhythmic control and a clarity that gave great authority to all that he did.Even slight blemishes were absorbed into the burning driving energy that Victor was able to produce.The Arietta was played with a flowing tempo that never seemed to fluctuate as each of the variations grew so naturally out of the previous one.There was a driving energy and aristocratic control in the mighty third variation before the final whispered meanderings of Beethoven’s world that he could see so clearly spread out before him.Even the triumphant final outpouring of the theme was soon forgotten as Beethoven reaches for the celestial heights that like Scriabin would find solace in vibrations of sound on which fragments of melody could be floated as if on a celestial cloud.This was a performance of a great authority and aristocratic control with the final chord in C major placed with poetically sensitive care.
What can one play after that?Victor had the solution with a beautiful beguiling Epilogue by Granados from his Romantic Scenes

Víctor Braojos obtained his BMus (Hons) at Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya (Barcelona)m Later, he moved to London, where he pursued his Master in Piano Performance (Distinction and Concert Recital Diploma) and Artist Diploma at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, working with Martin Roscoe and thanks to an Excellence Scholarship Award given by this institution. He has won several prizes and awards in National and International Piano Competitions, among which we could highlight the awards in the Maria Canals Int. Piano Competition, the Catalunya Piano Competition (youngest winner ever in the 50 years of history of this competition), the Barcelona Piano Competition, the Girona Musical Competition or the prize at the prestigious “El Primer Palau Music Competition”. Along his career he has performed in several venues across Spain, France, Italy, Poland, Russia or the UK, among which we could remark concerts at emblematic venues such as the Palau de la Música Catalana, Palau Maricel de Sitges, the National Auditorium of Barcelona, London Steinway Hall or the Frédéric Chopin Museum in Warsaw. His most recent and future engagements include internationally acclaimed concert halls and festivals, such as the Conservatoire International Concert Series at South Hill Park, the Bloomsbury Festival, National Liberal Club, the International Masters Series of Leon City Auditorium or North Fylde Music Circle. In September 2022, Víctor was appointed Junior Fellow at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

Víctor Braojos at St Mary’s authority and intelligence illuminates ‘Shreds of light’

After receiving a Deutsche Grammophon CD collection from his grandfather for his 16th birthday, Marc Migó (1993, Barcelona) became unexpectedly and passionately drawn to its contents. This discovery led him to seek out guidance from pianist Liliana Sainz and composer Xavier Boliart. Three years later, he enrolled at ESMUC (Superior Music School of Catalonia).

In 2017, thanks to a scholarship issued by Fundación SGAE, Marc moved to New York in order to continue his musical studies. He pursued his Masters at The Juilliard School, where he was awarded the 2018 Orchestral Composition Prize. In 2019 he received The Pablo Casals Festival Award for his Cello Sonata “Cerdanyenca”, two Morton Gould Young Composers award by ASCAP and the New Juilliard annual commissioning competition award. He also has been a fellow at the 2020 Minnesota Orchestra Composer’s Institute, a winner of the George Enescu Prize 2020, the recipient of the first ever Dominick Argento Fellowship for Opera Composition (2022), and the 2023 Leo Kaplan Award by Ascap, among other international recognitions. 

Marc Migó is currently a C.V. Starr fellow at Juilliard. He has received commissions from leading institutions, ensembles and performers, such as UrbanArias, the Dutch National Opera, Verità Ensemble, Liceu Opera House, the New Juilliard Ensemble, Festival Pablo Casals in Prades, The Cabrillo Festival, l’Associació Joan Manén, La Fura dels Baus, and CUNY University, among others.

Franck’s original plan, according to his pupil Vincent d’Indy, was to write a plain Prelude and Fugue ,

The decision to include a central section, separate from, yet linking, the Prelude and Fugue, came later (again according to d’Indy).However this central section became the emotional core of the work, its ‘motto’ theme used as a symbol of redemption and as a unifying principle at the climax of the Fugue.

Saint-Saëns made his tart observation about the piece that the ‘chorale is not a chorale and the fugue is not a fugue’ (in his pamphlet ‘Les Idées de M. Vincent d’Indy’).Alfred Cortot described the Fugue in the context of the whole work as ‘emanating from a psychological necessity rather than from a principle of musical composition’ (La musique française de piano; PUF, 1930). It is as if a ‘fugue’, as a symbol of intellectual rigour, was the only way Franck could find a voice to express fully the hesitant, truncated sobs of the Prelude and the anguished, syncopated lament of the Chorale. Not that the Fugue solves the problem—this is the function of the ‘motto’ theme; but the rules of counterpoint have given the speaker a format in which the unspeakable can be spoken.

There are two motivic ideas on which the whole work is based: one, a falling, appoggiatura motif used in all three sections and generally chromatic in tonality ; the other a criss-crossing motif in fourths (the ‘motto’ theme, which appears first in the Chorale section and then again as a balm at the point where the Fugue reaches its emotional crisis. The first motivic idea is clearly related to the Bach Cantata ‘Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen’, and also to the ‘Crucifixus’ from the B minor Mass; the other idea appears as the ‘bell motif’ in Wagner’s Parsifal.

Beethoven’s last sonata op 111 was written between 1821 and 1822.

It was dedicated to his friend, pupil, and patron, Archduke Rudolf and consists of only two contrasting movements . The second movement is marked as an arietta with variations that Thomas Mann called “farewell to the sonata form”.Together with Beethoven’s The Diabelli Variations op.120 (1823) and his two collections of bagatelles op 119 (1822) and op 126 (1823) the sonata was one of Beethoven’s last compositions for piano. Nearly ignored by contemporaries, it was not until the second half of the 19th century that it found its way into the repertoire of most leading pianists.^.Beethoven conceived of the plan for his final three piano sonatas (op 109.110 and 111 )during the summer of 1820, while he worked on his Missa solemnis. Although the work was only seriously outlined by 1819, the famous first theme of the allegro ed appassionato was found in a draft book dating from 1801 to 1802, contemporary to his Second Symphony .Moreover, the study of these draft books implies that Beethoven initially had plans for a sonata in three movements, quite different from that which we know: it is only thereafter that the initial theme of the first movement became that of the string Quartet n.13 , and that what should have been used as the theme with the adagio—a slow melody in A flat – was abandoned. Only the motif planned for the third movement, the famous theme mentioned above, was preserved to become that of the first movement. The Arietta, too, offers a considerable amount of research on its themes; the drafts found for this movement seem to indicate that as the second movement took form, Beethoven gave up the idea of a third movement, the sonata finally appearing to him as ideal.