Mese: febbraio 2024

Some superb playing of great weight and authority from a pianist I have known and admired always for her intelligent musicianship and beauty of sound .But today there was a different dimension to her playing of a velvet richness where her limpet like fingers seemed to suck the very lifeblood from the keys.There was passionate playing of great exhilaration and excitement but there was never a sharp edge or ungrateful sound in the entire recital.Catherine admitted that there were two of them on the stage today as it was obvious that she was shortly to give birth to her second child.

It was last summer that I had listened to the live stream performances from Duszniki where Piotr Paleczny presents the top prize winners of many of the most important International Competitions.Anna Geniushene had just won an important prize at the Van Cliburn Competition when she was eight months pregnant with another child waiting for her in the wings?I had heard Anna many times when she was perfecting her studies at the RAM with Christopher Elton in London .She was a player with a very strong Russian preparation and could play that repertoire with fearless virtuosity and strength . I was happy to listen to her in a line up of international stars in the making : Lukas Geniusas,Kevin Chen,Illia Ovcharenko and Federico Colli.I listened to Anna expecting the explosion of Russian pianism but was so overwhelmed by the transformation of what I now heard that I wrote to Paleczny to say that I did not know what to say but thought that this was pure genius.Prokofiev Fourth and Fifth Sonatas where I had expected Anna to come out with guns firing with a pianism that was more vertical and percussive than horizontal and beautiful.Motherhood had so transformed her playing that where she used to hit the keys she now caressed them with a sumptuous kaleidoscope of colours.She now convinced me of the melodic beauty in Prokofiev’s music that is so often concealed by pianistic fireworks. Caterina has never been a big Russian virtuoso and coming from the school of Alexeev there has always been a style and colour to her playing but today her playing had taken on an authority and richness of sound where her hands caressed the keys with the same loving care of a mother with her child.

The Arabesque had immediately established her playing of authority ,beauty and simplicity with a freedom and sense of colour that brought a work to life with ravishing beauty where in lesser hands it can sound very repetitive.Each time the rondo theme was repeated it had different inflections and colours as the intervening episodes were played with great character.The coda was like the ending of a song where words are just not enough and it is up to the piano to take us into a world of timeless beauty.

The Symphonic Studies were allowed to unfold so naturally from the sumptuous theme of Baron von Fricken played with subtle colour and beguiling shape.There was the sumptuous rich sounds of the second and the fleeting lightness of the third with great flourishes before the even more beautiful repeat.The measured playfulness of the fifth-scherzando-after the rather obstinate chattering chords of the fourth.A great outburst of romantic sounds with the sumptuous tenor melody emerging with passionate commitment and the great rhythmic energy of the seventh before the appearance of the five beautifully etherial posthumous variations.The first was with some unusually pointed counterpoints of great effect before the beauty and simplicity of the second played with enticing freedom before the swirling of notes on which appeared the theme like a star shining in the distance.The third was unusually lugubrious but contrasted with the lyricism of the fourth that was played with simplicity with its pleadingly delicate gasps.The fifth is really the jewel in this set of posthumous studies and was of the ravishing delicacy of jewels shining brightly.A very forceful final cadence was Caterina’s way of leading back to the original studies and the one that Agosti used to liken to a Gothic cathedral which Caterina played with great architectural shape and authority.The ninth study with its Mendelssohnian fleetness is one of the most technically challenging but which Caterina played with mastery and style.The tenth was played with sumptuous full sound before the ravishing beauty of the beautiful chopinesque outpouring and the nobility of the finale.There was great clarity and rhythmic precision in this study based on Marschner’s theme and the build up in sound and intensity was masterly .I am not sure that I agree with adding some of the variants that she chose to do from the first edition but she played them so convincingly that it did infact add an extra dimension to what can sometimes seem a rather repetitive and overlong farewell.There was grandeur and nobility and Schumann’s astonishing surprise change of key was ennobled by her superb sense of timing as she brought her performance to an exciting and sumptuous conclusion.

I have never been a great admirer of Medtner which I have often described as Rachmaninov without the tunes but today Caterina convinced me that I was wrong.Her authoritative performance of sumptuous beauty and dynamic drive held me spell bound with admiration for Caterina’s mastery but above all for the beauty of the music.A Fairytale that indeed was a wondrous story of a haunting melodic line with intricate, ever more passionate harmonies.

A ‘Canzona Matinata’ full of radiance and colour,beautifully shaped with beguiling rubato lost within a sumptuous web of embellishments of scintillating jewel like perfection.

The drama that she brought to the opening of the ‘Sonata Tragica’ was quite overwhelming as was her whole performance with a range of colours and an architectural shape that at last for me made sense of a work that had seemed meandering and without any cohesion.Remarkable performances of great beauty and authority – the miracle of birth indeed.

An encore dedicated to her husband with his favourite work was a sumptuous feast of poetic sounds as Schumann’s Intermezzo from his ‘Carnaval Jest from Vienna ‘ op 26 brought this magnificent concert to a brilliant end with a well earned rest for a mother to be!

German-Japanese Pianist Caterina Grewe, born in Tokyo, has performed to great critical acclaim throughout the UK, continental Europe and Asia as a Steinway Artist. She has given recitals in venues such as the Royal Albert Hall, Steinway Hall London, Hamburg and Tokyo, Cadogan Hall, Fairfield Halls, Mozartsaal and Laeiszhalle in Hamburg, Dublin National Concert Hall, Palau de la Música Catalana in Barcelona , the Rachmaninoff Hall of the Moscow Conservatoire and the Toppan Hall in Tokyo amongst others. Caterina has also given recitals which were broadcasted by the BBC, the NDR in Hamburg and France Musique in Paris. She appeared alongside Lang Lang on Sir Micheal Parkinson’s TV Show Parkinson Masterclass which was aired on Sky TV in 2013. As a concerto soloist, she has appeared with the Classic Philharmonic Orchestra Hamburg, the Lüneburg Symphony Orchestra, the Oldenburg State Orchestra, the RCM Symphony Orchestra, Jove Orquestra Nacional de Catalunya and the RTE National Symphony Orchestra. Caterina studied at the Hamburg Conservatory, Chetham’s School of Music and completed her studies at the Royal College of Music in 2013 where she studied with the late Yonty Solomon, Ian Jones, Professor Vanessa Latarche and Professor Dmitri Alexeev. She has won numerous prizes at world-renowned piano competitions such as third prize at the Maria Canals International Piano Competition in Barcelona and the Dublin International Piano Competition where she was a finalist and prize winner in 2015. Other prizes include First Prizes at the 2010 Lagny-Sur-Marne International Piano Competition in Paris, 2010 Norah Sande Award in Eastbourne, 2011 Mayenne International Piano Competition, 2014 Rhodes International Piano Competition in Greece , 2018 Changhsa International Open Piano Competition in China and Second Prize at the 8 th Lyon International Piano Competition in 2016. During her time at the Royal College of Music, Caterina won all major prizes including First Prize (Kendal Taylor Beethoven Piano Prize) at the annual RCM Beethoven Piano Competition in 2009 and First Prize at the Concerto competition in 2012 . Caterina was also awarded the HRH Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother Rose Bowl by the former Prince of Wales (now King Charles III) for her outstanding achievements during her studies at the Royal College of Music. Described by Gramophone Music Magazine as ‘an artists to watch’, Caterina is recognised for the beauty, poetry, and temperament that her playing displays and the depth and maturity in her interpretations. She has always been especially drawn to the music of German Romantic composers. Schumann is one of her favourite composers and it is only suitable that her debut CD for KNS Classical (which was released in April 2016) features two of his major works. Caterina joined the piano faculty of the renowned Purcell School in 2013 and was appointed as a piano professor at the Royal College of Music in 2019. She regularly gives many masterclasses across Europe and abroad and has been a jury member of several international piano competitions.

Caterina Grewe a great pianist born on wings of song at St Mary’s

In our latest collaboration with the Keyboard Trust (UK), we are thrilled to present the brilliant young Malaysian pianist Magdalene Ho. For her concert in the Library she will play Bach, Brahms and Schumann.

Sometimes words are superfluous !
Magdalene Ho making her Florentine debut last night.
From Bach of surprising beauty and eloquence to the intimate whispered confessions of Brahms and finally the sublime poetic outpourings of eternal love of Schumann.Even the pianistic fireworks of Saint Saens were tempered by a soul of exquisite finesse and noble style .
‘The real thing’ exclaimed Jed Distler just a week ago as he awarded her the coveted Chappell Gold Medal at the RCM

Hats off …The Chappell Gold Medal has uncovered a genius

She will be covered in medals and awards but the greatest gift of all is to be endowed with a musical genius that will enrich all our lives for years to come .

Magdalene Ho – the genial ‘Clara Haskil’ winner at 19 takes Leighton House by storm

The Bach D major Toccata was played with superb clarity and character .The noble opening giving way to an Allegro of simple ease as she changed colour from one layer of sound to another before the Adagio of poignant beauty.All within a certain framework of subtle colour done almost entirely with a refined touch of infinite sensibility.The gentle fugato just seemed to appear as if by some miracle growing out of this Adagio and became an outpouring of searing intensity.Almost imperceptibly discovering a hidden passion before dissolving into a fascinating search for a way out to the final Toccata.What buoyancy and ‘joie de vivre’ she brought to this final outpouring and her ability to make the piano sing almost without the use of the sustaining pedal was a remarkable technical feat that for her was simply the only way she knew how to transmit the music to us her eager eavesdroppers.

The Brahms Variations were a lesson in delicacy and colour with an infinite variety of sounds all barely whispered.This was a performance that like Richter drew the audience in to her private world rather than projecting it out to us.An intimate world of secrets and bitter sweet utterances shared to those that were prepared to listen with her via a secret ear.There were moments too of extraordinary jeux perlé streams of notes just thrown off with the ease of someone who is swimming free through a sea of fleeting sounds sailing across the keyboard.

This was followed by a truly masterly performance of Schumann .Recently I had commented that I found her performance a little hard driven more of the irascible world of Beethoven than the refined elegance of Chopin.Today she combined both elements to play this elusive outpouring of love for Clara with sensitivity and poetry but above all an architectural mastery that held us spellbound through the many faces of love as experienced by Florestan and Eusebius. The last waltz was barely whispered as she played with beguiling sensitivity even tittivatingly provocative.A final sparkling jewel in a performance crowned by sumptuous sounds and a technical mastery that passed unnoticed as this was a story that Magdalene wanted to share with us of a wondrous voyage of discovery to a world of dreams.

An encore from an audience rarely held captive as they had been today,mesmerised by the sounds that they overheard from this young artist’s sensitive hands.Saint Saens Etude en forme de Valse a famous encore of Alfred Cortot but rarely heard in the concert hall these days.

https://youtube.com/watchv=vXJqL_cTHWU&feature=shared

Maybe because you need a sense of style and a jeux perlé of another age.A nonchalance , thrown off with elegance and a sense of improvisiation as streams of notes are just spun like gold and silver shimmering and sparkling with natural ease.Magdalene had let her hair down but like all great artists it was a moment to cherish like the great Belcanto singers of the past who could hold their audience with baited breath as they followed every golden note.

Magdalene Ho in Milan on a wonderful new Steinway D thanks to Maura Romano and her team.

The wonderful bass notes gave such poignant meaning to Brahms’ barely whispered ephemeral farewell to Schumann as the intimate secrets in the last waltz for Clara were of heartrending simplicity.The Adagio and fugato of the opening Bach Toccata were given a new significance on a piano that can sing with seemingly endless reverberations.
We were robbed of Saint Saens,though, as our genial pianist thought they had had enough music.

She had struggled like the great professional she is with under age children and mobile phones and was happy to finish with the sublime outpouring of her exquisitely passionate performance of Schumann ringing in our ears.

As Liszt once said when the King talks even Liszt should be silent !

J.S.Bach Toccata in D major BWV 912 is one of the seven pieces for clavier  BWV 910-916 written between 1703 1713 and although they were not originally organized into a collection by Bach himself (as were most of his other keyboard works) they share many similarities with them and are frequently grouped and performed together under a collective title.Though the specific instrumentation is not indicated for any of the works, they are all strictly manualiter, as none of them call for pedal parts .

• Toccata in D-major, BWV 912
  1. Presto
  2. Allegro
  3. Adagio
  4. [no tempo indication]
  5. Con Discrezione
  6. Fuga

Here is Jonathan Ferrucci who recently played the seven Toccatas in Florence :https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/09/27/jonathan-ferrucci-plays-bach-in-florence/

He will play the Goldberg Variations in Kings place London on the 11th March: https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2022/10/22/jonathan-ferrucci-kct-american-tour-goldberg-a-voyage-of-discovery/

The relationship between Robert Schumann ,Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms started out as a student who comes to work with his mentor but evolves into something more complex. Brahms had been introduced to the Schumanns in October 1853 with a letter of introduction from the violinist and composer Joseph Joachim. Brahms was then 20 and Schumann praised him in print in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik as ‘fated to give expression to the times in the highest and most ideal manner.’

One of the first things that the young Brahms did to thank Robert was to write a set of 16 variations on a theme taken from a work written in 1841. The Funf Albumblätter: I. Ziemlich langsam, published as part of Schumann’s Bunte Blätter, Op. 99.

What’s unusual about this theme is that it’s in the minor – most variation sets have major-key themes, which opens the possibility of exploring more keys. If we look behind this, we might find some explanation.In February 1854, 4 months after Brahms’ arrival, Robert attempted suicide and was placed in a mental sanatorium in Bonn. Brahms moved to Düsseldorf to support the Schumann family, which consisted not only of Clara but also her 7 children: Marie (1841-1929), Elise (1843-1928), Julie (1845-1872), Ludwig (1848-1899), Ferdinand (1849-1891), Eugenie (1851-1938), and Felix (1854-1879), the last born in June 1854 after his father was sent into the sanitorium.

Brahms handled the family finances and visited Robert in the sanitorium; Clara was not allowed to visit him in the two years he was there except for just towards the end.The explanation, now, for the minor-key theme for the variation set that was begun in early summer 1854 may be clearer: Robert was institutionalized and Clara was with a new born child with already six others at home , the eldest only 12 or 13 years old.Brahms worked on the variations in the spring and summer of 1854 and presented a corrected version of the manuscript to Clara on 15 June, four days after Felix was born, and dedicated the work to her. He wasn’t done at that point and added the completed variations 10 and 11 in August.

How he signed the manuscript indicates how he thought of the work in relationship to Schumann’s theme. Variations 4, 7, 8, 14, and 16 each end with a ‘flourish ending with the letter B’; Variations 5, 6, 12, and 13 are signed Kr. The cryptic Kr refer to E.T.A .Hoffman’s antihero, the Kapellmeister Johannes Kreisler who was a character in 3 novels by Hoffmann: Kreisleriana (1813), Johannes Kreisler, des Kapellmeisters Musikalische Leiden (1815), and The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr together with a fragmentary Biography of Kapellmeister Johannes Kreisler on Random Sheets of Waste Paper(1822).

Where Schumann, in his music that he signed with his alter egos Florestan and Eusebius. ‘Florestan the wild’ and ‘Eusebius the mild’ were two aspects of Robert’s own character. In the same way, Brahms used the B and Kr to indicate those works that were Brahmsian and those that were Kreiserlian, i.e., ‘less conventional and further removed from the theme’.

Robert Schumann Davidsbündlertänze (Dances of the League of David), op 6, is a group of eighteen pieces composed in 1837 by Robert Schumann , who named them after his music society Davidsbundler. The low opus number is misleading: the work was written after Carnaval op 9 and the Symphonic Studies op.13.

Robert Schumann’s early piano works were substantially influenced by his relationship with Clara Wieck . On September 5, 1839, Schumann wrote to his former professor: “She was practically my sole motivation for writing the Davidsbündlertänze, the Concerto , the Sonata and the Novelettes .” They are an expression of his passionate love, anxieties, longings, visions, dreams and fantasies.

The theme of the Davidsbündlertänze is based on a mazurka by Clara Wieck.The intimate character pieces are his most personal work and in 1838, Schumann told Clara that the Dances contained “many wedding thoughts” and that “the story is an entire Polterabend (German wedding eve party, during which old crockery is smashed to bring good luck)”.

The pieces are not true dances but characteristic pieces, musical dialogues  about contemporary music between Schumann’s characters Florestan and Eusebius. These respectively represent the impetuous and the lyrical, poetic sides of Schumann’s nature. Each piece is ascribed to one or both of them. Their names follow the first piece and the appropriate initial or initials follow each of the others except the sixteenth (which leads directly into the seventeenth, the ascription for which applies to both) and the ninth and eighteenth, which are respectively preceded by the following remarks: “Here Florestan made an end, and his lips quivered painfully”, and “Quite superfluously Eusebius remarked as follows: but all the time great bliss spoke from his eyes.” The suite ends with the striking of twelve low Cs to signify the coming of midnight.

The first edition is prefaced by :

Old saying
In each and every age
joy and sorrow are mingled:
Remain pious in joy,
and be ready for sorrow with courage

The movements are :

1. Lebhaft: Lively (Vivace),Florestan and Eusebius;
2. Innig: Intimately (Con intimo sentimento), , Eusebius;
3. Etwas hahnbüchen: Somewhat clumsily (Un poco impetuoso) (1st edition), Mit Humor: With humor (Con umore) (2nd edition), Florestan (hahnbüchen, translates as “cockeyed” )
4. Ungeduldig: Impatiently (Con impazienza), , Florestan;
5. Einfach: Simply (Semplice), , Eusebius;
6. Sehr rasch und in sich hinein: Very quickly and inwardly (Molto vivo, con intimo fervore) (1st edition), Sehr rasch: Very quickly(Molto vivo) (2nd edition), , Florestan;
7. Nicht schnell mit äußerst starker Empfindung: Not fast, with very great feeling (Non presto profondamente espressivo) (1st edition), Nicht schnell: Not fast (Non presto) (2nd edition), Eusebius;
8. Frisch: Freshly (Con freschezza), Florestan;
9. No tempo indication (metronome mark of ♩ = 126) (1st edition), Lebhaft: Lively (Vivace) (2nd edition), , Florestan;
10. Balladenmäßig sehr rasch: Balladically very fast (Alla ballata molto vivo) (1st edition), (“Sehr” and “Molto” capitalized in 2nd edition), (ends major), Florestan;
11. Einfach: Simply (Semplice), Eusebius;
12. Mit Humor: With humor (Con umore), Florestan;
13. Wild und lustig: Wildly and merrily (Selvaggio e gaio), Florestan and Eusebius;
14. Zart und singend: Tenderly and singing (Dolce e cantando), Eusebius;
15. Frisch: Freshly (Con freschezza), – Etwas bewegter: With agitation (poco piu mosso),with a return to the opening section (with the option to go round the piece once more), Florestan and Eusebius;
16. Mit gutem Humor: With good humor (Con buon umore) (in 2nd edition, “Con umore”), – Etwas langsamer: A little slower (Un poco più lento); leading without a break into
17. Wie aus der Ferne: As if from afar (Come da lontano), (including a full reprise of No. 2), Florestan and Eusebius; and finally,
18. Nicht schnell: Not fast (Non presto), Eusebius.

Magdalene was born in 2003 and started learning the piano at the age of four. In 2013, she began studying in the UK with Patsy Toh, at the Purcell School. In 2015, she received the ABRSM Sheila Mossman Prize and Silver Award. As part of a prize won at the PIANALE piano festival in Fulda, Germany, she released an album of Bach and Messiaen works in 2019. She was a finalist at the Düsseldorf Schumann Competition 2023 and was awarded the Joan Chissell Schumann Prize for Piano at the Royal College of Music a few months later. In September 2023, she won the Clara Haskil International Piano Competition in Vevey along with receiving the Audience Prize, Young Critics’ Prize and Children’s Corner Prize. Magdalene has been studying with Dmitri Alexeev at the RCM since September 2022, where she is a Dasha Shenkman Scholar supported by the Gordon Calway Stone Scholarship. She is also sponsored by the Weir Award via the Keyboard Charitable Trust.

Masterclass with Imogen Cooper and Magdalene Ho

Of course Dr Mather hit the nail on the head at the end of a superb recital :’Fantastic recital a wonderfully talented and charming young lady with fantastic leggiero finger work and trills to die for’.

I had heard her just a few days ago when she won a top prize at the Royal College of Music where she is perfecting her artistry with Norma Fisher.I had heard Norma Fisher playing the Schumann many times taken by our mutual ‘piano daddy’ Sidney Harrison to hear his star student when I was just starting my professional training at the Royal Academy.Diana has received her early training in France by coincidence with a pianist that Moura Lympany had spoken about to me with great admiration:Jean- Francois Heisser.There are two schools of thought in the French school of piano playing :one based on the instrumental- harpsichord technique of Pierre Sancan and the other the organ school of Alfred Cortot .The difference being that on the harpsichord you have to have fingers that are of a precision, curved like little hammers .On the organ you have never to let go of the keys which gives a limpet like weight that is never percussive but always into the key.Diana as Dr Mather so rightly said has this down to perfection with ‘trills to die for’ and a ‘jeux perlé’ of quite extraordinary clarity and delicacy.Norma Fisher has been able to show her the weight and the strength that comes from thinking up from the bass added to Diana’s superbly sensitive musicianship and fingers that could feel with kaleidoscopic precision and poetic vision.These two schools have combined in Diana enabling her to give extraordinary performances where driving energy combine with passion ,poetry and refined delicacy.All these magnificent gifts came together especially in Chopin’s Fourth Scherzo and the Polonaise op 22.It was even more astonishing in a ravishing performance of Scarlatti’s ‘Toccata ‘ sonata played as an encore which was truly the cherry on an already sumptuous cake.It does sometimes mean though that her very sensitive fingers do not feel the pulse in slower passages which can lead to an unnatural slowing down as though there are the busy parts and the less busy parts where the great undercurrent wave or architectural pulse is interrupted.Her extraordinary musical intelligence and refined tone palette though are of such sensitivity that this becomes in a way just an insignificant detail in performances of overwhelming conviction and mastery.

Her Mozart was of such elegance and delicacy with a very refined tone palette.Music making that spoke with the eloquence of bel canto such were the tonal inflections of subtlety and artistry.The last movement was rather fast and more irascible Beethoven that operatic Mozart. Of course there was her beauty of sound with extraordinary fingerfertigkeit .A slight wrong turning beautifully corrected slowed her down and she forgot about the rather scale like left hand as elegance once more reigned.

Her Schumann was played with passion and clarity combined with driving energy and poetry.I would not have slowed down or lost the sweep of the second subject which should just grow naturally out of all that precedes it .Schumann’s knotty twine that grows out of this though was beautifully manoeuvred into poetic strands of significance.There was ravishing beauty in the slow movement with a kaleidoscope of colours where more weight would have kept the inner pulse more flowing.However her impeccable musicianship brought a refined intensity to all she did.There was a scintillating rhythmic energy to the Scherzo with its capricious syncopations contrasting with a captivating duet between voices in the Trio.The last movement was played with great excitement and exhilaration with a coda of passionate brilliance.

Her Chopin playing was exquisite for its refined intelligence and ravishing jeux perlé .It is probably as Chopin himself would have played according to all reports of the very few public performances that he gave in his all too short life.A second Ballade that was beautifully shaped with a superb sense of balance and here indeed the music was allowed to flow so naturally.Rudely interrupted by tempestuous outbursts but where Diana managed to maintain the architectural line from the first to the last note ,leading to a coda of overwhelming technical and musical command played with burning excitement .A final exhilarating flourish before the beseechingly simple final bars of the poetic outpourings of a poetic genius.

As I had said before the Fourth Scherzo was written just for the jeux perlé delicacy and brilliance that Diana is such a master of, as was Chopin.The fleeting lightness and chameleonic changes of mood were mesmerising.The beautiful mellifluous central episode was played with refined delicacy and if missing a little weight it was of such beauty that it was of insignificance as the remarkable spidery jeux perlé lead back to the Scherzo and was of enviable precision and delicacy.

The Andante Spianato and Grande Polonaise op 22 I had written about when she played at the RCM recently.The beautiful delicate breeze on which floats Chopin’s haunting Bel Canto was of ravishing delicacy and beauty.I have never heard the orchestra play so well as in Diana’s hands and the entry of the Polonaise lead to a scintillating display of enviable agility but even more of poetic good taste and aristocratic nobility.

Winner of numerous awards including 1 st Prize at the Brest Chopin Competition, 1 st Prize at the Halina Czerny-Stefanská International Competition in Poznan (Poland) and 1 st Prize at the Concurso Internacional de Piano de Vigo (Spain), Diana Cooper has been invited to perform in various venues and festivals in France and abroad, including the Nohant Chopin Festival , the Festival Chopin à Paris , the Salle Cortot , the Polish Embassy in Paris, the Ysaye Festival in Belgium, the Palacio de Congresos in Huesca (Spain), the Hrvatski dom Split in Croatia, the Kielce Filharmonia in Poland…In 2023, she was selected to take part in the project Un été en France avec Gautier Capuçon , for which she perfomed as a soloist and in chamber music.She was invited in 2018 to take part in the radio program Générations Jeunes Interprètes on France Musique and, in 2023, performed as a trio in the television programme Fauteuils d’orchestre , broadcast on France 5. Her activity has been enriched by solo appearances with the Orchestre Symphonique du Sud Ouest in Chopin’s 1st Concerto, the Orchestre Appassionato in Mozart’s 20 th concerto, and the Orchestre des Lauréats du Conservatoire de Paris in Schumann’s concerto, performed in 2023 at the Cité de la Musique in Paris.

L aureate of the Fondation de la Banque Populaire , the Fondation Safran and the Kathleen Trust , Diana is currently settled in London, studying at the Royal College of Music in London on an Artist Diploma programme in Norma Fisher’s class. She has recently joined the Talent Unlimited charity offering concerts in London for young talented musicians. She is, in parallel, on a second Artist Diploma course at the Conservatoire de Paris (CNSMDP), where she studied formely with Jean-François Heisser and Marie-Josèphe Jude and graduated with a Master’s degree in 2018. She also spent three years at the Ecole Normale de Musique receiving the teaching of Rena Schereshevskaya. In 2022, she was selected to join the new season of the Académie Musicale Philippe Jaroussky , where she perfected her skills with Cédric Thiberghien. Following her pre-selection in 2021 for the prestigious Chopin Competition in Warsaw, she was invited the following summer by Philippe Giusiano to take part in masterclasses in Katowice as well as concerts at the Chopin Manor in Duszniki, organized by the Chopin Foundation. Diana has recently recorded her first CD, featuring works by Haydn, Chopin and Ravel, after winning in 2022 the 1 st Prize in the Concours d’aide aux Jeunes Artistes organized by the Festival du Vexin.

Diana Cooper at St James’s Piccadilly.An impeccable musician of refined good taste

Hats off …The Chappell Gold Medal has uncovered a genius

Some remarkable Beethoven playing from Ivan Donchev on an 1889 Erard playing the Sonatas op 27 and 28 with dynamic drive and tempestuous temperament. Even the Adagio sostenuto of the ‘Moonlight’ Sonata was played with viril beauty where the melodic line was played with chiselled beauty above a relentless flow of triplets that sustained and carried the melody forward with an unusually clear architectural shape.The final presto agitato was played with an irascible drive that showed the extraordinary resilience of a piano that is rarely treated with such fearless intelligence and musicianship.

Sensitivity too as the Sonata op 27 n.1 was allowed to unfold with simple natural beauty.Even the Scherzo second movement was an unusual mellifluous outpouring of searing intensity only to be interrupted by the dynamic drive of the Trio . The beautiful Adagio was played with aristocratic nobility even more poignant on is surprise return in the final Allegro vivace that had been chasing up and down the keyboard with beguiling insistence only to be called to order before the helter skelter irascible final few bars .

The Pastoral Sonata op 28 was played with great freedom and a subtle almost operatic expansiveness .The Andante,one of Beethoven’s favourite movements was played with orchestral precision with the left hand pizzicato on which floated the sumptuous string quartet melodic line interrupted by the impish good humour of the central episode before the bel canto elaboration of the opening .A playful scherzo full of contrasts and outbursts before the fluidity of the trio swept away on a relentless agitated bass.
There was a beguiling fluidity of pastoral calm to the Rondo that was played with nobility and extraordinary brilliance.

Two waltzes were played as encores demanded by a numerous and very insistent public.
But Ivan is a remarkable musician and shared with us an eclectic waltz that had been written out for him by his beloved mentor Aldo Ciccolini .This ‘Kupelwiezer’ waltz by Schubert was a fragment that had been found scribbled in haste by Schubert and it was Richard Strauss who added the accompaniment.Ciccolini used to play it but had never actually seen the music which he wrote out especially for Ivan without even the help of the piano.
A seemless outpouring of melody that was the perfect conclusion to the irascible youthful Beethoven that Ivan had shared with us .

A minute waltz by Chopin was added in record tempo at the end as Ivan’s little son Leo had grown impatient in the wings and had come on stage in search of his father.
It was a joyous performance of well loved Chopin played with the style and aristocratic command that had been the hallmark of the entire recital.

Piano Sonata No. 13 in E-flat major, op 27 No. 1, “Quasi una fantasia”, was written in 1800–1801

Beethoven was about 30 years old when he wrote the sonata. He had already made a name for himself in Vienna as pianist and composer and was beginning to explore alternatives to the classical-era compositional procedures that he had largely adhered to during the 18th century. The most famous works of his “middle period”, often emphasizing heroism, were yet to come.

Beethoven’s sketches for the first, second, and final movements survive, but the original autograph copy is lost.The sonata was published separately from its more famous companion, op 27 n. 2 (the “Moonlight” Sonata), but at the same time,by Cappi in Vienna; the first advertisements for the work appeared 3 March 1802.Both Op. 27 sonatas were originally titled Sonata quasi una fantasia.

The dedicatee of the work was (as was typical of the time) an aristocrat, Princess Josephine von LiechtensteinThe first movement is not in sonata form, as is true for most sonatas and the movements are in extreme contrast with each other, a common trait of the sections of a fantasia.The appearance of a quotation from one movement within another (here, from the third movement within the fourth) is a form of freedom not ordinarily employed in classical sonatas there is also a cyclic return of earlier material later in the sonata, which thus aims to integrate its movements into a unified cycle.

1. Andante – Allegro – Andante 
2. Allegro molto e vivace 
3. Adagio con espressione 
4. Allegro vivace 

The Piano Sonata No. 14 Quasi una fantasia, op 27 No. 2, t was completed in 1801 and dedicated in 1802 to his pupil Countess Julie ‘Giulietta ‘ Guicciardi .The German music critic and poet Ludwig Rellstab likened the effect of the first movement to that of moonlight shining upon Lake Lucerne where ‘Rellstab compares this work to a boat, visiting, by moonlight, the remote parts of Lake Lucerne .Rellstab made his comment about the sonata’s first movement in a story called Theodor that he published in 1824: “The lake reposes in twilit moon-shimmer [Mondenschimmer], muffled waves strike the dark shore; gloomy wooded mountains rise and close off the holy place from the world; ghostly swans glide with whispering rustles on the tide, and an Aeolian harp sends down mysterious tones of lovelorn yearning from the ruins.”He made no mention of Lake Lucerne, which seems to have been added later but Rellstab met Beethoven in 1825,making it theoretically possible for Beethoven to have known of the moonlight comparison, though the nickname may not have arisen until later.Beethoven’s pupil Czerny described the first movement as “a ghost scene, where out of the far distance a plaintive ghostly voice sounds” and Liszt described the second movement as “a flower between two abysses” At the opening of the first movement, Beethoven included the following direction in Italian: “Si deve suonare tutto questo pezzo delicatissimamente e senza sordino” (“This whole piece ought to be played with the utmost delicacy and without dampers “) The way this is accomplished (both on today’s pianos and on those of Beethoven’s day) is to depress the sustains pedal throughout the movement – or at least to make use of the pedal throughout, but re-applying it as the harmony changes.

The sonata consists of three movements:

1. Adagio  sostenuto – Czerny called it “a nocturnal scene, in which a mournful ghostly voice sounds from the distance”.The movement was very popular in Beethoven’s day, to the point of exasperating the composer himself, who remarked to Czerny, “Surely I’ve written better things”.
2. Allegretto – Liszt described it as ‘a flower between two chasms’
3. Presto agitato – Charles Rosen wrote “it is the most unbridled in its representation of emotion. Even today, two hundred years later, its ferocity is astonishing”.

Piano Sonata No. 15 in D major, Op. 28 was published in 1801, the work is dedicated to the Count joseph von Sommemfels .The name Pastoral or Pastorale became known through A. Cranz publishing of Beethoven’s work, but was first coined by a London publisher, Broderip & Wilkinson^.

1. Allegro
2. Andante
3. Scherzo Allegro vivace, 
4. Rondo :Allegro  ma non troppo

My compositions are very profitable for me and I can say that I have more orders than are almost possible for me to fulfil.” Beethoven wrote the latter to a friend in 1801.
He had only just completed his “Moonlight Sonata” op. 27 No. 2, when he began writing down the first sketches for his Sonata op. 28. Elements of pastoral music, such as the dance-like triple metre as well as pedal notes and fifths in the bass which seem to imitate bagpipes, are reminiscent of the later 6th Symphony. The rustic character gave rise to the work’s epithet “Sonate Pastorale”. 

Ivan Donchev complete Beethoven in Formello.The tumultuous Middle period with op 53,54,57.Warmth,humanity and musicianship combined with elegance and style

A great start to Stephen Dennison’s new season in Haslemere with three stars from the Keyboard Trust roster : Damir Durmanovic ,Gabrielé Sutkuté and Víctor Braojos
But the real star of the first concert was the brand new Shigeru Kawai piano chosen by the emeritus KT artist Sasha Grynyuk.It will be a valuable asset for all the many music lovers in Haslemere.

Angela Hewitt has agreed to give a special benefit concert next season with a much awaited performance of the Goldberg Variations.

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

This new series was inaugurated by Damir with one of the greatest works of the Romantic era : Schumann’s Fantasie op 17 dedicated to Liszt and it was Schumann’s contribution to Liszt’s fundraising to build a monument to his teacher : Beethoven .

And it is Beethoven’s monumental Sonata op 111 from the hands of Victor Braojos that closed this three day feast of music .

Here is Victor at St Mary’s Perivale

: https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2024/01/09/victor-braojos-at-st-marys-the-intelligence-and-aristocratic-authority-of-a-true-musician/

Thursday Gabrielé Sutkuté ,winner of the RCM Chappell Gold medal last year , repeated the memorable concert she gave only the day before at St Mary’s Perivale :

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2024/02/20/gabriele-sutkute-at-st-marys-crystalline-sounds-of-refined-intelligence-of-a-great-artist/

Damir on the opening concert with the golden tones of this Shigeru Kawai it was indeed as Schumann had written to his beloved Clara :’. the most passionate thing I have ever composed – a deep lament for you.’

In Damir’s hands it was an outpouring of song where even the second movement was shaped not just rhythmically but poetically and the last movement was a continuous stream of subtle sounds.The ravishing beauty of the ending where Damir’s supremely stylish playing was able to produce sounds that were indeed made of pure magic.

The rather overlong Bach that opened the concert was played with the musicianship of someone who had been inspired at an early age by the mastery of Robert Levin and Marcel Baudet at the Menuhin School.A knowledge of ornamentation and improvisation together with an impeccably clear ‘diction’.

It was though a difficult choice for the numerous children who had been brought by their enlightened teachers to listen to a piano recital probably for the first time.
It was more the scintillating virtuosity of Clementi that caught their full attention in a performance of brilliance and character.The spell was now set and these eleven year old schoolchildren sat listening in wonder to sounds they probably never knew existed.A thing of beauty is a joy forever and with their lives still ahead of them lets hope that the joy of music may inspire one or two of them to ask for more!
Damir too had fallen in love with this beautiful instrument and it was hard to stop his rehearsal when it was time to open the doors to the large amount of public that had turned out on this very wet day to listen to great music played by great young musicians.

The subtle sounds that Damir drew from this new piano were indeed as Schumann had indicated :’Resounding through all the notes;
In the earth’s colourful dream ;There sounds a faint long-drawn note;
For the one who listens in secret.’
Sounds that ranged from the passionate opening of the first movement with it’s sweeping intensity and the quote from Beethoven’s ‘To the distant beloved’ : ‘Accept then these songs beloved, which I sang for you alone’.

This is what I wrote last year in the first of this annual series :
Https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/02/12/hhh-concerts-and-the-keyboard-trust-a-winning-combination-of-youthful-dedication-to-art/

Beethoven: Symphony no 9 in D minor Op 125
transcribed for Piano Duet by Scharwenka (1850-1924)

1. Adagio – Allegro 2. Adagio 3. Allegro 4. Allegro 

A spontaneous standing ovation greeted the end of a monumental performance of Beethoven 9th from the four hands of these two South African artists.I have followed the extraordinary concert seasons at Perivale for some years but I have never seen such a display at the end of a performance before.The energy and exhilaration that Tessa and Ben gave to the final bars of this monumental work was truly worthy of the great performances of Toscanini or Furtwangler that have passed into legend .As Hugh Mather said the art of playing duets is an art indeed when played like this where two artists on the same instrument can play as one.

A single mind – servants of the same Master .

I think this is the second or third time In have heard them play this and other symphonies and it has been a long gestation period to arrive at a performance of such intensity as yesterday in Perivale .

Tessa Uys Part 2 at St Lawrence Jewry and at St Michaels’ Highgate with Ben Schoeman in Beethoven 5th and 9th.

Tessa Uys and Ben Schoeman piano duo : In 2010, Tessa Uys and Ben Schoeman established a duo partnership after being invited to give a two-piano recital at the Royal Over-Seas League in London. Ever since, they have performed regularly at music societies, festivals and at the BBC and in 2015, they embarked on their journey with the nine Scharwenka/Beethoven Symphonies transcriptions.

Happy 249th The fifth and ninth Symphonies at St Lawrence and St Martins

Tessa and I were near contemporaries at the Royal Academy in the class of Gordon Green .I was the new boy having studied as a schoolboy with Sidney Harrison and then three years with him as the Liszt Scholar.I found myself though never having had any training in public performance .Private lessons can be very isolating and not the training for a playing career.I had heard about Gordon Green from Sidney who said he was the Professor who he was most attuned to . I had heard too from his students that every friday there was a class where his they would perform as if in a public concert. He would listen and only afterwards make comments from his copious notes.

I went to Gordon in desperation but that was not a word that he recognised because he was calm, reassuring ,very thorough and we all adored him.Even affectionately nudge each other as his eyes would gently close around 3 in the afternoon!I was the new boy and was not asked to play immediately as his other students all had performances that they needed to try out.Philip Fowke,John Blakely,Ann Shasby,Richard McMahon ,Peter Bithell and of course Tessa.I remember many memorable performances from Tessa and will never forget her Schumann Humoresque or the Mozart Concerto K 271 .Memorable too was her duo performance of Cesar Franck with the star violinist of the RAM Josef Frohlich.I even went with them to Harry Blech’s house when they were invited to audition for his London Mozart Players.

Tessa won the Macfarren Gold Medal the top award for pianists and I won it,thanks to Gordon, two years later.Tessa many years later came to play in my concert series in Rome and found immediately in my wife a kindred spirit with their love for cats and much else besides.

There was also another bond that I have only recently realised they shared and was the reason why they immediately understood each other.Tragedy leaves its mark ,even if not spoken about can unknowingly unite kindred spirits.

Tessa Uys was born in Cape Town, and was first taught by her mother, Helga Bassel, herself a noted concert pianist. At 16, she won a Royal Schools Associated Board Scholarship and continued her studies at the Royal Academy of Music in London where she studied with Gordon Green. In her final year she was awarded the MacFarren Medal. Further studies followed in London with Maria Curcio, and in Siena with Guido Agosti. Shortly after this Tessa Uys won the Royal Over-Seas League Competition and was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music. During the past decades, Tessa Uys has established for herself an impressive reputation, both as concert performer, and as a broadcasting artiste, performing at many concert venues throughout the world and with such distinguished conductors as Sir Neville Marriner, Walter Susskind, Louis Frémaux and Nicholas Kraemer. 

Ben Schoeman was also born in South Africa, He studied piano with Joseph Stanford at the University of Pretoria and then received post-graduate tuition from Boris Petrushansky, Louis Lortie, Michel Dalberto, Ronan O’Hora and Eliso Virsaladze in Fiesole, Imola and London. He obtained a doctorate from City, University of London and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He won 1st Prize in the 11 th UNISA International Piano Competition, the Gold Medal in the Royal Over-Seas League Competition, the contemporary music prize at the Cleveland International Piano Competition, and the Huberte Rupert Prize from the South African Academy for Science and Art. He has performed at Wigmore Hall, the Barbican Centre and Queen Elizabeth Halls in London, Carnegie Hall in New York, the Konzerthaus in Berlin, the Gulbenkian Auditorium in Lisbon, and the Enescu Festival in Bucharest. Ben Schoeman is a Steinway Artist and a senior lecturer in piano and musicology at the University of Pretoria. 

Beethoven’s Symphony no 9  in D minor, Op 125, is his final complete symphony composed between 1822 and 1824. Famously commissioned by the Royal Philharmonic Society, it was first performed in Vienna on 7 May 1824, so this year we celebrate the bicentenary of its premiere. The symphony is regarded by many as a masterpiece of Western classical music and one of the supreme achievements in the entire history of music.

If there is one work for which Beethoven is best known, it must surely be his monumental ninth symphony, arguably the most profound and moving of his symphonies. Although its revolutionary form and extreme technical difficulties meant that full appreciation of this iconic work was slow to form, by the 19 th century, the symphony was fully established and many of the great composers considered it to be the central inspiration for their creative voices. Its influence continues unabated today; when the Berlin wall fell in 1989, Leonard Bernstein conducted a legendary performance with a composite cast of musicians from all over the world. There are several anecdotes about the premier, some suggesting that it was under-rehearsed and rather ragged in execution, others reporting that it was a huge success. Now almost completely deaf, though Beethoven was billed as the conductor and did indeed appear to beat time, the players had been cautioned to pay no attention to him and to follow the reliable beat of the concertmaster. In one of the most famous accounts, the audience burst into applause at the end, but Beethoven couldn’t hear the ovation. Only when the contralto soloist Carolyn Unger touched him on the shoulder and turned him around to see his public applauding wildly, did he realise the enormous ovation his masterpiece had produced.  

Franz Xaver Scharwenka was born in 1850 near Posen East Prussia and died in Berlin in 1924. Although he began learning the piano by ear when he was three, he did not start formal music studies until he was 15, when his family moved to Berlin when he enrolled at The Akademie of Tonkunst. He travelled widely as a piano virtuoso and scored a considerable success in England both as pianist and composer. He was an exceedingly fine pianist, praised for his beauty of tone and for his interpretations of the music of Fréderic Chopin. He was also an inspiring teacher and composer of symphonies, piano concerti and an opera which was performed in New York as well as much piano and the famous Beethoven symphonic transcriptions. 

Historic background In the years before recordings when CDs, iPods, Spotify, and YouTube were unknown and live concerts the prerogative of the wealthy, piano transcriptions were widely admired, making such music as tonight’s symphony and other orchestral masterworks available to a generation of listeners who might not otherwise have come to know them. Amongst the most illustrious of such transcriptions were those by Franz Liszt and tonight’s composer, the German/Polish Franz Xaver Scharwenka. Initially Liszt balked at what he deemed was ‘the impossibility of arranging the 9 th Symphony for two hands.” But Scharwenka’s transcription for four hands to be played on one rather than two pianos, works better, as well as enabling more people to perform and hear the music, as few households owned two pianos.

Tessa Uys has a very personal connection with the music, as her concert pianist mother, Helga Bassel was from Berlin, the city where Scharwenka lived. In the 1930’s along with thousands of Jews she fled the city seeking refuge in Cape Town where her daughter was born.

By a stroke of good fortune, she had been able to take not only her beloved Bluthner piano with her but also her collection of piano music including the Scharwenka transcriptions, which were eventually bequeathed to Tessa. In 2004 the piano was returned to the Blüthner factory in Leipzig for restoration and finally gifted to the Jewish Museum in Berlin, thus completing a journey from Nazi Germany and Apartheid South Africa to a new era back in Germany. The complete cycle of Beethoven’s symphonies has never been presented in this format and leading publications such as BBC Music magazine, Gramophone, International Piano Magazine and The Sunday Times have unanimously praised Uys and Schoeman for their “enthralling” and “ground-breaking” recordings of these beloved works. This piano duo is currently touring countrywide performing the 9 th and all the other Symphonies by Beethoven, and promoting their new album and the complete six-CD box set.

Happy Birthday Beethoven – Uys/Schoeman at St Lawrence Jewry

I have heard Gabrielé many times over the past few years whilst she has been perfecting her studies in London .A very serious artist and her seriousness on stage does not reflect the charm and simplicity of this delightful young lady from Lithuania.Her playing has always been of supreme intelligence and with a refined sense of style but above all there is a fluidity and purity of sound that I have noticed is very much part of her Lithuanian heritage.

Rokas Valuntonis,Milda Daunoraite and recently Kasparas Mikzukis have all come to London from Lithuania with an impeccable technical preparation and inborn musicianship and all with a fluidity of sound that comes from being completely relaxed and with a natural flexibility that must be something in the air in those parts!

It was demonstrated immediately with the first pieces that she chose to play by Rameau .Crystalline beauty of the melodic line was etched and sculptured with purity and with ornaments that unwound with refined beauty and were just sounds that glowed in this rarified atmosphere of the civilised elegance of a bygone age.They were indeed ‘Tendres Plaintes’ of hidden sentiments .’Les Cyclopes’ on the other hand was a perpetuum mobile of beguiling and hypnotic drive with precision and passionate delicacy.

I have heard her Scriabin on other occasions but Gabrielé is an artist who reacts with chameleonic character to her different surroundings.Today there was a more dream like atmosphere to the first movement where the whispered opening was gradually swept up on a wave of sumptuous sounds as the melodic line emerged like jewels sparkling in this rarified atmosphere.Notes that were mere sounds of shifting harmonies that enveloped the rich melodic line.The second movement too was less driven today and more like a sea of sounds that allowed her to build up gradually to the sumptuous climaxes and the great romantic melodic outbursts that were swept up on this wave of sound.

The little miniatures by Mompou were played with a simple nursery tale elegance.It was good to hear ‘Le Jeunes Filles’ again which is of such beguiling beauty and I have not heard it since the late Nelson Freire would often play it as an encore.Gabrielé played it with the same exquisite simplicity of purity and beauty.

It was a good preparation for Janacek’s Sonata that is of haunting austere beauty quite unlike any other composer.It is a voice that Gabrielé played with introspection and deep nostalgic feeling.A delicacy and kaleidoscope of sounds that made one wonder why we do not hear this work more often in the concert hall.

Ravel’s ‘Oiseaux tristes’ found the ideal interpreter in Gabrielé where the luminosity of sound was of a piercing purity of deep melancholy over kaleidoscopic murmurs of an austere rarified atmosphere .

The three Etude Tableaux showed off her mastery of the keyboard with the sumptuous sounds of searing intensity of the E flat minor with a wondrous sense of balance that allowed the melody to rise above this blistering passionate outpouring.The simplicity of the D minor where the quite considerable technical difficulties just disappeared as she wove a magical web of sounds.There was a tumultuous call to arms with the D major Study where she played like a woman possessed throwing herself into the fray with courage and bravura.

Greeted by an ovation for a quite exceptional recital of refined elegance and passionate commitment she offered the simple beauty of the slow movement of the Haydn B minor Sonata that demonstrated even more her intelligence and quite considerable artistry .

Lithuanian pianist Gabrielé Sutkuté has already established herself as a musician of strong temperament and “excellent precision and musicality” (Rasa Murauskaite from “7 days of Art”). She has given many concerts and performed in numerous fesOvals throughout Europe and appeared in prestigious halls such as the Wigmore Hall, Cadogan Hall, the Steinway Hall UK, the Stoller Hall, the Musikhuset Aarhus and Lithuanian National Philharmonic Hall. In addiOon to being a soloist, Gabriele frequently performs with chamber ensembles and symphony orchestras. In 2023, she performed Grieg’s Piano Concerto with the YMSO at the Cadogan Hall, conducted by James Blair. In 2020, she performed Rachmaninov’s 2nd Piano Concerto with the Grammy-nominated Kaunas Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Markus Huber, and was also invited to play with the renowned Kaunas String Quartet in Lithuania twice. Gabriele is a winner of twenty international piano competitions where she also received numerous special awards. She was awarded the 1st Prize at the Chappell Medal Piano Competition 2023 and won the 2nd Prize and the Audience Prize at the Birmingham International Piano Competition 2022. She was also the recipient of the presOgious Mills Williams Junior Fellowship 2022/23. For her musical achievements, Gabriele received Lithuanian Republic Presidents’ certficates of appreciation six times. From 2016-22, she had been studying with Professor Christopher Elton and received her Bachelor of Music Degree (First Class Honours) and Master of Arts Degree with Distinction from the Royal Academy of Music. Gabriele graduated from the Artist Diploma course at the Royal College of Music in July 2023, where she had been studying with Professor Vanessa Latarche and Professor Sofya Gulyak. 

Gabrielé Sutkuté at Leighton House ‘a star is born’

Gabrielé Sutkuté takes Mayfair by Storm ‘passion and power with impeccable style’

Gabriele Sutkuté at St Marys Refined musicianship and artistry

Gabrielé Sutkuté plays Grieg with the YMSO under James Blair at Cadogan Hall

Beethoven: Symphony no 9 in D minor Op 125
transcribed for Piano Duet by Scharwenka (1850-1924)

1. Adagio – Allegro 2. Adagio 3. Allegro 4. Allegro 

A spontaneous standing ovation greeted the end of a monumental performance of Beethoven 9th from the four hands of these two South African artists.I have followed the extraordinary concert seasons at Perivale for some years but I have never seen such a display at the end of a performance before.The energy and exhilaration that Tessa and Ben gave to the final bars of this monumental work was truly worthy of the great performances of Toscanini or Furtwangler that have passed into legend .As Hugh Mather said the art of playing duets is an art indeed when played like this where two artists on the same instrument can play as one.

A single mind – servants of the same Master .

I think this is the second or third time In have heard them play this and other symphonies and it has been a long gestation period to arrive at a performance of such intensity as yesterday in Perivale .

Tessa Uys Part 2 at St Lawrence Jewry and at St Michaels’ Highgate with Ben Schoeman in Beethoven 5th and 9th.

Tessa Uys and Ben Schoeman piano duo : In 2010, Tessa Uys and Ben Schoeman established a duo partnership after being invited to give a two-piano recital at the Royal Over-Seas League in London. Ever since, they have performed regularly at music societies, festivals and at the BBC and in 2015, they embarked on their journey with the nine Scharwenka/Beethoven Symphonies transcriptions.

Happy 249th The fifth and ninth Symphonies at St Lawrence and St Martins

Tessa and I were near contemporaries at the Royal Academy in the class of Gordon Green .I was the new boy having studied as a schoolboy with Sidney Harrison and then three years with him as the Liszt Scholar.I found myself though never having had any training in public performance .Private lessons can be very isolating and not the training for a playing career.I had heard about Gordon Green from Sidney who said he was the Professor who he was most attuned to . I had heard too from his students that every friday there was a class where his they would perform as if in a public concert. He would listen and only afterwards make comments from his copious notes.

I went to Gordon in desperation but that was not a word that he recognised because he was calm, reassuring ,very thorough and we all adored him.Even affectionately nudge each other as his eyes would gently close around 3 in the afternoon!I was the new boy and was not asked to play immediately as his other students all had performances that they needed to try out.Philip Fowke,John Blakely,Ann Shasby,Richard McMahon ,Peter Bithell and of course Tessa.I remember many memorable performances from Tessa and will never forget her Schumann Humoresque or the Mozart Concerto K 271 .Memorable too was her duo performance of Cesar Franck with the star violinist of the RAM Josef Frohlich.I even went with them to Harry Blech’s house when they were invited to audition for his London Mozart Players.

Tessa won the Macfarren Gold Medal the top award for pianists and I won it,thanks to Gordon, two years later.Tessa many years later came to play in my concert series in Rome and found immediately in my wife a kindred spirit with their love for cats and much else besides.

There was also another bond that I have only recently realised they shared and was the reason why they immediately understood each other.Tragedy leaves its mark ,even if not spoken about can unknowingly unite kindred spirits.

Tessa Uys was born in Cape Town, and was first taught by her mother, Helga Bassel, herself a noted concert pianist. At 16, she won a Royal Schools Associated Board Scholarship and continued her studies at the Royal Academy of Music in London where she studied with Gordon Green. In her final year she was awarded the MacFarren Medal. Further studies followed in London with Maria Curcio, and in Siena with Guido Agosti. Shortly after this Tessa Uys won the Royal Over-Seas League Competition and was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music. During the past decades, Tessa Uys has established for herself an impressive reputation, both as concert performer, and as a broadcasting artiste, performing at many concert venues throughout the world and with such distinguished conductors as Sir Neville Marriner, Walter Susskind, Louis Frémaux and Nicholas Kraemer. 

Ben Schoeman was also born in South Africa, He studied piano with Joseph Stanford at the University of Pretoria and then received post-graduate tuition from Boris Petrushansky, Louis Lortie, Michel Dalberto, Ronan O’Hora and Eliso Virsaladze in Fiesole, Imola and London. He obtained a doctorate from City, University of London and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He won 1st Prize in the 11 th UNISA International Piano Competition, the Gold Medal in the Royal Over-Seas League Competition, the contemporary music prize at the Cleveland International Piano Competition, and the Huberte Rupert Prize from the South African Academy for Science and Art. He has performed at Wigmore Hall, the Barbican Centre and Queen Elizabeth Halls in London, Carnegie Hall in New York, the Konzerthaus in Berlin, the Gulbenkian Auditorium in Lisbon, and the Enescu Festival in Bucharest. Ben Schoeman is a Steinway Artist and a senior lecturer in piano and musicology at the University of Pretoria. 

Beethoven’s Symphony no 9  in D minor, Op 125, is his final complete symphony composed between 1822 and 1824. Famously commissioned by the Royal Philharmonic Society, it was first performed in Vienna on 7 May 1824, so this year we celebrate the bicentenary of its premiere. The symphony is regarded by many as a masterpiece of Western classical music and one of the supreme achievements in the entire history of music.

If there is one work for which Beethoven is best known, it must surely be his monumental ninth symphony, arguably the most profound and moving of his symphonies. Although its revolutionary form and extreme technical difficulties meant that full appreciation of this iconic work was slow to form, by the 19 th century, the symphony was fully established and many of the great composers considered it to be the central inspiration for their creative voices. Its influence continues unabated today; when the Berlin wall fell in 1989, Leonard Bernstein conducted a legendary performance with a composite cast of musicians from all over the world. There are several anecdotes about the premier, some suggesting that it was under-rehearsed and rather ragged in execution, others reporting that it was a huge success. Now almost completely deaf, though Beethoven was billed as the conductor and did indeed appear to beat time, the players had been cautioned to pay no attention to him and to follow the reliable beat of the concertmaster. In one of the most famous accounts, the audience burst into applause at the end, but Beethoven couldn’t hear the ovation. Only when the contralto soloist Carolyn Unger touched him on the shoulder and turned him around to see his public applauding wildly, did he realise the enormous ovation his masterpiece had produced.  

Franz Xaver Scharwenka was born in 1850 near Posen East Prussia and died in Berlin in 1924. Although he began learning the piano by ear when he was three, he did not start formal music studies until he was 15, when his family moved to Berlin when he enrolled at The Akademie of Tonkunst. He travelled widely as a piano virtuoso and scored a considerable success in England both as pianist and composer. He was an exceedingly fine pianist, praised for his beauty of tone and for his interpretations of the music of Fréderic Chopin. He was also an inspiring teacher and composer of symphonies, piano concerti and an opera which was performed in New York as well as much piano and the famous Beethoven symphonic transcriptions. 

Historic background In the years before recordings when CDs, iPods, Spotify, and YouTube were unknown and live concerts the prerogative of the wealthy, piano transcriptions were widely admired, making such music as tonight’s symphony and other orchestral masterworks available to a generation of listeners who might not otherwise have come to know them. Amongst the most illustrious of such transcriptions were those by Franz Liszt and tonight’s composer, the German/Polish Franz Xaver Scharwenka. Initially Liszt balked at what he deemed was ‘the impossibility of arranging the 9 th Symphony for two hands.” But Scharwenka’s transcription for four hands to be played on one rather than two pianos, works better, as well as enabling more people to perform and hear the music, as few households owned two pianos.

Tessa Uys has a very personal connection with the music, as her concert pianist mother, Helga Bassel was from Berlin, the city where Scharwenka lived. In the 1930’s along with thousands of Jews she fled the city seeking refuge in Cape Town where her daughter was born.

By a stroke of good fortune, she had been able to take not only her beloved Bluthner piano with her but also her collection of piano music including the Scharwenka transcriptions, which were eventually bequeathed to Tessa. In 2004 the piano was returned to the Blüthner factory in Leipzig for restoration and finally gifted to the Jewish Museum in Berlin, thus completing a journey from Nazi Germany and Apartheid South Africa to a new era back in Germany. The complete cycle of Beethoven’s symphonies has never been presented in this format and leading publications such as BBC Music magazine, Gramophone, International Piano Magazine and The Sunday Times have unanimously praised Uys and Schoeman for their “enthralling” and “ground-breaking” recordings of these beloved works. This piano duo is currently touring countrywide performing the 9 th and all the other Symphonies by Beethoven, and promoting their new album and the complete six-CD box set.

Happy Birthday Beethoven – Uys/Schoeman at St Lawrence Jewry

Refined elegance and intelligence was the hallmark of a beautiful performance of one of the greatest works for piano trio.It was also a first performance of the ‘Archduke’ for this trio. I had heard them recently play the Granados and Piazzola which I am quoted as saying was a ‘sumptuous feast of exhilaration and seduction’ . Alexander Pope would have relished that indeed!

Trio :Cristian Sandrin -Enyuan Khong – Charlotte Kaslin ‘A feast of exhilaration and seduction for Mary Orr’ for the Matthiesen Foundation at the Matthiesen Gallery

I can only confirm that it was even better and more seductive tonight for the atmosphere that the ‘impresario’ Cristian Sandrin had created with the magical lighting not only around the piano but in the suggestive garden overlooking the Thames in which this beautiful church stands.Missing only the candelabra on the piano which brought to mind a rather cruel but apposite comment from a distinguished New York critic friend.He had penned about a rather scantily clad lady pianist playing to the gallery recently that she made Liberace look like Schnabel ! This was not the case tonight because although Liberace was actually a fine pianist who had become an iconic entertainer ( a bit like Lang Lang ) Cristian is a serious artist who allows the music to speak for itself without any superfluous titivation or tinsel.I am glad that the order of programme was changed to allow the ‘Archduke’ to fill the entire first half with refined beauty and nobility before letting their hair down with the exhilarating seductive sounds that had been promised !It is interesting to note that Pablo Casals was the cellist in the first performance of the Granados together with the composer at the piano ( before Granados and his wife were blown to pieces by a submarine in the English Channel ).It is Casals who is the cellist in the historic formation of Thibaud- Cortot – Casals whose performance of the Archduke has gone down in history and was indeed the first performance I had ever heard of this work on a scratchy 78 rpm recording.

The ravishing beauty of the opening opens the window to the world of Beethoven that was calming his impossible irascible temper as he imagined the sounds only in his head when total deafness was cruelly only just around the corner.The searing intensity of the ‘cellist visibly transformed by the sublime opening as the violinist too was under Beethoven’s spell from the very opening sublimely simple notes of ravishing beauty from Cristian’s very sensitive hands.A continuous stream of wonderment was interrupted only by the rhythmic drive and impish good humour of the scherzo.There was again the beauty of the solo piano in the opening of the Andante cantabile where the religious stillness of the late quartets was foreseen here as the violin and cello took up and varied the poignant melody with elegance and refined mutual anticipation.The Allegro moderato opening with a subtle call to arms was where Beethoven could finally let his hair down with dynamic drive and brilliance not as successfully as Cristian today if we are to believe the reports from two distinguished musicians of Beethoven’s day!

The Archduke Trio op. 97, was completed in 1811, late in Beethoven’s so-called “middle period”.  and was dedicated to Archduke Rudolph of Austria. The youngest of twelve children of Leopold II ,Holy Roman Emperor and was an amateur pianist and a patron, friend, and composition student of Beethoven who dedicated about a dozen compositions to .Beethoven also wrote personally to the Archduke with the newly composed trio to have it copied within the archduke’s palace out of fear that it would be stolen.This was a frequent transaction between the two and resulted in the archduke establishing a library of all of Beethoven’s compositions with manuscript copies for preservation.Two days after completion in 1811, Beethoven played the Archduke Trio in an informal setting at the Baron Neuworth’s residency with no known performance after until 1814.The first public performance was given by Beethoven himself, at the Viennese hotel Zum römischen Kaiser on April 11, 1814. At the time, Beethoven’s deafness compromised his ability as a performer, and after a repeat performance a few weeks later, Beethoven never appeared again in public as a pianist.

The violinist and composer Louis Spohr  witnessed a rehearsal of the work, and wrote, “on account of his deafness there was scarcely anything left of the virtuosity of the artist which had formerly been so greatly admired. In forte passages the poor deaf man pounded on the keys until the strings jangled, and in piano he played so softly that whole groups of notes were omitted, so that the music was unintelligible unless one could look into the pianoforte part. I was deeply saddened at so hard a fate.”

The pianist and composer Ignaz Moscheles  attended the premiere, and wrote about the work, “in the case of how many compositions is the word ‘new’ misapplied! But never in Beethoven’s, and least of all in this, which again is full of originality. His playing, aside from its intellectual element, satisfied me less, being wanting in clarity and precision; but I observed many traces of the grand style of playing which I had long recognized in his compositions.”

Some remarkable playing from this young pianist with a programme that showed off her crystal clear playing of enviable precision and purity.Sounds that were truly of a chiselled beauty that reminded me very much of Michelangeli.It is a school of playing more based on instrumental expertise rather than vocal freedom being more vertical in approach than horizontal. A technical perfection placed at the service of impeccable musicianship with masterly crafted playing of absolute intelligence and sensibility to gradations in sound.But it is a musicianship that thinks more in orchestral layers than individual phrases.

There was no terror for her of the double notes in Scarlatti’s infamous sonata in D minor a favourite encore of Martha Argerich .It was played with beautiful changes of colour as the harpsichord would have changed register but just missed the overall shaping of the phrases.It was a remarkable tour de force and was played at times with great delicacy and superb control but I could not help feeling that this was more of the dance than the song.In fact it is sometimes known as ‘Toccata’ and was a very courageous opening to her recital and the nobility she brought to the final cadence was of a true artist.

Mozart on the other hand was always based on the human voice and although diana played the Allegro moderato with absolute clarity and delicacy with the trills that shone like finely spun jewels just catching a ray of light her playing was more in layers more instrumental than vocal phrasing .There was great control and finesse from a finely spun web of well oiled fingers.The Andante cantabile was played with a chiselled beauty of refined grace and her sensitivity to Mozart’s startling changes of harmony was quite breathtaking .The Allegretto was played with crystal clarity and rhythmic precision but I doubt that these operatic personalities would have been quite so black and white on stage .

The French repertoire found the perfect interpreter with Osieaux tristes played with a chiselled luminosity over sultry moving harmonies of great atmosphere.It was a sound though that was more on the surface than really with weight searching for the sounds within the keys. Perlemuter had learned from Alfred Cortot – never to let go of the key sometimes changing fingers on the same note so that the weight could feel and suck the sounds from within the note which avoids the percussive nature of the piano and persuades us that real legal is actually possible on an instrument of hammers that hit strings.It is an illusion and a pianist should quite simply aim to be the greatest illusionist of all.

The crystalline clarity and rhythmic precision she brought to Alborada was masterly and the repeated notes and double glissandi held no terror for her.A relentless drive interrupted only by fleeting glances of what was going on around but leading to the hysterical final outburst and a masterly ending to this exemplary performance.

Chopin of course was influenced by bel canto of Bellini .Diana with her beautifully delicate chiselled sounds of great purity could float Chopin’s magic melody over a gently murmuring accompaniment in a masterly way.The delicacy of the cascades of notes after the mazurka interruption was of ravishing beauty showing quite extraordinary control.The Polonaise was played with impeccable control and clarity and there were many beautiful moments but one could not help feeling that it missed the overall sweep of a swimmer stroking the waves rather than a runner counting his steps.Diana Cooper is an artist to be reckoned with and although from the French instrumental school of Sancon rather than the poetic one of Cortot her performances were of impeccable musicianly good taste and style and she held her small audience in her spell from the first to the last note with great artistry.

Winner of numerous awards including 1 st Prize at the Brest Chopin Competition, 1 st Prize at the Halina Czerny-Stefanská International Competition in Poznan (Poland) and 1 st Prize at the Concurso Internacional de Piano de Vigo (Spain), Diana Cooper has been invited to perform in various venues and festivals in France and abroad, including the Nohant Chopin Festival , the Festival Chopin à Paris , the Salle Cortot , the Polish Embassy in Paris, the Ysaye Festival in Belgium, the Palacio de Congresos in Huesca (Spain), the Hrvatski dom Split in Croatia, the Kielce Filharmonia in Poland…In 2023, she was selected to take part in the project Un été en France avec Gautier Capuçon , for which she perfomed as a soloist and in chamber music.She was invited in 2018 to take part in the radio program Générations Jeunes Interprètes on France Musique and, in 2023, performed as a trio in the television programme Fauteuils d’orchestre , broadcast on France 5. Her activity has been enriched by solo appearances with the Orchestre Symphonique du Sud Ouest in Chopin’s 1st Concerto, the Orchestre Appassionato in Mozart’s 20 th concerto, and the Orchestre des Lauréats du Conservatoire de Paris in Schumann’s concerto, performed in 2023 at the Cité de la Musique in Paris.

L aureate of the Fondation de la Banque Populaire , the Fondation Safran and the Kathleen Trust , Diana is currently settled in London, studying at the Royal College of Music in London on an Artist Diploma programme in Norma Fisher’s class. She has recently joined the Talent Unlimited charity offering concerts in London for young talented musicians. She is, in parallel, on a second Artist Diploma course at the Conservatoire de Paris (CNSMDP), where she studied formely with Jean-François Heisser and Marie-Josèphe Jude and graduated with a Master’s degree in 2018. She also spent three years at the Ecole Normale de Musique receiving the teaching of Rena Schereshevskaya. In 2022, she was selected to join the new season of the Académie Musicale Philippe Jaroussky , where she perfected her skills with Cédric Thiberghien. Following her pre-selection in 2021 for the prestigious Chopin Competition in Warsaw, she was invited the following summer by Philippe Giusiano to take part in masterclasses in Katowice as well as concerts at the Chopin Manor in Duszniki, organized by the Chopin Foundation. Diana has recently recorded her first CD, featuring works by Haydn, Chopin and Ravel, after winning in 2022 the 1 st Prize in the Concours d’aide aux Jeunes Artistes organized by the Festival du Vexin.