Amazing, astonishing ,breathtaking were some of the comments last night as Tamta Magradze filled this beautiful Lloyd George room with the sumptuous sounds that I have not heard since the arrival in London of Lazar Berman – a true laser beam of astonishing pyrotechnics and sumptuous overwhelming sounds on the grandest of pianos.

Here in the Liberal Club where Rachmaninov gave his last European performance before leaving for America never to know how the evil machinations of Hitler would be played out .There now stands a new piano for a new era and the Liberal Club is once again resounding to the grandest of music thanks to the dedication of Cristian Sandrin , Yisha Xue and all those involved with the Keyboard Trust and Kettner Music Society.

This was ‘Lisztomania’ recreating the world of the greatest showman the world has ever known .Together with Paganini, Liszt would have the elite noble gentry of the great castles and salons of the day reduced to a screaming mob rushing forward at the end of their idols circus like exhibitionism to grab a souvenir of a lock of hair or cigar but to take home perchance to dream of a private encounter of a secret nature !
Just like the pop stars of today ……Lang Lang eat your heart out !
This is just the beginning as Lisztomania n 2 is already on the cards in the not too distant future with the remarkable Mark Viner who will reignite this atmosphere adding an even more strange twist from the past with the most enigmatic friend of both Chopin and Liszt : Charles Valentin Alkan .

Mark Viner at St Mary’s Faustian Struggles and Promethean Prophesies

Rumour has it that this strange elusive figure from the past hid his music away as only he could play such difficult hoarded secret scores for solo piano made up of fearfully difficult Symphonies ,Concertos and studies and much more besides .
A recluse that rumour has it was crushed to death reaching for the Talmud on the top shelf of his library.Chopin had bequeathed his final studies to his friend and colleague as he was the only one who could complete the thesis on piano playing that Chopin knew he would never have time to finish.

Today the 29 year old Tamta Magradze fresh from the Liszt Academy in Weimar took the Liberal Club by storm with overwhelming performances of three works that Liszt himself would have performed throughout Europe on his leggendary concert tours from 1839 to 1847.
An opening that was immediately a call to arms with the sumptuous full sounds of grandiloquence of Liszt’s full blown vision of Handel’s Sarabande and Chaconne from his first opera Almira of 1795 .

Opera was for the elite but Liszt made it readily available to his fans where his ten fingers could bring the operas vividly to life with even more excitement than in the opera house. Tamta’s limpet like fingers with robust arms outstretched as she allowed them to caress and seduce the black and white keys set before her that by some strange alchemy became an orchestra of the noblest proportions .

This was just the opening of an all too short survey that was concluded with what Leslie Howard considers Liszt ‘s masterpiece: the Grosses Konzertsolo .The prelude to the B minor sonata which is the greatest work of the Romantic era-considered with Schumann’s Fantasie op 17 and Chopin’s Fourth Ballade op 52 absolute monuments of the nineteenth century .
Tamta played it with total commitment and mastery throwing herself into the burning furnace with scintillating and life enhancing sounds .
The well known Mephisto Waltz n.1 the cavallo di battaglia of so many great virtuosi was often added to by the disciple of the great master, Ferruccio Busoni .Not even content with this Horowitz would add his own cadenza and ending which earned him the accolade of ‘the greatest pianist alive or dead ! ‘ on his arrival in Paris in the 1930’s. Rubinstein of course had his nose put out of joint as Paris in that period was very much his kingdom that he reigned over until this moment.

A la recherche de Thalberg

It evoked the duel between Liszt and Thalberg a century earlier .Fighting it out in the Princess Belgioso’s salon where she declared at the end of the pianistic duel between giants that Thalberg was the greatest pianist alive but Liszt was unique!Honour was saved and noblesse oblige!With Horowitz and Rubinstein the Holocaust intervened and united so many great artists in their mutual fight against evil.

Tamta played Liszt’s original Mephisto Waltz n. 1 where the throbbing opening of the opening was transformed into a glittering display of virtuosity but also of sumptuous beauty .Bird calls played with crystalline clarity and the treacherous final leaps played with enviable accuracy and not a little courage .If she just missed the charm of Gounod’s Waltz from Faust she warmed the ‘cockles of our hearts ‘ with the sublime beauty of Liebestraum and the lesser known but even more sublime transcription of Schubert’s Litanei.

A real ovation greeted the final chords of the Grosses Konzertsolo and what could one play after that ? Follow that indeed!
What better that Liszt’s transcription of Beethoven’s First Symphony.Beethoven had after all kissed the child prodigy of his pupil Czerny before unleashing the greatest showman on earth to an unsuspecting public !
Wonderful to see what had been written about Tamta at a previous performance and which I can only repeat here and confirm :’Tamta Magradze summoned up epic musical adventures with every note she played,throwing grand gestures off with casual virtuosity like a coloratura soprano’