Some remarkable playing of great maturity from this twenty two year old pianist from the class of Christopher Elton at the Royal Academy in London. A class where above all musical values are the basis for a profound study of the score, taking for granted a mastery of the keyboard but explaining the style and the very meaning behind the notes. It is only from this beginning that the true meaning of technique can be understood and mastered. It is born from a wish to delve ever deeper into the score to find the meaning of the music when still wet on the page. It was exactly this that came across in all that Sherri played today.Two Fantasies,both representing the pinnacle of the Romantic piano repertoire, and a Chaconne not by Bach but by the 93 year old Sofija Gubaidulina written for the winner of the Tchaikovsky competition in 1962. The most notable thing about Sherri’s playing is the limpet type weight that her fingers have as they cling to the keys, never hitting them but sucking the sound out with an enviable concentration that denies any showmanship or eccentricities.This was a pianist who listens to every sound she was making with a mastery and intelligence that would be the envy of pianists twice her age!
Chopin’s Polonaise- Fantaisie is one of his last works,when he had found a unique form that united the Polish dance with the fantasy of a poetic genius. Sherri played it with aristocratic authority, where notes we have heard many times before now had a significance and meaning that demanded our attention. The opening imperious chords were allowed to vibrate over the entire keyboard with a single web of sound that are true reverberations of the soul. Sherri realised this and played the notes with one beautiful movement ( so often divided up between the hands to make it pianistically easier).It was her total identification with the music, where the beauty of the music was the same natural beauty of the shape of her hand and body. A sumptuous glowing sound as the Polonaise could be heard in the distance gradually advancing with the clarity of the knotty counterpoints that link the episodes together. Ornaments that sparkled like jewels and just showed Sherri’s mastery of the pedal and above all mastery of true legato. A poignant introduction to the central episode was played with timeless beauty and opened up to a chorale of ravishing depth of sound and control. Chopin’s counterpoints just adding to the beauty that was unfolding with a clarity that was never intrusive but just contributing to the magic that was being recreated. There was a beautifully judged build up to the heroic climax where she created the culmination of nobility and aristocratic control with breathtaking exhilaration, dying away to a mere whisper before the final bare A flat.
The Gubaidulina Chaconne opened with imperious authority of luminosity with a kaleidoscope of colours.There was a great clarity even with such a knotty web of sounds. Played with a transcendental mastery but always with an architectural shape that could reconcile the fervent outpourings with the actual overall shape of this extraordinary work. Astonishing mastery of non legato and legato and with the use of the pedal that even allowed for such clarity. Ending as it had begun with nobility and unashamed declamations of intensity and strength. Sherri had warned us in advance that this was a different sound world from Chopin and Schumann .It was a work that had touched her deeply and that she wanted to master and be able to share her enthusiasm with others, which she certainly did today with fearless courage and masterly authority.
The Fantasy op 17 is one of Schumann’s greatest works and is dedicated to Liszt and was Schumann’s contribution to the expense of a monument to Beethoven in Bonn. Liszt is famed for having sight read it with total mastery. The first performance I ever heard was the very first recital I went to of Artur Rubinstein in London, and it has remained in my heart ever since. I have since heard many pianists ,great and small, play it but rarely have I heard it played with such understanding or beauty as today. There was a wonderful opening with just a wash of sounds on which floated Schumann’s miraculous outpouring of love for his Clara. How often have we heard that first G played like a bomb going off instead of just creating a magic web of sound. Agosti often used to stop students when they started the fantasy in such a brutal way with a comment that it was as though Schumann had hit his beloved Clara over the head ! Sherri shaped the melodic line so beautifully but also with passion and a legato of real weight and refined beauty. There was a great sense of line in which Schumann’s chords were merely bystanders as it lead to the first big climax. Deep bass notes and a descending scale prepared us for the central ‘Im Legenden Ton’ that Sherri played with glowing simplicity.There was a beautiful stillness to the coda as her attention to detail and the very precise dynamic marks were interpreted with rare poetic beauty.
The March was played with restrained nobility that allowed her to shape it with maturity in what can seem a very repetitive movement if played full out from the very first notes. Schumann’s infamous dotted rhythms too, were shaped into phrases of beauty that conversed with the inner voices in such a beguiling way. A continual forward movement even in the graceful central episode. Sherri demonstrated a remarkable fearless control where music just poured from her hands and where technical hurdles no longer existed. The treacherous coda too was played with remarkable accuracy and passionate abandon with a dynamic drive that is of a chosen few. A long pause before the final movement allowing her hands to enter into the private domain of Robert and Clara with an outpouring of love and sensibility. Sherri played it with a subtle flexibility that was like a great improvisation where everything was allowed to sing. Even the chordal build up to the two climaxes was played with knowing beauty where the top notes were allowed to sing without ever allowing for a thicker texture. The ending was a beautiful outpouring of song as the melody passed from the soprano to the bass voice with an impeccable sense of balance. Even the crescendo. that Schumann marks, never overstepped the atmosphere that had been created but just added to the poetic intensity of one of the finest performances I have heard for many a year.
Sherri is also an inquisitive musician and her encore by Clara Schumann was the Nocturne op 6, that echoes the melody of Robert in the fantasy and was published in the same year . It was played with the same weight and aristocratic beauty as the fantasy with a sense of yearning that was a deep lament for Robert as his Fantasy had been for her .
Sherri Lun, named ‘2020 Performing Artist of the Year’ by the South China Morning Post, has garnered acclaim for her “pinpoint clarity and convincing bravura” (Chicago Tribune). Born in Hong Kong and currently based in London, Sherri has swiftly established herself as a rising soloist on the international stage. A Young Scholar of the Lang Lang International Music Foundation, Sherri made her concerto debut at the Ravinia Festival with the Midwest Young Artists at just 10 years old. Since then, she has performed in prestigious venues including Wigmore Hall in London, Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris, and Millennium Park in Chicago. Her international appearances span the UK, US, France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain, Malaysia, and China. Sherri has also collaborated with esteemed ensembles such as the Salzburg Chamber Soloists, Hong Kong Youth Orchestra, and Kölner Kammerorchester. Recent performances include the Hammerklavier International Piano Series in Girona, the Festival Musicale delle Nazioni in Rome, a 4-concert Malaysian tour, recitals in Steinway Hall London and Drapers’ Hall. In December 2023, she released her debut album with KNS Classical, featuring works by Robert Schumann and César Franck. Sherri’s artistry has been recognized with top prizes in numerous national and international competitions. Most recently, she won First Prize and Audience Prize in the 2024 Birmingham International Piano Competition, following her First Prize win at the 2023 Hong Kong Generation Next Arts Competition. Sherri also won top prizes in the Robert Schumann Competition (Du¨sseldorf), Zhuhai International Mozart Competition for Young Musicians, ASEAN International Chopin Piano Competition, Singapore International Piano Competition, and Steinway & Sons Youth Piano Competition, to name a few, and is a quarter-finalist of the 2024 Hamamatsu International Piano Competition. At the Royal Academy, she won consecutively the 2022 Sterndale Bennett Prize, 2023 Chung Nung Lee Prize, and 2024 Harold Craxton Prize. She was also invited to perform in RAM’s 2022 Bicentenary celebration concert in Wigmore Hall. In Hong Kong, she is a frequent winner of local competitions, and her performance has been broadcasted by the Radio Television Hong Kong. Born in 2003, Sherri majored in piano and viola as a junior student of the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts. She is currently studying under Prof. Christopher Elton at the Royal Academy of Music on a full scholarship, supported by both the Academy and the Hong Kong Scholarship for Excellence Scheme. She is also an artist with KNS Classical and the Keyboard Charitable Trust. For more information, visit http://www.sherrilun.com.
It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Sofia Gubaidulina on March 13, 2025, at her home near Hamburg.
Sofia Gubaidulina was regarded as the grande dame of contemporary music, the most significant Russian composer of our time, and a person whose deep faith was a constant source of inspiration. Her profound curiosity about the world, people, and spirituality left a lasting impression on all who met her and had the honor of collaborating with her.
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ChristopherAxworthy-MusicCommentary 