It is nice to be back for another in the Roma 3 Young Artists Series. A concert series that Valerio Vicari has created to give a platform to the enormously talented Italian pianists who are ever more numerous and headed for important careers. Today there was, exceptionally, a Dutch pianist but who had received his important training in Italy with Enrico Pace at the Imola Academy. Nikola Meeuwsen is now completing his studies with Frank Braley at La Chapelle in Brussels but always under the eagle eye of Enrico Pace

Frank Braley had made his Rome debut at the Ghione theatre some thirty years ago when he had just won the prestigious Queen Elisabeth Competition ( Gilels won first prize in 1939 when Michelangeli won 7th. and it was Gilels who provided the dance music at parties for the other contestants that included Moura Lympany who came in second )

I remember Fou Ts’ong , a jury member, being thrilled but not a little surprised that such an eclectic musician as Braley could win a competition renowned for choosing great virtuosi from the Russian school !

It was this musicianship that shone through all that Nikola played today. Even the notorious double third study by Chopin was played not only with agile well trained fingers in the right hand, but it was the simple left hand melodic line that was given precedence. It is a work, like Liszt’s ‘Feux Follets’ that in the hands of real musicians can turn an athletic bauble into the gem of a tone poem of ravishing beauty and beguiling half lit grace and charm.

Nikola did just that today

But before that he had begun the recital with Mendelssohn’s spectacularly genial ‘Variations serieuses’. An athletic performance that demonstrated his fearless technical mastery but also the passion and seduction of a young man on the crest of a wave.There was exhilaration and excitement contrasted with delicacy and whispered asides of ravishing beauty. Mendelssohn’s heart on sleeve sentiments of the Victorian era ( he was the favourite at the court of Queen Victoria) were played with sentiment but without sentimentality as Nikola expressed the feelings of their age with intensity and aristocratic good taste. He brought an architectural shape to these variations as they unraveled with well oiled mastery and ease. Played with the Romantic fervour of a young man in love with the piano and who has acquired a poetic mastery of insinuating exhilaration and beauty. A quite extraordinary sense of balance that allowed the musical line to shine with beauty no matter how many notes it was wrapped up in. His playing of the melodic line in the tenor register accompanied by pizzicato notes of ingenious counterpoints, without ever releasing the tension of a tightly wound spring, was exhilarating and liberating. Contrasting with moments of peaceful reflection played with disarming simplicity of barely whispered breathless comments .

After such a performance of pianistic gymnastics Nikola left the stage for a moment and returned jacket less to continue the rest of the recital in this beautiful space that has been created for youthful music making at Roma 3 .

A slight change of order meant that Nikola got his breath back with the poignant outpouring of Bach’s ‘Nun komm der heiden heiland’ in the masterly transcription by Busoni of six of the organ preludes .

Nikola endowed it with poignant beauty and sumptuous sound as Bach’s genius was allowed to envelope us all, calming the scintillating exhilaration of Mendelssohn with the weight of respectful solemnity. It should be remembered that it was Mendelssohn who discovered the universal genius of Bach in the nineteenth century and brought many of his master works to the public’s attention.

We were now ready for the veiled virtuosity of Chopin’s study op 25 n. 6 as I have described above. It was the sign of a real musician that out of the final whispered chords Nikola allowed the first notes of Chopin’s third ballade to be born.

A performance of poetic beauty and mastery as Chopin’s gentlest, most pastoral of ballades was allowed to unfold on a flowing wave of radiance and simplicity. Timeless beauty as the music unfolded with gentle persuasion, where even the trills were merely part of the ornamentation leading to a left hand melody of rare beauty, barely suggested, as it was accompanied by the radiance of a magical stream of notes, like a golden halo illuminating such heartrending beauty. The Ballade gradually taking wing on undulating sounds with gentle bursts of passionate outpourings where even the ‘fiortiori’ were merely part of a great wave that was moving inexorably forward. Left hand counterpoints usually played like a transcendental study, in Nikola’s poetic hands were just the gentle accommodating accompaniment for the melodic line. Onward Christian soldiers with menacing clouds brewing, as with masterly control Nikola built up to the final glorious explosion of noble exuberance and glory. A scintillating stream of notes from on high, deep into the bass, that brought this miniature masterpiece to a radiant close with four simply placed chords.

Liszt’s ‘Gnomenreigen’ suited Nikola’s crystalline ‘fingerfertigkeit’ and was played with that same sense of old world style that Rachmaninov bequeathed to us on disc. A jeux perlé of another era when musicians were magicians who could stimulate the senses of their doting public. Like Liszt or Paganini turning sedate ladies of the aristocratic salons into wild animals wanting to grab a souvenir from the devil that had so stimulated senses that they knew not existed within them!

We live in a different age, of course, so we behaved ourselves accordingly, but there were some brave souls who shouted bravo and applauded more vehemently !

Rewarded with another consoling reminder of celestial beauty with Bach’s ‘Ich Ruf zu dir’ which is undoubtedly the most moving of all the transcriptions that Busoni made for piano. Aristocratic glowing beauty sustained by a richly sonorous bass of Philadelphian ravishment, this was the favourite encore of the much missed Nelson Freire.

Nelson Freire RIP……the legacy of a great artist
https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2021/11/02/nelson-freire-rip/

It is good to see an aspiring young virtuoso as much in love with the beauty of the piano that has been bequeathed to us by masters of the past. It allows us to forgive and forget the new generation of ‘virtuosi’ with their transatlantic metallic sound trying to break the sound barrier ( pianos are more resilient these days!)

The final work in this very strenuous recital, which must hold the Guinness book of records for the quantity of notes within an hour’s time span,Liszt’s dramatic and spectacular Dante Sonata. A great declamation of intent from the very first imperious octaves played with unusual resonance and a very measured timespan. This was the opening of a great story that was about to open up and be told by a young man with passionate conviction and enormous technical reserves. Bathed in pedal as the opening took wing on a mysterious cloud gradually clearing to reveal a demonic drive with cascades of octaves that were played with fearless abandon. But there was much more than that, as the whispered confessions of ravishing beauty revealed a true poet of the keyboard and were overheard with their poignant beauty. Playing of great intensity and passionate conviction that can sometimes overpower, where such burning intensity can lead to forte, fortissimo and mezzo forte all having the same colour. When Richter arrived in the West for the first time ( Gilels had warned the world , who were astonished by his mastery, simply stating ‘Just wait until you see who comes after me!) The most astonishing thing about Richter was not how loud or fast he could play – he was no ‘Lazar beam (!)’ It was how quietly and with what control he could play -sustaining barely whispered notes so full of pregnant meaning that they could cross the footlights and reveal the same sounds in the first row of a vast hall that could, by magic, arrive in the very last seats in the lofty gallery ( known as the ‘Gods’ in England or ‘Paradiso’ in Latin countries) .

Gods indeed – Richter like Arrau were Gods, where their maturity could control their massive temperament and where above all they were listening to themselves with the discerning ears of dedicated genius.

An ovation for Nikola today from an audience astonished and moved by such playing and demanding more !

Beethoven was the only solution with his early op 2 n.2 Sonata that I imagine must be a favourite of Nikola’s present mentor, Frank Braley. It was played with the characterisation of a true musician ( Schiffty one might say).

Rachmaninov’s heroic outpouring of passion and nostalgia in the Etude Tableau op 39 n. 5 in E flat minor was a second encore, played with a kaleidoscope of colour and insinuating harmonies of passionate intensity.

Looking at Valerio,the Artistic director, to see if he too would like a third encore ,before taking us to the magical sound world of Ligeti with his Arcobaleno Study ( Book 1 n. 5 Arc-en-ciel). Ligeti is the only composer who you feel the piano is just not long enough, as he crawls up to the extreme top of the keyboard and there curls up and awaits the invention of even more keys! It was played with a purity and simplicity as you felt he might have carried on crawling around the piano as Dudley Moore or Victor Borge would have done! https://youtu.be/ujei43f2qkU. https://fb.watch/za2R3jMt82/

A remarkable debut recital from an artist who is well on the ladder of the very steep path in his search for perfection. ‘L’escalier diabolique’ as Ligeti would have described it.

Nikola Meeuwsen (b. 2002) has already established a remarkably mature international career as a pianist of the younger generation. He made his full-length solo debut at the Royal Concertgebouw on January 19, 2024, performing works by Schubert, Beethoven, Brahms, and Schumann. In January 2025, he appeared for the third time as soloist with The Hague’s Residentie Orchestra, performing Chopin’s First Piano Concerto. 2025 will also see the release of his debut solo album on the prestigious Channel Classics label. He performs at festivals and concert halls throughout Europe and records for radio stations including Bayerischer Rundfunk. 

At age 20, Nikola became the youngest musician ever to receive the Grachtenfestival Prize and served as artist in residence at this Amsterdam festival in 2023. In 2019, he was awarded the Concertgebouw Young Talent Award. In 2014 he was the first prize winner of Concertgebouw Concours and in 2012 he won the Steinway Concours. 

Nikola’s international career continues to flourish. He has performed Grieg’s Piano Concerto with the North Czech Philharmonic Orchestra in Prague’s renowned Dvořák Hall at the Rudolfinum, and 

Beethoven’s Fifth Piano Concerto with the Lithuanian National Orchestra in Dortmund. In Brussels, he joined forces with pianist Avedis Kouyoumdjian and Sinfonia Varsovia under Augustin Dumay for Mozart’s Concerto for Two Pianos. In February 2025, he performed Prokofiev’s Second Piano Concerto with the Belgian National Orchestra. His concerto repertoire also includes Rachmaninoff’s Second, Tchaikovsky’s First, Clara Schumann’s Piano Concerto, and Beethoven’s First and Third Piano Concertos. He has given multiple performances with the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, Folkwang Kammerorchester Essen, and the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra.

Following his performance of Scriabin’s Fourth Sonata at the Concertgebouw, artistic director and pianist Julius Drake invited Nikola to give a solo recital at the 2022 Machynlleth Festival in Wales. His June 2023 concert in Scotland earned a five-star review from The Times: “Meeuwsen’s suave technique  tapped right into the delicacy and beauty of everything he played,  and the evanescent seemliness of the sound in Ravel’s Tombeau de Couperin was enormously moving.”

Nikola regularly collaborates with leading young musicians including Noa Wildschut, Benjamin Kruithof, SongHa Choi, Leonhard Baumgartner, and Alexander Warenberg. He also performs with his teacher and mentor Enrico Pace; their interpretation of Liszt’s transcription for two pianos of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony was a highlight of the 2019 Beethoven Festival at Amare. New concerts with Pace are planned for 2026.

Nikola’s exceptional talent was recognized early on. He won the Steinway Competition at age nine in 2012 and the Royal Concertgebouw Competition in 2014. He has given solo recitals throughout the Netherlands and in Milan, Bologna, Trieste, Faro, and Imola. A welcome guest at festivals, he has performed at the Storioni Festival, Schiermonnikoog Chamber Music Festival, and Classical NOW! At the 2023 St. Magnus Festival in the Orkney Islands, he gave both a solo recital and performed with the Ragazze Quartet. He has collaborated with renowned musicians including Alexander Kerr, Augustin Dumay, Corina Belcea, Vladimir Mendelssohn, Nobuko Imai, and recently with Janine Jansen at the Sion Festival and Utrecht International Chamber Music Festival. He has also performed as a piano duo with pianists such as Denis Kozhukhin and Enrico Pace.

This summer, he will tour in Italy with the Netherlands Youth Orchestra performing Rachmaninoff’s Paganini Rhapsody, and in September 2025, he will perform Brahms’ Second Piano Concerto with the Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna under Martijn Dendievel.

Nikola has studied with Marlies van Gent since 2010 and with Enrico Pace at the Accademia Pianistica in Imola since 2014. He is currently also a student at the Queen Elisabeth Chapel in Brussels, studying with Frank Braley and Avedis Kouyoumdjian.

At his home in The Hague, Nikola practices on a Bösendorfer grand piano, on loan from the National Musical Instruments Foundation (NMF).