As Rubinstein said talent cannot be learnt you must be born with it. https://youtu.be/gex0sOR7XZ0?si=_7WTK5-ZUrhj-BL7

Listening to Anna Geniushene playing Chopin Mazurkas last night those words became so true and as I said to her afterwards:

‘Your mazurkas are still ringing in my soul which you touched deeply and your humanity even more ….you are a real person motherhood has uncovered what was in your genes and it took Mother Nature to make you break away from tradition and follow your genius’

‘ Thank you so so much for coming yesterday and torturing yourself voluntarily with my music I was so happy to see you!!!’

‘ Not as much as me. What a wonder you are and to come all this way for Mary.

Humanity, simplicity, honesty and integrity all ingredients of Genius’

‘ Mary is a treasure of our times! One of a kind!’

‘ Oh thank you so so much for these words! I actually have a dream to make a recording of a full set of Mazurkas as it turned out I played so many opuses and this is the hardest ever task for every single musician. How to transmit complexity through simplicity while staying absolutely sober minded and not forgetting about the shape and the actual form of the every single miniature. Thank you dear Christopher! You are too kind!

Anna had flown in from Berlin obtaining with great difficulty and only at the last minute a visa to come to what has become a third world country . Originally she had concerts arranged with her husband and had planned to spend time in London with their two children of 3 and 5 .

Unfortunately the planned concerts were cancelled but Anna could not let down the indomitable Mary Orr or Imogen Cooper and came alone leaving her family behind in Berlin.

Anna I had heard many times during her period with Christopher Elton at the Royal Academy and I even heard her in the Busoni Competition in Bolzano. https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2019/05/08/anna-geniushene-at-the-royal-academy/

But it was the concert streamed live from Duszniki that had me telling Maestro Piotr Paleczny that I would need more time to contemplate what marvels I had just heard https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/08/10/anna-geniushene-takes-duszniki-by-storm-hats-offgentlemena-genius/

I knew that Anna played the final of the Van Cliburn when she was 8 months pregnant with her first born in the green room waiting for his mummie !

But I did not realise that motherhood had unleashed a musical genius that had lain dormant for too long .

Works by Brahms followed with three of his hauntingly beautiful Choral Preludes .With the barely murmured beauty of n. 9 with its deep inner doubling of the melodic line and the imperious voice of n.10. out of which grew the moving wave of sounds of n. 1 from which evolves the radiant beauty of the melodic line.

Two works by Kreisler in the famous transcriptions for piano by Rachmaninov. ‘Liebesleid’ and ‘Liebesfreud’ played with all the charm and subtle beauty that Kreisler was justly feted for. They played often together in recital programmes and it was during one of these concerts that Kreisler got completely lost and whispered to Rachmaninov :’Where are we’ “Carnegie Hall’ growled Rachmaninov !

Two transcriptions or paraphrases by Liszt of Verdi operas followed . There are seven such ‘transcriptions ‘ and they are remarkable for the atmosphere of the entire opera that Liszt could recreate in just a few pages on the keyboard. The mighty ‘Miserere’ from ‘Il Trovatore’ was played with massive tone and great authority .The transcription of the Danza sacra and the final duet from Aida is a true tone poem where Liszt choses not the Triumphant march but the final bars of what is fundamentally a chamber opera of heartrending delicacy. Anna played it with ravishing colours of poetic beauty.

The ‘Firebird’ suite by Agosti was written in 1928 and has become a showpiece for piano written by a man who was a magician of the piano and one of the greatest musicians of his age. Musicians would flock from all over the world to listen to sounds in his studio in Siena that have never been forgotten. One of whom was Christopher Elton who had been Anna’s teacher at the Royal Academy in London. Anna played it with fearless abandon combined with ravishing beauty in an overwhelming performance of total conviction.

It was ,however, the Mazurkas that will remain in my heart and soul as the true canons covered in flowers that Schumann described so perfectly.