Pedro Salas is a very fine pianist whose playing I have long admired, following his career during his studies in London with Norma Fisher and Vanessa Latarche.
He has now graduated with considerable honours and is perfecting his studies at home in Spain with Stanislaw Ioudenitch in the Conservatory in Madrid where he also holds a teaching post. Winner of numerous important International Competitions Pedro has set his sites on the Chopin Competition in Warsaw. Having been a top prize winner in the Paderewski Competition his presence in Warsaw was guaranteed for the 2025 Chopin Competition in Warsaw.
It is wonderful to hear these young musicians preparing for the circus ring and in doing so, delving ever deeper into the scores of Chopin with a mastery that I do not envy a jury who has to make a comparative choice. https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2016/05/16/piano-competitions-a-consideration/
The good thing is that it will lead to a feast of wonderful performances and the discovery of so many marvellous young musicians dedicating their youth to perfecting their art.
I have heard recently some wonderful things from Andrzej Wiercinski, Diana Cooper, Jackie Zhang, Ryan Wang ,Yuanfan Yang and now Pedro Salas .All wonderful performers many playing the same Chopin Polonaise – Fantaisie op 61 and Preludes , but all completely different.
Chopin’s late Nocturne op 62 was played with great sensitivity and an extraordinary almost improvised freedom creating a bel canto of beauty and timeless wonder.
Chopin’s very youthful Waltz B 150 is full of nostalgia and the refined elegance of it’s time ( I had infact chosen it to accompany some scenes in Ibsen’s Doll’s House) and it was very moving to hear the unmistakable genial voice of Chopin played with the aristocratic good taste that was Chopin’s birthright. The second posthumous Waltz is of scintillating brilliance of liberation and freedom where even here Pedro found some magical inner counterpoints that he underlined with subtle prism like rays of beauty.
The Polonaise-Fantaisie opened with imperious sounds that reverberated so naturally over the entire keyboard. Pedro played them in just one sweep taking the last note (like Wiercinski) with a slow descending left hand where harmonic and visual beauty went hand in hand. It was this poetry that Pedro was to imbue in this extraordinary original creation where ‘war and peace’ are combined in a flow of beauty of sumptuous sounds and dynamic rhythmic drive arriving at the final explosion of exhilaration and aristocratic control. Pedro allowing the music to calm until the final whispered notes hovering over deep bass reverberations are greeted by a plaintive single A flat. It completes this perfectly shaped work that like its partner the Barcarolle op 60 , finish in paradise not in crowd pleasing triumph. Pedro chose the six preludes from 7 to 12 instead of 13 to 18 like many of his colleagues. Chopin never played all his twenty four Preludes together choosing ( as Sviatolasv Richter was to do ) a selection as obviously has been requested by the competition rules !
A beautifully simple n. 7, the shortest of all the preludes was followed by the passionate outpouring of the 8th ( obviously of great inspiration to Scriabin ). Full rich sound to the 9th was followed by the delicate cascades of notes of the 10th. The beautiful flowing line of the 11th was played with a beguiling beauty and contrasted with the stamping militaristic 12th . Pedro played each one like miniature tone poems shaping them with sensitivity and poetic inspiration .
It was at the end of the recital that Pedro like all great performers had created an atmosphere where every note was being shadowed by an audience totally seduced by this hot blooded young spaniard. An ‘Andante spianato’ of ravishing beauty with a subtle sense of balance that allowed the melodic line to sing so naturally above the hovering waves of sound in the bass. A simplicity and clarity that allowed Chopin’s bel canto to rise above this delicate wave with the natural shape of Monserrat Caballé! A mazurka that was played with a glowing simplicity and subtle freedom before the entry of Pedro’s orchestra, and a complete change of character, as the Grande Polonaise Brillante was allowed to take wing. Even here there was a subtle bel canto which turned into streams of jeux perlé that were played with a beguiling mastery and palette of colour. Powerful octaves and agitated chords but always with the brilliance and masterly sense of elegance with which Chopin conquered the salons in Paris on his arrival as a teenager escaping the political unrest in his homeland.
Pedro is a great musician with a refined tonal palette and rare good taste but he also has Spanish blood in his veins and can raise the temperature with imperious showmanship and mastery. An ovation from this lunchtime audience and an unexpected encore where Pedro’s great artistry was allowed to lead the audience through a most beguiling ornamented version of Chopin’s famous E flat Nocturne. Embellishments recently published in the most complete edition of Chopin’s works and are original embellishments that Chopin would give away as presents to his pretty aristocratic pupils. Kochalski recorded some of them in 1938, and recently ornamentation has become more and more common place.
https://youtu.be/cW-VRsOeIwM?si=DvXdkbRHMv4X7ajb
Pedro played this magic web of sounds with such beauty and mastery that the audience held their breath as we used to do when Caballé would sing a chain of notes with such perfection of unbelievable breath control.
The entire audience were on their feet to thank this young man for the beauty he had shared with them this lunchtime and to wish him a voyage on the same wings of song to Warsaw.
Born in 1997, Pedro is a Spanish pianist who is currently studying the Master of Performance Degree with the legendary pianist and pedagogue Norma Fisher at the “Royal College of Music” in London (RCM), awarded with full scholarship and the title of the “Leverhulme Honorary Arts Scholarships”. He is a “Talent Unlimited” artist, as well as a “Keyboard Trust” artist, both from the UK.
He has been awarded with more than 40 prizes at International and National piano competitions (among them, the First Prizes at the Malta International Piano Competition; International Piano Competition “Composers of Spain” CIPCE (Las Rozas, Madrid); “Joan Chisell” Schumann Prize of the RCM (London), etc.)
He has also received crucial inspiration from internationally renowned masters such as Dmitri Baskirov, Dmitri Alexeev, Alexander Kobrin, Pavel Nerssesian, Marianna Aivazova, Pascal Nemirovsky, Pavel Gililov and Ludmil Angelov.
He has performed throughout Spain and Europe in auditoriums such as the “Manuel de Falla” in Granada, “Teatro Circo” in Albacete, Aachen Theater, “Wiener Saal” in Salzburg and as a soloist with the Orquesta de Valencia (OV) in the “Palau de la Música” in Valencia and with the Real Orquesta Sinfónica de Sevilla (ROSS) in the Teatro de la Maestranza in Seville, he has been praised by the critics as “more than an excellent pianist, he is a soloist and almost a conductor, judging by his scenic development” (Ritmo magazine) or “enormous security and great capacity of the young pianist to endow Liszt’s concerto number 2 with expressiveness and poetry” (El correo de Sevilla). Also, in the “Miguel Delibes” of Valladolid, playing with the OSCYL (“Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León”); “Teatro Canónigos de la Granja” of Segovia and “Centro Cultural Nicolás Salmerón” of Madrid and with the CSKG orchestra, performing the second piano concertos of F. Chopin and F. Liszt, etc. Among his scheduled performances, it deserves an specoal mention the “Rhapsody in Blue” by G. Gershwin at the ADDA in Alicante and the “Auditorio Internacional de Torrevieja” with the OST (“Orquesta Sinfónica de Torrevieja”), as well as having been invited to perform Rachmaniov’s concerto number 2 again with the ROSS at the Teatro de la Maestranza in Seville, given his fabulous previous reviews with Liszt’s 2. In addition, in 2022 he will make an international concert tour in the UK (London), Russia (Severodvinsk and Arkhangelsk), as well as Spain (Lleida, Albacete,etc.).
He has offered numerous interviews for international and national press, radio and television. “Three encores, standing audience and a long line of spectators lined up to congratulate the young Spanish pianist. Pedro López Salas brightened up the evening in Milan” (Cultura di Milano).
ChristopherAxworthy-MusicCommentary 