An artist is known by his programmes and it was clear from the very first notes of Tomos Boyles recital why he had recently been made a bicentenary scholar at the Royal Academy. He joins the ranks of three pianists of 12 musicians ,Tomos together with Milda Daunoraite and Kasparas Mikuzis all pianists from the Keyboard Trust Stable: https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2025/06/12/hollywood-comes-to-the-royal-academy-lunwudaunoraite-and-mikuzis-stars-shiningbrightly/
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‘Introducing our 2025/26 Bicentenary Scholars 
Significant funding as well as artistic development opportunities which are designed to meet their individual needs and ambitions as they prepare for professional careers.’
Tomos with already a first at Oxford is now perfecting his quite considerable pianistic skills at the RAM having been a student of Rustem Hayroudinoff (an emeritus KT ) for the past six years. He is now with the Head of Keyboard ,Joanna MacGregor, as he prepares for his Advanced Artist Diploma.
A distinguished pedigree for a twenty four year old before he even began to tickle the keys.
Caress would be more to the point as he played three of Liszt’s recreations of Schubert songs with a warmth and ravishing sense of balance that allowed these wondrous songs to hypnotise a very full Steinway Hall before embarking on the greatest song ever written for the piano .
An outpouring of love by Robert Schumann for his future wife and mother of his eight children, Clara Wieck whose wicked piano teacher father almost crippled Robert with ‘ingenuous’ finger strengthening exercises before forbidding him to see his piano prodigy daughter.
The C major Fantaisie is dedicated to Liszt ( because it was Schumann’s contribution to the raising of a statue in Bonn of Beethoven , who had famously kissed the child prodigy Liszt when still a pupil of Czerny, a pupil of Beethoven)
There are lots of secret messages that Schumann hides in this outpouring of love for his beloved Clara, not least the quote at the end of the first movement ( repeated at the end too in the first edition ) from Beethoven’s song ‘An der Ferne geliebte’ ,‘To the distant beloved ‘. It was here in this pinnacle of the romantic piano repertoire that Tomos’s intelligent musicianship was allied to his refined palette of colour with the same sensibility of balance that he had brought to the Schubert songs.The treacherous coda to the second movement ( which reminds me of Brahms’ understatement, describing his second concerto as a little piece with a tiny scherzo!) .Tomos played it with fearless abandon and extraordinary accuracy .
But it was the more intimate moments that Tomos was able to illuminate with ravishing sounds and the final page in Tomos’s sensitive hands made one realise that this must be the greatest love song ever written for the piano.
Tomos had opened this hour long concert in Steinway Hall, that celebrates this week its 150 Anniversary, with Busoni’s recreation of Bach ‘s ‘ Nun Komm der Heiden Heiland’. It was played with the profound poignant significance that a pupil of Liszt had inherited from his master .
Busoni’s wife was often introduced as Mrs Bach Busoni such was her husband’s self identification with the bard of Köthen .
The concert finished with something completely different as the Sonata by Bartők is an onslaught of the dynamic drive and native exhilaration of his Hungarian /Rumanian heritage .A three movement work lasting only ten minutes but is a ‘tour de force’ of octaves and scintillating rhythmic conundrum’s only relieved by the austere second movement that reaches into the extremes of the piano and beyond ( Bösendorfer had added a few extra notes to their pianos 92 instead of the usual 87 to accommodate Bartők innovative fantasy).
Tomos gave a masterly performance of extraordinary dynamic drive and commitment .
I think we alll deserved another Schubert song as an encore to cleanse the air after such physical exertions .
It was with the most beautiful of all Liszt’s Schubert transcriptions that Tomos’s magical hands could purify the air with the ravishing beauty of a composer who was destined to join the angels , where he truly belonged, at the age of 31.
A brief conversation with Leslie Howard in which the greatest Liszt expert of our age could share his enlighten thoughts with this remarkable young musician.
And of course afterwards getting to know the artist with a glass of Champagne in hand is always the great treat that Wiebke Greinus,concert manager of Steinways hosts together with Sarah Biggs and Richard Thomas of the KT.
ChristopherAxworthy-MusicCommentary 