Matthew McLachlan at St James Piccadilly
A sumptuous outpouring of sounds as varied and delectable as the multi ethnic fast food stalls that adorn the church courtyard.
One of the remarkable McLachlan clan that can boast to date five star pianists and a star footballer.His father Murray tells me that Alec can also play a mean Bach Prelude and Fugue!
A home goal indeed for the youngest who is on a prestigious Football Scholarship to New York University.
An eclectic opening with a composition by Alicia De Larrocha that she with her innate modesty did not want published in her life time!
It was an equally modest young man today who played it with sumptuous sounds that entered so beautifully into the maze of notes that was to pour forth from the pen of Nicolai Medtner. Two fairy tales played with dynamic rhythmic drive with a passionate mellifluous outpouring and kaleidoscope of subtle colours. The very resonant acoustic of St James’s helping a composer sometime overloaded with notes but that in knowing hands can become clouds of sound out of which emerge a melodic line of jewel like beauty.
It was with this that Matthew knew how to guide us through this maze of notes and turn two seeming baubles into ravishing gems.
It was the same with the Preludes op 11 by Scriabin. A work that immediately became part of Matthew’s fantasy world as he was awarded the Chappell Gold Medal for his performance whilst only in his second year at the Royal College.
Of course it helps to have a wonderful Russian pianist ,Dina Parakhina, by his side for his first 10 formative years.
Now graduated with honours at the RCM he is perfecting his studies in Paris with Pierre Reach at the Ecole Normale.
Matthew chose to close this lunchtime recital with the last twelve of these twenty-four preludes which have matured and become truly part of him.
Golden sounds were wafter around this vast edifice, with a sumptuous Fazioli grand allowing him to carve out sounds and emotions that have matured over these past few years.
In-between, at ‘half time’ let us say, he played the Chopin Fantasy op 49. Entering on tiptoe after the final notes of the Medtner the work unfolded with aristocratic control and radiant beauty. The central episode revealed after an ascending scale of golden lightness leading to one of Chopin’s most beautiful and simple melodies that Matthew played with poignant significance. Exploding into passionate outbursts of dynamic drive and technical brilliance before the disarming simplicity of the final cadenza and the return of the magic gossamer staircase this time taking us to the final two chords of aristocratic nobility
St James’s is grateful for the generous support of Rolex for this music programme.
After gaining the ATCL and LTCL recital diplomas with distinction in 2014 and 2015, Matthew was awarded the FTCL in 2016. This followed on from winning third prize in the senior division of the first Scottish International Youth Prize Competition, held at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in July 2016.
In 2014 Matthew’s performance of Ravel’s G Major Piano Concerto was commended in the Chetham’s Concerto competition and in the same year he was a prizewinner at the 2014 Mazovia Chopin Festival in Poland. As a result of his performance in Mazovia, he was selected to perform a 60-minute solo recital at the 2015 World Piano Teachers’ Conference (WPTC) in Novi Sad, Serbia.
In 2016 Matthew gave many recitals and was a finalist in the Chetham’s Beethoven Piano Competition for the second year running. In March 2017 he was awarded first prize in the Chetham’s Senior Bach competition. In August 2017 he performed Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto no. 1 in the Paderewski Festival in Poland. In Autumn 2017 he had a tour of concert performances featuring Brahms’ Sonata no. 1 in C major.
Before leaving Chetham’s, Matthew won the school’s Bosendorfer competition, playing Stravinsky’s ‘Three movements from Petrushka’. In 2018 he performed Mozart’s 13th concerto in Trieste, Haddington and Rhyl as well as Tchaikovsky’s first and Beethoven’s fourth concerto in Buxton with the orchestra of the High Peak. In the winter of 2018, the Knights of The Round Table awarded Matthew with a full scholarship at the Royal College of Music in London, where he now studies. Although 2020 saw many concert cancelled, Matthew gave online performances and has recently been taken under the wing of Talent Unlimited, thanks to Canan Maxton.
Presented in association with Talent Unlimited
ChristopherAxworthy-MusicCommentary 