Presentation of the concert season 2026 in Foligno by the artistic director Marco Scolastra with the participation of Peter Paul Kainrath and 2025 Busoni winner Yifan Wu.
Marco in describing all the wonders he will be bringing to his home town this season wanted us to remember the much missed Elio Pandolfi on the centenary of his birth.
https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/12/30/elio-pandolfi-a-tribute/
There has been a long tradition of inviting Busoni winners to Foligno.It was here that I first heard Michail Lifits ,Busoni winner in 2008 who is now not only a concert pianist but a revered Professor at the Liszt Academy in Weimar. This year not only Yifan Wu has been invited but also Lilya Silberstein,Busoni winner in 1987 continuing the tradition of Guido Agosti at the Chigiana Academy in Siena. She will play in duo with Kainrath’s remarkable violinist son. .https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2025/08/28/julian-kainrath-rides-high-on-the-wings-of-ulisse-some-enchanted-evening/
There will also be a concert of L’Handpan with Daniele Rebaudo who was persuaded to demonstrate this extraordinary instrument to us.
Dott Kainrath, since 2021 is President of the World Federation of International Music Competitions and since 2007 artistic director of the Busoni Competition in Bolzano .
He gave a fascinating talk about the new way we should be listening and conceiving music especially in relation to the 2025 winner of Busoni . Lucas Debargue and Sergio Tiempo, both jury members in 2025 , have created a new movement of ‘freedom in music’ harking back to the pianists of the turn of last century who would make use of improvisation on a journey of discovery of sounds., https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2025/05/06/lucas-debargue-at-the-wigmore-hall-to-be-or-not-to-be/
They were musicians who were above all magicians and Kainrath made a very persuasive case to make music making more in the style of a ‘kapellmeister’ than ‘school master.’
Many of the composers were also master improvisers who wrote the music down only after it had been conceived at the keyboard.
It is an interesting path to rediscover after Pollini, Agosti, Rubinstein, Arrau, Serkin and Perahia (including in another sphere Riccardo Muti) had broken away from this freedom of tradition and taught us that our duty as interpreters was to start with a scrupulous attention to what the composer wrote. As Kainrath wisely said why can’t we combine both worlds and embrace new cultures and way of thinking?
‘Je sens, je joue, je transmet’ was the title of an article in Le Monde de la Musique dedicated to Cherkassky who would often say to me that he did not think the young pianists actually listened to themselves anymore .
In preparing us to listen to Yifan Wu he explained that we should open our ears and embrace many cultures not in a traditional way but with the idea of re discovery.
And so it was that this twenty year old Chinese pianist took the stage to demonstrate what Kainrath had explained in words .
Beautiful improvisations between the works prepared our ears to listen afresh to Scarlatti and Schumann Sonatas . Musings on Beethoven 4 or Schumann songs. Adding great bass notes and a luxuriant use of the pedal to open up this black box of hammers and strings and persuade us that it could really sing with the voice of a Caballé or roar with the sumptuous sounds of Stokowski’s Philadelphia . I have never been aware that a magnificent Fazioli piano could open up to reveal a Pandora’s box of glistening jewels. Although the baroque specialist would flinch at the highly romanticised Scarlatti ( the once famous re workings of Tausig have long been banished from the concert hall and were last heard in the hands of Cherkassky.) Not Horowitz though whose studio recordings of Scarlatti found the ideal between style and colour as Argerich does today . But then Horowitz was a unique genius, master musician as well as a master magician as is today Martha Argerich, winner in 1957 of Busoni as a teenager now in her 85th year! https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/08/13/all-the-fun-of-the-circus-the-busoni-competition/
Robert Levin the absolute authority on classical style is surprisingly free and a master improviser showing us that we should not be too rigid in our interpretations of the classics. When they were written there was a great liberty and freedom left to the interpreter with improvised ornamentation, Bach even wrote out a table of ornaments that could be used in his works.
It is a difficult path to follow but as Kainrath says more of us should have the courage to climb onto the high wire and risk falling off, but in any case bring more excitement and vibrancy to interpretations that are in many ways becoming rather standardised. The risk is to become more of an entertainer than an interpreter! It is a very fine line to cross. https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/09/02/and-then-there-were-three-the-busoni-competition-the-final-part-1-and-2/
The shorter pieces were beautiful bijou’s played with subtle refined sounds of whispered beauty. It is in the larger works that sacrificing the architectural line and the construction from the bass upwards is one of the hardest tricks for any magician to resolve . The beauty and colour of the young pianist in Schumann’s Sonata op 11 were remarkable but I hope that with the help of Stanisłav Ioudentich in Madrid Yifan Wu will discover how to put all the glistening bricks together to create the great Gothic Cathedrals of which we interpreters are mere servants and master craftsmen. Interpreters have long been trying to piece all the bricks together and bring to life the music of others with the ink still wet on the page https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2021/09/04/busoni-international-piano-competition-2021/
An encore played with the score (sic) of a Scarlatti sonata did in fact produce the most satisfying performance of this short recital .
Yifan Wu is a courageous adventurer and we wish him luck as he searches for the road to El Dorado. He is well on his way as he proved today.
ChristopherAxworthy-MusicCommentary 