Gatti and Sternath recreating music before our very eyes .

Music making that is a voyage of discovery as rarely experienced in the concert hall.

Twenty five year old Lukas Sternath mentored by Andras Schiff and Paul Lewis is a pianist who listens to himself but also to the others as he and Daniele Gatti showed us what secrets are just waiting to be awakened by musicians who have the humility and dedication to respect the composer they are serving.

Schubert Liszt Litanie brought even more magic into the hall as this young man played with heart rending simplicity one of Schubert most beautiful lieder that he offered as an encore to an audience that have rarely been so moved by so little!

The concert had begun with a rather opaque performance of Brahms Haydn Variations and in fact I thought I would just stay to hear the young Sternath who I had heard in Bolzano five years ago .

But during the Schumann this young man ignited the passion and wish to make and shape music together that I decided to listen to Brahms Third Symphony that was the favourite of my mentor Guido Agosti . I can see and hear him still intoning with passionate intensity the opening as he played it on the piano .

This young man had ignited such a musical torch that the Brahms from the first note to the last was now played with the burning urgency and voluptuous passion of a mature master who could with the minimum of movements allow these magnificent players their freedom. Simply guiding them and keeping them within a united architectural framework . It was a demonstration again of where so little can mean so much. It is called mastery ! ………and it is a mystery but the raison d’etre of live music making.

Busoni International Piano Competition 2021