Mese: gennaio 2026

Albeniz a bit too vulgar for the refined taste of the Wiggies. Nelson Goerner looking ever more like Shura Cherkassky and more importantly playing like him . A sense of style and kaleidoscope of colour bringing a timeless beauty and radiance, in between clicking his heels and stamping his feet.

By coincidence it was Shura who introduced him to me when they shared the same agent Christa Phelps almost thirty years ago. He has since astounded the public and his colleagues ever since. No less than Martha Argerich regularly shares the platform with him and today he held us spellbound with the perfection of his playing.

A vibrant and ravishing sense of discovery . Not stale perfection but the remarkable beauty of recreation.

As Davide Sagliocca rightly points out : ‘ To call Albéniz’s sophisticated piano landscapes, vulgar , so admired by Debussy, who was famously particularly fond of ‘El Albaicin’, as were many others at the turn of 20th Century, is such a misnomer. It is like saying that Vaughan Williams symphonies or Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance marches are vulgar!’

But the last and only world must go to the mastery of Nelson Goerner who delved into this magic world which was obviously deeply ingrained into his being. No sign of any ‘aide memoire’ which could have been easily forgiven with a programme that is of such rarity. To present it without the score is a homage indeed to the genius of Albeniz.

There was a languid timeless beauty to ‘Evocación’ bathed in a mist of pedal out of which emerged the most haunting tenor melody accompanied by whispered asides like raindrops or the patter of footsteps in the distance. A barely audible ending drew us in, to overhear such wonders, only to be greeted with glee by two impish pizzicato final notes. Almost Beethovenian in showing us that the final notes are indeed the most unimportant and merely an ending to the wondrous sounds that have been witnessed within. The sun was shining brightly for ‘El Puerto’ with a kaleidoscope of colours and chameleonic moods and with the same impish no nonsense ending to this radiant temperature. There was real stamping of feet as the ‘Fête- Dieu à Séville’ gradually was streaked across the keyboard with athletic virtuosity as the passionate outpouring of the Corpus Christi procession was upon us with pride and exhilaration.

A tour de force of virtuosity and knowing use of the pedals with music that needed another stave in order to fit on the page.

Who could ever forget that dashing young Spanish pianist (to use Annie Fischer’s words) Rafael Orozco who ran off with the Leeds Gold Medal with many performances of burning passionate intensity especially memorable of ‘Fête- Dieu’. He lived in Rome and would come to Alicia de Larrocha’s performances and would sail off in the car with her to his sumptuous apartment overlooking the Trevi Fountains. Alas a tragic ending of Romeo and Juliet proportions cut his life short much too soon.

‘Rondeña’ saw a pulsating melody amidst a driving dance of rhythmic insistence with another whispered ending and impish farewell.Played with an extraordinary sense of character each one of these twelve tone poems was treated with delicacy and poetic fantasy apart from quite considerable technical mastery. ‘Triana’ was a great way to close the first half of the complete Iberia. A flamenco with strumming guitars and snapping castanets and a hypnotic sense of dance. After the interval ‘El Albaicin’ was played with a whispered almost inaudible pitter patter bursting into flames of passionate decadence, interrupted only by its calming quasi religious recitativi. He brought a languid beauty to ‘El polo’ with an outpouring of extraordinary almost vulgar familiarity! Bursting into song and excitement with ‘Lavapiés’ with its impish good humour played with enticing exhilaration – how Shura would have loved these devilish leaps as he did in Copland’s El Salon Mexico! ‘Málaga’ was played with deep brooding of intense intimate meaning. ‘Jerez’, perhaps the most extraordinary and original of all Iberia, obviously a great influence on Debussy , with its fervent outpouring of simplicity and great burning intensity. Finally the extraordinary energy of ‘Eritaña’ depicting an inn on the outskirts of Seville. The ‘Venta Eritaña’ where ‘sherry is drunk, jamón crudo consumed , flamenco danced, castanets clicked as a rollercoaster ride of deliciously modern ,ever nostalgic Spain reaches its close’ .

An extraordinary ‘tour de force’ from Nelson Goerner who presents year after year interesting programmes prepared with scrupulous intelligence and mastery. We were thinking what could he play as an encore after this ninety minute marathon of poetic gymnastics. Nelson, a consummate artist knows when to stop, as he sent us away happily stamping our feet and clicking our heels with a soul full of sumptuous insinuating sounds ringing in our ears.

Albeniz’s Iberia  was  composed between 1905 and 1909 and is composed of four books of three pieces each; a complete performance lasts about

It is Albéniz’s best-known work and considered his masterpiece. It was highly praised by Debussy and Messiaen, who said: “Iberia is the wonder for the piano; it is perhaps on the highest place among the more brilliant pieces for the king of instruments”. Stylistically, this suite falls squarely in the school of Impressionism , especially in its musical evocations of Spain.It is considered one of the most challenging works for the piano: “There is really nothing in Isaac Albeniz’s Iberia that a good three-handed pianist could not master, given unlimited years of practice and permission to play at half tempo. But there are few pianists thus endowed.”The twelve pieces were first performed by the French pianist Blanche Selva , but each book was premiered in a different place and on a different date. Three of the performances were in Paris, the other being in a small town in the south of France.

Book IV: February 9, 1909, Société Nationale de Musique, Paris.

Book I: May 9, 1906, Salle Pleyel, Paris

Book II: September 11, 1907, Saint – Jean – de- Luz

Book III: January 2, 1908, Palace of Princess de Polignac, Paris

Nelson Goerner at the Wigmore Hall Supreme mastery of a Golden Age reborn

Wonders in Gstaad Sommets musicaux Martha Argerich,Renaud Capucon,Nelson Goerner,Michel Dalberto, Victor JulienLaferrière Alexandre Kantorow

A sublime timeless Schubertiade from Dame Imogen Cooper. An outpouring in which a whole world was described in music from ethereal to dramatic from poignant to heart rending. Aristocratic playing of poise and great humanity where there was no note that was not of significance and meaning in these tone poems that were to be the last ‘miniatures’ to pour from a genius in his final year on this earth.

I am reminded of that other great Dame, Myra Hess, whose musicianship distilled over a lifetime as a dedicated and loyal servant to the composer, was where the piano was merely the medium to communicate the message behind the notes. The place where secrets are hidden from all but those who have found the magic key to Pandora’s box of jewels and the very heart of the composer. It was Nadia Boulanger who used to quote Shakespeare to aspiring young musicians who flocked to her studio in Paris :’Words without thought no more to heaven go’. The thought behind Imogen’s notes are surely guaranteed a place in heaven.

The two books of Impromptus D 899 and D 935 were written in the same period but are two collections of four Impromptu’s that are quite different in length and depth. Poetry and drama live together in sublime harmony in the first Impromptu with Imogen’s scrupulous attention to Schubert’s very precise instructions that she has distilled from a lifetime digging ever deeper into the mysterious vision of Schubert’s last days on earth. The opening ominous single G reappears so poignantly in the coda of this impromptu. It is the same G that beckons us in the last sonata D 960 , with this single note lurking always in the wings. Imogen found a veiled beauty to the single note of a melody that is heard from within the very vibration of this note ,seemingly coming from afar and answered by dry staccato chordal comments. Of course eventually bursting into song but with refined reticence.The ominous vibrating G becomes more apparent as the music becomes more agitated and dramatic, only to be calmed by one of Schubert’s most persuasive melodic outpourings of Viennese charm. The second Impromptu was made of streams of undulating gold and silver sounds where Imogen’s control and perfect finger legato created a sense of harmonic contentment. It lead so naturally into the robust almost military outbursts that Imogen played with passionate abandon and a remarkable sense of balance. Schubert’s swirling counterpoints were never clouded but suggestively revealed from within.The coda was played with dynamic drive and vehemence and the final two chords had the same finality of Beethoven’s no nonsence endings.

The G flat Impromptu was played with sublime timeless wonder with a sense of balance that allowed the melodic line to sing with a ravishing voice but also the harmonies on which it floated creating a sumptuous bed on which to lie. Drama built up from the bass with a beseeching duet between two worlds conversing so eloquently together. A powerful climax where Schubert writes ‘sforzando’ in the bass and gradually it leads to a deeply felt sigh, out of which the sublime opening is allowed to return. This time as if in a dream of whispered wonder ‘avec un sentiment de regret’. Imogen timed this moment to perfection and the silence and concentration from a full hall was one of those magic moments of collective emotion that only live performance can sometimes offer.

The last Impromptu could almost be called Schubert’s ‘Jeux d’eau’ such was the luminosity and fluidity that Imogen brought to the trickle of watery sounds that she conjured with transcendental mastery from the keys. A perfection of detail but above all an architectural understanding that could give such an overall shape to this extraordinary tone poem. Her wonderful sense of balance where the melodic line emerged from its surroundings but was part of a harmonic whole. Nowhere more was this apparent than in the Trio section where the ever more passionate pulsating of the heart beating chords sustained a melody of passionate vehemence.This cloud soon passes in Schubert ( not so quiescent Beethoven though) and we return to the mellifluous beauty and radiance that were ultimately to fill Schubert’s short life with joy and on occasion grief.

The second set of Impromptus are much longer than the previous ones and were only published many years after Schubert’s death in 1839, with a dedication by the publisher to Liszt. The first Impromptu opens with passion and dynamism dissolving into the etherial. Dramatic flourishes and octave declamations give way to a duet between the hands of haunting beauty. Imogen played the opening flourish with real weight but as she showed us, it is only ‘fp’ and the dotted scale that follows was played like mere rhythmic pulsations.The question and answer of the sublime central duet was played out on an undulating flow of perfectly balanced sounds. Imogen’s remarkable sense of architectural shape allowed her to show us this extraordinary Impromptu as the tone poem of haunting beauty that it truly is. The final three chords were placed with aristocratic perfection where the rests were revealed to be as poignant as the chords.The second Impromptu opened a completely different world. From the orchestrally conceived first we were now in the whispered opening of a ‘lied’ with a solo voice and accompaniment. Playing of great delicacy and beauty of poignant whispered simplicity.There was a flowing beauty to the central episode that was of freedom and plasticity with waves of sound , the bass holding the reins but the notes above allowed to flow and breathe so naturally.

The theme of the variations of the third impromptu was allowed to flow in two with beauty and refined charm. The variations emerged, each out of the previous one, which allowed for a continuous flow where the sense of character that Imogen brought to each variation was so enticing. The drama of the third variation was soon forgotten as the pastoral charm of the left hand melody of the fourth took us to the streams of jeux perlé of the fifth. Notes of such simple fluidity of undulating shapes of whispered beauty. The almost too serious coda was played out with nostalgic poignancy. The fourth Impromptu was played with remarkable control with the excitement very much within the notes. The perfect rhythmic stability that Imogen brought was quite exhilarating and equally as exciting as Serkin’s hysterical dynamism. All through the recital there was a sense of control that in no way restrained the music but gave it a nobility and inevitability of refined maturity. The character she brought to the central episode of this Impromptu was quite exhilarating and even charming and darkly dramatic. It was a kaleidoscope of emotions and a demonstration of Imogen’s mastery of allowing the music to speak with apparent simplicity and directness as it always was with that other Dame ,Myra Hess. Uncle Tobb’s ( Tobias Matthay, Myra Hess’s mentor) used to say that within every note there are hundreds of possibilities and inflections that can illuminate and reveal things where words are just not enough. Imogen has been mentored for a lifetime by Alfred Brendel one of the greatest musicians of our time.

It was only a few days ago that she and her illustrious colleagues celebrated what would have been his 95 th birthday. It was with gratitude and joy, a celebratory gala concert at the Barbican to create funds for the Alfred Brendel trust that will help young musicians of the next generation.

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2026/01/09/the-age-of-embrendelment-a-celebration-and-thanksgiving-on-alfred-brendels-95th-birthday/

Imogen’s recital tonight was a memorable evening of music making and alarmingly we note that it is part of Imogen’s farewell tour!

Schubert’s Allegretto in C minor played with luminosity and simplicity was indeed a sad farewell.

Imogen Cooper in London – There is nothing like a Dame to enchant and enrich the spirit.

Imogen Cooper Heart to Heart at the Wigmore Hall

Imogen Cooper at St.John’s Smith Square

Nothing like a Dame!Aidan Mikdad ignites the Imogen Cooper Music Trust – part 1 and 2

Ignas Maknickas fluidity and romance for the Imogen Cooper Music Trust

Ariel Lanyi – Imogen Cooper Music Trust The trials and tribulations of a great artist

Cristian Sandrin – The Imogen Cooper Music Trust

Thomas Kelly ,a musical genius flying high as he spreads his wings this week starting at St James’s in Piccadilly to St Pancras in Euston and finishing at St Mary’s with quite staggering playing all streamed live ……. no words from me necessary or could do justice to such performances that can be enjoyed here

St Mary’s https://www.youtube.com/live/5i8auTZdAp0?si=hZZZdHk2oTK039vq

St James’s https://www.youtube.com/live/-YfHfnXR6CY?si=dnTuqRW903jhHFcp

St Pancras https://www.youtube.com/live/YGTxLevRpnM?si=kqnjei1uGtG7qUhR

Anyone who can play the Liszt Sonata with the intelligence mastery and showmanship that we heard today belongs in the same category as the great interpretations of Curzon, Gilels or Arrau. Hats off Tom you have made it and the sky is the limit now

Thomas Kelly Astonishes and excites, tainted by the genius Ogdon and served up for New Year at St James’s

Thomas Kelly started playing the piano aged 3 and aged 9 performed Mozart’s 24th Concerto with Orchestra. Thomas studied at the Purcell School for Young Musicians and is currently the Benjamin Britten Fellow at the Royal College of Music, (the highest award for any pianist at the RCM) where he is guided by Professors Dmitri Alexeev and Vanessa Latarche. 
Thomas was a prizewinner at the 2021 Leeds International Piano Competition, enjoying critical recognition and in 2022 won 2nd Prize and the semi-final concerto prize at Hastings International Piano Concerto Competition. He has won numerous international competitions including 1st prizes at the Pianale International Piano Competition (2017), Kharkiv Assemblies (2018), Lucca Virtuoso e Bel Canto Festival (2018), Theodor Leschetizky Competition (2020), and Intercollegiate Sheepdrove Piano Competition (2022). In 2024 Thomas was awarded the Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother Rose Bowl upon graduating the RCM, and most recently became a finalist of the International Liszt Competition in Utrecht which will take place in January 2026. 

Past performances include Wigmore Hall, Cadogan Hall, St John’s Smith Square, Steinway Hall, Leighton House, St James’ Piccadilly, Stoller Hall (Manchester), West Road Concert Hall (Cambridge), Leeds Town Hall, Kammermusiksaal Berlin Philharmonie, Paris Conservatoire, the TivoliVredenburg in Utrecht, the Lunel-Viel festival near Montpellier, StreingreaberHaus in Bayreuth, Teatro Del Sale and the British Institute in Florence. Thomas was also recently featured on the BBC Arts In Motion documentary series in a masterclass with Yuja Wang. 

He regularly collaborates with fellow musicians, including stepping in for Nikolai Demidenko alongside Dmitri Alexeev in his transcription of Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite for 2 pianos in 2021, and performing Messiaen’s Turangalila-Symphonie with Jac van Steen conducting the RCM Symphony Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall.

Thomas has also been a C. Bechstein Scholar supported by the Kendall-Taylor award, generously supported by the Keyboard Charitable Trust, and is grateful for the generous support of Talent Unlimited  . Thomas is currently looking forward to a solo Wigmore appearance and regular concerto appearances among other upcoming performances.

Thomas Kelly at the Wigmore Hall Britten Fellow astonishes with pianistic genius of another age

Thomas Kelly on Ischia – The Walton Foundation at La Mortella -‘The Devil and the Deep blue Sea’

Thomas Kelly at the National Liberal Club The ‘outrageous’ virtuoso with a heart of pure gold.

Christopher Maltman and Graham Johnson ‘Myth Fable and Folksong’. A Schubertiade of probing significance and mastery. Graham illuminating the extraordinary artistry of his partner. This was a duo between equals glorifying the genius of Schubert who could delve so deeply into the human world with poetic meaning. Graham played wonderfully. Imaginative and beauty combined …..piano playing just did not apply here …….a singer who knew and lived every word without any third party. No I pad in Schubert’s day !!!!

Graham had a page turner but that used to be the norm.

And both impeccably dressed in tails for a special occasion, which is so rare these days, and to be cherished as part of the debt we owe to be able celebrate at the shrine of Schubert’s genius .

Hugo Wolf – Graham Johnson and his Song Guild at Milton Court – Barbican

The shining light of Mahler at the Wigmore Hall Alice Coote-Graham Johnson-Marta Fontanais-Simmons-Fleur Barron

Graham Johnson and the Songmakers’ Almanac

THE ROTHSTEIN SCHUBERTIADE Happy Birthday Mr Goethe with respects to Mr Schumann

An unforgettable send off for a man who has enriched our lives for generations . A message of humility, integrity and above all simplicity, always with a twinkle in his eye.

A concert that will create so many opportunities for young musicians via his Trust founded in 2004. What better legacy could there be than to sow seeds that will grow and enrich a world where quantity rather than quality is becoming the norm .

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2025/08/28/julian-kainrath-rides-high-on-the-wings-of-ulisse-some-enchanted-evening/

This is just one of the young players chosen to take part in a hand picked orchestra under Sir Simon Rattle who I well remember in Gordon Green’s class at the RAM when he too was an aspiring young musician. The Age of Embrendelment Orchestra I can see our hero looking on with a knowing nod of enlightenment!

Can it be coincidence that three of the greatest pianists of our time were born on the same day ?

As Brendel famously said in one of his essays ‘I

‘There are no bad pianos, only bad pianists.’ An impressive statement, one that looks round for applause. A statement that will at once ring true to the layman and make him feel initiated as well as amused. A statement addressed perhaps to some revered virtuoso who did not refuse to play at a private party — Busoni would have left the house right away — and who, in spite of the detestable instrument, managed to hold his audience spellbound.’

No problem about pianos or pianists tonight …….but what about the piano stool …………..!!!! Brendel would have loved that !

The three Petrarch sonnets played with disarming simplicity and radiance. There was passion and astonishing feats of subtle pianistic mastery as explosions of sentiment were spread over the entire keyboard like a flame of pulsating abandon. The ending of Sonetto 123 after such a passionate explosion did not want to say adieu such was the reticence and whispered insistence of a long drawn out farewell .

The Dante Sonata like Gerstein’s B minor Sonata in this very hall was monumental . From the opening harrowing outburst to the passionate pulsating of shimmering menace contrasting with passages of whispered disarming beauty . This was a tone poem as rarely conceived by a pianist who sees not notes but landscapes and who sees not octaves but vibrations of sound. A harrowing tale and a towering recreation by one of the great Lisztians of our time . https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/07/03/kirill-gerstein-busoni-is-alive-and-well-and-returned-to-the-wigmore-hall/

How could one ever forget the understanding that he demonstrated to us of Liszt’s disciple, Busoni , who was the continuation of the future world that Liszt already inhabited . Here is a master musician completely entering the world of Liszt ,the innovative poetic genius , and not the empty note spinner that many would have us believe.

After the interval Brahms entered but not the shy intimate secret lover but a towering figure of blistering dynamism.

The much overlooked Scherzo op 4 was given a new life with orchestral colours and a kaleidoscope of changing character. It was the ideal partner for op 5 not because of numerical ordering but because it prepared us for a symphony that was anything but ‘veiled.’ An opening of aristocratic grandeur that was played with mesmerising mastery. An ‘Andante espressivo’ that was bathed in an aura of harmonic sounds as the melodic line was etched with poignant simplicity. Passionate outburst were played with a sumptuous fullness and radiance as they lay spent only to be reborn in one of the most magical codas of all time. A ‘Scherzo’ that shot from Kirill’s fingers with Olympic dynamism and the Intermezzo to the Finale was a harrowing tale indeed. A Finale that began on earth and was a continuous ascension into the tumultuous explosion of Brahms’ final exultation and naked abandon to his senses, declared with searing intensity.

After Liszt and Brahms, Schumann was ever present in their circle as was Chopin. It was to these two companions that Kirill reserved his two hard earned encores extracted only by an insistent public !

Schumann’s undeservedly neglected Blumenstück op 19 was recreated with subtle half colours and insinuating whispered asides. Gerstein restoring this work to its rightful place beside the C major Fantasy op 17 and the Arabesque op 18. Gerstein more like Serkin than Horowitz not savouring or dwelling on sounds of perfumed beauty but reaching more for the earth bound beauty of intellect.

With Chopin we could have danced all night in the arms of such a perfect partner. The waltz op 42 was played with such beguiling insinuation and mastery that one was reminded of the greatest Chopin players of the past whose presence today we could feel as here was an artist worthy to join their ranks.

Busoni Piano Concerto – Life begins at 100 as Gerstein and Oramo take London by storm

Gerstein-Fejérvàri at the Wigmore Hall -Overpowering Mastery of two pianos

The sublime mastery of Kirill Gerstein at the Wigmore Hall

It is fascinating to follow the evolution of young pianists and see what influences they follow during their long training in many of the finest music institutions of the land. William has been studying for the past years with Martin Roscoe and I was with Martin last summer to applaud William’s final graduation recital at Milton Court . I had heard William for the first time when he won the Beethoven prize at the Guildhall playing a very fine Beethoven ‘Les Adieux’ Sonata. A musical pedigree nurtured by Martin Roscoe, that superb musician who many moons ago we both played to Stephen Kovacevich at the Dartington Summer School in the era of William Glock. Martin has gone on to be not only a celebrated solo pianist but also a much sought after chamber music player. Spending much time walking in the Scottish Highlands where he lives he still finds time to help nurture talented young musicians at the Guildhall. The last time I heard William he played Messiaen with extraordinary conviction and technical mastery and I was sure this would be the path his talent would lead him. Today I heard a completely different pianist ,one completely immersed in the magic world of pianists from the Golden Era of piano playing when pianists were magicians. Godowsky,Lhevine,Rosenthal,Levitski, Moiseiwitch and Cherkassky. I was lucky to live close to the Brentford Piano Museum and my teacher and father figure Sidney Harrison was President of Frank Holland’s extraordinary collection of player pianos. They were kept in a leaky church and there was no way that Frank would allow his ‘babies’ to end up in the V&A as was on the cards. Frank was an engineer and could not appreciate, as Sidney could, the gold mine of piano roll recordings that he had in his cupboard. Frank was interested in the mechanics not the music. Sidney had been the first teacher to give piano lessons on the BBCTV when it was a box that sat in the corner of a few houses and with a giant magnifying glass attached would transmit programmes for four hours a day! Thanks to Sidney the BBC recorded some of these piano roll performances and they were heard late at night on the third programme and were even issued as 33rpm records. The refined piano playing from these pianists, mainly of the Russian school, was something that we were not used to. A black box of hammers and strings that could be made to sing?! These pianists were illusionist who could create sounds with subtle piano playing and a sense of balance and touch that I had never heard before. They were musicians ,some more capricious than others, who were also showmen and would play a repertoire of short pieces, often their encores, that could fit easily into the limited time span of the rolls. It was much later with the arrival in the west of Richter ,Gilels and Ashkenazy that we could full appreciate this ‘Russian’ school of playing. The astonishing thing about Richter for example was not his astonishing mastery and virtuosity but was how quietly he could play and project sounds into the hall that were within the range of piano and pianissimo rather than forte and fortissimo.

From the very first notes today there was a crystalline clarity to the playing of delicacy and sensitivity.Variations that gradually unfolded without ever loosing the clarity or luminosity due to a very precise sense of touch and mastery of the pedals. Playing of great poise and aristocratic simplicity with moments of sublime almost religious reflection. Ornaments that shone like jewels but that were always part of the musical line giving poignant meaning and expression to the simple outpouring of Bach’s masterly knotty twine.

It was interesting to hear Schubert’s Impromptu followed by an improvised link to Chopin’s G flat Impromptu . Pianists of the Golden era and before, when a keyboard player was also a kapellmeister. would often improvise between pieces to link the key changes into one harmonious music journey. William brought great fluidity to this theme and set of variations. A subtle kaleidoscope of colours was played with extraordinary sensitivity and with a jeux perlé of beguiling charm and grace.

Chopin was played with more robust passion but also with a sense of improvised freedom and irresistible charm. The subtle beauty of the central tenor melody was a moment to cherish as great artistry was combined with simplicity and radiance.

Ravel’s Jeux d’eau had the same clarity and delicacy as “Dieu fluvial riant de l’eau qui le chatouille” (“river god laughing at the water that tickles him”), which is inscribed on Ravel’s manuscript, and is the epigraph to the printed score. ‘Tickles’ with masterly pedalling that added a subtle sheen to William’s playing without ever clouding the luminosity of the overall texture. As my old teacher Perlemuter said “this work opens up new horizons in piano technique, especially if one remembers that Debussy’s ‘Jardins sous la pluie’ was not written until two years later, in 1903”.There was a beautiful radiance as the swells of sound spread over the keyboard as the golden light of the sun shines down on such marvels.

More marvels were to follow with Saint -Saens ‘The Swan’ in the magical transcription by Godowsky, perhaps the most subtle of all pianists of the Golden age and certainly one of the most reticent. I first heard this from the hands of Cherkassky on a 45rpm recording on which there was this and the Ravel Pavane and I have never forgotten the impact of that discovery when I was a student.

https://youtu.be/Ur7LCtKPzzA?si=A10GdtoucuG882be

Cherkassky even played it at his own funeral ……..as Sidney Harrison played Funerailles at his ! William played it with the same beguiling insinuating half colours and whispered counterpoints imbued with a rubato of enticing decadence.

What fun the piece by Sciarrino is taking Ravel’s water works and having them singing in the rain. I spotted ‘Jeux d’eau’ and ‘Une barque sur l’océan’ and of course this : https://youtu.be/swloMVFALXw

It just shows William’s inexhaustible curiosity to search for unknown works and to include in this context what is obviously an improvised piece of fun by a serious contemporary composer.

William who holds a class at the Guildhall in improvisation explained that the three Chopin Waltzes he would play were linked by his own improvisations to make one unified whole almost as a Sonata – fast- slow -fast. This was in fact the tradition in Chopin’s day and so it was a return to the original moment of creativity in an age when instrumentalists were musicians with a capital ‘M’.

Substituting Chopin’s own opening flourish in the E minor with his own, leading into the waltz played with a sense of style and beauty that he was to bring to all three. Ravishing beauty to the languid A minor was followed by a beautiful improvisation that took us to E flat and the famous Grand Waltz Brillante op 18 of ‘Les Sylphides’.

Scintillating playing of buoyancy and brilliance but also of quite extraordinary musicality where even the acciaccatura’s we could have danced to with elegance and grace.

 

Pianist William Bracken’s creative voice stems from a deep fluency with the language of music itself, dissolving musical boundaries through improvisational state of mind, curiosity and acute contextual awareness. A visionary musician with a vast repertoire of classical masterworks, contemporary works and equally at home in jazz and improvised music, the Wirral-born pianist has won numerous awards including 1st prize at the 2022 Liszt Society International Piano Competition, 1st prize, press prize and audience prize at the 2023 Euregio Piano Award international piano competition, 2nd prize at the 2023 Livorno international piano competition 3rd prize at the 2024 UniSA international piano competition. He currently holds a position as a member of teaching staff in the Centre for Creative Performance and Classical Improvisation at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. 

Concert highlights include concerto performances at The Barbican, Liverpool Philharmonic Hall, St. John’s Smith Square and recitals at Carnegie’s Weill Hall in New York, Chipping Campden Festival, LSO St. Luke’s and Wigmore Hall, where he was praised by the Telegraph for his “ courage and stamina and musicality in abundance ” and “ an ability to hold an audience in the palm of his hand ”. He is also active as a core member of the improvisation group Ensemble+ and bandleader of the Will Bracken trio. 

Bracken has collaborated with conductors such as Nicholas Collon (Aurora Orchestra) and Domingo Hindoyan (Royal Liverpool Philharmonic) and his chamber partners have included Michael Barenboim, Angela Hewitt and Jonathan Aasgard. During his studies in London William was made a scholar of the Imogen Cooper Music Trust which involved participating in a week of intensive study in the south of France with renowned pianist Dame Imogen Cooper. He also won a full scholarship to attend the Aspen Music Festival and Summer School in Colorado U.S.A in 2022, studying with Hung-Kuan Chen and Fabio Bidini. 

William Bracken at the Guildhall ‘ Intelligence and genial mastery combine’

Martin making his Wigmore debut with a first half of Bach and Mozart with playing of great character and very personal interpretations . Very robust sounds for Bach’s ‘Wachet Auf’ had me hunting in the programme for an answer to the unexpected rather thick over romanticised sounds with a bass of Philadelphian proportions . Busoni of course! Which Martin played with a kaleidoscope of colour and romantic flair and an undeniable authority which for me did not suit Bach’s magical aria. Passing on to the beautiful transcription by Kempff of the Siciliano from Bach’s Flute Sonata where Martin’s sense of colour and character were able to float the magic theme with disarming simplicity on a bed of sumptuous sounds. Bach’s C minor Toccata, pure and unadulterated , was given a performance of radiance and rhythmic drive. Delving deep into the contrapuntal texture but never loosing sight of the architectural shape and maintaining the improvised nature of these early keyboard works designed to show off the instruments and the invention of the kapellmeisters of their day.

It was Schnabel who famously said Mozart was too easy for children but too difficult for adults and it was here that Martin’s deep love for Mozart and need to imbue it with character sacrificed the jewel like precision which is fundamental to it’s architectural shape and is the very backbone of his genius .Variations that were so varied with ornamentation and fluctuations of tempo that distorted rather than enriched the musical meaning. In Martin’s effort to characterise every phrase he lost the undercurrent of rhythmic drive that Chopin likens to a tree with roots firmly embedded in the ground but with the branches free to move. The ‘Menuetto’ lacked this same jewel like precision with notes thrown off with undoubted intention to illuminate but had the opposite effect. The ‘Trio’ too was far too free and wayward and lost its shape to a refined sense of colour . The Turkish March fared much better and Martin’s idea to play the acciaccaturas in two different ways was a novel idea but not over convincing.

After the interval Martin entered another world that suited him much more and was of fantasy and showmanship. Liszt’s ‘Vallée d’Obermann’ was give a poetic and heroic performance and if some of the detail in the tempestuous central episodes were covered by enormous sounds from the bass it was always of great effect. The final bars suffered from some clipped rhythms but the passion and romantic abandon that Martin imbued was of great effect and brought this great tone poem to a triumphant ending. ‘El Amor y la muerte’ from Goyescas was perhaps the highlight of the evening, as the improvised nature and showmanship found in Martin an ideal partner. Streams of notes flowed from his agile fingers with ravishing sounds and half lights illuminating every note. It was a fitting title for the ending of Granados and his wife in the English Channel with their boat torpedoed by a German submarine after the triumphant success of Goyescas in America. Martin chose to finish his recital with the Fourth Sonata of Scriabin. This is a Sonata that Gilels made his own and Martin played the first movement with the same glistening beauty and kaleidoscope of sounds, with a sensitivity and refined tonal palette that was of ravishing beauty.The dynamic drive and rhythmic precision of the Prestissimo, second movement, was played with passionate drive and like in his Liszt building up giant sonorities in the bass that obscured the Mozartian precision of Scriabin’s volando indication.

Greeted with an ovation by a very warm and generous public, Martin who loves his public and is ever ready to please and charm them, chose a paraphrase of Die Fledermaus by Grunfeld to appease their greed for more. Of course the famous melodies were played with beguiling charm and seduced his public as only Martin knows how.The refined technical finesse and superhuman subtlety of the pianists of the golden age of piano playing and the very raison d’être for these showpieces belongs to a bygone age though.

Martins charm and showmanship are beyond reproach and earned him a well deserved ovation from a packed hall on this the coldest night of the year.

A Rose for Martin Bartlett

 

The tenth day of Christmas when ’10 Lords are Leaping’ and ‘Pipers are Piping.’ Ashley Fripp with his aristocratic demeanour is certainly a piped piper with twenty five recitals in Perivale to his credit over the past twenty years. I remember Eliso Virsaladze telling me about this remarkable young ‘English’ man that she had in her class that she held for many years in the little hillside town of Sermoneta, halfway from Rome or Naples and just a stones throw from my home in Sabaudia. Later I was to meet Ashley again in Fiesole on the hills above Florence where Eliso now gives five classes a year to master students. It was Ashley who gave one of the first recitals in the Harold Acton Library in a ‘Room with a View’ overlooking the Ponte Vecchio. Inspired by his performance I was invited by the director of the British Institute, Simon Gammell, to fill this beautiful space with music and aspiring young musicians eager to find an eclectic audience to share their music with. Ashley is now a distinguished member of the music profession but is still happy to continue playing in places run by friends who share the same passion that he has for music.

Beginning this recital, on what must be the coldest day of the year, with Rachmaninov’s Prelude – ‘The Bells of Moscow’ . Written when only 19 and bought for a pittance, it became so popular that it was referred to as “The Prelude”, and audiences would demand it as an encore, shouting: “C-sharp!” Because of this, Rachmaninoff grew very tired of it and once said: “Many, many times I wish I had never written it.” He called it his “Frankenstein” (alluding to a creation that got out of control) . It is a rarity now in the concert hall where we hear more often his two sets of Preludes op 23 and op 32 ,and so it was refreshing to hear the three mighty chimes ringing out with such authority today. It was played with great majesty , but also delicacy, as the bells are allowed to reverberate with pianississimi comments suspended in mid air. The central ‘agitato’ was played with great weight and the melodic line clearly played in what is usually a gabbled haze from lesser hands. Ashley’s masterly musicianship could steer its way with clarity and architectural shaping as this central episode gradually built in tension to a cadenza of alternating chords before the final triumphant outpouring of the opening theme, this time written orchestrally on four staves. After such a tumultuous outpouring the final few bars and the whispered glistening final notes were full of poetic imagination and startling beauty.

Ashley is a great scholar, as one can hear from his playing, but he is also a very fine orator and it was good to be reminded of Liszt’s description of the second movement of the ‘Moonlight’ Sonata as being ‘a rose between two chasms’. Also that this was one of two sonatas ‘quasi una fantasia’ whereas the Dante Sonata that was to close the programme was ‘una fantasia quasi una sonata’! The first movement was played with great fluidity with the accompanying triplets played in groups of six as the melodic line was allowed to float from treble to bass with aristocratic poise and poetic sensibility. The ‘Allegretto’ was played at a sprightly gait as the ‘Trio’ loomed over the proceedings with sombre resonance. The ‘Presto’ was played with dynamic drive and remarkable clarity bearing in mind the arctic temperature that surrounded this charming redundant church today. A crystalline brilliance and a real orchestral Beethoven sound of solidity and inevitability as Ashley drove his forces forward to the final cadenza. A moment of reflection before the final tumultuous outpouring of irascible Beethovenian impatience.

As Ashley pointed out the bells of Rachmaninov are of the Russian Orthodox Church whereas the bells of Liszt in ‘Sposalizio’ are those of a devout Catholic. This beautiful tone poem was inspired by Liszt’s visit to the Brera Gallery in Milan, where Raffaello’s ‘The Marriage of the Virgin’ sits and can still be seen to this very day. A sumptuous outpouring of sounds that even with the octave accompaniment Ashley’s superb musicianship and mastery never covered the ‘Virgin’ in glitzy mud but always allowed her to shine on high with radiance and heartfelt beauty.

As Ashley said on introducing the Dante Sonata :’now from heaven we get a glimpse of hell!’. A masterly performance where musicianship and architectural understanding were accompanied by playing of technical mastery and poetic sensibility. Ashley showed us that in music there is no such thing as difficulty but more of misunderstanding. A powerful performance with moments of passionate abandon but also of searing beauty and poignant significance and above all music that spoke so eloquently.

Ashley amongst friends knew he would not get away without an encore! He had prepared especially for his friendsElgar’s ‘Salut D’Amour’ which he played exactly as the title suggests. Ashley playing with the refined aristocratic simplicity that I remember well from Aldo Ciccolini for whom it was a favourite and much requested encore.

https://youtu.be/pkcHjmXmEg0

British pianist Ashley Fripp has performed extensively as recitalist, concerto soloist and chamber musician throughout Europe, Asia, North America, Africa and Australia in many of the world’s most prestigious concert halls. Highlights include the Carnegie Hall (New York), Musikverein (Vienna), Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), the Philharmonie halls of Cologne, Paris, Luxembourg and Warsaw, the Bozar (Brussels), the Royal Festival, Barbican and Wigmore Halls (London), the Laeiszhalle (Hamburg), Palace of Arts (Budapest), the Megaron (Athens), Konzerthaus Dortmund, the Gulbenkian Auditorium (Lisbon) and the Konserthus (Stockholm). 

He has won prizes at more than a dozen national and international competitions, including at the Hamamatsu (Japan), Birmingham and Leeds International Piano Competitions, the Royal Over-Seas League Competition, the Concours Européen de Piano (France) and the coveted Gold Medal from the Guildhall School of Music & Drama. Ashley was awarded the Worshipful Company of Musicians’ highest award, The Prince’s Prize, and was chosen as a ‘Rising Star’ by the European Concert Hall Organisation (ECHO). He has also performed in the Chipping Campden, Edinburgh, Brighton, Bath, Buxton, City of London, and St. Magnus International Festivals as well as the Oxford International Piano Festival, the Festival Pontino di Musica (Italy) and the Powsin International Piano Festival (Poland). Ashley also gave an open-air Chopin recital beside the world-famous Chopin monument in Warsaw’s Royal Lazienki Park to an audience of 2,500 people. A frequent guest on broadcasting networks, Ashley has appeared on BBC television and radio, Euroclassical, Eurovision TV and the national radio stations of Hungary, Spain, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Belgium and Portugal. Commercial recordings include Chopin Piano Concertos Nos. 1 & 2 with the Kammerorchester der Universität Regensburg (Spektral Records, 2013); an album of solo repertoire by J. S. Bach, Thomas Adès and Chopin (Willowhayne Records, 2018); and The Saxophone Craze: Homage to Rudy Wiedoeft  with classical saxophonist Jonathan Radford (Champs Hill Records, 2022). 

Ashley Fripp studied at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama with Ronan O’Hora and with Eliso Virsaladze at the Scuola di Musica di Fiesole (Italy). In 2021 he was awarded a doctorate for his research into the piano music of British composer Thomas Adès. Ashley has subsequently presented at doctoral conferences, given lecture recitals and is in demand to give masterclasses both in the UK and overseas. He holds regular masterclass residencies in the picturesque medieval village of Kallmünz in Germany. 

Ashley Fripp at St Marys ‘The authority and impeccable musicianship of a great artist’

Ashley Fripp ‘A master descends on St Mary’s on Twelfth Night.’

Ashley Fripp in Florence – A walk to the Paradise Garden

Mao Fujita with ravishing playing of clarity and delicacy. Everything he played was scrupulously observed with microscopic attention to every strand of counterpoint and a sense of balance that could allow many musical lines to live together in perfect harmony. From the very first notes of Beethoven’s first sonata there was a rare sensibility to sound that could create the most astonishing effects. His way of stroking the keys was even more evident in the ‘Adagio’ where his completely relaxed sensibility created a luminosity and fluidity of rare beauty. The final two chords carefully laid to rest but where the silence in-between became as poignant as the sounds. If the ‘Menuetto’ was a shade too fast to accommodate the ‘Trio’, it was in fact Beethoven who had written Allegretto! The ‘Minuet’ played with delicate phrasing allowed the dance element to shine through regardless of tempo indications, but the mellifluous and continuous streams of sound in the ‘Trio’ sounded breathless no matter how sensitively he shaped it. The ‘Prestissimo’ just shot from his fingers with Serkin like dynamism. Even here the mellifluous melodic central episode was floated on a cloud of sound of rare sensibility, contrasting with the driving intensity of the outward episodes in which it was wrapped, with surprising unexpected Schubertian beauty appearing, to calm Beethoven’s irascible, tempestuous impatience.

A true Florestan and Eusebius, where the latter won hands down, because of the rare sensibility to sound of this very delicate looking young man. Dressed in a distinguished silk smock as he painted pictures in sound with his total dedication to the composers he was serving. An intelligence and musicianship that he shares with his mentor Kirill Gerstein with whom he has been playing two piano recitals recently in Japan. Gerstein will be playing at the Wigmore on the 7th and is one of the finest most searching of musicians before the public and will be followed later in the month by Robert Levin a walking encyclopaedia of towering scholarship. Wigmore Academy is a unique school for ‘scandal’ indeed !
Fujita continued his musical journey with Wagner’s little ‘album leaf’ written in 1861 for Princess Pauline von Metternich, who thanks to her intervention with Napoleon III, had organised that year the première of his ‘Tannhauser’ which turned out to be such a fiasco.This short piece is a beautiful outpouring of song which Mao played with a more robust orchestral cantabile full of subtle colours, and it lead without a break into the Brahmsian theme of Berg’s 1908 Variations. It was here, as in the Mendelssohn variations that followed, that Mao’s mastery of colour and refined technical perfection allowed both sets of variations to unfold with searing intensity and ravishing beauty. The Berg was given a golden sheen with the generous use of the pedal giving a sumptuous rich sound to Berg’s practically unknown variations. The Mendelssohn are often heard in the concert hall and are a scintillating showpiece of streams of notes of driving intensity. Mao chose to use very little pedal which gave great clarity but on occasion a dryness to his extraordinary ‘ fingerfertigkeit’ where notes just poured from his sensitive fingers. Streams of golden sounds were shaped with the artistry of a pointillist painter. Allowing himself moments of glorious abandon with a continual forward drive to the final chord that Mendelssohn, like Brahms writes into the score for those few that scrupulously observe what the composer actually bequeathed to us!

After the interval Mao brought the Berlin Philharmonic to play with Brahms’s ‘Veiled symphonic’ First Sonata erupting with dynamic drive and sumptuous rich orchestral sounds. A fearless outpouring of transcendental playing where now Florestan was in command and Eusebius appeared only with heavenly etherial sounds but where Mao managed to keep the architectural shape always in mind. There was the poignant beauty of the ‘Andante’ with its question and answer of ravishing enticement and an ending of quite etherial beauty thanks to Mao’s mastery of the pedal. Bursting into flames with the ‘Allegro molto e con fuoco’ where Mao played with great strength and rhythmic buoyancy. The ‘Presto non troppo ed agitato’ was played with enviable control but with an incisive rhythmic drive that was hypnotic.

A monumental performance from a refined young artist who first and foremost is a scholar and musician.

Isolde’s Liebestod grew out of moments of heart rending silence after the dramatic opening chords. Appearing as if in a Venetian mist ,in the distance were overheard the ravishing sounds of Isolde as she joins Tristan in death ‘blissfully accepting oblivion as the ultimate consummation of their love.’ Ravishing playing from a true poet of the keyboard with whispered sounds of glistening beauty and sumptuous waves of passionate outpourings with the glorious richness of Philadelphian velvet.The final chords spread over the keyboard where with baited breath we waited for the final notes to timelessly unfold as this most beautiful of all love stories came to a gloriously tragic end.

Mao took some persuading to return to the keyboard as he had obviously constructed a musical journey that concluded with Love and Death. However a small souvenir by Ravel was a whispered farewell to a public visibly moved by the artistry of this youthful painter in sound.

Born in Tokyo, Fujita was still studying at the Tokyo College of Music in 2017 when he took First Prize at the prestigious Concours International de Piano Clara Haskil in Switzerland, along with the Audience Award, Prix Modern Times, and the Prix Coup de Coeur, which first brought him to the attention of the international music community. He was also the Silver Medalist at the 2019 Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, where his special musical qualities received exceptional attention from a jury of leading musicians.
In the 2025/26 season, Fujita continues his run of impressive appearances at major festivals and venues across Europe, America, and Asia, including Salzburg Festival, Vienna, Paris, Rome, Luxembourg, Hamburg, Dortmund, Gstaad, Warsaw, Tenerife, Lisbon, Copenhagen, Lyon, and Aix-en-Provence, as well as a recital tour across North America with performances in New York, Cleveland, Boston, Minnesota, San Francisco, Vancouver, and San Diego. Season highlights also include tours in Asia and Europe with Filarmonica della Scala (Chung), Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen (Järvi), Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France (van Zweden), and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (V. Petrenko). In addition, he debuts with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, KBS Symphony Orchestra, Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, as well as Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne and returns with the Czech Philharmonic, Gewandhausorchester, Wiener Symphoniker, Deutsches-Symphonieorchester Berlin, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, and Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI.
Fujita has worked with many of the leading conductors of our time, including Semyon Bychkov, Riccardo Chailly, Elim Chan, Myung-Whun Chung, Christoph Eschenbach, Daniele Gatti, Manfred Honeck, Jakub Hrůša, Marek Janowski, Andris Nelsons, Petr Popelka, Lahav Shani, and Kazuki Yamada. Previous orchestral debuts include the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Lucerne Festival Orchestra, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Münchner Philharmoniker, hr-Sinfonieorchester, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, Philharmonia Orchestra, NHK Symphony Orchestra, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, and Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra. Fujita is also a sought-after chamber music partner and has worked with Renaud Capuçon, Leonidas Kavakos, Emanuel Ax, Kirill Gerstein, Antoine Tamestit, Kian Soltani, and the Hagen Quartett, among others.
Fujita is an exclusive Sony Classical International artist. In October 2022, his eagerly-anticipated debut album on the Sony Classical label, a studio recording of Mozart’s complete piano sonatas, was released to unanimous acclaim for its transparent sound worlds and vividly-detailed interpretation. He has performed the full sonata cycle at the Verbier Festival, the Wigmore Hall, and across Japan’s major concert halls. His second album on the Sony Classical label, a wide-ranging and ambitious set entitled ’72 Preludes’ that champions the 24 Preludes of Chopin, Scriabin, and Yashiro, was released in the autumn of 2024.
Starting piano lessons at the age of three, Fujita won his first international prize in 2010 at the World Classic in Taiwan, and became a laureate of numerous national and international competitions such as the Rosario Marciano International Piano Competition in Vienna (2013), Zhuhai International Mozart Competition for Young Musicians (2015), and the Gina Bachauer International Young Artists Piano Competition (2016).
Fujita is a member of Konzerthaus Dortmund’s series “Junge Wilde” from the 24/25 season.

He is currently studying with Kirill Gerstein at the Hanns Eisler School of Music in Berlin.