A fascinating programme from Jamie Cochrane for the Keyboard Trust at Steinway & Sons yesterday . A young man with already a first from Oxford and his Dip Ram for postgraduate studies at the Royal Academy where he was mentored by William Fong and Michael Dussek .

An eclectic programme from a thinking musician with just two works : Schubert’s penultimate Sonata paired with Godowsky’s rarely heard Passacaglia in B minor that is based on the opening theme of Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony .

The Schubert Sonata showed Jamie’s architectural understanding combined to a crystalline clarity and poetic beauty . Playing of authority and masterly control as he allowed Schubert’s mellifluous outpourings to live in harmony with the imperious outbursts of the opening ‘Allegro’. A glistening beauty to the ‘Andantino’ of refined playing where even Leslie Howard was to compliment him on the intelligent use of the pedals that could combine clarity with harmonic understanding. A ‘Scherzo’ that was played with scintillating ‘ joie de vivre ‘ which contrasted with the simple pastoral beauty of the Rondo . A coda ,Presto, showed off Jamie’s fearless technical command as he brought this masterwork to a heroic ending. It was to be one of the last works of the composers 31 years with a trilogy of Sonatas that like Beethoven was to be his Schwanengesang .

Some remarkably mature playing of intellectual and poetic understanding that was to be followed by the cello melody of the opening of the Unfinished Symphony alla Godowsky .

A performance of this rarity in the concert hall that Jamie played with passionate conviction and remarkable technical mastery. As Jamie was to say in the conversation with Leslie Howard at the conclusion of his recital, he has a curiosity that he wants to discovery many unusual works left inexplicably on the shelf of the piano archives .

After his exhilarating and scintillating performance of Godowsky, Jamie was left alone with Schumann, as the poet was allowed to speak with poignant beauty.

https://youtu.be/UroWVTDb8Oo?si=X3W-auYCUilBsjII

Leopold Mordkhelovich Godowsky Sr. 13 February 1870 – 21 November 1938 was a virtuoso pianist, composer and teacher, born in what is now Lithuania to Jewish  parents, who became an American citizen in 1891. He was one of the most highly regarded performers of his time, known for his theories concerning the application of relaxed weight and economy of motion within pianistic technique – principles later propagated by his pupils, such as Heinrich Neuhaus. He was heralded among musical giants as the “Buddha of the Piano”. Ferruccio Busoni claimed that he and Godowsky were ‘ the only composers to have added anything of significance to keyboard writing since Franz Liszt.’ Godowsky was one of the most highly regarded pianists of his time, praised by listeners, colleagues, and critics alike. Artur Rubinstein remarked that it would take him ‘five hundred years to get a mechanism like Godowsky’s.’ Many of Godowsky’s original works are considerably difficult to perform; the Passacaglia which consists of 44 variations, cadenza and fugue on the opening theme of Franz Schubert’s ‘Unfinished’ Symphony was declared to be unplayable by Vladimir Horowitz, who claimed it would require six hands to perform.