Autore: ChristopherAxworthyMusicCommentary

It is nice to be back for another in the Roma 3 Young Artists Series. A concert series that Valerio Vicari has created to give a platform to the enormously talented Italian pianists who are ever more numerous and headed for important careers. Today there was, exceptionally, a Dutch pianist but who had received his important training in Italy with Enrico Pace at the Imola Academy. Nikola Meeuwsen is now completing his studies with Frank Braley at La Chapelle in Brussels but always under the eagle eye of Enrico Pace

Frank Braley had made his Rome debut at the Ghione theatre some thirty years ago when he had just won the prestigious Queen Elisabeth Competition ( Gilels won first prize in 1939 when Michelangeli won 7th. and it was Gilels who provided the dance music at parties for the other contestants that included Moura Lympany who came in second )

I remember Fou Ts’ong , a jury member, being thrilled but not a little surprised that such an eclectic musician as Braley could win a competition renowned for choosing great virtuosi from the Russian school !

It was this musicianship that shone through all that Nikola played today. Even the notorious double third study by Chopin was played not only with agile well trained fingers in the right hand, but it was the simple left hand melodic line that was given precedence. It is a work, like Liszt’s ‘Feux Follets’ that in the hands of real musicians can turn an athletic bauble into the gem of a tone poem of ravishing beauty and beguiling half lit grace and charm.

Nikola did just that today

But before that he had begun the recital with Mendelssohn’s spectacularly genial ‘Variations serieuses’. An athletic performance that demonstrated his fearless technical mastery but also the passion and seduction of a young man on the crest of a wave.There was exhilaration and excitement contrasted with delicacy and whispered asides of ravishing beauty. Mendelssohn’s heart on sleeve sentiments of the Victorian era ( he was the favourite at the court of Queen Victoria) were played with sentiment but without sentimentality as Nikola expressed the feelings of their age with intensity and aristocratic good taste. He brought an architectural shape to these variations as they unraveled with well oiled mastery and ease. Played with the Romantic fervour of a young man in love with the piano and who has acquired a poetic mastery of insinuating exhilaration and beauty. A quite extraordinary sense of balance that allowed the musical line to shine with beauty no matter how many notes it was wrapped up in. His playing of the melodic line in the tenor register accompanied by pizzicato notes of ingenious counterpoints, without ever releasing the tension of a tightly wound spring, was exhilarating and liberating. Contrasting with moments of peaceful reflection played with disarming simplicity of barely whispered breathless comments .

After such a performance of pianistic gymnastics Nikola left the stage for a moment and returned jacket less to continue the rest of the recital in this beautiful space that has been created for youthful music making at Roma 3 .

A slight change of order meant that Nikola got his breath back with the poignant outpouring of Bach’s ‘Nun komm der heiden heiland’ in the masterly transcription by Busoni of six of the organ preludes .

Nikola endowed it with poignant beauty and sumptuous sound as Bach’s genius was allowed to envelope us all, calming the scintillating exhilaration of Mendelssohn with the weight of respectful solemnity. It should be remembered that it was Mendelssohn who discovered the universal genius of Bach in the nineteenth century and brought many of his master works to the public’s attention.

We were now ready for the veiled virtuosity of Chopin’s study op 25 n. 6 as I have described above. It was the sign of a real musician that out of the final whispered chords Nikola allowed the first notes of Chopin’s third ballade to be born.

A performance of poetic beauty and mastery as Chopin’s gentlest, most pastoral of ballades was allowed to unfold on a flowing wave of radiance and simplicity. Timeless beauty as the music unfolded with gentle persuasion, where even the trills were merely part of the ornamentation leading to a left hand melody of rare beauty, barely suggested, as it was accompanied by the radiance of a magical stream of notes, like a golden halo illuminating such heartrending beauty. The Ballade gradually taking wing on undulating sounds with gentle bursts of passionate outpourings where even the ‘fiortiori’ were merely part of a great wave that was moving inexorably forward. Left hand counterpoints usually played like a transcendental study, in Nikola’s poetic hands were just the gentle accommodating accompaniment for the melodic line. Onward Christian soldiers with menacing clouds brewing, as with masterly control Nikola built up to the final glorious explosion of noble exuberance and glory. A scintillating stream of notes from on high, deep into the bass, that brought this miniature masterpiece to a radiant close with four simply placed chords.

Liszt’s ‘Gnomenreigen’ suited Nikola’s crystalline ‘fingerfertigkeit’ and was played with that same sense of old world style that Rachmaninov bequeathed to us on disc. A jeux perlé of another era when musicians were magicians who could stimulate the senses of their doting public. Like Liszt or Paganini turning sedate ladies of the aristocratic salons into wild animals wanting to grab a souvenir from the devil that had so stimulated senses that they knew not existed within them!

We live in a different age, of course, so we behaved ourselves accordingly, but there were some brave souls who shouted bravo and applauded more vehemently !

Rewarded with another consoling reminder of celestial beauty with Bach’s ‘Ich Ruf zu dir’ which is undoubtedly the most moving of all the transcriptions that Busoni made for piano. Aristocratic glowing beauty sustained by a richly sonorous bass of Philadelphian ravishment, this was the favourite encore of the much missed Nelson Freire.

Nelson Freire RIP……the legacy of a great artist
https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2021/11/02/nelson-freire-rip/

It is good to see an aspiring young virtuoso as much in love with the beauty of the piano that has been bequeathed to us by masters of the past. It allows us to forgive and forget the new generation of ‘virtuosi’ with their transatlantic metallic sound trying to break the sound barrier ( pianos are more resilient these days!)

The final work in this very strenuous recital, which must hold the Guinness book of records for the quantity of notes within an hour’s time span,Liszt’s dramatic and spectacular Dante Sonata. A great declamation of intent from the very first imperious octaves played with unusual resonance and a very measured timespan. This was the opening of a great story that was about to open up and be told by a young man with passionate conviction and enormous technical reserves. Bathed in pedal as the opening took wing on a mysterious cloud gradually clearing to reveal a demonic drive with cascades of octaves that were played with fearless abandon. But there was much more than that, as the whispered confessions of ravishing beauty revealed a true poet of the keyboard and were overheard with their poignant beauty. Playing of great intensity and passionate conviction that can sometimes overpower, where such burning intensity can lead to forte, fortissimo and mezzo forte all having the same colour. When Richter arrived in the West for the first time ( Gilels had warned the world , who were astonished by his mastery, simply stating ‘Just wait until you see who comes after me!) The most astonishing thing about Richter was not how loud or fast he could play – he was no ‘Lazar beam (!)’ It was how quietly and with what control he could play -sustaining barely whispered notes so full of pregnant meaning that they could cross the footlights and reveal the same sounds in the first row of a vast hall that could, by magic, arrive in the very last seats in the lofty gallery ( known as the ‘Gods’ in England or ‘Paradiso’ in Latin countries) .

Gods indeed – Richter like Arrau were Gods, where their maturity could control their massive temperament and where above all they were listening to themselves with the discerning ears of dedicated genius.

An ovation for Nikola today from an audience astonished and moved by such playing and demanding more !

Beethoven was the only solution with his early op 2 n.2 Sonata that I imagine must be a favourite of Nikola’s present mentor, Frank Braley. It was played with the characterisation of a true musician ( Schiffty one might say).

Rachmaninov’s heroic outpouring of passion and nostalgia in the Etude Tableau op 39 n. 5 in E flat minor was a second encore, played with a kaleidoscope of colour and insinuating harmonies of passionate intensity.

Looking at Valerio,the Artistic director, to see if he too would like a third encore ,before taking us to the magical sound world of Ligeti with his Arcobaleno Study ( Book 1 n. 5 Arc-en-ciel). Ligeti is the only composer who you feel the piano is just not long enough, as he crawls up to the extreme top of the keyboard and there curls up and awaits the invention of even more keys! It was played with a purity and simplicity as you felt he might have carried on crawling around the piano as Dudley Moore or Victor Borge would have done! https://youtu.be/ujei43f2qkU. https://fb.watch/za2R3jMt82/

A remarkable debut recital from an artist who is well on the ladder of the very steep path in his search for perfection. ‘L’escalier diabolique’ as Ligeti would have described it.

Nikola Meeuwsen (b. 2002) has already established a remarkably mature international career as a pianist of the younger generation. He made his full-length solo debut at the Royal Concertgebouw on January 19, 2024, performing works by Schubert, Beethoven, Brahms, and Schumann. In January 2025, he appeared for the third time as soloist with The Hague’s Residentie Orchestra, performing Chopin’s First Piano Concerto. 2025 will also see the release of his debut solo album on the prestigious Channel Classics label. He performs at festivals and concert halls throughout Europe and records for radio stations including Bayerischer Rundfunk. 

At age 20, Nikola became the youngest musician ever to receive the Grachtenfestival Prize and served as artist in residence at this Amsterdam festival in 2023. In 2019, he was awarded the Concertgebouw Young Talent Award. In 2014 he was the first prize winner of Concertgebouw Concours and in 2012 he won the Steinway Concours. 

Nikola’s international career continues to flourish. He has performed Grieg’s Piano Concerto with the North Czech Philharmonic Orchestra in Prague’s renowned Dvořák Hall at the Rudolfinum, and 

Beethoven’s Fifth Piano Concerto with the Lithuanian National Orchestra in Dortmund. In Brussels, he joined forces with pianist Avedis Kouyoumdjian and Sinfonia Varsovia under Augustin Dumay for Mozart’s Concerto for Two Pianos. In February 2025, he performed Prokofiev’s Second Piano Concerto with the Belgian National Orchestra. His concerto repertoire also includes Rachmaninoff’s Second, Tchaikovsky’s First, Clara Schumann’s Piano Concerto, and Beethoven’s First and Third Piano Concertos. He has given multiple performances with the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, Folkwang Kammerorchester Essen, and the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra.

Following his performance of Scriabin’s Fourth Sonata at the Concertgebouw, artistic director and pianist Julius Drake invited Nikola to give a solo recital at the 2022 Machynlleth Festival in Wales. His June 2023 concert in Scotland earned a five-star review from The Times: “Meeuwsen’s suave technique  tapped right into the delicacy and beauty of everything he played,  and the evanescent seemliness of the sound in Ravel’s Tombeau de Couperin was enormously moving.”

Nikola regularly collaborates with leading young musicians including Noa Wildschut, Benjamin Kruithof, SongHa Choi, Leonhard Baumgartner, and Alexander Warenberg. He also performs with his teacher and mentor Enrico Pace; their interpretation of Liszt’s transcription for two pianos of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony was a highlight of the 2019 Beethoven Festival at Amare. New concerts with Pace are planned for 2026.

Nikola’s exceptional talent was recognized early on. He won the Steinway Competition at age nine in 2012 and the Royal Concertgebouw Competition in 2014. He has given solo recitals throughout the Netherlands and in Milan, Bologna, Trieste, Faro, and Imola. A welcome guest at festivals, he has performed at the Storioni Festival, Schiermonnikoog Chamber Music Festival, and Classical NOW! At the 2023 St. Magnus Festival in the Orkney Islands, he gave both a solo recital and performed with the Ragazze Quartet. He has collaborated with renowned musicians including Alexander Kerr, Augustin Dumay, Corina Belcea, Vladimir Mendelssohn, Nobuko Imai, and recently with Janine Jansen at the Sion Festival and Utrecht International Chamber Music Festival. He has also performed as a piano duo with pianists such as Denis Kozhukhin and Enrico Pace.

This summer, he will tour in Italy with the Netherlands Youth Orchestra performing Rachmaninoff’s Paganini Rhapsody, and in September 2025, he will perform Brahms’ Second Piano Concerto with the Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna under Martijn Dendievel.

Nikola has studied with Marlies van Gent since 2010 and with Enrico Pace at the Accademia Pianistica in Imola since 2014. He is currently also a student at the Queen Elisabeth Chapel in Brussels, studying with Frank Braley and Avedis Kouyoumdjian.

At his home in The Hague, Nikola practices on a Bösendorfer grand piano, on loan from the National Musical Instruments Foundation (NMF).

Some very fine musicianly playing of refined beauty and above all clarity. A musicianship anchored in the bass as you would expect from the class of Norma Fisher where simplicity and intelligence combine to produce performances of authority and good taste.

It was in the Ravel that opened the programme that showed Yang Yang’s enviable clarity and radiance of sound.There was a ‘joie de vivre’ with her sparkling clarity where she knitted Ravels’ knotty twine together with a masterly use of the pedal to produce ravishing effects of harmonic beauty. The Fugue was of a purity and radiant beauty as the simple subject was played with the particularly poignant yearning that Ravel weaves into each of the six pieces dedicated to friends who sacrificed their lives so senselessly in the first world world war. Ravel was an ambulance driver and saw at first hand the horror of a war where a generation of young men were sent to the slaughter. His choice of title, returning to the baroque, where the restrained civilised passions are wrapped up in the simple lines of its age. It was this that Yang Yang showed us today with her masterly pedalling, that was used so sparingly to add colour but not blur the purity and simplicity that Ravel could convey with such poignancy. There was sentiment without sentimentality, a statement without rhetoric.Beauty and measure together as the ‘Forlane’ unwound with a radiant mellifluous melodic line, the delicacy of the cascades of whispered notes just added to the poignant nostalgia without any turbulence or rage. There was a rhythmic drive to the ‘Rigaudon’ played with scintillating sparkling energy as it descended into a ravishing melody, floated with beguiling beauty on dance rhythms of civilised elegance. A restrained dignity and sense of measure to the ‘Minuet’ with ornaments just adding to the emotional melancholy before the glorious outburst of the ‘Toccata’. Played with remarkable mastery and a crystalline clarity even in the most strenuous passages , bursting into melody with a radiance like the sun shining and giving hope for the future. Extraordinary mastery where the relentless drive and musical shape she was able to maintain right to the exhilarating final pages.

The Chopin 3rd Ballade was played with remarkable musicianship but a rather slow tempo did not allow her to move forward with a flowing undercurrent that like riding on a wave is always present. Yang Yang played with remarkable beauty but the rather slow tempo did not allow her to show us the overall architectural shape.There was restrained beauty to the pastoral opening of the gentlest of Chopin’s four ballades with its simple lapping waves gradually leading us, without stopping, to the glorious final outburst of emotional exuberance and exhilaration, before the final cascade of notes across the entire keyboard, to the four final sedate chords.

Yang Yang’s Chopin is full of beauty and refined good taste but also in the Polonaise – Fantasie rather slow tempi did not allow her to see the wood from the trees. A ravishingly beautiful central episode but where the opening split chords already impeded the natural flow of the music. Her masterly control and sumptuous sound, of course ,brought this work to a magnificent ending, but Chopin’s revolutionary sense of structure was interrupted too often by an artist who loves the music so much that it becomes rather episodic.

Agosti’s magnificent transcription of Stravinsky’s ‘Firebird’ has long been a pianistic showpiece together with Ravel’s ‘La Valse’ . A work only for the fearless, who have a technical mastery not only of the enormous amount of notes, but above all of colour and relentless reserves of energy. Yang Yang played with remarkable mastery, above all a sense of colour and mastery of the pedal that no matter how many notes she played there was always the clarity and sense of line of a true musician. The magical entry of the ‘Firebird’ was played with sumptuous beauty and restraint as she built up the sonorities with masterly control and sumptuous sounds to the exhilarating final bars.If the opening could have been played with more reckless abandon this was not part of Yang Yang’s personality. It was ,though, the colour and imagination she brought to Agosti’s transcription of 1928, that was much admired by the composer, that was exactly that which I remember so well from listening to Agosti in his studio in Siena where the whole musical world would flock to hear sounds that have never been forgotten.

Yang Yang Cai (b. 1998) began piano studies at five with Noor Relijk and later studied under Professor Jan Wijn. She graduated with highest distinction from the Conservatory of Amsterdam 2019. In 2023, she earned her diploma from the Accademia Pianistica di Imola under Enrico Pace and completed her Master’s degree at the Conservatory of Amsterdam with Frank van de Laar. Currently, she is pursuing an Artist Diploma at the Royal College of Music in London with Norma Fisher. Yang Yang has participated in masterclasses with esteemed teachers such as Ronald Brautigam, Boris Berman, Matti Raekallio, Jacques Rouvier, Klaus Hellwig, Alexander Gavrylyuk, and Arie Vardi. In 2019, she refined her musicality through a workshop at Maria João Pires’ Belgais Center for Arts. Her performing career began at nine, leading to appearances in major Dutch concert halls, including the Concertgebouw Amsterdam and Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ. Internationally, she has performed at Hamburg’s Laeiszhalle, earning critical acclaim. Yang Yang is committed to sincere musical interpretation, aiming to connect with audiences beyond words. 

At nine, Yang Yang represented the Netherlands at the International Steinway Festival in Hamburg. In 2015, she performed in Taipei by invitation of the Dutch Trade and Investment Office. She has participated in festivals such as the Delft Chamber Music Festival, Grachtenfestival Amsterdam, and Aspen Music School and Festival. Her awards include first prizes at the Steinway Piano Competition (Netherlands) in 2008 and 2012, and winning the Junior Final of the Young Pianist Foundation Competition in 2013, performing Mozart’s 14th Piano Concerto with the Yehudi Menuhin School Orchestra. In 2019, she won the Grand Prix Youri Egorov at the Young Pianist Foundation Piano Competition, performing Chopin’s Second Piano Concerto with the Conservatory of Amsterdam Symphony Orchestra. 

Yang Yang is grateful for the support she has received from numerous organizations, including the VandenEnde Foundation, Nationaal Muziekinstrumenten Fonds, Ars Donandi, NL Talentenfonds, Muziekfonds Stringendo, Fundatie van Renswoude The Hague, VSBfonds, Dr. Hendrik Muller Fonds, and Cultuurfonds. She also has the privilege of playing a Steinway & Sons D-274, generously provided by the Voorlinden Foundation. 

by Moritz von Bredow ,Hamburg, April 21, 2025

John Leech – 100 years

John Leech, MBE, was born Hans Joachim David Baron von Reitzenstein in Potsdam on April 21, 1925. We are remembering him,
celebrating his 100th birthday today. My dear, revered friend John represented for me in every respect the ideal synthesis of a nobleman guided by Prussian virtues and a true English gentleman. Coming from ancient Franconian nobility on his father’s side (his father died when John was just 10 years old), and from a Jewish family on his mother’s side (his mother was later able to flee to England), he never forgot his origins and yet fully integrated himself into his new life after his escape to the
UK in 1939. John’s life of nearly a hundred years was undoubtedly based on his Christian faith which he shared with Noretta Conci, a student of Michelangenli’s, his beloved wife of over 60 years – how unforgettable was their Diamond Wedding celebration in January 2023! Their faith guided both of them throughout until
John’s very end on November 22, 2024.

A great and unwavering support for Noretta and John as well as for the Keyboard Trust’s work in the United States comes through John’s daughter from his first marriage, Caroline von Reitzenstein. She and her son Paris Ionescu, whom we dearly remember after his untimely death, were an integral part of Noretta’s and
John’s family life.

The virtues that distinguished John were above all his unwavering human integrity and strength of character, his modesty and kindness, his great sense of justice, his self-discipline, his conscientiousness, his personal restraint and his never-ending philanthropy. John, the gentleman, was an extraordinary personality of the highest humanistic and political education, fluent in several languages, extremely polite and always
full of the desire to do good.

The latter runs like a thread through John’s life – doing good, be it professionally in his decades- long work for the Commonwealth Development Corporation, or later as founder and spiritus rector of the international piano foundation The Keyboard Charitable Trust, his gift to Noretta on
the occasion of her 60th birthday in 1991. Noretta and John, the living souls of the Keyboard Trust, were able to combine their love of music and their love of humanity with the conviction of wanting to promote young pianists in a wonderful, selfless and highly successful way. In this way, both of them became not only my closest friends, but also great, obliging role models – my gratitude cannot be expressed in words

It is precisely in the deep connection between Noretta and John that the power of true, lived love, which extends far beyond death, becomes
clear:
If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it. […] O Spirit of love! How quick and fresh art thou! […]. (Shakespeare, Twelfth Night I, 1)

We are standing before you, dearest John, bowing our heads in gratitude, love, and with fondest memories. May your legacy live, and may you be listening with joy to all the young pianists’ astonishing gift of music. And may your love for Noretta, as hers for you, always shine.

Happy, happy 100th birthday, dearest John!
And all our love to you, dearest Noretta!
(Moritz von Bredow, Hamburg, April 21, 2025)

The Gift of Music – The Keyboard Trust at 30

Point and Counterpoint 2024 A personal view by Christopher Axworthy

Playing of beauty and intelligence from Mikhail Kambarov in Ischia at the Walton Estate of La Mortella. A sense of style like pianists from another age, when the piano became a multicoloured box of jewels in the hands of musicians that were above all magicians.

There are very few of the younger generation who are prepared to climb onto the high wire and risk falling off or even worse falling into habits of crowd pleasing juggling of notes.

It was evident from the very first notes of Chopin 3rd Ballade that here was a pianist who had something to say. With respect and humility for the composer he added his own sense of imagination and a wondrous palette of colour that brought a radiance and subtle beauty to all he played. There was a disarming simplicity to his Chopin that from the pastoral opening, plaintiff whispered gasps gently entered the scene as almost imperceptibly they were allowed to grow on an ever more passionate wave of sounds. Momentarily interrupted by scenes of ravishing fioritura or dynamic pulsating energy but nothing could interrupt this continual flow of beauty riding on a wave of radiance and at times even menace. Bursting into a glorious outpouring of joyous exhilaration before plunging from on high to the final chords that were played quite sedately. They were after all merely the conclusion of a miniature tone poem with an architectural shape of poetic musicianship.

There was exquisite fluidity and disarming poignancy to the whispered intimate secrets that he shared with us in Scarlatti’s D minor sonata. Magic, as we had to strain to listen to the central episode such was this young man’s ability to draw us in to his world of intimate secrets rather than projecting out with more usual stylistic correctness. We were astonished by the genial poetic invention of Scarlatti who not only created over 500 sonatas of the brilliant jeux perlé perfection of his age, but also added many, demonstrating that Scarlatti had a heart and soul that dared speak to all those with the same poetic sensibility with which they were born. Mikhail’s discerning intelligent musicianship, too,was clear from a programme where the D minor of Scarlatti was but a preparation for the world of ‘La Folia’ ( also in D minor), in the hands of a composer born into a world two centuries on.

Rachmaninov’s ‘Corelli’ variations are dedicated to Fritz Kreisler and it was in fact Kreisler that mislead his doting public with compositions that he claimed were found in the archives of baroque music but admitted later that they had been penned by him in the style of ……!

‘La Folia’ too was not actually composed by Corelli but a popular melody that was used by many composers as a basis for variations, Liszt being the prime example with his Spanish Rhapsody.

However a Rose is always a Rose, whoever its creator really was (or as Kreisler said ‘ the name changes but the value remains!’ ), and it was Mikhail’s genial idea to combine Scarlatti with ‘La Folia’, alas foiled by a public enthused by his sublime playing of Scarlatti and wanting to show their appreciation!

Later in the second half, where Mikhail again wanted to preface Beethoven’s ‘Appassionata’ with Schumann’s ‘Arabesque’, this time he was ready and waiting to pounce before the public could!

Mikhail brought purity and beauty to the theme of ‘La Folia’ ready for the variations to evolve as an almost continuous outpouring of emotions inspired by this ravishing melody. The first variation opened with beguiling subtlety, with pointed comments added of syncopated dryness.The second took wing with a perpetuum mobile of insinuating propulsion, leading to the presumptuous question and beseeching answer of the third. The variations were revealed with a fantasy of sumptuous sounds and a dynamic drive of subtle mastery. There was a poignant cry of liquid sounds of extraordinary potency as the midway cadenza took wing descending with poetic improvised freedom and revealing ‘La Folia’ in all its naked major costume. Dynamic drive and technical mastery in the last three variations found rest on the pedal note of ‘D’ on which a wondrous melody was floated of bewitching, unmistakably Rachmaninovian harmonies of brooding nostalgia, before ‘La Folia’ returned ,in whispered tones, to complete this remarkably concise and poetic work.

It is only now that many of the lesser known works of Rachmaninov are being heard in the concert hall, and a composer known mostly for his Hollywood style romanticism encased in a blinding amount of knotty twine is now being appreciated as a master of his craft with variations not only on a theme of Paganini but also on Chopin’s equally disarmingly simple Prelude in C minor.

Mikhail gave a remarkable performance that was justly received with an ovation and a well earned pause before the equally taxing second half of the programme.

Schumann’s ‘Arabesque’ was played with a wondrous flexibility, allowing the music to unfold and speak so naturally. There were beautiful inner doublings that just underlined the melodic line with the refined good taste of a poet giving more richness to the sound , as the passion rose for an outpouring of noble beauty. An architectural shape to a work that in lesser hands can seem sweetly repetitive, but in a true poet’s hands returns to the original inspiration, as when the music was still wet on the page. Yearning, passionate with disarming simplicity as Mikhail brought his fantasy and colour to bear, turning a bauble into a gem,( as indeed Horowitz was to do with it’s twin: ‘Blumenstück’ op 19 which immediately followed this ‘Arabesque’ op 18). A coda of the same magic as ‘Dichterliebe’ (op. 48, the song cycle by Schumann), music reaching places where words are just not enough. A glowing radiance and beauty to the final page with a fluidity and the glowing sounds of purity with the deep significance of a poet of the piano. https://youtu.be/Ka5x167wNt8

Leaving his hand on the final note, which he miraculously transformed into the whispered opening of Beethoven’s ‘Appassionata’. There was an extraordinary dynamic range and sense of drama that kept us on the edge of our seats. A scrupulous attention to Beethoven’s very precise indications meant that seemingly impossible explosions of notes were played with the struggle that Beethoven implied, not simplifying the execution by sharing between the hands. This is not play safe music but only for the fearless that dare open the door to a revolutionary work of its day. Performances that even today should still have that same astonishing struggle that Beethoven was to bequeath to the world. The music like a tightly spun spring unfolding with breathtaking drive and intensity. Even the return of the theme was over a bubbling cauldron of sounds boiling over at 100 degrees. Beethoven’s revolutionary and poetic effects were interpreted with remarkable authentic intuition and the final pedal effect of the coda came after an astonishingly violent chord out of which a whole world was allowed to dissolve and disappear into the distance, where we were to envisage a funeral procession of sumptuous beauty. An ‘Andante con moto’ played with sumptuous rich sounds of string quartet quality, where every strand has a meaning and poignant significance. The variations unfolded with beauty, the deep legato bass of the first with chords interjecting unusually promptly above, which contrasted with the golden beauty of the second mellifluous variation. Gradually building in agitation until the astonishing unsettling chords of the diminished 7th, firstly barely suggested and then thrown at us with Beethovenian vehemence. The continual drive of the ‘Allegro ma non troppo’ , Mikhail played with relentless forward movement of turbulent control. Exhilaration and excitement of the coda brought this recital to a astonishing end and an ovation from a Saturday afternoon audience who had come to admire the beauty of Susana’s Ischian Paradise and were not expecting to be astonished by the presumption of Beethoven.

It was now that Mikhail could let his hair down and show us his admiration for the sound world of pianists ‘old style’ from the Golden age. Artists like De Pachmann, Rosenthal, Lhevine or Friedman, when a black box of hammers and strings could be turned into a box of gleaming jewels.

A truly fascinating historical piano recording is this June 28, 1938 recording of Chopin’s famous Nocturne in E-Flat Major Op.9 No.2 ‘with authentic variants’ played by Raoul Koczalski, who studied with Chopin’s pupil Karol Mikuli.

https://youtu.be/cW-VRsOeIwM?si=PpdgETkXYHqfHULa

As a young child, Koczalski famously had lessons with Chopin’s pupil Karol Mikuli over the course of four consecutive summers from 1892 to 1895, but he had trained with a number of teachers: Julian Gadomski, Ludwig Marek, and Henryk Jarecki. Some have sought to minimize the extent to which he studied with Mikuli but Koczalski detailed the extent of their work together, noting that “it was no mere trifle: each lesson lasted two full hours and these were daily lessons. I was never permitted to work alone…Nothing was neglected: posture at the piano, fingertips, use of the pedal, legato playing, staccato, portato, octave passages, fiorituras, phrase structure, the singing tone of a musical line, dynamic contrasts, rhythm, and above all the care for authenticity with which Chopin’s works must be approached. Here there is no camouflage, no cheap rubato, and no languishing or useless contortions.”

Chopin’s Nocturne in E flat op 9 n. 2 was played by Mikhail with whispered beauty and barely suggested asides with embellishments that were in fact described in the most recent authentic edition of Chopin.

The Jan Ekier edition takes into account the pages of manuscripts that Chopin would give to his noble women students in Paris and also letters of the time describing Chopin’s own performances. The edition was completed in 2010, in time for the bicentenary of Chopin’s birth and as an urtext, the Chopin National Edition aims to produce a musical text that adheres to the original notation and the composer’s intentions. All extant sources were analyzed and verified for authenticity, mainly autographs, first editions with Chopin’s corrections and pupils’ copies with Chopin’s annotations. Necessary editorial decisions are documented in each volume’s source commentary. Additionally, a separate performance commentary documents cases where Chopin’s notation may be misunderstood by contemporary pianists, such as realizations of ornaments and pedaling. In Ekier’s own words : ‘We owe Chopin a debt… His music allowed us to survive the worst moments, and in the periods of hope extols Polish culture all over the world. We owe it to the author to publish his work in the form he intended. This is the goal of the National Edition: to pay off a Nation’s debt to Chopin.’

The Chopin National Edition consists of 36 volumes in two series, for works published during Chopin’s lifetime (Series A), and for works published posthumously (Series B). A 37th volume (titled Supplement) consists of compositions partly by Chopin, for instance his contribution to Hexameron.

The second concert in Ischia there was another work by Chopin: the ‘Andante Spianato and Grande Polonaise’ op 22 in place of the ‘Third Ballade’. And what a performance this was ,truly worthy of the great pianists of the past, with a ‘jeux perlé’ at the end of the Polonaise that I have never heard played with such refined elegance and supreme golden sounds of ravishing beauty. An ‘Andante Spianato’ of exquisite beauty and subtle phrasing, always supported by sumptuous bass harmonies of luxuriant velvet clad intoxicating beauty. Interrupted by the orchestral introduction to the Polonaise where the pizzicato notes I have never heard played with such a delicate diminuendo as they lead the way to the Polonaise, that was played with suave elegance. A ‘joie de vivre’ of refined playfulness with an extraordinary sense of measure and balance. Even the octave declarations were played with a mellifluous beauty and not the more usual hard hitting showmanship.There was also a subtle beauty as light was shed on certain inner notes, like a will o’ the wisp lighting up the night sky with their magic wand. A quite extraordinary performance where I am not sure if it was he or us that was having such self indulgent enjoyment .

Chopin’s own performances sprang to mind as it must have been like this that the young Chopin took the Parisian Salons by storm, with poetic genius and refined brilliance.

‘Hats off, a Genius’ , declared Schumann and tonight we could understand why !

A standing ovation and two encores ( the Scarlatti Sonata from yesterday and the Chopin Nocturne op 9 n. 2 ) in an afternoon of absolute magic that rarely has been experienced in this Paradise .

Mikhail Kambarov at Steinway Hall London Poetic sensibility of a Master

Trapani the jewel of Sicily where dreams can become reality – The International Piano Competition – Domenico Scarlatti

Variations on a Theme of Corelli op. 42, is a set of variations for solo piano, written in 1931 by the Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninov . He composed the variations at his holiday home in Switzerland.

The theme is La Folia, which was not in fact composed by Arcangelo Corelli , but was used by him in 1700 as the basis for 23 variations in his Sonata for violin and continuo (violone and/or harpsichord) in D minor, Op. 5, No. 12. La Folia was popular as a basis for variations in Baroque music. Franz Liszt  used the same theme in his Rhapsodie espagnole S. 254 (1863).Rachmaninoff dedicated the work to his friend the violinist Fritz Kreisler with whom he often played in recitals together. He wrote to another friend, the composer Nikolai Medtner, on 21 December 1931:

I’ve played the Variations about fifteen times, but of these fifteen performances only one was good. The others were sloppy. I can’t play my own compositions! And it’s so boring! Not once have I played these all in continuity. I was guided by the coughing of the audience. Whenever the coughing would increase, I would skip the next variation. Whenever there was no coughing, I would play them in proper order. In one concert, I don’t remember where – some small town – the coughing was so violent that I played only ten variations (out of 20). My best record was set in New York, where I played 18 variations. However, I hope that you will play all of them, and won’t “cough”.

Rachmaninoff recorded many of his own works, but this piece wasn’t one of them.

The Theme is followed by 20 variations, an Intermezzo between variations 13 and 14, and a Coda to finish. All variations are in D minor except where noted.

• Theme. Andante
• Variation 1. Poco piu mosso
• Variation 2. L’istesso tempo
• Variation 3. Tempo di Minuetto
• Variation 4. Andante
• Variation 5. Allegro (ma non tanto)
• Variation 6. L’istesso tempo
• Variation 7. Vivace
• Variation 8. Adagio misterioso
• Variation 9. Un poco piu mosso
• Variation 10. Allegro scherzando
• Variation 11. Allegro vivace
• Variation 12. L’istesso tempo
• Variation 13. Agitato
• Intermezzo
• Variation 14. Andante (come prima) (D♭ major)
• Variation 15. L’istesso tempo (D♭ major)
• Variation 16. Allegro vivace
• Variation 17. Meno mosso
• Variation 18. Allegro con brio
• Variation 19. Piu mosso. Agitato
• Variation 20. Piu mosso
• Coda. Andante

One of his greatest and most technically challenging sonatas , the Appassionata was considered by Beethoven to be his most tempestuous piano sonata until the Hammerklavier1803 was the year Beethoven came to grips with the irreversibility of his progressive hearing loss. It was composed during 1804 and 1805, and perhaps 1806, and Beethoven dedicated it to cellist and his friend, Count Franz Brunswick. The first edition was published in February 1807 in Vienna.

Unlike the early Pathétique , the Appassionata was not named during the composer’s lifetime, but was so labelled in 1838 by the publisher of a four-hand  arrangement of the work. Instead, Beethoven’s autograph manuscript of the sonata has “La Pasionata” written on the cover, in Beethoven’s hand.The sonata consists of three movements:

Allegro assai Andante con moto. Allegro ma non troppo – Presto

Beethoven started writing the  Sonata n. 23 in the summer of 1804. After the first two movements were outlined, the composer had difficulty finding the right idea for the final movement. Ferdinand Ries (1784–1838) described the moment of inspiration. The two of them had been walking in the woods when the inspiration hit: We went so far lost that we didn’t get back… to where Beethoven lived, until almost eight o’clock. All the way he hummed, or even howled to himself, up and down, up and down. down without singing any definite notes. When I asked him what this was, he replied: I have thought of a theme for the last movement of the sonata. When we entered the room, he ran to the piano without removing his hat. I took a seat in the corner and he soon forgot about me. He burst in for at least an hour with the new ending to the sonata, which is so beautiful. He finally got up, was surprised to see that I was still there, and told me: I can’t teach you a lesson today. I still have work to do.

During this time, Josephine Deym (née Brunsvik, 1779–1821) resumed lessons with Beethoven after her husband’s death. As the months passed, Beethoven’s earlier attraction to her was rekindled. He wrote the song An die Hoffnung, Op. 32, for her, as well as thirteen cards that became more and more loving. There is evidence that the composer proposed to him. It is believed that she returned his love, but she could not marry below her position for the protection of her four children, for if she did, she would lose both her noble title and her security. After rejecting the composer, she remarried in 1810, forging an unsuccessful union with Baron Christoph Von Stackelberg (1777-1841). The couple separated in 1813. It was once thought that Josephine might be the subject of Beethoven’s famous love letter to the Immortal Beloved, but recent evidence has refuted that possibility.

This is my 8th visit to the Walton Foundation bringing wonderful young musicians to breathe the rarified air that was the intent of William and Susana Walton.Their wishes are being respected with dedication and warmth, the founders looking on from their perch where they can view the world inside and out of La Mortella .

Thomas Kelly on Ischia – The Walton Foundation at La Mortella -‘The Devil and the Deep blue Sea’
https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/10/15/thomas-kelly-on-ischia-the-walton-foundation-at-la-mortella-the-devil-and-the-deep-blue-sea/

Pedro Lopez Salas in Paradise .A standing ovation at La Mortella – The Walton Foundation
https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/09/05/pedro-lopez-salas-in-paradise-a-standing-ovation-at-la-mortella-the-walton-foundation/

Andrzej Wiercinski at La Mortella Ischia The William Walton Foundation – Refined artistry and musical intelligence in Paradise
https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/05/11/andrzej-wiercinski-at-la-mortella-ischia-the-william-walton-foundation-refined-artistry-and-musical-intelligence-in-paradise/

Kyle Hutchings A poetic troubadour of the piano reveals the heart of Mozart,Schubert and Franck the Keyboard Trust Concert Tour of Adbaston ,Ischia,Florence and Milan
https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2024/09/11/kyle-hutchings-a-poetic-troubadour-of-the-piano-reveals-the-heart-of-mozartschubert-and-franck-the-keyboard-trust-concert-tour-of-adbaston-ischiaflorence-and-milan/

Misha Kaploukhii mastery and clarity in Walton’s paradise where dreams become reality – updated to include the Sheepdrove Competition and graduation recital
https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2024/05/05/misha-kaploukhii-mastery-and-clarity-in-waltons-paradise-where-dreams-become-reality/

Magdalene Ho A musical genius in Paradise
https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2024/05/12/magdalene-ho-a-musical-genius-in-paradise/

Yuanfan Yang in paradise
https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2021/09/06/yuanfan-yang-in-paradise/

I have heard Kyle play quite a few times and each time I remain struck by his selfless humility and total concentration as music just pours from his almost stationary fingers without any showmanship or physical exertion. More Eusebius than Florestan, that is for sure, but there is a hypnotic sense of communication to the secret world of sounds that he chooses to share with all those that allow themselves to come under the same spell as him. The Pied Piper of the piano indeed or as I have so often said before the poetic troubadour of the piano.

A choice of programme that immediately shows that we are to hear pure poetry, not rhetorical declamations. I have rarely heard the six consolations by Liszt in the concert hall and was quite surprised to hear the famous D flat in their midst today, as I am so used to hearing it as an encore! Liebestraum and Mendelssohn’s Spring Song used to sit on every piano stand when the piano not the television took pride of place in the living room, but in the concert hall these days is a rarity. I can still remember the first time I heard the hauntingly beautiful César Franck Prelude, Fugue and Variation and not being able to rid it from my head for days afterwards!

Kyle opened too with the E flat Sonata of Haydn but not the flamboyant imperious E flat n. 52 but the little, charmingly simple one, that virtuosi never bother with! An eclectic choice of programme that describes so well the artist before he even steps into the limelight. Entering and leaving the stage like the later Richter who was merely the medium between the music and the listener and not the star of a show. Kyle’s talent is really quite unique in it’s self effacing simplicity and radiant beauty where the music really speaks but never shouts and often whispers but carries a quite compelling message.

There was a beauty and measure to the opening Allegro of the Haydn with a refined sense of style.The Adagio played with poignant and exquisite simplicity where the music just evolved with radiance and beauty. A finale of purity and fluidity, what it lacked in dynamic drive and ebullient ‘joie de vivre’ it gained with it’s compelling simplicity.

Liszt ‘s six consolations were played with a yearning and beauty of simple fluidity. Only in the last one did Kyle play over mezzo forte such was the refined elegance of a dream world of consolation.

A great preparation for Liebestraum n. 3 that seemed rather restrained but was perfectly shaped and even the ornaments were those of a coloratura singer rather than a virtuoso pianist .It was all part of Kyle’s extreme introverted sound world that he inhabits with almost religious restraint and sensitive gentleness.

The Franck Bauer I have heard Kyle play before and the haunting beauty he brings to the opening theme as it reappears at crucial moments is one of wondrous things of this often neglected work. There was some quite considerable playing too but passed without any showmanship as Kyle was only concerned to show us so clearly the architectural line in a work of sometimes knotty respectfulness.

After a moments thought Kyle decided to pull out all the stops and play as an encore a Rachmaninov song of quite considerable robust sounds and passion which came as a surprise after an afternoon of such intimate music making.

Kyle Hutchings is a British pianist who, after just twelve months of self-taught playing, won a scholarship to study in London with internationally acclaimed pianist Richard Meyrick on the Pianoman Scholarships Scheme, supported by Sir and Lady Harvey McGrath. Subsequently, he made his London debut with the Arch Sinfonia, playing Beethoven’s Second Piano Concerto. Critically acclaimed by International Piano Magazine as “a poet of the piano”, he has performed in venues such as London’s prestigious St. John’s Smith Square, Kings Place, St. James’s Piccadilly, St. Mary’s Perivale, London’s BT Tower, The Lansdowne Club in Mayfair, as part of the Blüthner Recital Series, and many others up and down the country. In addition to this, he is in high demand internationally, having received accolades throughout Europe. During his studies at Trinity Laban, supported by a scholarship from Trinity College London, he was a recipient of the Conservatoire’s most important prizes, including the Nancy Thomas Prize for Piano as well as the Director’s Prize for Excellence; he was also nominated for the Conservatoire’s coveted Gold Medal. Kyle is supported by The Keyboard Charitable Trust and has received support from the Robert Turnbull Piano Foundation as well as the Zetland Foundation. He looks forward to giving performances throughout Europe and making his American debut in the 2024–2025 season. 

Kyle Hutchings The troubadour of the piano illuminates St Mary Le Strand

Kyle Hutchings A poetic troubadour of the piano reveals the heart of Mozart,Schubert and Franck the Keyboard Trust Concert Tour of Adbaston ,Ischia,Florence and Milan

Kyle Hutchings the poetic troubadour of the piano ravishes and seduces at St Johns

Utopia Orchestra
direttore Teodor Currentzis
pianoforte Alexandre Kantorow
soprano Regula Mühlemann

Brahms Concerto per pianoforte n. 2
Mahler Sinfonia n. 4

Utopia conquers Rome with Alexandre Kantorow and Teodor Currentzis. Sparks were flying of Poetry and Passionate involvement as the entire ensemble moved on a great wave of sound in a continuous flowing movement that reminded me of Stokowski and ‘his’ Philadelphia.

In fact the strings were on their feet as they swayed to Brahms’ Viennese waltz tempi in the final movement of the concerto .

For Mahler the seats were put safely away as the strings were all on their feet with only the cellos on a platform that entered this formation like a boat approaching port.

Creating celestial sounds of Utopian beauty and heart rending nostalgia as they swayed in time to the music just like the chorus of Peter Grimes that become one moving, swaying mass of extraordinary emotional power.

Chopin’s words come to mind as he likened rubato to being a tree with the roots firmly planted in the ground but with the branches free to move in the wind .

That inexplicable but universal word ‘soul’ springs to mind where music making on this level can reach places where words could never arrive.

I am glad that Kantorow took my seat for the Symphony as I had moved to ‘paradise’ to be able to watch as well as listen to the amalgam of sounds that moved as it indeed moved me with sounds being created as the shapes of the music miraculously unfolded in the beauty of Renzo Piano’s violin ‘belly’ auditorium . ( Anyone who has been to the auditorium of the violin museum in Cremona will understand what I mean ).

One miracle followed another.

I have never heard the opening duo between horn and piano at the opening of Brahms 2 recreated with such intimate whispered beauty.

A conductor living every moment as he swayed with the music looking Kantorow in the eyes with glances of burning intensity that could have stopped the world.

A magnificent performance of music making of rare unified intent. A freedom that only comes when the heart beats at the same rate as your companions who are listening to each other with chamber music intensity .

This surely is one of the finest performances that I have heard with playing of the same unforgettable emotions as with Gilels , Rubinstein or Curzon .

But when Kantorow whispered the entry of Agosti’s Firebird even the orchestra listened with baited breath as this young man , like Agosti who lived just around the corner in via Civinini, created sounds in his studio in Siena, that like tonight will never be forgotten .

The piano became a full orchestra, but not of piano bashing insensitivity, but with the colours and sense of balance of a magician of sound where percussiveness just does not exist. Sounds created with the horizontal beauty of poetic genius like a painter with his canvas

Another miracle was created , at the whispered end of Mahler 4, when after seemingly endless ovations and an orchestra that reached out to every corner of the hall in thanksgiving .

Suddenly the plaintive voice of a solo violin was heard intoning a melody that was so familiar and yet so enticing .

‘Morgen’ by Richard Strauss was the miracle that unfolded and just confirmed that we had truly been transported to a Celestial Paradise in this rather bleak ‘Settimana Santa’ in the Eternal City.

Utopia Orchestra

Founder and Music Director of musicAeterna Orchestra and Choir

Chief conductor of the SWR Symphony Orchestra from 2018 to 2024

Teodor Currentzis was born in Greece, where he began studying music. In 1994, he entered St. Petersburg State Conservatory to study under the legendary professor Ilya Musin.

Together with his ensembles, Teodor Currentzis regularly tours Europe and the world with performances in numerous prestigious venues including Vienna Konzerthaus, Berlin Philharmonic, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Munich Philharmonic, Philharmonie de Paris, Kölner Philharmonie, Auditorio Nacional, Baden-Baden Festspielhaus, and La Scala. As a stage conductor and musical director, Teodor Currentzis has worked with the leading opera theatres including Opéra de Paris, Bayerische Staatsoper, Opernhaus Zürich, Teatro Real, and the Bolshoi Theatre.

He has also collaborated with the key figures in modern Western theatre: Robert Wilson, Romeo Castellucci, Peter Sellars, Dmitri Tcherniakov, Theodoros Terzopoulos, and others. Teodor Currentzis is a Resident Artist at the Salzburg Festival as well as at the RUHRtriennale Festival, festivals in Lucerne and Aix-en-Provence.

Works by Mozart, Mahler, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Rameau, and Stravinsky released by Teodor Currentzis on Sony Classical record label have received numerous international music awards: ECHO Klassik, Edison Klassiek, Japanese Record Academy Award, and BBC Music Magazine’s Opera Award.Teodor Currentzis has received the Toepfer Foundation’s prestigious KAIROS Award. He has also been awarded the Greek Order of the Phoenix and the international Musikfest Bremen

Daniel Lozakovich Alexandre Kantorow ‘Burning intensity and passionate mastery ignite then Wigmore Hall as never before’

‘Miracles at the Wigmore Hall’. Matthias Goerne and Alexandre Kantorow entwined with poetic perfection

Alexandre Kantorow bestrides the Wigmore Hall like a Colossus.

Kantorow in Verbier – Nobility,passion and poetry unite in Brahms 2 with Lahav Shani

Alexandre Kantorow ignites and delights Naples at San Carlo with his great artistry

Alexandre Kantorow takes the Philharmonie de Paris by storm

Two stars shining brightly and both performing in the same month in this very hall in Rome …….Bruce Liu and Alexandre Kantorow together recently at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg where they were both giving recitals on alternate days.

‘A star shining ever more brightly’

I have heard Gabrielé play this repertoire in recent recitals and have written about her beautiful playing ( included below)

Beethoven full of extraordinary self identification . Sumptuous passionate Brahms. A kaleidoscope of colours in Debussy and an astonishing technical mastery of Ravel’s La Valse to make your hair stand on end. Rameau of crystalline clarity with ornaments like finely wound springs bursting with jewel like beauty. It was nice to be reminded again of such remarkable performances today as she prepares to take Dublin by storm.

Lithuanian pianist Gabrielé Sutkuté has been praised for her “acute musical intuition, impeccable sense of style and genuine charisma”. She has performed in prestigious venues throughout Europe, including Wigmore Hall, Cadogan Hall, Steinway Hall UK, the Musikhuset Aarhus, and Lithuanian National Philharmonic.In addition to being a soloist, Gabriele frequently performs with chamber ensembles and symphony orchestras. This year, she performed Grieg’s Piano Concerto with the Grammy-nominated Kaunas Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Markus Huber. In 2023, Gabrielé performed this Concerto with the YMSO at the Cadogan Hall, conducted by James Blair. She was also invited to play with the renowned Kaunas String Quartet in Lithuania twice.

Gabriele is a winner of twenty international piano competitions where she also received numerous special awards. She was awarded the 1st Prize at the Chappell Medal Piano Competition 2023 and won the 2nd Prize and the Audience Prize at the Birmingham International Piano Competition 2022. She was also the recipient of the prestigious Mills Williams Junior Fellowship 2022/23. For her musical achievements, Gabrielé received Lithuanian Republic Presidents’ certificates of appreciation six times. 

From 2016-22, Gabrielé had been studying with Professor Christopher Elton and received her Bachelor of Music Degree (First Class Honours) and Master of Arts Degree with Distinction from the Royal Academy of Music. In 2023, she graduated from the Artist Diploma course at the Royal College of Music, where she had been studying with Professors Vanessa Latarche and Sofya Gulyak. This year, Gabriele started her Artist Diploma studies with Gabriela Montero at the Academy. 

Gabrielé Sutkuté at Lansdowne Club ‘A star in Mayfair shining ever brighter’

Gabrielé Sutkuté at Leighton House ‘a star is born’

Gabrielé Sutkuté plays Grieg with the YMSO under James Blair at Cadogan Hall

A fascinating and varied programme of ‘something old and something new’. The works of Mendelssohn have been unjustly neglected these days and I remember Murray Perahia playing the Sonata op 106 as part of the programme that brought him to victory and world wide recognition in one of the first Leeds Piano Competitions. Rudolf Serkin too used to regularly include the Preludes and Fugues in his programmes. So it was refreshing to be able to hear the Fantasy in F sharp minor that the 25 year old Mendelssohn penned obviously for his own concerts. It is a work of scintillating brilliance contrasted with a mellifluous outpouring of the sentiment of its time and one that made Mendelssohn a favourite at the court of Queen Victoria. A work in one movement, sometimes known as ‘Sonata Écossaise’, but divided into three episodes like a sonata .The central episode was of a simplicity and charm and the last with a dynamic drive and noble brilliance of beauty and exhilaration. Simone played it with delicacy and subtlety with a jeux perlé of sparkling exuberance and ‘joie se vivre’ as he delved deep into the heartstrings for the melancholic outpourings of Mendelssohn’s genial melodic invention.

The transcription by Moszkowski of the Nocturne from Mendelssohn’s Midsummer night’s dream is a rarity in the concert hall where the Rachmaninov scherzo is more often heard. A beautiful work played by Simone with a chiselled beauty of sumptuous richness and poignant meaning.

The Busoni ‘Berceuse’ I have only heard in the concert hall played by Serkin who combined it with the Toccata. It is a deeply brooding piece with the very particular sound world of Busoni seemingly without any tonal centre and leaving us suspended in an air of uncertainty. I did play it once in Empoli, where Busoni was born, as it was particularly requested by the organisers, and it was very interesting after all these years to hear it again played so beautifully. Simone played it with refined beauty and an architectural line that was very impressive.

It was linked with Busoni’s famous reworking of the Bach ‘Chaconne’. Simone began with a good flowing tempo but allowed the tempo to fluctuate too often and the chords and octaves were played rather without the weight necessary for such a monumental work.Substituting monumental for brilliance in a rather romantic revisitation that in many ways was very beautiful but lacked the overall architectural shape of one of the most important and ingenious works ever written by J.S. Bach.

Rachmaninov’s beautiful D major prelude op 23 was coupled with the monumental Second Sonata in B flat minor op 36.The world of Rachmaninov suited Simone’s sumptuous sound world and romantic temperament.The prelude was enriched with the sonorous accompaniment on which the melody emerged with strength and beauty in a performance of flowing simplicity.

There was passion and a kaleidoscope of colour in the sonata with an architectural shape that linked all three movements into one unified whole of radiant beauty. There were sumptuous rich sounds with an outpouring of notes of exhilaration and excitement. Simone brought his musicianship to bear in a performance that if it did not have the reserves of more animalistic virtuosi it did have the aristocratic musicianship of intelligence and passionate involvement.

Simone Alessandro Tavoni has given recitals internationally across Europe and U.S in venue such the Purcell room, Wigmore Hall, Royal Festival Hall, St Martin in the Fields St.John’s Smith Square, Steinway Hall, St.Mary Perivale in London, Liszt Museum in Budapest, Palau de la Musica Catalana in Barcelona, the Aarhus concert hall, The Tallin Philarmonia ( Estonia ) and the Florence Conservatory hall. In 2019, Simone has been selected as a Parklane Group Artist, as Keyboard Charitable Trust Artist and received the Luciano and Giancarla Berti full-ride scholarship to attend the Aspen Music Festival and School studying with renowned professor Fabio Bidini.  Graduated at Royal College of Music with professor Andrew Ball, and Simone has recently attained an Artist Diploma at Trinity Laban Conservatoire with professors Deniz Gelenbe and Peter Tuite. He began his musical education in Italy with professor Marco Podesta’ and pursue his studies at the Liszt Academy of Budapest with Dr.Kecskes Balazs and in Germany at the Hochschule fur Musik un Darstellende of Stuttgart with Dr,Peter Nagy. In 2016 was selected for the BBC pathway scheme and he is a fellow at the Aspen Music Festival and School. He is generously assisted by HSH Dr.Donatus Prince of Hohenzollern.

 

Simone Tavoni triumphs on the Italian tour for the Keyboard Trust – part 1 Florence – part 2 Venice and Padua
https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2022/01/27/simone-tavoni-triumphs-on-the-italian-tour-for-the-keyboard-trust-part-1-florence/

Simone Tavoni at Livorno Classica flying high with poetic reasoning and with Dinosaurs overhead
https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/03/24/simone-tavoni-at-livorno-classica-flying-high-with-dinosaurs-with-poetic-reasoning/

Artistic director Nicola Giuliano Tuccia writes :

‘The Guido Agosti Piano Series was born from the desire to honour the piano as a poetic, narrative, and profoundly human instrument in collaboration with the Gala Music Festival, chairman Diego Melfi. This concert series brought exceptional performers to the stage of Sala Sangiorgi in Forlì, in an intimate atmosphere full of charm.

Promoted by the association Forlì Cultura – chaired by Nicolò Giuliano Tuccia – and enriched by the vision of Vice President Chiara Bolognesi, who brought her deep sensitivity to education and the arts, this project shines with passion, youth, and musical poetry.

Each concert has been a small artistic miracle, awakening deep emotions in the hearts of the audience.

Giuseppe Lo Cicero enchanted with a brilliant and varied programme: Chopin’s Polonaise brillante with bold energy, the jazzy elegance of Gershwin, the painted delicacy of Debussy’s Ballade, and the dreamy elegance of Ravel’s Valses nobles et sentimentales. A recital that merged virtuosity and charm with natural grace.

Andrei Makarov won the hearts of the audience with his profound and authentic interpretation of Mozart and Chopin. The clarity of his touch and the maturity of his phrasing turned apparent simplicity into pure poetry. A noble pianist with a direct connection to the soul.

Gianluca Faragli tackled a challenging and majestic programme: Ries, Beethoven Op. 22, Chopin’s Scherzo No.1, and the monumental Chaconne by Bach-Busoni. A performance of great dramatic depth and architectural vision, marked by expressive power and commanding presence.

Ekaterina Chebotareva delivered a whirlwind of color and emotion. The fiery spirit of Stravinsky’s Firebird in Agosti’s iconic transcription, the depth of Rachmaninov’s Sonata No.2, the dreamy Estampes by Debussy, and the noble elegance of Beethoven’s Sonata Op.90. An unforgettable evening of passion and sound.

Shunta Morimoto gave us one of the most captivating performances of the series with a high-level program: Bach’s Partita No.4, Schumann’s Symphonic Etudes, and Chopin’s Polonaise-Fantaisie. Impeccable technique, tonal imagination, and a rare narrative sense enchanted the entire audience.

This a link to a newly elaborated audio by Andrea Fasano from the video of op 111 from this concert https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zdb2qjgWnA3HyPph_6FxnxjLHy7APc_f/view?usp=drive_web

Guido Agosti (11 August 1901 – 2 June 1989) was an Italian pianist and renowned for his yearly summer course in Siena frequented by all the major musicians of the age.It was on the express wish of Alfredo Casella that Agosti took over his class which he did for the next thirty years.Sounds heard in his studio have never been forgotten.Agosti was born in Forli 1901. He studied piano with Ferruccio Busoni Bruno Mugellini and Filippo Ivaldi and earning his diploma at age 13. He studied counterpoint under Benvenuti and literature at Bologna University. He commenced his professional career as a pianist in 1921. Although he never entirely abandoned concert-giving, nerves made it difficult for him to appear on stage,and he concentrated on teaching. He taught piano at the Venice Conservatoire and at the Santa Cecilia Academy in Rome.In 1947 he was appointed Professor of piano at the Accademia Chigiana Siena .He also taught at Weimar and the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki.

His notable students include Maria Tipo,Yonty Solomon, Leslie Howard,Hamish Milne,Martin Jones,Ian Munro,Dag Achatz,Raymond Lewenthal,Ursula Oppens,Kun- Woo Paik,Peter Bithell. He made very few recordings; there is a recording of op 110 from the Ghione theatre in Rome together with his recording on his 80th birthday concert in Siena of Debussy preludes .

2024 Season

Forlì pays Homage to Guido Agosti

I was sorry to miss Nina Tichman’s concert in Trapani ,the wonders of which were still echoing around Trapani on my arrival for the 3rd International Piano Competition Domenico Scarlatti .

Luckily Vincenzo Marrone had thought to share such wonders, after the competition final, with the magnificent Politeama Garibaldi in nearby Palermo, thanks to Donatella Sollima, the artistic director of Palermo’s Associazione Siciliana Amici della musica and a fellow jury member of his competition .

A hall, she tells me, that her father used to bring her as a little girl to listen to artists ,who have now passed into legend, such as Rubinstein ,Kempff,Cherkassky and all the greatest musicians of the age .

A miniature Royal Albert Hall, in which one can feel the presence of it’s past glorious history.

Not only past because Donatella has continued the great tradition and this season the hall has resounded to the magic of Arcadi Volodos, Misha Maisky, Martha Argerich and now to close the season Nina Tichman .

What greater gift could there be for a city steeped in history than a performance of the greatest variations ever written for the keyboard : Bach’s mighty ‘Goldberg Variations’.

Eighty five minutes of sublime music, all created on the simplest of ground basses that Nina as an ‘encore’ revealed in all its naked simplicity. This was after listening with baited breath to the beauty of her performance, played without the score ,and with the subtle pianistic perfection of one of the greatest exponents of the almost forgotten Matthay School of extreme sensibility of touch.

The greatest exponents for Uncle Tobbs ( as he was affectionately known) were another two remarkable women pianists : Dame Myra Hess and Dame Moura Lympany.

Listening to such mastery and dedicated musicianship today, Nina Tichman joins their ranks as an equally illustrious exponent of a school where above all the piano is allowed to sing with the same subtlety as the human voice.

A performance of unusual beauty where Nina allowed the variations to unfold with a refined palette of sounds of extraordinary noble expressiveness. Not projecting the music out to us in this vast hall but miraculously drawing us in to share in the wonders that were being created before our very eyes. Sharing these ingenuous variations with a beauty bathed in intelligence and refined good taste as they were never given a hard ungrateful edge. An ornamentation that was so natural that it could almost pass unnoticed such was it part of the world that Nina inhabited today.Even the 16th variation which heralds the half way mark was played with the elegance of a French overture of it’s time. The twenty ninth too usually played as a gymnastic exercise, where many add deep bass notes, but that Nina allowed to speak for itself as being the culmination of all that had gone before. Busoni of course needed to finish with the glory to God on High (and himself) and his edition from the 16th onwards reads like Liszt studies and a Tchaikovskian 1812 finish in glory. Nina played it with the respectful beauty and nobility of the Genius of Köthen .The ‘Quodlibet ‘ where Bach combines two popular tunes unfolded with unusually refined colouring. Out of the absolute silence after the final chord of the Quodlibet the aria was heard wafting into the refined air of the radiance and beauty that had been created by Nina in an hour an half of concentrated mastery.

Evolving , on Bach’s genial ground bass, with a naturalness that would have had Count Kesserling counting sheep that had at last found safety grazing in the bedroom of an insomniac !

It was in 1991 that my great adventure with the Goldbergs began when I managed to persuade the High Priestess of Bach to leave the archives in Oxford and return to the concert hall where she truly belonged. I also managed to persuade Tatyana Nikolaeva to play the same variations a month later and was much criticised for not having more varied programmes! Rosalyn’s was a monumental Bach carved in stone whereas Nikolaeva was of the song and dance of simple people. I include below Rosalyn Tureck’s own fascinating programme notes for her double performance of the Goldbergs in London in 1972, that gave me the courage to ask her to perform again in public.

“Awesome” and “thrilling” ** are two of the adjectives used to describe Nina Tichman´s performances of Claude Debussy. In New York City, Frankfurt and other cities in Europe and the United States she held audiences spellbound with her traversal of the complete works in three evenings and her CDs with this repertoire have been called “because of her exquisite touch – the most beautiful recording of the complete works”.***

Since her debut at the age of seventeen playing Beethoven´s „Emperor Concerto“ Nina Tichman has appeared in the musical centers of the world such as New York´s Carnegie Hall, the Philharmonie in Cologne, the Konzerthaus in Berlin and the Festspielhaus in Salzburg, to name only a few. Acclaimed as “one of the leading pianists of her generation”****, she is at home in repertoire ranging from Frescobaldi to composers writing today, many of whom have entrusted her with world premieres of their compositions. Her discography includes music by Bartók, Beethoven, Copland (complete), Chopin, Corigliano, Debussy, Fauré, V.D. Kirchner, Krenek, Mendelssohn, Penderecki, und Reger.  Her recording of the Complete Piano Works was hailed as a milestone in Debussy interpretation.

American born, Nina Tichman has been based in Europe since winning the prestigious “Busoni” Competition. Other awards include the Mendelssohn Prize of Berlin, First Prize of the Casagrande Competition in Italy and the Prize of the Organization of American States. She has appeared as soloist with orchestra and in recital in the major music centers of the world and has been featured in radio and television portraits on five continents. Her diverse activities as recitalist, chamber musician and pedagogue have led to invitations to perform and teach in festivals such as Marlboro, Tanglewood, Music from Salem, Styriarte, International Musicians Seminar at Prussia Cove, Frankfurt Feste, Rheingau Musikfestival, Beethoven Festival Bonn.

Nina Tichman is a graduate of The Juilliard School, where she was awarded the Eduard-Steuermann-Prize for outstanding musical achievement. In 1993 she was appointed Professor of Piano at the Hochschule für Musik in Cologne and she has led master classes at Amherst College, Princeton University, IKIF in New York, the Europäischen Akademie für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Montepulciano, Holland Music Sessions and at the “Mozarteum” in Salzburg

Concert tours in the last years have taken her to China, Japan, Southeast Asia, Scandinavia, Greece, Turkey, Israel, New Zealand, Mexico, the United States as well as almost all European countries.

Highlights of the 2019/20 season include performances of the last three Beethoven Piano Sonatas as well as the continuation of a cycle of the complete Schubert Sonatas.

* New York Times ** Chelseas News *** Darmstädter Echo **** Neue Musik Zeitung *****Saale-Zeitung

Tobias Augustus Matthay (19 February 1858 – 15 December 1945) was an English pianist , teacher, and composer.

Matthay was born in Clapham ,Surrey, in 1858 to parents who had come from northern Germany and eventually became naturalised British subjects. He entered London’s Royal Academy of Music  in 1871 and eight months later he received the first scholarship given to honour the knighthood of its principal, Sir William Sterndale Bennett .At the academy, Matthay studied composition under Sir William Sterndale Bennett and Arthur Sullivan , and piano with William Dorrell and Walter Macfarren . He served as a sub-professor there from 1876 to 1880, and became an assistant professor of pianoforte in 1880, before being promoted to professor in 1884. With Frederick Corder and John Blackwood Mc Ewen, he co-founded the Society of British Composers  in 1905. Matthay remained at the RAM until 1925, when he was forced to resign because McEwen—his former student who was then the academy’s Principal—publicly attacked his teaching.

In 1903, after over a decade of observation, analysis, and experimentation, he published The Act of Touch, an encyclopedic volume that influenced piano pedagogy throughout the English-speaking world. So many students were soon in quest of his insights that two years later he opened the Tobias Matthay Pianoforte School, first in Oxford Street, then in 1909 relocating to Wimpole Street, where it remained for the next 30 years. The teachers there included his sister Dora. He soon became known for his teaching principles that stressed proper piano touch and analysis of arm movements. He wrote several additional books on piano technique that brought him international recognition, and in 1912 he published Musical Interpretation, a widely read book that analyzed the principles of effective musicianship. However, whilst acknowledging its importance, a later interpreter of Matthay’s writing criticized its lack of clarity:

‘The interminable repetitions, recapitulations, summaries, footnotes, all with a change of emphasis and as often as not with new names for the same thing, led enquirers into a maze from which only the clearest brain equipped with a dogged perseverance, could extricate itself.’

Many of his pupils went on to define a school of 20th century English pianism, including Arthur Alexander ,York Bowen,Hild Dederich,Norman Fraser,Myra Hess,  Denise Lasimonne, Clifford Curzon,Harold Craxton,Moura Lympany,Gertrude Peppercorn,Ruth Roberts,Irene Scharrer, Lilias Mackinnon, Guy Jonson, Vivian Langrish, Hope Squire,Eileen Joyce, jazz “syncopated” pianist Raie Da Costa, Harriet Cohen,Dorothy Howell,, and the duo Bartlett and Robertson . He taught many Americans, including Ray Lev, Eunice Norton , and Lytle Powell, and he was also the teacher of Canadian pianist Harry Dean, English composer Arnold Bax and English conductor Ernest Read. In 1920, Hilda Hester Collens, who had studied under Matthay from 1910 to 1914, founded a music college in Manchester  named the Matthay School of Music in his honour. It was later renamed the Northern School of Music , a predecessor institution of the Royal Northern College of Music.

His wife Jessie née Kennedy, whom he married in 1893, wrote a biography of her husband, published posthumously in 1945.

Trapani, scuola pianistica all’avanguardia alla base della Master Class del 26 febbraio-13 marzo del Maestro Vincenzo Marrone d’Alberti

Born in 1914, Dorothy Taubman was the founder of the Taubman Institute of New York and developed what became known as the internationally famous “Taubman Approach” to piano playing.

“Playing the piano should feel delicious”, said Taubman whose technique analyses the motions needed for virtuosity and musical expression. In its early days of development it built a reputation through its rate of success in curing playing injuries. It provoked controversy, however, by questioning the physiological soundness of some traditional methods of piano teaching.

“The body is capable of fulfilling all pianistic demands without a violation of its nature if the most efficient ways are used; pain,insecurity, and lack of technical control are symptoms of incoordination rather than a lack of practice, intelligence, or talent”, said Taubman whose methods were always founded on a fundamentally naturalistic approach.

Besides offering a rational, diagnostic system aimed at solving the musical and physiological problems of piano interpretation, the techniques Taubman pioneered allowed her to cure repetitive stress injuries related to piano playing, and generally to rehabilitate injured pianists. Her techniques have been successfully adapted to help with RSI sufferers in general, especially when caused by computer keyboards.

To quote pianist and teacher Thomas Mark: “The application of the Taubman movements to specific pianistic situations, such as leaps, octaves, arpeggios etc, is often brilliantly effective. Almost all pianists, even highly accomplished ones, can develop more perfect use of fingers hands and forearm, and consequently almost all pianists, injured or not, who have studied the Taubman Approach have improved, even transformed, their playing.”

Among her most successful work, Taubman was recognised for her work with Leon Fleisher who was forced to play with only one hand for many years due to a painful medical condition.

For many years, Taubman directed the Dorothy Taubman School of Piano at Amherst College in Massachusetts and was a former professor at the Aaron Copland School of Music and at Temple University. She famously said that “blaming the instrument is like saying that writer’s cramp is caused by the pencil”.

Taubman was born in the East New York section of Brooklyn on August 16, 1917. Her parents, Benjamin and Bertha, were Jewish immigrants from Russia; her father, a businessman, committed suicide after the stock market crashed in 1929. Taubman never graduated from college, but took courses at Juilliard and Columbia University  and studied with the renowned pianist Rosalyn Tureck for a year. In her 20s, her son said, she decided her calling was to be a teacher, not a concert pianist.

Taubman directed the Dorothy Taubman Institute of Piano at Amherst College  in Massachusetts from 1976 to 2002. She was formerly a professor at Temple University  and at the Aaron Copland School of Music in Queens College, and was featured in numerous articles and interviewed in the Boston Globe, The New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times; and the Piano Quarterly, Piano and Keyboard, and Clavier magazines. Taubman was noted for her work with injured musicians. Her students include the American pianist Leon Fleisher,Edna Golandsky and Yoheved Kaplinsky..

Besides offering a diagnostic system aimed at solving the musical and physiological problems of piano interpretation, the techniques Taubman pioneered have been used therapeutically to treat repetitive strain injuries  related to piano playing, and generally to rehabilitate injured pianists. Her techniques have been adapted to computer keyboard typing.

In 1938 she married Harry Taubman, a businessman in the men’s clothing industry and the younger brother of Howard Taubman, chief music and theater critic in the 1950s and 1960s for The New York Times. With Harry, she had one son, who is dean of the school of medicine and dentistry at the University of Rochester .She died from pneumonia on April 3, 2013 in Brooklyn, New York, at the age of 95.