Autore: ChristopherAxworthyMusicCommentary

Unable to be present at the Royal College for the live performance I was glad that Pedro had anticipated his performances a few days before in a private try out performance in my home.Beautiful playing from a great artist and the one or two comments that I could not make before such an important event I am glad to add now afterwards from far off Italy . All best wishes to this young artist on the crest of a wave

Mozart Sonata K.330 of refined good taste and delicate tone palette .A way of using his musically informed embellishments to enhance the grace and style of Mozart’s perfection without disturbing the simple beauty of aristocratic poise and elegance. The ornaments of the opening were enticing and beguiling whereas that of the last movement left me a little perplexed .Not the grace and beguiling charm of the movement,though, that was always full of the operatic characters that are so much part of Mozart’s world. A slow movement of refined beauty where his extraordinary sensitivity to sound for me would have been enough as the modern piano can sing in a way that Mozart’s keyboard instruments could not if not helped by improvised embellishments to add colour and emotion where touch was not yet an option. Of course it is always the human voice that is uppermost in Mozart’s mind as it is in Pedro’s and his extraordinary way of allowing the music to speak shows a musician who actually listens to himself and as I often quote Cherkassky :’je sens ,je joue ,je trasmets’. Here it could not have been more poignantly described – to ornament or not is a debatable matter but to allow the music to sing is not!

There was a searing red hot intensity to the De Falla ‘Fantasia Baetica’ with an extraordinary sense of line and architectural shape in a work that the dedicatee Artur Rubinstein complained was too long – it certainly did not seem like that in Pedro’s hands today! There was a brooding undercurrent of animal drive and in the melodic episodes a smoky decadence as they were played with a kaleidoscope of colours with mysterious passionate desires always just under the surface about to erupt. Glissandi that were mere streams of sounds like a masculine stroke of the guitar with passionate indifference. Wonderfully soulful recitativi doubled at the octave as they wailed and cried with animal longing. A pounding insistence always of a cauldron of burning emotions that was exactly a portrait of De Falla’s friend Rubinstein who actually complained that he found the work too long- perhaps he meant too lifelike!

The Chopin Sonata op 35 in B flat minor received a masterly performance but strangely the first movement seemed rather sectionalised and not the same architectural shape of searing intensity that he brought to the other three movements. An introduction that seemed rather too slow and divorced from what follows. A doppio movimento that was rather hurried instead of an internal intensity. A second subject of sublime beauty but did not seem to grow out of the organic material of this masterly constructed work.The development suddenly found all the pieces coming together with extraordinary musicianship and poignancy as the opening introduction suddenly appeared in the bass with menacing insistence. Pedro’s playing of the coda showed a masterly control with his mature passion not allowing Chopin’s accelerando indication to seemed hurried or matter of fact but on the contrary of aristocratic nobility allowing him to place the final chord with breathtaking courage.The Scherzo was played with passion and control with the ravishing beauty of the central episode played with beguiling shape and a style of great elasticity and sensitivity without disturbing it’s pulse or poignant beauty.There was a remarkable architectural shape – that had been missing in the first movement- without ever losing the passion and poignancy of this remarkable movement. Even the final two strokes in the bass over a long held chord were strokes of genius and played as such with great maturity and authority.There was an infectious rhythmic lilt to the bass of the Funeral March as the melodic line unfolded with nobility and measured beauty all of a line even at it’s most passionate with left hand trills a mere vibration of pent up emotion.There was sublime whispered beauty to the Trio played with a true bel canto and an innate flexibility almost at the limit of it’s natural emotional expanse.On the edge of our seats as we were drawn into the magic this poet was whispering in our ears and occasionally underlining such sublime beauty with jewels that glittered in the left hand as the light from his magic prism just shone so unexpectedly with these breathtaking glimpses of a paradise found. The last movement were just washes of sound – wailing indeed and it was with a stream of agitated sounds rising and falling almost imperceptibly until suddenly on the horizon a deep pulsating line could be felt throbbing in it’s midst in this wailing cauldron of obsessive insistence . A transcendental control and poetic sensibility were united as they were brought to a close with nobility and aristocratic authority.This was undoubtedly one of the finest performances I have ever heard of Chopin’s greatest masterpiece.

Pedro Lopez Salas at the National Liberal Club with aristocratic style and artistry

What a marvel this streaming is ! I was not expecting to be invited into such an intimate atmosphere where there was just a magnificent pianist playing Chopin’s piano ( an Erard of 1838 ) in the house where Chopin was born. An ideal situation for a historic instrument , which is lost when brought into the modern day concert hall, but in this intimate atmosphere becomes the very voice of Chopin. Sounds that he would have known and loved as he pioneered a completely new way of using a keyboard instrument with a pedals .It was Anton Rubinstein who had said that the pedals were the soul of the piano and it was the genius of Chopin who could create such a revolutionary new world on the evolving keyboard instruments of his time.Schumann was the first to notice when an eighteen year old pole presented himself in Paris with his own composition op 2 :”Hats off Gentlemen,a Genius !”.

I have heard Martin play before in Cremona when he was invited to give an equally short recital in the Fazioli Concert Hall that transfers to Cremona for three days every year.Very fine performances of Chopin there too,including the Chopin 3rd Sonata op 58, but I was not prepared for what I was to hear today as I watched and listened to this live stream and realised that we were in the presence a great interpreter.

Cremona the city of dreams – a global network where dreams become reality

A director of photography too with a rather more refined fantasy than Walt Disney who chose just the right moments to give us glimpses of the marvels that surrounded Chopin in his youth and which was to torment him all his short life exiled from such simplicity and beauty.

Martin looking ever more like his mentor Jerome Rose who I had heard in London when I was a schoolboy .Jerome was winner of the Busoni Competition in Bolzano and invited to play the Tchaikowsky Concerto in the Sunday evenings dedicated by Victor Hochauser to the violin and piano concerti and Romeo and Juliet overture. It would invariably finish with the 1812 overture with the canon effects reverberating around the vast space of the Royal Albert Hall .Little could I have imagined that I would invite Jerome to play in my own Euromusica concert season in Rome in 2002 and invite him to dine with us at home with my Italian actress wife Ileana Ghione.I still remember his performance of the great A major Sonata by Schubert ,and the reason I mention it is because of the same limpet type fingers that I saw today from the superb close ups on Martin’s hands.

Martin’s performances were with just the shadow of Chopin looking on ( and of course the recording crew one of whom gallantly applauded at the end) .This was a pianist creating,in such intimacy, the same magic that Chopin himself would have created in the noble salons he was to frequent as a teenager in Paris.But today it was just a piano that Chopin would have known ( I do not know if it had actually belonged to Chopin) and a pianist who allowed himself to be totally immersed in the music without any care of personal appearances with grimacing, grunting and singing alla Glenn Gould. It was we that were trespassing on such intimate confessions – if only Chopin had had the same technology as today ! Here taking away the pressure of performance before an audience we were treated to performances of some of the greatest masterworks of Chopin that were some of the finest I have ever heard.A total dedication to the music with an aristocratic sense of style and taste that did not preclude a hypnotic personal interpretation of overwhelming authority and beauty.

The Polonaise op 44 opened this short concert and immediately we were immersed into a sound world with a very particular soul, like looking at a Daguerreotype photo ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daguerreotype) of which just one famously was taken of Chopin.But there was nothing dated or brown around the edges about this performance as it was very expressive and beautifully rhapsodic with restrained passion. Martin’s limpet like fingers could make the octaves sing with such beauty of legato and shape with a supreme sense of style.He brought an extraordinary architectural shape to the central transition dissolving so naturally into the beautiful central Mazurka.The final eruptions that lead back into the polonaise were like thunderbolts played with fearless abandon .The final coda I always have Stefan Askenase in my mind but today there was the same nobility and delicacy but also an extraordinary clarity .This was the performance of a true artist who had seen this work as a great tone poem and had lived every moment of it with mastery and poetic vision.

The Barcarolle is one of the greatest of works for the piano where there is a continual outpouring of mellifluous beauty reaching heights of the sublime. There was a beautiful fluidity from the very first notes and it is hardly surprising that the director of photography discreetly showed us the brook that bubbles through Chopin’s garden.There was even a frog looking on with such marvels in his eyes with leaves being reflected in the water.Nothing could deflect from the refined beauty and poetry of the playing though.The overhead camera allowed us to appreciated the delicate continuous circular movement of his left hand as the barcarolle continued on it’s way with ravishing beauty.Sublime heights were reached with Chopin’s indication ‘dolce sfogato’ revealed with playing of rare sensitivy in a passage that Perlemuter would exclaim ‘we have arrived in heaven’. Martin picking up the tempo towards the end that gave great shape of joy and exultation and a point of arrival from which he could dissolve as the music gradually disintegrates with veiled beauty before our astonished eyes.

Four Preludes from op 28 were played with such beguiling mastery that I look forward in the future to hearing all 24 from such a master.

Op 28 n. 13 is one of the most beautiful of this box of jewels and it was the left hand that was played unusually expressively revealing the ravishing beauty of the melody that sits above this weaving wave of notes.

Op 28 n. 3 was a wash of sounds flooding the melodic line that was played with simplicity and clarity.

Digging deep into the sombre bass notes of n. 2 with the imperious melody played with just one finger projecting sounds of aristocratic, chiselled nobility.

There was a dark brooding to n. 14 which prepared us for the extraordinary last movement of the sonata that was to follow.

A masterly performance of the B flat minor Sonata op 35 which must truly be one of the greatest masterpieces of all time.Aristocratic nobility and clarity were mixed with luminosity and poetic mastery. A scrupulous attention to Chopin’s very precise markings had me scurrying to the score too see if the two chords before the second subject were indeed staccato! Adding the much debated repeat by going back to the ‘Grave’ introduction and not just the ‘Doppio movimento’ as tradition has dictated ,showed a true thinking musician at the service of the composer.A beautifully artistic scherzo ,not the usual rhythmic exercise but shaped with the same wonderful sound that was to pervade the whole of this recital.The ‘più lento’ I never thought I would hear as beautifully played as I remember from Rubinstein – today in Martin’s hands I was reminded of the sentiment without sentimentality of Rubinstein as was the frog linked in the same frame as the pianist in this live stream by a director of photography equally blessed by the Gods today. There was a gentle but relentless throbbing to the funeral march with the poignancy of the melodic line floated above it as it preceded with heart rending inevitability.I had never noticed the deep bass just before the entry of the Trio until today and again went scurrying to the score as I usually only do with artists of the calibre of Murray Perahia who like Martin really look deeply into the score to find the real meaning of the composer ,transmitting it with humility,intelligence and poetic sensibility.The last movement was exactly as it has been described as the wind wailing over the graves.No pointing of melody but again scrupulous attention to Chopin’s wishes.

The sound of a single soul clapping at the end of such marvels seemed rather hollow but by some miracle these performances were recorded and will go down in history side by side with the greatest interpreters of the Genius of Chopin

Party time in Perivale but not before two very serious interpretations of Beethoven’s ‘Waldstein’ and ‘Appassionata’ Sonatas.
Playing from both pianists of great integrity where Beethoven’s precise indications were scrupulously noted .Daria with impeccable playing of intelligence and clarity , a luminosity of sound and no rearranging of Beethoven’s irascible cascades of notes also following his pedal indications with impeccable musicianship and technical prowess.
Florian too with his limpet like fingers that seem to belong to the keys and with his personal vision of the more pastoral ‘Waldstein’ compared to the ‘Appassionata’s’ ‘ river of energy and anger’ . Equally scrupulous in their respect for Beethoven and both with a technical mastery that allowed them to interpret the composers precise indications without being tainted by tradition.It was this scrupulous attention to detail that brought a ravishing sense of colour and animal excitement to their interpretation of Ravel’s early Spanish Rhapsody.

Daria beginning with the ‘Appassionata’ that Florian thought was a more suitable start being ‘ a river of energy and anger’ before his image of a more pastoral ‘Waldstein’.I think too it was the impeccable gentleman who wanted to allow his colleague to play for the first time on a stage that he knows already well. It was a performance of great intelligence and integrity with the opening kept tightly under control, the trills with spring like precision and the rests scrupulously observed.There was menace too in the four note motive that is to pervade much of Beethoven’s work in this period ,played with great precision.As was the opening cascade of notes that she played as written by Beethoven with one continual movement (many ‘pianists’ rearrange the distribution between the hands like in op 111 to avoid any risk ) where she was not afraid to accept the challenge of the composer from the very first notes.There was also a luminosity of sound and rhythmic drive behind the notes allied to absolute precision and clarity.Some beautiful shading in the mellifluous second subject before the explosion of the irascible Beethoven of this period. No nicely pointed top notes on these outbursts but just torrents of notes played with dynamic rhythmic drive.A coda that almost came unstuck but was called immediately to arms with the ‘sang froid’ of a great professional keeping the tempo right to its final resting place with a relentless forward movement.Some beautiful playing in the ‘Andante con moto’ that has been likened to a funeral procession such is its sombre string quartet quality.Here we missed the limpet fingers of her colleague who would have delved much deeper into the keys than Daria who slightly missed the solidity of one of the themes that Beethoven uses in many of his sonatas as a basis for a series of variations (Op.109 and 111) .The variations unwound beautifully from Daria’s sensitive fingers taking us to Beethoven’s alarm call before the perpetuum mobile of the ‘Allegro ma non troppo’.Here one could really perceive Florian’s description of ‘a flood of energy and anger’ and Daria played with impeccable precision and style with a coda of breathtaking dynamic drive.

Florian perceives the ‘Waldstein’ as more pastoral but it actually fits Delius’s flippant description of Beethoven as being all scales and arpeggios ( Bach he also dismissed as knotty twine!).Florian is a stylist with his limpet like fingers that seem to belong to the keys.A perfect tempo was set that allowed the second subject to be part of an architectural whole and was played with impeccable musicianship but sometimes turning corners too beautifully for Beethoven in this sonata where he leaves lots of ragged edges on purpose.There was a beautiful depth of sound to the ‘Adagio molto’ which Beethoven describes as an ‘introduzione’ as the original slow movement he discarded ( later published as the Andante Favori) .Beethoven obviously wanted the second and third movements to be joined in an atmosphere of pastoral simplicity but Florian in my opinion chose a tempo in six instead of two which divorced the two elements one from the other instead of linking them.Beautifully played with real feeling but surely the staccato is more portamento especially at the tempo he chose.However it lead beautifully into the Rondo even if the final ‘g’ sounded like a call to arms instead of a gentle link to the same note that floats on a sea of undulating sounds at the beginning of the Rondo. Beauty, dynamic control and technical mastery united in a movement that is really a great technical trial for pianists.Following Beethoven’s instructions with impeccable musicianship and style he even managed to play the treacherous glissandi on a modern piano .It is no mean feat on a piano with a weight that Beethoven’s pianos would not have had.(Serkin used to lick his fingers before attempting the glissandi others tend to slow the pace to be able to play the octave glissandi surreptitiously with two hands).Perfectly placed trills were played with great clarity and brought this very stylish performance to a brilliant end.

I could not help thinking what perfection there would be if Daria shared her impeccable precision with Florian and he shared his supreme stylism with her.

My wish was granted ,or course,as they joined forces for a performance of Ravel for four hands at one piano.Florian in the bass with the pedals and Daria in the treble leading the way.Their combined mastery and complimentary musicianship gave a performance of dynamic drive especially in the final exhilarating pages of the ‘Feria’.But there was also great beauty as in the ‘Habanera ‘ that Ravel was very wary to point out was written long before other of his French colleagues had strayed into the Spanish territory.

Winner of the Best Young Artist of the Year Award at the 2019 Cincinnati Art of the Piano International Festival, Pianist Daria Tudor debuted at the age of 9 with the Romanian Radio Chamber Orchestra. She rapidly went from being a child prodigy, appearing in concert halls across her native Romania, to performing in programmes of institutions such as the Berliner Philharmoniker and Deustchlandfunk Kultur, in international festivals including the Mozartfest in Würzburg and the Encuentro de Musica in Santander, and as soloist with orchestras in Belgium and Italy. She has partnered Patricia Kopantschinskaja, Andrei Ioni?a, and Zakhar Bron, and her concerts portfolio stretches from the Werner Hall, USA and St Martin-in-the-fields, London, to Akishino Hall – Kyoto. Currently a scholarship student at the UdK in Berlin, Daria has been recommended by eminent pianist Elisabeth Leonskaja and has studied with Maria João Pires at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel, Belgium. 

Described by Martha Argerich as ‘an outstanding young pianist’, British-Romanian pianist Florian Mitrea was a double-laureate at the Glasgow, Hamamatsu, and Munich-ARD International Piano Competitions. He won the piano section of the Royal Overseas League Music Competition and was a major prize winner at the Harbin – China, St Priest, and James Mottram-Manchester International Piano Competitions. His prize at the 2018 New York International Piano Festival led to his debut performance at Carnegie Hall. Florian has performed as a soloist with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the Philharmonia in London, Elbland Philharmonie in Dresden, Collegium Musicum in Basel, the Romanian National Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the George Enescu Philharmonic. A recitalist and concerto soloist at festivals such as Lucerne and Enescu – Bucharest, Florian has also performed at the Bozar Centre in Brussels, the Bunka Kaikan Hall in Tokyo and the Sonic Concert Hall in Oomiya City, the Seoul Arts Centre, the Harbin Concert Hall, and in the UK at the Usher Hall – Edinburgh, Royal Concert Hall – Glasgow, Bridgewater Hall – Manchester, King’s Place and St Martin in the Fields in London.

Florian Mitrea – born free at St Mary’s

Piano Sonata No. 21 in C major Op. 53, known as the Waldstein, is one of the three most notable sonatas of Beethoven’s middle period ( the other two being the Appassionata op 57 and Les Adieux op 81) Completed in summer 1804 and surpassing Beethoven’s previous piano sonatas in its scope, the Waldstein is a key early work of Beethoven’s “Heroic” decade (1803–1812) and set a standard for piano composition in the grand manner.

The sonata’s name derives from Beethoven’s dedication to his close friend and patron Count Ferdinand Ernst Gabriel von Waldstein member of Bohemian  noble Waldstein family (Valdštejn) and is the only work that Beethoven dedicated to him.It is also known as L’Aurora (The Dawn) in Italian, for the sonority of the opening chords of the third movement, thought to conjure an image of daybreak.

Piano Sonata No. 23 in F minor, op.57 Appassionata,was composed during 1804 and 1805, and perhaps 1806, and was dedicated to Count Franz von Brunswick.

Appassionata was not named during the composer’s lifetime, but was 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.

One of his greatest and most technically challenging sonatas , the Appassionata was considered by Beethoven to be his most tempestuous piano sonata until the 29th known as the Hammerklavier op 106 .1803 was the year Beethoven came to grips with the irreversibility of his progressive hearing loss.

Composed between 1907 and 1908, the Rapsodie is one of Ravel’s first major works for orchestra. It was first performed in Paris in 1908 and quickly entered the international repertoire. The piece draws on the composer’s Spanish heritage and is one of several of his works set in or reflecting Spain.The genesis of the Rapsodie was a Habanera, for two pianos, which Ravel wrote in 1895. It was not published as a separate piece, and in 1907 he composed three companion pieces. A two-piano version was completed by October of that year, and the suite was fully orchestrated the following February.At about this time there was a distinctly Spanish tone to Ravel’s output, perhaps reflecting his own Spanish ancestry.To counter any accusations of plagiarism, Ravel made certain that the date 1895 was clearly printed for his Habanera in the published score of the Rapsodie.

The Rapsodie has four movements; Prélude à la nuit ;Malagueña ;Habanera;Feria

Wonderful to able to appreciate from afar the beautiful artistry of Mengyang Pan .The elegance of a ballet dancer and the intelligence and artistry of the finest of musicians.I had noticed Mengyang some years ago in the Monza Competition in 2008 where she was a top prize winner and I still have her very fine Emperor Concerto recorded at the final.I have since heard Mengyang many times and it is refreshing to know that she is a now a Professor at the Royal College of Music in London able to share her exquisite artistry with the next generation .An extraordinary elegance and flexibility in all that she does with her arms like great bird ready to pounce on the keys with refined delicacy and ravishing beauty.

From the opening Prélude that she played with such nobility but with a fluidity and elegance that gave it a kaleidoscopic sense of colour and a beautiful sense of timelessness.

The Menuet had a subtle and beguiling sense of rhythm and was deliciously capricious but flowering into a glorious melodic outpourings like a cloud opening as radiant sunlight is let in.It was played with ever more passionate intensity and dying away to a whisper of crystalline clarity and purity with an impish glissando and a final delicate pizzicato.

Claire de lune was where beauty and simplicity combined to bring fresh life to such a well known work.The gently whispered chords with top notes that gleamed like silver were sustained by deep bass notes placed with aristocratic timing. ‘ Un poco mosso’ was beautifully fluid like a breeze gently blowing in this magical atmosphere enveloped by a warm sumptuous harmonic glow from within.The final whispered chord that traversed the entire keyboard was played with refined timing of great artistry.

Gentle refreshing elegance to the Passepied where glimpses of beauty are seen as the gentle patter of the bass is momentarily stilled.

The five pieces that make up Albeniz’ s Cantos de Espana op 232 were played with driving rhythms and seductive plaintive cries of passionate intensity .The Preludia started with a whispered drive of clockwork precision and delicacy as the excitement gradually mounted.A cry of disarming simplicity interrupted this flow with the plaintive beauty of beseeching cries of a melody doubled at the octave .

A sense of freedom in Oriental as she discovered such beauty behind every corner of this unmistakeable Spanish landscape with a rubato of hypnotic persuasion.

An insinuation melodic outpouring in Bajo la palmera and deep mediation of Cordoba was followed by the frenzied dance of Seguidillas breaking into the glorious passionate melodic outpourings of this torrid landscape .

The three works by Liszt were quite remarkable not only for their technical mastery but above all for the architectural shape and refined brilliance she brought to this much maligned composer.Liszt restored to its greatness where empty virtuosity and note spinning of the so called Liszt tradition were substituted for real musicianship and scrupulous attention to the detail that the genius Liszt had left for posterity.

‘Funerailles’ that became the great tone poem of a pianistic genius.The nobility that she brought to the opening was quite extraordinary as the deep bass funeral march was barely whispered until it was gradually passed to the treble almost unnoticed.Such was the refined delicacy from Mengyang that one hardly noticed that the tension was increasing as the sumptuous sounds became richer and richer.The entry of the cavalry was first seen from a distance on which one could hear so clearly the bugle call and as the cavalry gradually increased in numbers the tension rose and the single notes in the left hand imperceptibly became octaves of richness and power.The overwhelming declamation of the little opening bass melody lead to a climax of symphonic proportions and extraordinary technical power and control.The gentle rumour of the retreating cavalry was played with heart rending artistry as it brought this great tone poem to a sumptuous end.

Liebestod was played with a refined sense of colour and a dynamic drive that allowed the music to unfold with passionate intensity but with an architectural sense that gave great shape to this great outpouring of love.

The Rigoletto Paraphrase was played with refined elegance and extraordinary technical mastery that allowed her to bring these operatic characters vividly to life.I have not heard such refined artistry since Cherkassky who shape these paraphrases with such sumptuous beauty and mastery. Mengyang too has a sense of balance that whatever she does there is always the ravishing beauty of sound even when streams of notes are like rays of gold and silver over the sumptuous beauty of the tenor melodic line.Repeated octaves that were mere vibrations of sound of exhilarating excitements and beauty .

An extraordinary recital from an artist where the beauty of what she does on the keyboard is shadowed by the elegance and beauty of the movements as she hovers above the keyboard.Ready to convince us that this is not just a box of hammers and strings but a Pandora’s box full of jewels that only a supreme illusionist can find.It is called great artistry.

Mengyang Pan at St Mary’s Beauty and control – passionate intensity and intelligence

Mengyang Pan at Cranleigh Arts Centre Beethoven birthday concert

Kerry Waller at St Mary’s Perivale with an eclectic programme that was played with simplicity and intelligence .
Three preludes by Respighi played with crystal clarity, purity and the grace and ease that he brought to all he did .Mozart was beautifully shaped with simple elegance and brilliance and well oiled fingers that shaped all they touched with eloquent musicianship.If the Liszt Ballade lacked a great architectural shape it gained from being played with such clarity and beauty A fearless technical mastery as the tempest of Hero and Leander played itself out in Liszt’s great tone poem of such a sad tale.Bacewicz I have only once heard before and it is a work as Kerry said touched by the period of war with desolation ,isolation and dynamic drive.

A charming little pieces by Poulenc were played as an encore :Villageoises – six petites pièces enfantines :Valse tyrolienne,Staccato,Rustique,Polka,Petite ronde Coda and dedicated to Jean Giradoux and they showed off his simple innocence and clarity and yet again the eclectic choices of this remarkably inquisitive musician .

Kerry Waller began his piano studies at the age of five under Wolfram Linnebach. He later pursued his studies under Jacques Després at the University of Alberta, Paul Stewart at the University of Montreal and Katya Apekisheva and Ronan O’Hora at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Summer programmes attended include Encuentro de Santander, Meadowmount School of Music and the International Summer Academy of the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. He has played in masterclasses with Piers Lane, Victor Rosenbaum, Boris Berman, Idil Biret, Claudio Mehner-Martinez, Dennis Lee, Ann Schein, Christiane Karajeva, David Jalbert and Eric Larsen, among others. 

Kerry has performed concertos with the University of Alberta Symphony Orchestra, Montreal Sinfonia and Quebec Symphony Orchestra and has worked with conductors such as Petar Dundjerski, Louis Lavigueur, Gilles Auger, Simon Wills and Michael Tilson Thomas. Kerry has collaborated with the cellist Ivan Monighetti and the horn player Richard Watkins and recent engagements include recitals in the London Symphony Orchestra lunchtime recital series, the Blüthner recital series, the London City Music Society concert series, the Sarah Walker Festival and the Guildhall Chamber Festival.

Her father, Wincenty Bacewicz, gave Grażyna her first piano and violin lessons.In 1928 she began studying at the Warsaw Conservatory where she studied violin with Józef Jarzębski and piano with Josef Turczynski, and composition with Kazimierz Sikorski graduating in 1932 as a violinist and composer.She continued her education in Paris having been granted a stipend by Paderewski  to attend the Ecole Normale de Musique and studied there in 1932–33 with Nadia Boulanger  (composition) and André Touret (violin). She returned briefly to Poland to teach in Łódź, but returned to Paris in 1934 in order to study with the Hungarian violinist Carl Flesch After completing her studies, Bacewicz took part in numerous events as a soloist, composer, and jury member. From 1936 to 1938 she was the principal violinist of the Polish Radio Orchestra, which was directed then by Grzegorz Fitelberg .This position gave her the chance to hear much of her own music. During World War 11,Grażyna Bacewicz lived in Warsaw .She continued to compose and gave secret underground concerts, where she premiered her Suite for Two Violins.Bacewicz also dedicated time to family life. She was married in 1936, and in 1942 gave birth to a daughter, Alina Biernacka who became a recognized painter.Following the Warsaw uprising they escaped the destroyed city and temporarily settled in Lublin.After the war, she took up the position of professor at the State Conservatoire of Music in Łódź . At this time she was shifting her musical activity towards composition, drawn by her many awards and commissions. Composition finally became her only occupation from 1954, the year in which she suffered serious injuries in a car accident.She died of a heart attack in 1969 in Warsaw.

Grażyna Bacewicz (1909-1969) is one of the most significant composers of the mid-20th century, and yet her music remains largely unknown. In the period be- tween the two world wars, she studied in Paris with Nadia Boulanger, like so many American, British, and Polish composers, but during her lifetime her reputation rarely translated itself into frequent performances outside her native Poland. Bacewicz had a distinctive creative personality and an intuitive approach to form that rewards close study. Her experience as an orchestral leader and concert violinist informed and enriched the string writing in the string quartets, violin concerts and sonatas which have received some attention on record. However, distinguished pianists such as Krystian Zimerman have recently begun to make a persuasive case for Bacewicz’s piano writing, which may be appreciated at its freest and most demanding in the Second Piano Sonata.

Bacewicz declared that she did not see herself as an innovator but as a progressive composer: ‘Each work completed today becomes the past yesterday.’ Her two sets of etudes tackle different techniques of pianism within clear, often ternary forms, but the imaginative ideas within them hint at her larger works in a similar way to the etudes and mazurkas of her compatriots Chopin and Szymanowski, highlighting her seemingly endless capacity for reinvention.Grażyna Bacewicz (1909-1969) was one of the foremost and influential Polish composers of the 20th century. Her multi-faceted talent forged a path for female composers in a predominantly male and conservative musical era and climate. After studying in Warsaw she went to Paris to study composition with Nadia Boulanger and violin with Carl Flesch. She became a successful soloist, concertmaster of the Polish Radio Orchestra and, after WWII, a teacher at Łódź Conservatory.

Tre Preludi sopra Melodie Gregoriane, a masterwork of Respighi’s small catalogue of solo piano music and Italy’s piano literature in general, should be appreciated here not only as a most appropriate “filler” but also as the composer’s first homage to his beloved Gregorian modes. Respighi owed his acquaintance with Gregorian chant to his wife and former pupil Elsa, holder of a degree in Gregorian chant and a gifted singer and composer in her own right. During their honeymoon in the hills of Anacapri, Elsa would sing daily as her wedding gift to Respighi the themes of the Graduale Romanum. Under this spell Respighi became more and more enamoured of the ancient melodies, and he composed the Tre Preludi. They were apparently written in 1919, thought the manuscript bears the final date of 1921 along with an unexpected dedication to Alfredo Casella.

The first prelude in G-sharp minor is a nocturnal piece with passionate, hymn-like crescendos. Its motif reappears metamorphosed as a bass figuration in the second prelude, a tempestuous piece in C-sharp minor with a short, visionary episode of cadenza-like character. The final F-sharp minor prelude in 5/4 meter is a lament over a bell-like ostinato accompaniment. Descending arpeggios in the bass create an effect perhaps more evocative of an Oriental caravan than of a sacral procession.

Later Respighi made rare exception to his notorious refusal to rework his earlier compositions, and he followed Elsa’s suggestion to orchestrate the pieces. With the addition of a fourth movement, they became his Vetrate di Chiesa. The origin as absolute music of the four “symphonic impressions” of 1927 is generally ignored, and it would be out of place here to quote the aptly conceived titles and programmatic texts which were inscribed on the score. Since gramophone recordings of Vetrate have long been available, the Respighi connoisseur may not find it easy to forget the descriptions and the luxuriant orchestral sound when discovering the original.

Bach-Busoni  Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland, BWV 659
Beethoven   Sonata No. 31 in A flat major, Op. 110
Chopin   Two mazurkas: Op. 6 No.1 & Op. 17 No. 4
Chopin  Barcarolle Op. 60
Rachmaninov  Etude-Tableaux Op. 39 Nos. 2 & 5
Debussy Cloches à travers les feuilles
Debussy  Feux D’Artifice
Liszt  Mazeppa

Arsenii Moon (Mun) on his first ever visit to London invited by the Keyboard Charitable Trust to play before a select audience as part of their Career Advancement Prize for the winner of the Busoni Competition in Bolzano. Arsenii with his charismatic looks and breathtaking pianism took the 64th competition by storm and was awarded the prestigious Michelangeli Award after it had lain fallow for almost three decades .

Noretta Conci ,founder with her husband John Leech of the Keyboard Trust , had not only been Michelangeli’s assistant for many years but had followed the competition from its start just after the war in 1949.
First prizes were rarely given out in those first years and Alfred Brendel was adjudicated fourth in the very first edition.
The Keyboard Trust has been honoured to be associated with the competition and has recently been presenting the last four winners in London but also in Florence : Ivan Krpan,Chloe Jiyeong Mun,Emanuil Ivanov and Jae Hong Park .

Ivan Krpan Busoni 2017 in Florence Mastery and simplicity at the service of music

Chloe Jiyeong Mun in Florence-A musical feast of whispered secrets of ravishing beauty

Emanuil Ivanov premio Busoni 2019 Al British in the Harold Acton Library A room with a view of ravishing beauty and seduction

Jae Hong Park in Florence and Milan – ‘The poetic sensibility and virtuosity of a great musician.’

Today we could add the fifth to this illustrious rota and it was a privilege to see Sir David Scholey in London to hear the one pianist that he has not yet hosted in his adopted city of Florence.

An illustrious audience of many celebrities including the distinguished film director Tony Palmer.Many pianists too including Alim Beisembayev ,winner of the last Leeds, together with many from the KT roster of superb young artists.

From the very first notes there was a kaleidoscopic sense of colour and stylish playing of immediate communication where Arsenii seemed to be on a voyage of discovery as the music had an improvised freshness. The deep bass notes of one of Busoni’s most contemplative transcriptions of a Bach Choral Prelude :’Nun Komm,der Heiden Heiland’ was full of chameleonic changes of colour bathed in pedal as his hands delicately searched out the deep poignant expression within the notes.

It was the same delicacy that illuminated the opening of Beethoven’s penultimate sonata with a glorious outpouring of sounds of beauty and simplicity. There was drama too as the deep throbbing bass notes cast a shadow on this most mellifluous of the last trilogy of sonatas.The Scherzo broke this spell with Beethovenian vehemence and fervour where the treacherous Trio held no terror for Arsenii who even managed to find some hidden counterpoints whilst notes were flying from one end of the keyboard to the other with playing of fearless abandon.There was a longer than usual pause before he barely whispered the opening of the ‘Adagio ma non troppo’. Beethoven’s etherial pedal indications were played with the fantasy of an artist recreating the sounds that Beethoven must have imagined in his head.The pulsating heart beat of the Aria ,though,was rather too accommodating to the refined beauty of the melody that miraculously Beethoven could just float above it .

As Chopin told his pupils music should be like a tree with its roots firmly planted in the ground and the branches free to move as naturally as a breeze blowing through the foliage.Arsenii is a supreme stylist and although there were many beautiful ideas the simplicity that he had found in the first movement was sacrificed for more of sentiment than monumental solidity. Of course the entry of the fugue was played with mastery as he allowed the music to unfold with transcendental control .Becoming ever more enflamed with Beethoven’s last cry for joy as the glorious A flat chord was spread over the entire keyboard. I wondered what Imogen Cooper would have made of his performance as an enthusiastic jury member in Bolzano.She via Brendel has arrived at a monumental maturity in these late Beethoven works which Arsenii will eventually find as he too matures on the world stage that awaits.

A Chopin group that was played with loving care and sensual colouring .An improvised freedom which he has attained from his mentor Serghei Babyan who is more concerned with the feeling behind the notes at the moment of creation than just reproducing the notes as printed on the page .https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2022/05/21/sergei-babayan-artist-in-residence-bewitchedbothered-and-bewildered/

It is music making of improvised immediacy and I remember Fou Ts’ong finding this freedom especially in the Mazurkas. There was a great surprise for the Polish contestants in the Warsaw Chopin Competition in the ‘50’s when a Chinese pianist won the coveted ‘Mazurka’ prize.Ts’ong would often say that the soul of Chopin’s music was the same soul that was to be found in Chinese poetry, after all music knows no frontiers. And Arsenii delved deep into the music and with the same love as Ts’ong revealed colours and sounds that made one realise why he had been awarded the coveted Michelangeli prize in Bolzano.His great love for Chopin was evident but it is a love that can sometimes overwhelm the senses in longer works .Chopin’s greatest masterpiece is surely the Barcarolle with it’s outpouring of song from the first to the last note.It needs to be anchored to the earth though and Arsenii’s waves in the lagoon were strangely distorted and tended to disturb the overall architectural shape .Of course there were many ravishingly beautiful moments but again missing the monumental for the more immediate sentiment.

Rachmaninov unleashed the true virtuosity and the astonishing improvised freedom that his transcendental technical command allowed him.Sumptuous colours and a fluidity of sound in the Etudes- Tableaux op 39 n. 2 and breathtaking nobility and beauty to op 39 n. 5.The melodic line always to the fore with an extraordinary sense of balance as this young man had entered a world where he truly belonged.

The right hand just resting on the piano in Debussy whilst the left hand gently allowed the bells to shine with refined beauty and delicacy as the sun shone through the leaves with ever more radiance. A transcendental control of sound allied to a sensibility and fantasy that created a wistful magic of hypnotic beauty. Feux d.Artifice and fireworks there certainly were, not least the opening that was played without any pedal and with a whispered clarity as the fireworks shot off in every direction with absolute precision and drive. This was obviously the world that had astonished and amazed the jury in Bolzano.A supreme stylist with a transcendental technique but above all a soul inspired by his five years of study with Serghei Babayan who we spoke about afterwards in a brief conversation that we had at the end of this presentation recital.

Brief it was because his performance of Liszt’s Mazeppa had left us all overwhelmed as this young man astonished us with his breathtaking virtuosity but also with the ravishing subtle beauty of the melodic central episode.A young man who is obviously going to take the world by storm with the same excitement and exhilaration of Trifonov who had also been mentored by Serghei Babyan.Recreative artists who risk all for that momentary inspiration and need an audience to inspire them to heights that even they are not expecting. A circus arena where up on the high wire they are prepared to risk all for moments of such exhilaration and discovery.

Arsenii Moon is highly gifted. He is an extraordinary virtuoso
capable of capturing the listener’s attention with a
fascinating and breathtaking story. He is equally at home
with the deepest pages of Bach as well the
transcendental etudes of Liszt and mazurkas of Chopin – Sergei Babayan

Arsenii Moon won the 64th Busoni Competition in 2023 and was also the winner of the competition’s prestigious Michelangeli Award (which had not been awarded for nearly three decades).
He was born in St Petersburg in 1999 and began to study the piano at the age of six, initially in the Special Music School of the St Petersburg State Conservatory and subsequently at the Conservatory itself.  He is currently completing his degree as a student of Sergei Babayan at the Juilliard School of Music in New York.Concert tours in the 2024-25 season include more than 50 solo performances and with orchestras in major venues and festivals in Italy, Switzerland, Germany, France, Austria, South Korea and Japan, in such halls as the Konzerthaus Vienna, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Seoul Arts Center and the Tonhalle in Zurich.In February 2024 ARTE TV broadcast live Arsenii’s performance of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine and Joseph Swensen in a special concert celebrating the 30th anniversary of René Martin’s festival La Folle Journée.Arsenii has been awarded awards throughout his career including the Sviatoslav Richter Grant from the Mstislav Rostropovich Foundation, the Yuri Temirkanov Prize and the Verbier Festival’s Tabor Piano Award. He won First Prize in the Horowitz Competition in Ukraine, Second Prize in the Cliburn Junior Competition in the USA, First Prize in the Artur Rubinstein in Memoriam Competition in Poland and First Prize in the St. Priest competition in France – and has performed at the Mariinsky International Piano Festival and at the Yuri Bashmet Festival in Minsk.Arsenii Moon has performed with many international orchestras including the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine, the Orchestra Sinfonia di Bari, the St Petersburg State Symphony Orchestra, the Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra and the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra. He has collaborated with conductors such as Stanislav Kochanovsky, Joseph Swensen, Mei-Ann Chen, Mark Russell Smith, Ian Hobson and Valery Gergiev, among others.

And then there were six ….all the excitement of the Circus – The Busoni Competition

And then there were three The Busoni Competition- The Final Part 1 and 2

• F. Chopin: 2 Nocturnes, Op.55
• F. Liszt: Funerailles, S.173
• J. Haydn: Sonata in F Major no.38, Hob.XVI:23
• L. van Beethoven: Sonata no.14 (‘Moonlight’), Op.27/2
• F. Chopin: Andante Spianato and Grande Polonaise in E-flat Major

Great to hear Andrzej again after such a long time .A flying trip for both of us with he barely touching ground before returning to Warsaw and me too just four days in the sweltering heat of London having left the rain in Rome just two days ago

Andrzej playing for his great friend and mentor Roger Nellist on a Schiedmayer piano made the year the Titanic went down.Perlemuter would have referred to it as a ‘casserole’.

Richter used to enjoy the challenge of finding the secrets of the many pianos he found on his whistle stop tours of Russia .Because in every piano there is buried ,sometimes deeply, a soul of the person who had assembled a box of hammers and strings with love and artistry .

It was the great artistry of Andrzej today that with the very first notes of Chopin he could turn a bauble into a glowing gem.
Cherkassky’s favourite nocturne op 55 n 1 that opened the programme showed immediately that Andrzej had come through a period of transition with an artistry that was a voyage of discovery.A freedom but always within the parameters of the composers wishes – it is the pianist’s Nirvana and a state that only the greatest of artists can ever perceive.

We are all taught from an early age that playing the piano is like shaking hands but it is more like swimming on a wave of sumptuous sounds.
Volodos I have always regarded as the absolute model of a pianist who can paint pictures with sound .Playing ,that like a painter are continuous natural inspired movements where the visual and audio are one and the same -a marriage made in heaven of technical mastery but above all of undying love of the sounds they are creating.
There was the great beauty of Andrzej’s hand movements as they barely stroked the keys uttering whispered tones of ravishing beauty with aristocratic playing of refined good taste.There were bell like sounds as the coda gradually took flight and the tenor melody entwined with the ethereal weaving of the golden strands of sound as they bade a magic farewell at the top of the keyboard .
The second nocturne of op 55 where Chopin’s knotty counterpoints are entwined with a searing intensity igniting this most poignantly ecstatic of all Chopin ‘s nocturnes .There was magic in the air as the modulations and bell like sounds mingled together with heart rending beauty.

Another world opened up with Haydn’s Sonata in F from a world of the more formal civilised elegance of an earlier period .There was immediately a clarity with crystal clear ornaments that sparked like jewels as they spun from Andrzej’s well oiled fingers as he played with a real sense of characterisation and a dynamic drive of operatic vivacity
There was a beautiful luminosity to the Adagio which was played with disarming simplicity and a kaleidoscope of subtle inflections .
The Finale was an explosion of civilised ‘joie de vivre’ with its rhythmic drive and scintillating brilliance.

‘Funerailles’ in Andrzej’s hands became a tone poem of great intensity and passionate triumph .
The great bass gong just supporting the funeral march with tremolandos that were part of the architectural line.The deep whispered entry of the melody in the bass was answered by the emotionless rhythmic comments of the right hand in a truly religious procession before the radiance of a melodic line where glimpses of paradise are seen from afar.
A magnificent sense of balance on a not easy piano brought this heavenly outpouring to a sumptuous climax awaiting the entry of the cavalry.
And what cavalry were in Andrzej’s hands today with the blazing horn calls rising above this might battle cry.A tour de force of technical mastery brought us to a breathtaking climax played with aristocratic control and sumptuous orchestral sounds.A coda of melting beauty on a cloud of whispered bass notes building up to the final cry and dying gasps.

A ‘Moonlight ‘ Sonata of great beauty with hands barely synchronised which gave great colour and delicacy which is what Beethoven would have wanted on pianos of that period ‘con sordina’ .
A new work for Andrzej together with the two Chopin nocturnes but played with an intelligence and mastery of quite extraordinary simplicity and beauty.It was the sign of the birth of a great artist free from the constrictions of formal training and now free to show us works afresh on his voyage of discovery as a great interpreter .I am fond of quoting a phrase used to describe Cherkassky in ‘Le Monde de la Musique’ :’Je sens,je joue,je trasmets’ which is exactly what we were treated to today.
A beautifully playful Allegretto and a Trio of startlingly original contrast .
A Presto agitato that in places was almost too passionate but played with a demonic drive and intelligence as the coda melted into the distance before the final tumultuous eruption.

Chopin ,of course, was played as to the manner born . An Andante Spianato was a mellifluous outpouring of sumptuous bel canto beauty and aristocratic good taste .The Polonaise was played with beguiling,scintillating streams of jeux perlé played with the brilliance that Chopin seduced the Parisian salons with and that had Schumann declare ‘Hats off Gentlemen a Genius’

Andrzej Wiercinski at Hatchlands – The Cobbe Collection Trust.A great pianist on a wondrous voyage of discovery

Andrzej Wiercinski at La Mortella Ischia The William Walton Foundation – Refined artistry and musical intelligence in Paradise

Scarlatti  Piano Sonata in A major, K. 208
Mozart  Sonata No. 8, in A minor, KV. 310
Rachmaninov  Variations on a theme of Corelli, Op. 42
Ravel  Pavane pour une infante défunte
Chopin  Andante Spianato & Grande Polonaise Brillante, Op. 22

George Todica at St Jude’s Prom from the whispered delicacy of Scarlatti’s Sonata K 208 to the dynamic drive of Mozart’s K 310 he immediately demonstrated the refined tone palette of an artist who lives every moment of creation as if discovering the music for the first time. Luminosity and radiance of sound struck deep in Scarlatti as he allowed the music to speak with disarming poignancy especially the whispered beauty of the ritornello where it was the occasional deep bass note that helped illuminate all the stood before it.

There was a dynamic drive to the Mozart Sonata K.310 one of only two in the minor key and particularly dark and dramatic as was Mozart’s life in that period,with the tragic loss of his Mother whilst he was far from home.The music sprang from George’s fingers with elegance and beauty but also with a scintillating coloratura of subtle shape with the operatic characters that entered and exited with the same air of theatre that figures in all of Mozart’s works.

There was a crystalline beauty to the Andante cantabile played with disarming simplicity and delicacy with absolute clarity as the drama unfolds in the extraordinary central episode .Orchestral colours of civilised times but of searing intensity and extraordinary architectural sense of line.There was magic in the air as the Andante cantabile returned after such turmoil with ever more simplicity and ornaments of grace and lightness with the question and answer of the leaping turns I have never heard played with such eloquence .The Presto entered with whispered urgency with a ceaseless flow of notes like a torrent of water on which the genius of Mozart could suddenly reveal glowing golden sounds as the music changed from minor to major.To watch George’s face as the music moved back to the minor was to be witness to the way he was living the drama that was unfolding from his hands with mastery and quite considerable artistry.

Eloquence and charm too as he likened the Corelli Variations to the star of Rachmaninov that is born, transformed and in the end redeemed.
Not only in words but a performance of breathtaking beauty and transcendental control. A clarity of playing ,as of thought ,always building up sumptuous sounds from the bass ,of this magnificent Steinway Concert Grand.This ,of course, is the key to the great school of Norma Fisher with whom George had completed his formal studies and who lives just a stone’s throw from this magnificent Central Square in Hampstead.’La Follia’ theme was played with extraordinary poignancy and was to lead to a kaleidoscope of colours but also chameleonic changes of character.The third variation was played with impish characterisation before the ravishing beauty of the fourth with it’s whispered asides of harmonic comments.Dynamic eruptions of five,six and seven were played with scintillating virtuosity from ‘marcato’ to ‘leggiero e staccato’ until the nobility and cascades of notes on the pedal note of D .The ninth ‘un poco piu mosso’ was extraordinary for the sense of line that George found in the bass and the twelfth was of almost Prokofiev like sarcasms. The sense of line in the ‘Intermezzo’ cadenza was extraordinary for how the melodic line could continue in George’s hands,unimpeded by the myriad of notes that Rachmaninov adds in between.

The theme returning in D flat was quite magical as was the gentle prelude like variation that follows.The final three variations were remarkable for the sumptuous full sounds and the transcendental technical command.But it was Rachmaninov’s ‘redemption’ on the pedal note of ‘D’ that revealed the great sensibility and artistry of this charming young man.

A Ravel’Pavane’ of great intimacy had been promised but it was also of deeply felt sentiment without ever becoming sentimental.It was the last work that my teacher Vlado Perlemuter was to play in public at the age of 91 as he dedicated it to his lifelong friend Basil Douglas in a commemoration at the Wigmore Hall in which Vittoria de Los Angeles ,Larry Adler and many other artists from his illustrious roster paid tribute to a true Gentleman!

It was a genial idea to link the last note of the ‘Pavane’ with the gentle undulations of Chopin’s Andante Spianato. Of course how could it be otherwise as one ends and the other begins in G. Aristocratic elegance and timeless beauty moulded this early Chopin work with the same magic that Caballé used to weave with her wonderful voice.George with only two hands and two feet wove the same magic because it is the soul not the means that arrives in places where words are just not enough.What fun he shared with us as he relished every moment of Chopin’s poetic virtuosity where delicate fiortiori and crisp acciaccaturas went side by side in a Polonaise of aristocratic elegance and style.The breathtaking jeux perlé of the final pages had subtle pointed left hand chords surfacing like jewels shining in the bright sunlight as the excitement increased and the key of E flat was embellished with notes that sailed up and down the keyboard with the exhilaration and excitement of a pianistic Genius.

A Ravel ‘Pavane’ that George thought could achieve more intimacy on the piano than in its better known orchestral version.His playing certainly proved his point as out of this magic land floated the ethereal sounds of Chopin’s Andante Spianato.Played with chiselled delicacy and refined aristocratic good taste and even George had no idea that one would evolve from the other .A true voyage of discovery sharing with us with unstinting generosity and a characterisation that was truly hypnotic .The great orchestral introduction to the Grande Polonaise erupted out of such ravishment as George with relish let his hair down and with scintillating bravura and streams of golden notes gave us the same beguiling and tantalising brilliance that Chopin himself would have shown as he took the Parisian salons by storm and had Schumann declare ‘Hats off ,a Genius’
George Todica a name to remember of a great artist with a star in ascendence and also one of the nicest people I know.
How old is he the elderly lady next to me asked as she was charmed and delighted to find such a magical midday performance at St Jude’s.She was delighted to know that he is just 30 ,but not a little sorry when she saw a wedding ring on his finger!

He and his wife , the soprano Charlotte Hoather, had tried to get married during the pandemic and only succeeded afterwards but not before they had given recitals together on their balcony for all their neighbours unable to leave their homes in that tragic period .
When they did get married they were inundated by gifts from neighbours who were only too happy to thank them for their wonderful music in such a bleak period.
An infectious ‘joie de vivre’ where life is music and music is life and his delight of sharing such discoveries with us all was demonstrated by the utter simplicity and mastery that we were witness to today.

A red rose was a fitting gift from one of the young volunteers ,dressed like the ball boys at Wimbledon, for such a joyous occasion .

Romanian pianist George Todică completed and Artist Diploma degree from the Royal College of Music in 2019 after previously undertaking his Bachelor of Music and Masters of Music at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, graduating in 2017. George had his Wigmore Hall debut in October 2018 as a Tillett Trust Young Artist, and his competition success includes first prizes at the Norah Sande Award in England, the Llangollen International Eisteddfod in Wales, ‘Stefano Marizza’ Piano Competition in Italy, the Moray Piano Competition in Scotland and 2^nd prize at the International Piano Campus Competition in France, as well as the Ligeti prize and the prize for the best performance the contemporary work for piano and orchestra.

During his studies in Glasgow, George was also winner of the RCS Classical Concerto Competition, the Walcer Prize Competition for Chopin repertoire and the Governors’ Recital Prize for Keyboard. He studied under Jonathan Plowright, Norman Beedie and Graeme McNaught and his training was supported by two scholarships from the RCS, scholarships from The Tillet and Colin Keer Trusts and two ‘Britton Awards’ from Help Musicians UK. His Artist Diploma Course at the Royal College of Music was supported by the Charles Nappier Award and the Tillett Trust, and he was under the guidance of Norma Fisher. George was selected to be a Tillett Trust Young Artist in 2017 and is currently being supported by Talent Unlimited where he has been featured as Artist of the Month in August 2019.

His international performances include prestigious halls such as the Philharmonic Hall in Trento, the Mozarteum Concert Hall in Salzburg, the Dôme de Pontoise in France. His UK appearances include concerts at the Wigmore Hall, St. Martin-in-the-field, Yamaha Music London, Charlton House, Lichfield Festival, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, Buxton Festival, King’s Lynn Festival, Brunton Theatre, Inverness Town Hall, Ardkinglas Castle, Theatre Clwyd and various other venues. George is also a keen chamber musician, performing regularly with soprano Charlotte Hoather, and with violinist Maria Gîlicel and cellist Jobine Siekman as part of the Chloe Piano Trio.

George had his orchestral debut at the age of 14, with the Moldova Philarmonic Iasi playing Haydn’s D Major Concert. He has since been performing as a soloist with the New Edinburgh Orchestra, the Cambridge Graduate Orchestra, The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland Chamber Orchestra, Cergy Pontoise Orchestra Paris, The Learig Orchestra from Aberdeen, and Stewart’s Melville College Orchestra.

 Born in Iasi in 1993, he started his musical training when he was six, under the guidance of Silvia Panzariu. He went on attending the Octav Bancila School of Arts, later joining the classes of Raluca Panzariu, Andrei Enoiu-Panzariu, and having private lessons with pianist Iulian Arcadi Trofin. He started going to piano competitions at the age of 8 and has since obtained over 20 prizes in international piano competitions. In 2010, George won the ‘Constantin Silvestri’ Scholarship which allowed him study for one year at the Stewart’s Melville College in Edinburgh. A year later he entered the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland where he would study for the next six years.

George Todica at St Mary’s-Duality and Transformation

George Todica Master Musician at St Mary’s

Martha Noguera in Rome to show us what it means to be a pianist of class. And what a class,that of 38/39/40 with Martha Argerich,Daniel Barenboim etc in Buenos Aires where the Neapolitan school of playing had been brought over by Vincenzo Scaramuzza. Martha Argerich was in Rome just last week with Beethoven and it was Beethoven that Martha Noguera brought too.

Martha Argerich is back in town and there is magic in the air in the Eternal City

Martha Noguera in Rome in the beautiful Sala Baldini with a programme that would scare most pianists half her age.
Two works by Chopin,the first considered one of the most technically difficult and rarely performed :The Allegro de Concert op 46 and the second a work ,the first Sonata op 4 that I can only ever remember hearing once in the concert hall played by Cherkassky ( as part of a Chopin Trilogy for the students at the Royal Academy ). An early work more in style of Schubert than the Bel Canto that was shortly to follow. After a very short break Martha embarked on Beethoven’s most momentous journey with the Sonata op 106 ‘Hammerklavier’.

Performances that reminded me of Magda Tagliaferro or Vlado Perlemuter for their roots firmly embedded in the harmonic structure and the great architectural line played with chiselled beauty and projection.Like her great colleague Martha has a remarkable arch of the hand and fingers of steel but with wrists and body movements of rubber that can allow the music to flow through her from a lifetime’s experience projecting the musical thought with a concentrated authority and the passionate conviction of a great artist.There was an imposing opening from the very first notes of what was probably to be Chopin’s 3rd Concerto.Full rich sounds resounding in this beautiful and unique hall in the very centre of the Eternal City. An aristocratic sense of spaciousness and timeless beauty where the music was allowed to unfold with simplicity and directness with a chiselled beauty to the melodic line with ornaments that were just streams of ravishing sounds embellishing the beauty of Chopin’s bel canto. As Chopin described to his students,Martha has a rubato where the roots are firmly planted in the ground but the branches above free to flow and move naturally with playing of real weight of a mastery of incredible harmonic cohesion.Playing of sumptuous beauty that filled this beautiful hall with ravishing sounds and the unmistakable beauty of Chopin’s mellifluous outpourings.

The Chopin Sonata op 4 is a very early work but already showing signs of genius but more linked to a formal Schubertian pattern.An imposing first movement played with great clarity and dynamic drive followed by a playful ‘Menuetto’ .But it was the rich chordal opening of the ‘Larghetto’ that spoke so eloquently leading to a mellifluous flowering not yet of Chopin’s bel canto style but of a poignant simplicity and inevitability that was allowed to unfold with such eloquence.The Finale unleashed an explosion of virtuosistic declamations and sparkling brilliance that was played with enviable authority and fingers like limpets that belong to the keys after a lifetime spent of dedication and artistry at the keyboard.

There was a call to arms with the momentous declamation of the ‘Hammerklavier’.The first movement was played with much less pedal that the Chopin which allowed absolute clarity of Beethoven’s knotty twine but also of his overpowering thoughts.There was a dynamic drive with colours of orchestral proportions played with such inevitability and nobility.A searing intensity and contrasts in dynamics that were breathtaking in their daring and rhythmic intensity.A scherzo that seemed rather slow and deliberate for the ‘assai vivace’ indication but it left room for the following ‘Presto’ indication which turned a Brahmsian opening into pure Beethovenian frenzy.

There was a deep rich sound of string quartet proportions to the ‘Adagio Sostenuto’ that was played as Beethoven asks ‘appassionato e con molto sentimento’ . It is the very core of this monumental work and was played with nobility and passion and with a sense of line as the melodic line was allowed to unfold with ever more intensity and deep profundity. A poignancy only broken by the refreshing waves of sounds out of which emerged the monumental Fugue.’ Allegro risoluto’ it was indeed as Martha played with driving rhythms and fearless abandon one of the most difficult works for the keyboard. Richter had played it in London and not being satisfied with his performance he played it all over again as an encore! No encore was necessary tonight as Martha had made a statement that only an artist of her maturity and mastery could offer.Breathtaking,fearless playing of almost improvised freedom as the work evolved from her masterly fingers, as if for the first time ,on a heroic voyage of discovery of one of the greatest works ever written for the keyboard.

Martha Noguera in Sorrento at the Villa Fondi on the terrace overlooking the Bay of Naples.
And it was here that the Adagio sostenuto ,the very core of Beethoven where he reveals in his last years the profundity that he tried to conceal with his irascible temperament, and it was in this beautiful spot on a piano with amplification that Martha managed to communicate the deepest thoughts and feelings of the Genius from Bonn.
A silence and feeling of mutual communication with an audience not expecting to be treated to one of the greatest works of the piano literature .
Persuaded by our genial host Paolo Scibilia to offer a small encore that would allow us to share in the perfumes of her native Argentina.

Martha sat at the piano and it was magic as she gave a gentle farewell to this unforgettable evening with a little piece by Guastavino full of the beguiling charm and insinuating emotions of the ‘Schubert of the Pampas’. It calmed the red hot air of 30 degrees but also the tension created by Beethoven’s mighty fugue where the composer throws open the gauntlet to those few pianist who dare tread into such forbidden territory .

Chopin’s Allegro de concert, Op. 46, was published in November 1841. It is in one movement and takes between 11 and 15 minutes to play. The principal themes  are bold and expressive. It has a curious place in the Chopin canon, and while its history is obscure, the evidence supports the view, shared by Robert Schumann  and others, that it started out as the first movement of a projected third piano concerto, of which the orchestral parts are either now non-existent or were never scored at all. There is no evidence that Chopin ever even started work on the latter movements of this concerto.

Chopin published his two piano concertos in 1830. That same year he wrote that he was planning a concerto for two pianos and orchestra , and would play it with his friend Tomasz Napoleon Nidecki if he managed to finish it. He worked on it for some months, but he had the greatest difficulty with it, and this work never eventuated; however, he may have used ideas from it in later works.

There is also evidence that Chopin started work on a third concerto for piano and orchestra. In Chopin: The Piano Concertos, Rink quotes from an unpublished Chopin letter, dated 10 September 1841, offering Breitkopf & Härtel  an “Allegro maestoso (du 3e Concerto) pour piano seul” for 1,000 francs.In November 1841, Schlesinger published the Allegro de concert, which has a tempo indication of “Allegro maestoso”, and Breitkopf & Härtel also published it in December of the same year. The work has the general characteristics of the opening movement of a concerto from around that time. It contains a lengthy introduction , with the section corresponding to the original piano solo commencing at bar 87. It seems clear that the “Allegro maestoso” Chopin referred to in his letter was the piece published two months later as Allegro de concert, Op. 46.

The first few notes of the piece were drafted around 1832,but it is not known when the rest of the piece was written. Chopin dedicated it to Friederike Muller ,one of his favourite pupils, who studied with him for 18 months (1839–1841). Franz Liszt  gave her the nickname “Mademoiselle opus quarante-six” (“forty six”, the work’s opus number, in French).

The Sonata No. 1 in C minor, Op. 4 was written in 1828 (probably begun around July).It was written during Chopin’s time as a student with Jozef Eisner , to whom the sonata is dedicated. Despite having a low opus number, the sonata was not published until 1851 by Tobias Haslinger in Vienna , two years after Chopin’s death.This sonata is considered to be less refined than the later 2 sonatas, and is thus much less frequently performed and recorded.It is in four movements Allegro maestoso ;Menuetto; Larghetto ;Finale :Presto

Beethoven’s  Piano Sonata No. 29 op 106 (known as the Große Sonate für das Hammerklavier, or more simply as the Hammerklavier) is widely viewed as one of the most important works of the composer’s third period and among the greatest piano sonatas of all time. Completed in 1818, it is often considered to be Beethoven’s most technically challenging piano composition and one of the most demanding solo works in the classical piano repertoire.The first documented public performance was in 1836 by Franz Liszt  in the Salle Erard  in Paris to an enthusiastic review by Hector Berlioz Dedicated to his patron, the Archduke Rudolf , the sonata was written primarily from the summer of 1817 to the late autumn of 1818, towards the end of a fallow period in Beethoven’s compositional career. It represents the spectacular emergence of many of the themes that were to recur in Beethoven’s late period: the reinvention of traditional forms, such as sonata form ; a brusque humour; and a return to pre-classical compositional traditions, including an exploration of modal harmony and reinventions of the fugue within classical forms

The four movements are:

1. Allegro
2. Scherzo : Assai vivace
3. Adagio sostenuto
4. Introduzione: Largo… Allegro – Fuga :Allegro risoluto

 

From the very first notes it was clear that Salome has a strong personality and hot blooded temperament.A supreme stylist of intelligence with an unobtrusive technical mastery that allowed the music to flow so naturally from her sensitive fingers.

A Schumann Arabesque that was played with liquid sounds of great fluidity bringing a subtle sense of character to all she played. A temperament of searing intensity that in this beautiful gem could be more simple and less hanging onto every note as if her life depended on it. But nevertheless it was playing of great beauty and as she matures she will allow the music to speak with this same beauty but without disturbing the natural flow that comes from it’s very roots.

The Chopin Waltz op 34 n.1 a favourite of the great Chopin pianists of the past,in particular Rubinstein, who would play this waltz with the same beguiling charm and character that Salome brought to it today. It could be a little simpler but the ‘joie de vivre’ and wonderful phrasing were the same, and if there were one or two impetuous moments it was a small price to pay for such spontaneity and ‘joie de vivre’.

Rubinstein used to often play the F sharp major nocturne op 15 that Salome played too .It is too rarely heard in the concert hall these days but in the hands of a true poet and supreme stylist like Salome it is of a poignant simplicity and beauty.If her temperament took her to places that she will eventually discard , her superb musicality will win over her intense temperament.

The Scriabin Satanic Poem suited her style today as she made it seem like a free improvisation with a kaleidoscopic sense of colour and driving passionate temperament.A continuous flood of mellifluous ‘satanic’ sounds and a true tone poem of great beauty and intensity.An intelligent programme too that could show us the influence that the Liszt Sonata was to have on all the composers that followed in it’s wake.

Strangely enough it was the two works by Liszt that were played with disarming simplicity and a sense that the music was born from the very roots of it’s inspiration.A harmonic progression that gave great solidity and stability to all the beautiful things that floated on this sumptuous wave of sound. What a beautiful piece ‘Les Cloches de Genève ’ is when played like today.An opening of ravishing beauty as she barely stroked the keys.A ravishing beauty to the melodic line which floated on washes of sumptuous sounds and although played with great intensity it was also played with disarmingly simple beauty.

 

The Liszt Sonata in B minor – the pinnacle of the romantic repertoire and where Liszt had created a work after the Schubert Fantasie in a new form where the opening themes announced at the beginning are transformed like characters in an opera.Breaking away from the traditional Sonata form Liszt manages to create the same overall architectural shape but all stemming from the opening page.Salome here showed that she is indeed a musician to be reckoned with as she followed scrupulously Liszt’s meticulous indications of dynamics and tempo but at the same time imbued the music with the passionate intensity from which it was born.Her performance showed a maturity and intelligent musicianship that is rare where all the momentous technical challenges are usually played like gladiators entering the arena without contemplating the genius of Liszt who could combine emotion and intensity with the intelligence of a supreme architect.Liszt was looking to the future always and it is the final two pages of this sonata that are prophetic and were played by Salome with rare understanding of artistry and maturity.

Winner of New York Concert Artists Worldwide Competition, Georgian pianist Salome Jordania has appeared as a recitalist, chamber musician as well as concerto soloist in different cities of Germany, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Italy, Spain, Austria, Israel, Ukraine, The Netherlands, France, Russia, Mexico and various states of the USA. She had a successful debut recital at Berlin Philarmonie Hall in March of 2023. The same year, she was also chosen as one of the finalists at Classeek Ambassador Programme. Her upcoming concert tour in 2023-2024 includes solo recitals and performances with orchestra in Switzerland, France, UK, Italy, Austria, the Netherlands, Japan and the US. 

Pianist Salome Jordania began her studies at the age of seven with renowned professor Natalia Natsvlishvili in her native Tbilisi, Georgia. Since young age she has won multiple national and international competitions including 1st prize at Chopin National Competition in Georgia and was granted a special prize by the Mayor of Tbilisi naming her “Cultural Ambassador of Georgia” at 13 years old. Salome earned her Bachelor Degree from The Juilliard School of Music with Prof Julian Martin and her Master’s degree from Yale School of Music with Boris Berman graduating with the Charles S. Miller prize as a distinguished pianist and with Yale Alumni Prize award. 

During recent years, Ms. Jordania was awarded the Norma Fischer Prize in Wideman International Competition; won silver medal at IKIF competition in New York City; First Prize at Golden Key Competition in Frankfurt, Germany; won bronze medal at the Jose Iturbi International Piano Competition, where she was awarded three additional special prizes for best Performance of Mozart, best performance of Chopin, and best interpretation of the commissioned piece, received Finalist Prize, Yamaha Prize and EDHEC prize at Etoiles du Piano, France and the Georges Cziffra Award by the Cziffra Foundation in Vienna, Austria. She is currently pursuing an Artist Diploma degree at Guildhall School of Music in London, UK with Prof Ronan O’Hora, where she is a recipient of Steinway and Sons scholarship. Salome is managed by ICM Management worldwide.

Keyboard at Eight ‘Stars shining brightly at Milton Court ‘ Rose Mclachlan ,Jeremy Chan and Salome Jordania