Robert McDuffie and his Rome Chamber Music Festival returns for its 22nd season in the Eternal City.
An eclectic programme for real connoisseurs with the opening night dedicated to the founders of modern day music of the 15th and 16th century. A Devil’s Trill played by the devilish master who had founded this festival in 2003 with the intent of bringing not only masterpieces to the attention of the Eternal City. Above all bringing remarkable young musicians to share their enthusiasm and exhilaration together via The Steven Della Rocca and De Simone Young Professional Programmes.
Returning this year to the Auditorium of Via delle Conciliazione where the genial Robert McDuffie had made his Rome concerto debut in 1994. A hall in the shadow of St Peter’s with the opening programme being a special tribute for the 2025 Jubilee.
Two performances of the Devil’s Trill one in the romanticised version with piano by Kreisler. A monstrous cadenza characterises a performance where the interplay between the sumptuous violin ,which I imagine from the wondrous velvety sound that it must be of a similar vintage, and the superbly discerning pianistic high jinks from Derek Wang’s noble hands. An interplay that was discreet, but not too much so, as his Ravel Trio will no doubt show us in the second chamber music evening.
Robert playing as I remember Sandor Vegh dancing almost like an Irish jig such was his identification with the very song and dance essence of the music
The more staid original that followed was played with much more control and the stylistic restrictions of their time. The Devil was waiting in hiding for Kreisler to come along and no matter how expertly Alessandro Sacchetti and Francesco Romano played they were restricted to the pre Paganini starvation of its age.
The second half was dedicated to the baroque with singing of the crystalline purity of castrati and the extraordinary noises of sackbuts and theorbos.
A wonderful refreshing evening, probably a first for a hall that has for half a century been witness to some of the greatest music making of our age. Heroic programming from a yearly festival that aims to bring freshness and light to the Eternal City.
Of course the ideal place for the music of the renaissance is in the buildings for which the music was commissioned and performed, and of which Italy, the Museum of the world , abounds. It was good for just half an hour,though, to be able to appreciate the artistry and mastery of the players that Robert McDuffie had so bravely invited to share the platform with him.
Exhilaration and excitement at St Mary’s today with a breath of red hot air blown in from the Eternal City where a burning cauldron of naked passion was about to be unleashed on a usually rather staid Dr Mather and his faithful followers. After a long and complex programme finishing with Stravinsky’s Petrushka , Dr Mather half jokingly asked them what they did for an encore! Little did he realise that he had shown a red rag to the bulls as they streamed up and down the keyboard with a breathtaking account of the infernal dance of the Firebird.
Radiant clarity and a superb sense of balance allowed these two experienced pianists to play as one. Not democratically swopping positions but each knowing his rightful place where it was the architectural line and stylistic beauty that had decided for them. Adriano never overpowering his partner but building up the sonorities from the bass allowing his right hand to occasionally trespass into his partners territory but basically filling the harmonic sandwich with the ravishing flavours of a cordon bleu cook. Francesco on the other hand played with a chiselled purity and infallible precision also allowing his partner to share in the musical line that they had defined so clearly as one.
The eight fragments of Paolo Catenaccio’s Dream were eight sides of the same dice each one just the time to throw and savour the lucky draw.
Brahms were waltzes of ravishing beauty and a kaleidoscope of sentiments with Brahms’s Viennese ‘heart on sleeve’ proving achingly sincere .
The colours and chameleonic changes of character were reminiscent of this duos ‘Rite of Spring’ from last season. A Stravinsky of remarkable clarity and Boulezian precision but also of an extraordinary self identification with this exotic world of Diaghilev and his Russian Dancers that were to take Europe by storm in the early twentieth century. My old teacher Guido Agosti had made a piano reduction of three pieces from the Firebird Suite, in 1928, which is a brilliant tour de force only for fearless virtuosi .This version for piano duet , which I imagine is original for ballet rehearsals, was even more overwhelming as we watched incredulously Adriano trespassing, with Francesco passively knowing there was nothing to do but join in the battle! It is 35 degrees in Rome from where I was able to watch this superb live stream but I got the impression it was much hotter in Perivale this afternoon !
Francesco Bravi and Adriano Leonardo Scapicchi formed their duo in 2019. In 2020 they performed Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring at Teatro Palladium in Rome. The success following their concert, described by Christopher Axworthy as “a formidable knotty twine of great precision and rhythmic pulse”, brought them to be invited to several international music festivals and venues. In 2023 they were awarded the Outstanding Musicians Prize and a special mention for their interpretation of Debussy at the International Music Competition Ibla Grand Prize. As winners of the competition, in 2024 they took part in a tour in the USA, performing in Virginia, Arkansas, Texas, and New York, including the Weill Recital Hall of the Carnegie Hall. In 2024 they have played at the Pauline Chapel of the Quirinal Palace, live streamed by RAI Radio 3, at St. Mary’s Perivale in London, MusiQuart festival in Valencia (Spain), IUC-La Sapienza, Accademia Filarmonica Romana, and I Tramonti di Tinia, where they played Bartók’s Sonata for two pianos and percussions. In 2025 they have been invited to perform concerts in Austria, Hungary, South Korea, United Kingdom, and Italy, including the 102° edition of Micat in Vertice in Siena, where they have played Brahms’s Liebeslieder-Walzer with choir. Keen on promoting new repertoire, they often programme works by contemporary authors, such as Salvatore Sciarrino, Fazil Say, Fabio Massimo Capogrosso, and Paolo Catenaccio, who wrote Visions from a Dream for the duo. For the Chigiana International Festival 2025 they will also take part to the world premiere of Matteo D’Amico’s Hérodiade. They attend the Chamber Music Course at the International School of Music Avos Project in Rome, the Advanced Course at the Academy of the Società dei Concerti di Parma, and the Piano Course at the Accademia Musicale
Alessandra Vinciguerra, close friend of Susana Walton and general manager of the William Walton Foundation, with Prof Lina Tufano,artistic director of the Incontri Musicali looking on.
Kasparas opened his first programme at La Mortella on Ischia with the Sonata in B minor n.47 Hob XVI:32. Having chosen the older of the two Steinways that sit in the music room created by Susana Walton next to her husband’s studio. It is a concert hall created to give a platform to gifted young musicians, who after years of perfecting their art, need an audience with which to share their artistry, allowing it to mature, flourish and flower as everything seems to do on this sceptered isle. Pianos ,like good wine ,mature with age and it was this maturity that Kasparas brought to all he played. Having spent the past six years at the Royal Academy in London under the eagle eye of Christopher Elton, his sense of style and innate musicianship has been nurtured by this renowned mentor of pianists, passing on his heritage from Tobias Matthay and Gordon Green not forgetting the enormous influence of Guido Agosti and Maria Curcio.
The Haydn Sonata was of crystalline purity and elegance and revealed a real picture painted in the style of its time. Played with remarkable control and beauty of shape he allowed the music to unfold with unusual eloquence and elegance.The Minuet of birdsong beauty was imbued with beguiling subtle phrasing and the interruption of the trio was gently persuasive.The finale just sprang from his well oiled fingers with restrained brilliance but with moments of scintillating exhilaration. I have often noticed that Lithuanian pianists play with a natural fluidity that reminds me of the Hungarian school of Geza Anda. It was this fluidity and glowing palette of sounds that brought three of Ravel’s five ‘Miroirs’ vividly to life. These are truly pictures painted in sound and Kasparas with his subtle kaleidoscope of colours created the atmosphere that brought the magic of our surroundings into the concert hall.
Words cannot describe the paradise that the Walton’s have created on this Island, sitting so regally in the Gulf of Naples. It is a true oasis of peace and beauty far removed from the hustle and bustle of one of the most tightly wound up cities in the world.(Only equalled by Buenos Aires, which by coincidence is where Susana Walton was born).
This was the ideal frame for Ravel’s magical imagination and genial mastery. One could almost feel the presence of the ‘moths’ that Ravel depicts with such extraordinary reality. Kasparas playing with a subtle beauty and radiance and a kaleidoscope of subtle inflections of fleeting brilliance. There was sheer magic as the beautiful rich sound of a chorale could be heard in the distance with a sense of nostalgia and languid timeless beauty, as the moths began to invade this illuminated scene, drawn in by a light that glowed so brightly. There was pure magic as Kasparas’s featherlight jeux perlé disappeared into the far reaches of the keyboard.
The birds that surround us, like the frogs too, are much happier than the one’s that Ravel depicts. Ravel’s ‘Oiseaux tristes’ have never sounded so yearningly expressive as the sounds that Kasparas produced on this vintage instrument glowing with a fluidity and gleaming delicacy. Tenor counterpoints that appeared within this lugubrious scene just added to the poignancy and languid beauty of such a sad scene. Luxuriant gentle waves of ‘Une barque sur l’océan’ can soon turn into violence as the Islanders here well know. On many occasions with rough seas the port of Forio ( where La Mortella is based ) is not accessible by sea. Within the depths of these lapping waves a melody is heard singing out with glowing reassuring warmth. A transcendental command of balance and brilliance from Kasparas brought not only a crystal clear melodic line but also wrapped it in luxuriant harmonic colours that never interrupted the their glowing beauty. Turbulence brought brilliant cascades of notes as the waves became more and more agitated until a magical calm was restored with a mirage of beauty, played with a disarming simplicity of religious fervour. Radiance and beauty restored from Kasparas’s delicate fingers, barely caressing the keys with the whispered wafts of the final sprays of water spread over the upper most register of the piano.
Chopin’s B minor sonata was the work that took up the second half of the programme of both concerts and is one of the monuments of the romantic piano repertoire. Often criticised for its lack of architectural form it is in the right hands one of the most tightly constructed works by a genial master, not only of small forms. A composer who had the vision and originality to take the standard sonata form and transform it with the bel canto romanticism of a pianistic innovator. A beautifully phrased opening, with extreme care of the rests, immediately showed us the credentials of a musician who could shape Chopin’s masterly construction with intelligence and poetic invention. The glistening beauty of the second subject ,’sostenuto’, but not a change of tempo as tradition would have us believe,but allowed to breathe with the natural bel canto that was the composers inspiration. No repeat ,that may have been Chopin just adhering to the formal structure that he had inherited. But a development of dynamic strength and driving energy. It was this driving urgency and complicated contrapuntal mastery that led to the glorification of the second subject played with the exhilarating liberation of a flower in full bloom.
The Scherzo I have never heard played so beautifully phrased, not just the usual ‘fingerfertigkeit’ of demonstrative rather than poetic artists. The Trio too had a sense of line and disarming delicacy that gave an architectural shape and meaning to the whole structure. The final slamming of the door, like in Beethoven, was in fact the opening of another, that of the ‘Largo’ introduction to the beautiful bel canto of the slow movement. Seamingless streams of notes filled the piano with a radiant glow out of which Chopin would barely hint at a distant melody. What can sound in lesser hands as endless meanderings was given a poetic nobility and architectural shape that led so naturally to the poignant return of the opening bel canto. The Finale – Presto non tanto – was played with aristocratic nobility with the increasing exhilaration that Chopin actually writes with more and more added notes, and was evidenced by a crescendo of tension that was only to explode with the exhilarating outburst of the coda. Brilliantly played with a technical command of the keyboard, not only of the notes, but of the meaning that Chopin imbues in every thing he writes.
‘ Les triolets’ was a preview of the complete suite by Rameau that Kasparas offered as a thank you after the first concert on Saturday.
In the second programme in place of the Haydn Sonata Kasparas played the nine pieces that make up Rameau’s G major suite RCT 6. Of course ‘La Poule’ and ‘Les Sauvages’ are favourite encore pieces, in particular of Sokolov, but the other pieces are equally descriptive and refined with crystal clear ornaments that Rameau himself has written into the rather bare looking score. There were glistening ornaments in ‘Les tricotets’ and a beautiful purity to the knotty intricacies of ‘L’Indifférente’ that was played with disarming simplicity.The two ‘Menuets’ were played with refined emotion with a touching lilt to the rhythm of the second. A sparkling brilliance to ‘La Poule’ where Rameau writes into the score some very precise indications giving such whimsical character to his clucking hen. ‘Les Triolets’, Kasparas had played as an encore in the previous programme and it was good to hear the refined glistening beauty of the ornaments in the context of the entire suite. There was a beguiling insistence to ‘Les Sauvages’ with a melodic line of hypnotic beauty. Kasparas brought a gentle refined beauty of a past age to ‘L’Enharmonique’ and a clarity to the unwinding web of notes in the final ‘L’Egyptienne’.
The fourth Scherzo by Chopin was an addition to the previous programme and it was played with fantasy and a featherlight brilliance. Full of poetic beauty with streams of notes glistening like jewels and was thrown off with nonchalant ease.There was a sumptuous beauty to the ‘più lento’ played with the freedom of a bel canto singer of audacious pedigree. Underlying there was always the complexity of Chopin’s seemingly innocent counterpoints and the nobility of the final momentous flourishes.
Lithuanian-born pianist Kasparas Mikužis ,born in 2001,has already performed on the stages of prestigious venues such as the Concertgebouw Hall in Amsterdam and the Lithuanian National Philharmonic. He has released his debut CD, with performances televised on Mezzo TV and airplay on Lithuanian national TV, radio, and France’s Radio Classique. Last February, Kasparas appeared with John Wilson and the Royal Academy of Music Symphony Orchestra, and most recently, in December, he gave his debut recital at Wigmore Hall in London. Since 2024, Kasparas has been a scholar of the Imogen Cooper Music Trust as well as a recital scheme artist of the Countess of Munster Trust.
Prof Tufano in an after concert discussion with a member of the public
Recent engagements include recitals at the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester, UK, and the Krzysztof Penderecki Centre in Lusławice, Poland. In 2023, Kasparas made his debut with the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra at the Lithuanian Philharmonic in Vilnius. Later that year, he was invited to perform for the Lithuanian and Polish presidents on Lithuanian Statehood Day at the Presidential Palace. This was followed by Kasparas winning 3rd Prize at the International M. K. Ciurlionis Competition. Since 2023, Kasparas has been closely working with pianist Gabriela Montero through ‘O’Academy and was recently invited to extend his studies as part of the 2025 cohort.
Kasparas’ musical talent was first recognized by Michael Sogny when he became a scholar of the SOS Talents Foundation at the age of 10. The foundation helped the young pianist gain exposure and concert experience by inviting him to perform at various venues, including their annual Christmas concerts held on the Champs- Élysées in Paris. Since then, Kasparas has performed at the United Nations Headquarters in Geneva on multiple occasions and at the EMMA for Peace World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates concert in Warsaw. In 2018, he was invited to the opening concert of the V. Krainev Competition in Kharkiv, where he performed Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3. Other notable appearances include performances at the Fazioli Factory Concert Hall in Sacile, Italy, the Purcell Room at Southbank Centre in London, the season-opening concert of the Kharkiv Philharmonic Hall with the Kharkiv Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra under conductor Yuri Yanko, as well as performance at the Eudon Choi show during London Fashion Week 2023. Over the years Kasparas has received help from various foundations, including the M. Rostropovich Charity & Support Foundation (Lithuania), the SOS Talents Foundation (France), the Harold Craxton Trust (UK), the Hattori Foundation (UK), the Drake Calleja Trust (UK), Keyboard charitable Trust ,the Wayne Sleep Foundation (UK). Currently, Kasparas is a student at the Royal Academy of Music, where he completed his undergraduate studies with pianist Diana Ketler and is now pursuing his postgraduate studies with professor Christopher Elton. In recognition of his representation of Lithuania on the international stage, Kasparas was honoured with a letter of gratitude from the President of the Republic of Lithuania.
Breakfast takes on a different meaning in Paradise Lucia, faithful helper sustaining and maintaining Susana’s heritage
The remarkable Julian Jacobson ready to show us the path that led to the creation of twenty four of the most extraordinary visions of Claude Debussy. Starting the journey with the Motet ‘Adoramus te’ by Palestrina adapted for piano by Godowsky with the just respect that the founder of modern day music deserves . Followed by three short piece by Mussorgsky and ending with the ‘Berceuse’ by Chopin. Adding to the published programme two Arabesques by Debussy to make up a programme with an interval . Following with the 12 Preludes Book 1 played by a true kapellmeister who carries in his head the entire piano repertoire .
A single Mazurka by Chopin as an encore, I stayed in my seat convinced we would get the other 51!
Beauty and architectural authority characterised a concert that was a lesson in simple humility before such masterpieces that just poured from his fingers in another fascinating evening with Julian Jacobson. A musician who has the entire piano repertoire at his fingertips had decided to revisit the Debussy Preludes in two evenings .Each book prefaced by the composers that had influenced Debussy .
The preludes I had written about just a year ago but it was fascinating to hear the works that had influenced the writing of them. Prof Jacobson’s programme notes speak for themselves and realising at the last minute that there was an interval he happily added some more works to his programme .
the beautiful salon above the concert room the 1901 Arts Club previously the headmasters residence of the school next door
Phillip Leslie proved himself to be indeed a rising star with Debussy Preludes of ravishing sounds and refined musicianship. Followed by Debussy’s vision of Jersey from Eastbourne with a tone poem of unimaginable passionate persuasion . But it was the sublime Humoreske of Schumann that filled these majestic walls with sounds worthy of this beautiful edifice. Florestan and Eusebius were at last united in the celebration of sublime beauty in the hands of a refined poet of the keyboard. A single encore of Paderewski’s Minuet in G was a homage to his teacher the renowned pianist Philip Fowke who was there to pass on the baton to a worthy successor.
Two Philip’s- Master and pupil . Philip Fowke with whom Phillip Leslie studied at Trinity Laban
The restrained elegance of Debussy’s depiction of the sculpture in the Louvre of the ‘Dancers of Delphi’ with Phillip’s kaleidoscope of magic sounds creating the unworldly atmosphere that it evoked. The radiance and ethereal wafts of colour that Phillip floated over the keyboard was of a beauty on which these ‘sails or veils’ were being blown by a warm luxuriant breeze. He brought the pulsation of Naples to the ‘Hills of Anacapri’ with its brilliance and splashes of colour. Even the sleazy ‘modéré et expressif’ was full of insinuating beauty and the final triumphant outpouring of joy was played with fearless brilliance to the final chiselled shout of joy .There was a masterly build up of sound in the ‘Submerged Cathedral’ with it’s sense of grandeur and religious ferment .The beautiful plain chant ‘un peu moins lent (dans une expression allant grandissant) rang around this magnificent edifice with haunting beauty and solemnity. What fun Phillip had with ‘Puck’s dance’ where the impish masquerading just flew form his fingers with titivating brilliance. The last word was to Puck with a stream of sounds played pianissimo ‘rapide et fuyant’ with a final poke deep in the bass.
‘L’Isle Joyeuse’ is in fact Debussy’s depiction of Jersey as seen from Eastbourne and just shows the fantasy that illuminated all that Debussy saw. A tone poem of subtle colours and dynamic drive. But it is the passionate outpouring at the end that like Chopin’s Ballades brings this masterpiece to a brilliant conclusion. It was played with fearless conviction and masterly control but also a palette of colours of a pointiless painter.
Schumann’s Humoreske op 20 is one of the most beautiful of Schumann’s works for piano but it is also one of the most difficult to hold together as a single work.Written as one long movement but with many differing episodes where Schumann’s duel character of Florestan and Eusebius can live together only with musicians that can appreciate the architectural shape under which they live.
Phillip played it as a whole with beauty and a sense of style with a languid freedom and refined rubato. From the very first notes ‘einfach’ where the radiance of the melodic line was allowed to fill every corner of this beautiful church with a glowing luminosity. Rapid changes of tempo and character were played with brilliance and a superb sense of balance that allowed the melodic line to shine above all the intricate counterpoints that Schumann commands. Schumann even writes on three staves to show just where the melodic line lies but Phillip throughout the work was able to steer his way so clearly with poetic fantasy and above all ravishing sound.The Intermezzo of ‘Einfach und zart’ was played at quite a pace but even the single notes that become octaves were incorporated into the musical conversation that was driving us inexorably forward.. The melodic line that shone out in ‘Mit einigem Pomp’ was one of those magic moments where Phillip created a wash of sound and could allow the melodic line to emerge in its midst. The final episode ‘Zum Beschluss’ was played with beguiling nostalgia but also with a remarkable legato that allowed this great song to resound with all its most intricate counterpoints. The Allegro final flourish was played with aristocratic grandeur and sumptuous rich sound.
A single encore of Paderewski’s once famous Minuet in G was played with an elegance and sense of style that was obviously the same that had made Paderewski the most famous pianist alive before turning to politics and luxurious retirement in Switzerland
With the joy of graduation recitals out of the way four remarkable young artists could let their hair down and wallow in the sumptuous effusions of the equally youthful Rachmaninov.
Sherri Lun and Melody Wu played the very early Fantasie -Tableaux Suite op 5 with sumptuous sounds and a refined sense of balance . Streams of delicate golden sounds accompanied Rachmaninov’s unending melodic invention that he had inherited from Tchaikovsky .Whispered magical sounds passed from one piano to the other with a subtle flexibility and wondrous palette of sounds. With the Easter bells pealing these two refined young artists let rip with joyous glee and remarkable technical finesse.
The second suite op 17 is much better known thanks also to the historic performance of Argerich and Freire who just passed by Barenboim’s festival in 1968 at the QEH, in between a shopping spree, to give a performance that has gone down in legend.
I imagine it could only have been matched by Rachmaninov and Horowitz playing together at a Hollywood Party in the 40’s.
It is a work that needs youthful passion and transcendental technical control which Milda Daunoraite and Kasparas Mikužis have in abundance. What is it about the Lithuanian school that has a fluidity and ease when they play that is the envy of us all? Milda allowing Rachmaninov!s sumptuous melodies to transport her with visible emotion. Kasparas less demonstrative but what a remarkable talent of glowing fluidity and imagination . The Valse just flew from their well oiled fingers with perfect ensemble as they felt it as one .
Milda like Katherine Hepburn to Kasparas’s Clark Gable , what a pair and what music! Sparks flying in the Tarantelle as emotions were aflame after the subdued beauty of the Romance.
Sherri Lun had transcribed the slow movement of the cello sonata for eight hands on two pianos which showed off the sublime artistry of all four and not ending with the showmanship and bravura of the Rachmaninov Suites but with tears of glowing warmth of sublime beauty.
Schumann Davidsbündler and the second book of Debussy studies . Her total mastery of the pedals proved how true was Anton Rubinstein’s declaration that the pedals are the soul of the piano .
Debussy Studies where transcendental difficulties are wrapped in gold and silver . And Schumann’s conflict between Florestan and Eusebius happily resolved at midnight
Messiaen , Chen Qigang ,Takemitsu and Shostakovich with mysterious whispered sounds played with beautiful fluid movements. Like a ballet dancer this was truly a moving picture of such natural movements that of course all he touched was instantly of gold.
An eclectic programme played with great authority and mastery but above all with the palette of colours of a great master.,
Messiaen no.19 from “Vingt regards”
Chen Qigang, “Instant of a Peking Opera”
Takemitsu, “Rain Tree Sketch” & “Rain Tree Sketch II”
Andras Schiff takes us on a voyage of discovery with the ‘variation’ tonight. On Saturday I was told that he played Beethoven ‘Tempest’ Sonata and the Schubert ‘Fantasy ‘Sonata. Maestro Schiff does not like to announce his programmes months or years in advance and prefers to tell us .more personally, from the stage his choice. As he says the public know that he will stick to a repertoire of the great classics where a lifetime is not enough to delve into the meaning of these great works, and so he chooses to leave the Russian school to others!
What a privilege to be able to hear such continual beauty and a simplicity that many search for, but never seem to find .
Music just poured from his fingers that were merely servants for a searing authority and a musicianship of selfless humility .
But there was a great musical personality too that could delve into Bach’s counterpoints and highlight things that we seem never to have been aware of before. I have only ever heard this early Bach capriccio played with such character from Rosalyn Tureck. She seemed to bounce on the seat as the journey was about to begin and her ornamentation was as crystal clear as today. Serkin’s journey, too, seemed much more adventurous and desperate than the gentle joy of today’s happy departure of a beloved brother
But today there was a luminosity where the opening ornamentation could almost have been Rameau such was the character imbued in every note that flowed from the piano with such loving,glowing beauty.
Haydn Variations in F minor were created before our eyes with operatic personalities that entered and exited the stage with exhilarating freshness and astonishing eloquence.
Beethoven’s op 109 was a wave of undulating beauty that had commenced somewhere in the stratosphere and by some miracle Schiff had drawn it down to earth to remind us what sublime beauty was hidden in Beethoven’s soul.
A ‘Scherzo’ where it was the chiming bass that called the tune, before the unusually whispered trio, heralding the return of normality before our ascent into paradise with the heavenly theme and variations of ethereal beauty.
Even in the third variation it was the counterpoints that were given precedence over what is usually rattled off like a Czerny study . Highlighting Beethoven’s audacious descending intervals in what is often played as a call to arms . Here the intervals just glowed with poignant significance before bathed in a whirlpool of magical thematic arabesques. Leading to the disintegration and miraculous reconstruction of the theme on a stream of sounds that were not mundane trills but ethereal vibrations on which Beethoven could at last envisage the peace that would be his before reaching his three score years .
After the interval our genial master of ceremonies announced quite simply that he would now like to share thirty variations with us by J S Bach, probably the greatest variations ever penned.
Words are superfluous as they were with Wilhelm Kempff ( and I imagine with Edwin Fischer who I never heard live) . A kapellmeister where music just flows with humility and beauty as the piano is no longer a box of hammers and strings but a celestial instrument lent to us by the angels to enrich and ennoble us poor mortals in a world where priorities have been lost and forgotten for too long
It was a great privilege to be present tonight and it will be a memory that will remain, enrich, and sustain me for long to come. Amen.
We were not on our knees but everyone in the hall were on their feet, at the end of this simple message of beauty that Maestro Schiff had brought to share with us today.
Liszt: Après une lecture de Dante – Fantasia quasi sonata from Années de pèlerinage
Ligeti: Etude No.13 (L’escalier du diable)
Interval
Eleanor Alberga: Cwicseolfor (Quicksilver)
Chopin: 24 Preludes, Op.28
Alim Beisembayev winner of the 2021 Leeds competition and a young pianist I have followed for the past ten years from his studies at the Purcell School in the class of Tessa Nicholson with whom he went on to study at the Royal Academy having already won the Junior Van Cliburn competition in Fort Worth – the final of the Cliburn International by coincidence is tonight ( The winner Aristo Sham another British trained artist from Harrow School )
Transferring to the Royal College where he perfected his studies with another remarkable lady, Vanessa Latarche, going on to win the Gold Medal in Leeds .
His musical integrity and solid musicianship have been the rock on which a remarkably talented young pianist has been given time to mature, and the result was today the appearance of a great pianist of masterly authority with a palette of sounds that I have rarely heard in the concert hall .
From the opening barely whispered sounds of Scarlatti’s D minor Sonata K 213 which in Alim’s sensitive hands became a tone poem of remarkable emotional poignancy . Whispered sounds that would glisten like jewels as Alim delicately highlighted the genial invention of Scarlatti with a yearning delicacy of poignant emotions. A variety of touch as every note he played was as though there were words on each note. I would say more a lament that a song but a remarkably assured start to his first major recital in London , having filled the Wigmore Hall on many occasions since his victory in Leeds.
Dame Myra sitting som regally on the staircase at the RAM
I am reminded of Dame Myra Hess,reading Jessica Duchen’s masterly biography, and of Uncle Tobbs and his search for the hundreds of gradations of sound that can be found in each note.
It is the first time I have heard Ravel’s elusive ‘Valses nobles e sentimentales’ from Alim’s sensitive hands and it was a revelation. Even the choice of the Scarlatti before showed the artistic personality of a true poet of the piano. Ravel writes sentimentales but woe betide those who think it means sentimental instead of noble sentiments of poignant aristocratic beauty.
After the clashing harmonies of the opening we were treated to whispered waltzes of disarming beauty and even childlike simplicity. There was an attempt at grandeur too, as Rubinstein would show us in the penultimate waltz, but which Alim barely suggested, not wanting to break the spell he had created with such a rhetorical outpouring . The final epilogue was played as if in a dream with sounds magically wafted around the piano with breathtaking mastery of control and penetrating poetic intensity.
Liszt Dante Sonata we have heard on so many occasions, mostly from pianistic gymnasts flexing their muscles , instead of the penetrating musicianship that we heard tonight. Every detail of the score had been pondered over and the meaning of the notes understood and incorporated into an interpretation of a symphonic poem of nobility, grandiloquence and breathtaking beauty . But what was so extraordinary was the potency of silence .
I had been struck recently by Alim’s interpretation of Beethoven’s ‘Appassionata’ where the rests were as potent as the notes, because there was energy in that silence that conditioned what came before and what came after. A lesson learnt from Serkin and Arrau and of course above all Guido Agosti for those that were privileged to frequent his studio in Siena .
Alim’s punctuation was impeccable but also his sense of architectural shape .
Rachmaninov always used to say that there was just one point in a composition which was the pivot on which the edifice stands. Alim understood this and when he let rip with his considerable technical arsenal it was even more breathtaking because so unexpected. With Alim there were always reserves of energy to use in crucial moments and not displayed in an egotistical show of muscle at the expense of the poetic meaning . The treacherous leaps towards the end were played with a mellifluous beauty rather than as a technical exercise.
Talking of which Ligeti’s ‘diabolical staircase’ was played with wondrous clarity trying to climb an impossible ladder only to fall back each time. Reaching as far as the keyboard would allow and even further had it been possible ( Victor Borge would have had a ball here ) I remember Shura Cherkassky coming to stay and bringing a crumpled copy from the BBC library and asking us to teach it to him . He chose it, I am sure for the title, as he did another year Copland’s ‘El Salon Mexico’ or Morton Gould’s ‘Boogie Woogie Etude’. An impish sense of humour that Alim still has to demonstrate on stage to complete his artistic personality .
Having said that of course the skittish jewel like perfection of his second encore of Scarlatti would have had even Cherkassky dancing with glee .
It was wonderful to see Ellie Alberga on the programme. We were all students at the Royal Academy together and living in West London . Ellie ,as thin as a rake with long spindly fingers, so talented but like her Jamaican friend David Johns, oh so lazy!
Ellie has become a renowned composer and put on some weight in both senses too! What a revelation her piece is with a ‘tour de force’ of dynamic rhythmic drive with hard driven sounds of chameleonic changes of character. A gently contrasted quasi chorale with ethereal unworldly sounds reverberating with an inner intensity. A performance of searing commitment and remarkable technical mastery .
Alim chose Chopin’s ’24 Preludes’ to end this very special occasion . I have heard him play them many times and I even tipped off the Frankls about his extraordinarily masterly BBC Wigmore performance of these 24 problems ( to quote Fou Ts’ong). Peter was extremely impressed and I just wish he could have heard tonight’s miraculous performance that has matured as only pure vintage can .
A standing ovation and three encores for a young man who has come of age and can join the ranks of one of the finest interpreters of our day .
The encores were Rachmaninov’s wondrous G minor Prelude; one of Scalatti’s 550 sonatas and Liszt’s F minor transcendental study n 10 played with refined breathtaking virtuosity and passionate abandon.
The 27-year-old pianist Alim Beisembayev has planned a magnificent array of music for his recital. Beginning with an energetic sonata by Scarlatti and Ravel’s hypnotically beautiful Valses Nobles et sentimentales, he moves on to Liszt’s powerful evocations of hell and redemption in the fantastical sonata Après une lecture du Dante, plus Ligeti’s most celebrated Etude, ‘The Devil’s Staircase’.The second half begins with Cwicseolfor(Quicksilver), a new work by the Jamaican-British composer Eleanor Alberga, written for Isata Kanneh-Mason and premiered in Budapest as part of a European concert hall tour in 2021. Now, at last, it gets its Southbank Centre premiere under the fingers of Beisembayev, who has become a significant advocate of Alberga’s music. Last year, Beisembayev gave the world premiere of Alberga’s Piano Concerto, which was commissioned for him as part of his prizes at the 2021 Leeds International Piano Competition.The concert sweeps to a close with Chopin’s 24 Preludes, each one a poetic miniature full of visionary imagination.
Joseph Haydn Piano Trio No. 39 in G major, ‘Gypsy’ Hob XV/25
Andante – Poco adagio, cantabile – Rondo all’ Ongarese :Presto
Felix Mendelssohn Piano Trio n. 1 . in D minor, Op.49
Molto Allegro agitato – Andante con moto tranquillo – Scherzo:Leggiero e vivace – Finale :Allegro assai appassionato
The Kaja Trio at the Royal Albert Hall, all graduates of the Royal College just a stones throw away. Three beautiful young ladies all imbued with a passionate need to make music together that was evident from the sumptuous performances of Haydn and Mendelssohn that they offered a full Elgar Room this morning .
A change of programme brought the Mendelssohn D minor in place of the announced Dumky Trio. But the Haydn Gypsy Rondo was still there.
In Haydn as in Mozart the cello was not yet regarded as a soloist but more the anchor where music was was created. It was Clare Juan who not only presented the Haydn but also presided over the scintillating playing of her colleagues creating a base on which the beauty of Kaja Sešek’s sumptuous violin playing could duet with her fellow Slovenian Zala Kravos with the grace and elegance of its time.
Zala playing with the lid wide open of Elton John’s Red Yamaha piano without any fear of overpowering her colleagues. Three musicians that play as one, each master of her instrument . Sumptuous beauty of the piano in the second movement accompanied by the discreet richness of the violin and cello before passing the melodic line to the violin, this time with cello and piano following with vibrant attention . The Gypsy Rondo, last movement is a famous show piece for the piano and Zala’s glowing fluidity was brought vividly to life with the support of her two colleagues . All bursting into a Hungarian dance of exhilaration played by all three with searing conviction and dynamic brilliance
Zala is a wonderful pianist but her public speaking is not at the same level so her introduction I missed . What a surprise then that the ‘Dumky’ Trio in our programme was suddenly transformed into the sumptuous magic of Clare’s solo cello as she intoned the Mendelssohn D minor trio . I have heard Zala many times, she even gave a piano duo concert with her brother in France last summer who now was content to turn pages for his sister. No easy task for the pianist in Mendelssohn where there must be a record amount of notes for the piano!
It was an ideal decision because the Mendelssohn Trio is a masterpiece for three virtuosi musicians that can comune with each other with passion , mastery and technical brilliance. Three solists who can live together under the same roof passing Mendelssohn’s unstoppable melodic invention from one to the other with a mutual anticipation that requires great musicianship and above all listening more to their partners than to themselves.
At last we could appreciate from the very first notes the sumptuous beauty of Clare Juan’s cello and the ravishing rich sound of Kaja’s violin but above all the masterly brilliance and beauty of Zala’s playing .
Nowhere more than in the scherzo where all three played with the gossamer lightness of a Midsummer Mendelssohn, and the joie de vivre that made the composer a favourite at the court of Queen Victoria who had erected this very monument to the memory of her beloved husband Albert . There was a radiant beauty to the Andante with Zala’s opening solo creating a magic that became ever more radiant as the violin and cello duetted with her. The Allegro assai finale was played with passionate abandon and ravishing melodic beauty with three beautiful ladies playing as one with a voice of masterly conviction.
Sešek is a Slovenian violinist, currently finishing her Master of Performance degree at the Royal College of Music, London, where she is studying with Detlef Hahn. She completed her undergraduate studies at Academy of Music Ljubljana with Gorjan Košuta. She is an ongoing member of Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester since 2022. She has performed as a soloist with RTV Slovenia Symphony Orchestra and the Slovene Military Orchestra, among others. Her studies are supported by the Ad Futura Public Scholarship Fund of the Republic of Slovenia.
Clare Juan is an Australian cellist currently pursuing a Master of Performance at the Royal College of Music, London, under Gemma Rosefield. A passionate chamber musician, she has performed with the Marmen String Quartet and Ensemble 360 at venues like Wigmore Hall. Clare recently won first prize in the KraCamera International Competition and the RCM Contemporary Competition. She is The Sir Peter and Lady Walters Scholar, supported by the Pauline Hartley Award and the TAIT Performing Arts Association. Clare plays a 1804 William Forster Junior cello, on loan from the Royal College of Music.
Zala Kravos, born in Slovenia in 2002, began playing piano at five and has studied with Maria João Pires, Louis Lortie, Jean Müller, and Norma Fisher. A winner of multiple international competitions, she has performed in 19 countries, including China and the US. In 2018, she was nominated for the “Export Artist of the Year” award in Luxembourg. At 14, she recorded her first solo album, followed by a second in 2021 with her brother Val, featuring music for piano four hands.
ChristopherAxworthy-MusicCommentary 