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La Musica unisce

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In collaborazione con Keyboard Charitable Trust

Evelyne Berezovsky seduction in Rome

Evelyne Beresovsky after the success of her concert last year, having stood in for her colleague and childhood friend Alexander Ullman ,was invited back to given a special concert dedicated to Rachmaninov and Stravinsky .Not only playing solo works but also two chamber music works with two superb musicians from the Roma 3 Orchestra .

Daniele Sabatini ,the Roman violinist ,winner of many prestigious prizes together with his duo partner the pianist Simone Rugani .

Martina Biondi is one of the finest Italian cellists of her generation who lives and works in Berlin .

We know and have heard on many occasions the solo playing of Evelyne Beresovsky and today she was to shine in works by Rachmaninov and the ‘Firebird’ by Stravinsky in the famous transcription by Agosti (1928)

The surprise was her total commitment to chamber music and how she could blend in and shape the music with her colleagues .The gently throbbing chords of the violin and cello at the opening of the early Rachmaninov ‘Elegiac’ Trio was the stage set for the Eagle that was to swoop onto the scene with chiselled sounds of nostalgic beauty from the hands of Evelyne .Cascades of notes too that were like streams of gold creating sounds that accompanied the passionate outpourings from the two string players.

Playing in unison or solo Evelyne was always there listening and supporting with rich romantic sounds that never overpowered her fellow companions united in the turbulent youthful outpouring of romantic effusions.Deeply moving was the desolate atmosphere created at the end by the ‘cello and violin with the piano recalling what had passed with such poignant beauty and nostalgia.

Martina and Evelyne returned to play together Stravinsky’s ‘Suite Italienne’where the beauty of Piatigorsky’s arrangement was played by Martina with ravishing playing of restrained passion.Evelyne too played not only with spiky rhythmic spirit but also with extraordinary ease and perfect ensemble.After only a day to work together it was a ‘tour de force ‘ of musicianship from two artists who were listening with chameleonic care to each other.

Of course this is the intent of Valerio Vicari,artistic director of Roma Tre Orchestra.To allow his superb players not only to play in the orchestra together but also to play in chamber ensembles where the same participation will continue into the larger orchestra ensemble.This had been amply demonstrated to us in Rome by Sir Antony Pappano when he took over command of the renowned S.Cecilia Orchestra .Creating chamber music ensembles with the very fine components of the orchestra ,playing the piano with them too,creating an orchestra that listens to itself.Sir Antony now bequeathes to Rome one of the great orchestra of the world after almost twenty years at their helm.

Evelyne brought ravishing sounds and a superb sense of style to the Preludes and Etudes – Tableaux that she had chosen to play. Some things cannot be taught and are part of the genes of pianists like Evelyne or dare I say Martha Argerich.A freedom where everything they play is fresh and newly minted as though discovered in that very moment .Both are well known for their human qualities where life,friendships and caring human relationships take precedence over hours spent locked away at the keyboard .It is a God given gift that Evelyne like her famous colleague has been endowed with from early training.Endowed with a technique that encourages a kaleidoscopic sense of colour from fingers of steel but wrists of rubber ( as Agosti used to say) ,A sense of touch that was encouraged and nurtured from a very early age added of course to a natural talent that is of the blessed few.

The Andante Cantabile of op 23 n.4 was played with the freedom of Belcanto as the balance between her hands was so delicate and sensitive . A beguiling seductive rubato to op 23 n.6 in E flat with its insinuating subtle colouring was followed by the dynamic drive to the G minor op 23 n.5. Alla Marcia indeed it was with overpowering sonorities never hard or ungrateful but the full sounds of Philadelphia proportions.Op 23 n.8 was a whirlwind of moving harmonies as the spider web of gossamer notes spun from Evelyne’s ever flexible fingers.

It was to the second set of Preludes that Evelyne chose the ravishing beauty of n. 5 in G major to close this selection .It was played with a fluidity and luminosity the same that I remember from the hands of Dame Moura Lympany who had played it for us in Rome at the end of a long and illustrious career before the Russians were allowed to travel to the west and astonish us even more.

Two Etude – Tableaux ignited the piano with the call to arms of truly orchestral proportions of op 33 n.6 in E flat .Allegro con fuoco indeed it was today and was a preparation for the fireworks that were to come with Stravinsky’s ‘Firebird’.This was followed by the most Romantic of all these miniature tone poems op 39 n. 5 in E flat minor with it’s sumptuous melodic outpouring and tumultuous climax only to withdraw into the desolate intimacy that was Rachmaninov’s heritage.

There was some confusion over the programme that announced ‘Love’s Sorrow’ which is more often referred to as ‘Liebesleid’ by Kreisler in the arrangement of his friend and duo partner Rachmaninov.There is the famous story of the Kreisler/Rachmaninov duo playing in Carnegie Hall.Kreisler momentarily lost his place and whispered to his partner:’Where are we?’…..‘Carnegie Hall’ growled Rachmaninov without battling an eyelid!

Alt-Wiener Tanzweisen (Old Viennese Melodies ) is a set of three short pieces for violin and piano composed by Austrian-American violinist Fritz Kreisler . The three pieces are titled Liebesfreud (Love’s Joy), Liebesleid (Love’s Sorrow), and Schön Rosmarin (Lovely Rosemary).Liebesfreud and Liebesleid, were the subject of virtuoso transcriptions for solo piano by Kreisler’s friend Rachmaninov in 1931 who also recorded them.Here is the master Kreisler himself playing with the same charm as we heard today from Evelyne Beresovsky (https://youtube.com/watch?v=AqQ2_2qd-5Y&feature=shared)

An astonishing opening to Agosti’s ‘Firebird’ transcription had us sitting on the edge of our seats before the gentle sounds bathed in pedal of the Berceuse.The appearance of the Firebird is always a magic moment whether in the original orchestral version or from the magical hands of Evelyne in Agosti’s quite remarkable transcription for solo piano.Solo piano it might be but like the feats of Liszt and Thalberg they defy one to believe that only two hands and two feet could multiply as if by magic.It is of course the pedal and a sense of illusion that can be created by those with the technique and imagination to turn a box of hammers and strings into a full orchestra.Evelyne demonstrated today that she is just such a magician at the keyboard.

Two encores for an enthusiastic audience who wanted even more music.With Evelyne’s disarming humility and charm she announced she would play again the beautiful prelude op 32 n.5 and this was followed by Grieg’s Butterfly that she allowed to hover above the keyboard with the jeux perle charm and style of pianists of another age.

Trio élégiaque No. 1 in G minor was written on January 18–21, 1892 in Moscow, when the composer was 18 years old. The work was first performed on January 30 of the same year with the composer at the piano, David Kreyn at the violin and Anatoliy Brandukov at the cello.[1] It waited until 1947 for the first edition to appear, and the trio has no designated opus number. Rachmaninoff wrote a second Elegiac piano trio in 1893 after the death of Tchaikovsky.
This work is cast in only one movement, in contrast to most piano trios, which have three or four. This movement is in the classical form of a sonata,[2] but the exposition is built on twelve episodes that are symmetrically represented in the recapitulation. The elegiac theme is presented in the first part Lento lugubre by the piano. In the following parts, the elegy is presented by the cello and violin, while the spirit is constantly evolving (più vivo – con anima – appassionato – tempo rubato – risoluto). The theme is ultimately recast as a funeral march.

Despite his youth, Rachmaninoff shows in the virtuoso piano part his ability to cover a wide spectrum of sound colors. This trio has a distinctive connection to Tchaikovsky’s Trio in A minor, both in the unusual, expanded first movement, and in the funeral march as a conclusion.

The suggestion often heard – that the first trio is an early elegy for Tchaikovsky – is doubtful: in 1892 the elder composer was in good health, and there was no premonition of the sudden illness that would kill him nearly two years later. Rather, the key to the connection with Tchaikovsky of this first trio is its repetitive opening theme, a four-note rising motif, that dominates the 15-minute work. Played backwards in the same rhythm it is exactly the opening descending motif of Tchaikovsky’s first piano concerto (written 1874-75), and the allusion would have been apparent to listeners and teachers at the university, as would the closing funeral march imitative of Tchaikovsky’s elegy to Nikolai Rubinstein. Rachmaninoff wrote this first trio while still a student and may well have intended it as an homage to his elder friend and mentor. The second trio, written two years later, was the true “elegiac” work mourning Tchaikovsky’s death.

Stravinsky’s score for The Firebird was written for Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes dance company, which premiered the work in Paris in 1910. Based on ancient Russian folk tales, it tells the story of the young Prince Ivan’s quest to find a legendary magic bird with fiery multi-coloured plumage. In the course of his adventures, he falls in love with a beautiful princess but has to fight off the evil sorcerer Katschei to eventually marry her. The suite presents the culminating scenes of the ballet in a piano transcription by the Italian pianist and pedagogue Guido Agosti (1901-1989), who studied with Ferruccio Busoni.

The Danse infernale depicts the brutal swarming and capture of Prince Ivan by Katschei’s monstrous underlings until Prince Ivan uses the magic feather given to him by the Firebird to cast a spell on his captors, making them dance until they drop from exhaustion. The Berceuse is a lullaby depicting the eerie scene of the slumbering assailants, leading to the Finale, a wedding celebration for Prince Ivan and his princess bride.Agosti’s piano transcription, completed in 1928, is a daunting technical challenge for the pianist. Most of the piano writing is laid out on on three staves in order to cover the multi-octave range of the keyboard that the pianist must patrol. The piano comes into its own in this transcription as a percussion instrument, to be played with the wild abandon with which a betrayed lover throws her ex-partner’s possessions off the balcony onto the street below.Judging from the shocking 7-octave-wide chord crash that opens the Dance infernale, Agosti captures well the bruising pace of the action, with off-beat rhythmic jabs standing out from a succession of punchy left-hand ostinati constantly nipping at the heels of the melody line. The accelerating pace as the sorcerer’s ghouls are made to dance ever more frantically is a major aerobic test for the pianist.

Relief comes in the Berceuse, which presents its own pianistic challenges, mainly those of finely sifting the overtones of vast chord structures surrounding the lonely tune singing out from the middle of the keyboard.The wedding celebration depicted in the Finale presents Stravinsky’s trademark habit of cycling hypnotically round the pitches enclosed within the interval of a perfect 5th. Just such a melody, swaddled in hushed tremolos, opens this final movement. It is a major challenge for the pianist to imitate the shimmering timbre of the orchestra’s brightest instruments as this theme is given its apotheosis to end the suite in a blaze of sonority that extends across the entire range of the keyboard.

The Suite italienne is one of several spin-offs from Pulcinella, the “ballet with song” that Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) composed for the Ballets Russes impresario Serge Diaghilev in 1920. “Composed” in this case being a somewhat misleading verb, as Diaghilev had found tunes he wanted to use by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710-1736), which he gave to Stravinsky to arrange. (Massine also based his choreography on 18th-century Neapolitan steps.) This borrowing was controversial at the time, as was the “neo-Classical” direction Stravinsky’s music suddenly took, spiking the Baroque harmonies with dissonances, goosing the regular meters, and generally creating witty, ironic musical mayhem.

The brio and charm of the music was undeniable, however, and Stravinsky capitalized on it with various arrangements, including several suites of excerpts from the ballet’s 18 numbers for violin and/or cello and piano. Neither Stravinsky nor Diaghilev were aware at the time that Pergolesi was a popular name that 18th-century publishers slapped on just about any piece by a lesser-known contemporary that needed a sales boost. Of this Suite, only the Serenata and Menuetto are based on actual Pergolesi melodies. The Introduzione, Tarantella, Scherzino, and Finale are based on music by Domenico Gallo, and the Gavotta con due variazioni came originally from Carlo Monza.

Pulcinella is a 21-section ballet by Stravinsky with arias for soprano, tenor and bass vocal soloists, and two sung trios. It is based on the 18th-century play Quatre Polichinelles semblables, or Four similar Pulcinellas, revolving around a characters from the commedia dell’arte . The work premiered at the Paris Opera on 15 May 1920 under the baton of Ernest Ansermet . The central dancer, Leonid Massine, created both the libretto and the choreography, while Picasso designed the costumes and sets. The ballet was commissioned by Diaghilev , impresario of the Ballets Russes. A complete performance takes 35–40 minutes. Stravinsky revised the score in 1965 .

Ernest Ansermet wrote to Stravinsky in 1919 about the project. The composer initially did not like the idea of music by Pergolesi, but once he studied the scores, which Diaghilev had found in libraries in Naples and London , he changed his mind. Stravinsky adapted the older music to a more modern style by borrowing specific themes and textures, but interjecting his modern rhythms, cadences, and harmonies.

Pulcinella marked the beginning of Stravinsky’s second phase as a composer, his neoclassical period. He wrote:

‘Pulcinella was my discovery of the past, the epiphany through which the whole of my late work became possible. It was a backward look, of course—the first of many love affairs in that direction—but it was a look in the mirror, too.^’

Suite italienne

Stravinsky based the following works on the ballet:

• 1925: Suite d’après des thèmes, fragments et morceaux de Giambattista Pergolesi, for violin and piano (in collaboration with Paul Kochanski).
• 1932/33: Suite italienne, for cello and piano (in collaboration with Gregor Piatigorsky ).
• 1933: Suite italienne, for violin and piano (in collaboration with Samuel Dushkin ).
• Violinist Jasha Heifetz and Piatigorsky later made an arrangement for violin and cello, which they also called Suite italienne.

Guido Agosti (11 August 1901 – 2 June 1989) was an Italian pianist and renowned for his yearly summer course in Siena frequented by all the major musicians of the age.It was on the express wish of Alfredo Casella that Agosti took over his class which he did for the next thirty years.Sounds heard in his studio have never been forgotten.

Agosti was born in Forli 1901. He studied piano with Ferruccio Busoni Bruno Mugellini and Filippo Ivaldiand earning his diploma at age 13. He studied counterpoint under Benvenuti and literature at Bologna University. He commenced his professional career as a pianist in 1921. Although he never entirely abandoned concert-giving, nerves made it difficult for him to appear on stage,and he concentrated on teaching. He taught piano at the Venice Conservatoire and at the Santa Cecilia Academy in Rome.In 1947 he was appointed Professor of piano at the Accademia Chigiana Siena .He also taught at Weimar and the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki.

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

La scuola musicale russa tra Ottocento e Novecento rappresenta una fase cruciale nell’evoluzione del pensiero occidentale. In questo arco di tempo, la Russia, che in precedenza era stata in gran parte isolata dalle principali correnti musicali europee, iniziò a emergere come una potenza culturale significativa.Il cambiamento iniziò con Michail Glinka, spesso considerato il padre della musica classica russa. Glinka aprì la strada ad un nuovo stile musicale che attingeva profondamente dalla ricca tradizione folcloristica e dalle melodie popolari russe. Il suo approccio non era semplicemente quello di utilizzare melodie popolari, ma piuttosto di integrarle in una struttura classica sofisticata, creando così un ponte tra l’eredità culturale russa e le forme musicali occidentali.

Seguendo le orme di Glinka, il cosiddetto “Gruppo dei Cinque”, composto da Mily Balakirev, Aleksandr Borodin, César Cui, Modest Mussorgsky e Nikolaj Rimskij-Korsakov, portò avanti questa visione. Si trattava di artisti determinati a produrre una musica che fosse distintamente russa, non solo nella melodia, ma anche nell’armonia, nel ritmo e nella struttura. Nel corso del Novecento, compositori come Sergej Rachmaninoff e Igor Stravinskij continuarono a sviluppare questo stile. Rachmaninoff, con la sua profonda sensibilità e la sua abilità al pianoforte, portò la tradizione romantica russa fino agli inizi del XX secolo.

Stravinskij, d’altra parte, fu un innovatore, spingendo in avanti i confini stessi della musica con opere come “La Sagra della Primavera”, che provocarono sia scandalo che ammirazione per la loro audacia ritmica e armonica.

Il programma della serata si apre con una selezione di Preludi di Sergei Rachmaninov, alcune delle pagine più famose del compositore russo. I brani proposti spaziano da composizioni romantiche e appassionate a brani più drammatici e tormentati.

A seguire, il Trio élégiaque n. 1, in sol minore, di Rachmaninov, opera composta nel 1892. Il brano è un’opera intensa e drammatica, che potrebbe essere stata ispirata dalla morte di una persona cara.Nella seconda parte, il concerto propone la Suite Italienne, per violoncello e pianoforte, di Igor Stravinsky. Il brano è una sintesi del balletto “Pulcinella”, composto nel 1920 ed ispirato alla musica popolare italiana del XVII e XVIII secolo.

Da sottolineare, infine, il prestigio degli artisti coinvolti: Daniele Sabatini è un violinista romano, già vincitore di numerosi premi nel repertorio cameristico insieme al pianista Simone Rugani; Evelyne Berezovsky è una pianista russa che vive a Londra, già ospite di Roma Tre Orchestra, che partecipa grazie al generoso contributo del Keyboard Charitable Trust; Martina Biondi è una delle migliori violoncelliste italiane della nuova generazione, attualmente residente a Berlino.

What greater tribute could a son make to his mother on what wouid have been her 100th birthday .
A city ready to salute such an important figure of the great Neapolitan piano school and to have her anniversary celebrated by the opening of a new era for this great school that goes back to Clementi and forward to Martha Argerich via Denza ,Thalberg,Rossomandi,Cesi,Vitali,Scaramuzza and Anna Maria Pennella

After tributes from illustrious colleagues it was the music of one of her former stellar students that demonstrated that music can reach us where words are not enough

Antonio Pompa-Baldi had flown in from America where he now resides to give a recital that included the very first piece that he had studied with his adored piano ‘mother ’ : Rachmaninov ‘Corelli variations’.A performance that in the city of San Gennaro had something of the miraculous about it and was certainly the finest performance I have ever heard !

At the end of sensational performances of a pianist I did not know but who is in my opinion without doubt one of the greatest pianists I have heard since Michelangeli and dare I say Horowitz too.
He played two of the Brahms Paganini variations that his teacher had particularly loved.
This was after a performance of Liszt’s Second Ballade that I have never heard played with such clarity and passion.A breathtaking performance followed ‘Sguardi sulla Divina Commedia’ ,written only two years ago by his colleague Roberto Piana and following in his teacher’s footsteps of promoting the music of their contemporaries.
A straight finger technique (as Agosti always said :’ fingers of steel but a wrist of rubber’ ) .What Agosti did not say was also a heart of gold and a soul that can reach all the multicoloured stars that are hidden in this black box of hammers and strings.
The colours that this pianist managed to discover in a Shegeru Kwai that he was able by his total mastery to turn a good solid bauble of a piano into a golden box of gems .

But it was the final encore ‘Le Chemin de l’amour ’ that said it all and had her son the distinguished pianist Orazio Maione on his feet together with the entire audience to salute not only Antonio Pompa- Baldi but his ‘piano mother’ Anna Maria Pennella who by the same miracle as San Gennaro was with us today in her city seething with activity just a few days before Christmas.

Born in Portici ,Naples in 1923 Anna Maria Pennella dedicated her life to music in her city that she loved and today returned that same love.
As she said to her students : ‘Music is the best medicine for living well and having a long life’.

Something that is amply demonstrated by her CD of Brahms Sonata op 5 recorded live in 2010 at the age of 87 when she was awarded ‘ Una vita per la musica’…………

And so to the real Homage in music opening with a work by Debussy that Orazio’s mother had fallen in love with in her last years :Images oubliees n. 1 Lent (melancolique et deux) .Played by a student of her son : Giuliano Grella .

Carla di Lena writes :Domani sarò presente all’omaggio che il Conservatorio di Musica San Pietro a Majella di Napoli renderà ad Anna Maria Pennella, scomparsa alcuni anni fa, quest’anno ne avrebbe compiuti 100. Su questa personalità straordinaria – da ascoltare le sue interpretazioni disponibili su YouTube – che ha formato schiere di pianisti e di attuali docenti di conservatorio, nonchè mamma di un bravissimo pianista e docente come Orazio Maione, avevamo pubblicato un articolo qualche anno fa ( n. 49/2017 ) nella rivista Musica+ del Conservatorio dell’Aquila. Lo ripropongo qui perchè è una bella testimonianza del suo allievo Antonio Pompa-Baldi, che domani suonerà per ricordarla. Tra le immagini, nell’articolo, è stato inserito per intero un estratto del “Corriere del Popolo” del 1948 relativo al Concorso Pianistico di Genova, concorso nel quale Annamaria Pennella vinse il secondo premio, il primo era stato assegnato a Sergio Fiorentino. E proprio domani 22 dicembre Fiorentino avrebbe compiuto 96 anni. Una bella coincidenza, che vede idealmente unite due figure importanti per la storia del pianoforte in Italia.
Per la lettura in pdf questo il link (pp.21-24)
https://www.consaq.it/files_repos/pubblicazioni/riviste/musica/2664/49lugsett17Musicapiu.pdf

Let there be fun,games ,glorious music and sumptuous food …….if music be the food of love …..play on in this festive season in Milan …….thanks to Steinway and all their wonderful sons and daughters

Oh what a wonderful party ………….with the two winners of the Steinway Young musicians contest …………..13 and 14 years old ….what talent …listen below ………….after the music strictly limited to 20 minutes the fun and games truly began in Maura Romano style.We could have danced all night ……and nearly did except midnight was in view and I am not keen on pumpkins.

Patrizia Amane Di Lena 13 year old student in Milan of Silvia Rumi winner with Mattias Glavinic of the Steinway Young Artists Contest …….
A superb Fantasy Sonata by Scriabin that at 14 is a technical challenge and at 21 a musical one ….but this young lady had it all in her fingers ,brain and heart.

A remarkable performance of youthful innocence and passion with an enviable command of the keyboard.The various strands of melody in the first movement that she magically pieced together and the driving rhythmic energy that she brought to the second movement I have rarely heard played so musically and with such simple innocent passion.

Playing on the magnificent Steinway D that sits so regally in this wonderful Flagship captained by Maura Romano…….
Calm seas and treacherous voyage are no danger here in the centre of Milan next door to the musical temple that is La Scala.
Maura is a wonderful sailor who knows how to calm the waters and encourage all those great talents that sail with her to their land of dreams.

Minkyu Kim recently gave a concert on the same piano in the highly successful series of concerts in collaboration with the Keyboard Trust captained by the indomitable Noretta Conci and John Leech.
https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/12/02/minkyu-kim-in-florence-and-milan/

Mattias Antonio Glavinic 14 year old student in Venice of Gianluigi Polli, winner with Patrizia Di Lena of the Steinway Young Artists Contest.
Mattias I learnt afterwards had studied in Croazia with the same teacher as Ivan Krpan who had won the Busoni Competition when he was only 20.By coincidence Ivan Krpan had played for the KT in Cyprus last night and recently played in our series in Florence :
https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/03/01/ivan-krpan-busoni-2017-in-florence-mastery-and-simplicity-at-the-service-of-music/

A series ,that now thanks to Maura Romano ,is combined with Milan.
Jae-Hong Park had recently played in this same hall but on a piano that has now been sold .
https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/11/10/jae-hong-park-in-florence-and-milan-the-poetic-sensibility-and-virtuosity-of-a-great-musician/

It was a memorable recital as was the performance by fourteen year old Mattias Glavinic today.Maura had rationed these two young artists to ten minutes each but I would have gladly listened to them for much longer – but Christmas Cheer needs time to digest and enjoy too!

Mattias played a quite remarkable ‘La Leggerezza’ concert study by Liszt.
The subtle rubato and insinuating beguiling sounds that uncurled from his delicate agile fingers reminded me of Godowsky’s famous recording :

https://youtube.com/watch?v=UXI2v_jxk0U&feature=shared .

Some things cannot be taught and this beauty of sound and flexibility of pulse is acquired unconsciously in infancy and once given the technical know how expresses itself in what we heard tonight.
Obviously he has a good teacher who does not obstruct his great natural talent but just helps it grow.
He also played Chopin’s Third Ballade – the most pastoral of the four remarkable tone poems that Chopin created for the piano.
It was a musicianly performance that showed a great command of the keyboard but also of Chopin’s very precise pedal indications that are so fundamental for the shaping of phrases and maintaining the lilting pulse of this sunniest of Ballades.
A remarkable performance for the control of his youthful love and passion for music and if I had to criticise him at the end it was only to point out the fact that the visual beauty of movement should depict the same beauty and shape of the notes on the page.
Volodos is the prime example these days, as to watch him paint the ravishing sounds he makes is like admiring a painting by Leonardo Da Vinci or a sculpture of Michelangelo.

Pianists often facilitate these movements by pianistic trickery as Mattias did today in the last great scale that plunges into the depths of the piano before the final glorious four chords.The shape of that scale should be the shape physically of the arm movement …it is a question of mind over matter …………I pointed it out to Mattias because for such a potentially great talent it is food for thought to think and ponder over and be aware of. A dimension that only the greatest of talents can understand and digest.
Mattias is just such a talent !

How lucky we are to have Maura at the helm to guide and help young musicians of the calibre we heard tonight and the two we have been privileged to hear recently from the Keyboard Trust ….
https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/06/02/the-gift-of-music-the-keyboard-trust-at-30/

Aisa Ijiri pictured with Maura Romano gave a memorable concert here a few months ago and does so much to promote music worldwide.
She had flown in especially to be with us tonight.
https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/10/21/montecatini-international-piano-competition-final-in-the-historic-teatro-niccolini-in-florence/

Giovanni Bertolazzi e gli Amici della Musica di Padova desiderano dedicare il concerto di questa sera alla memoria di Zoltán Kocsis,
nel ricordo sempre vivo dei suoi concerti padovani
“Si dovrebbe tendere all’eterno, non a ciò che finisce.” Z. Kocsis (1952 – 2016) ‘One should think of the infinite ,not just that which finishes ‘

Joseph Haydn
(1732 – 1809)
Sonata in fa maggiore Hob. XVI:23

Allegro moderato
Adagio
Finale (Presto)

Ludwig van Beethoven
(1770 – 1827)
Sonata in mi bemolle maggiore op. 7

Allegro molto e con brio
Largo, con gran espressione
Allegro
Rondo (Poco allegretto e grazioso)

Franz Liszt
(1811 – 1886)
“Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen” (Preludio da Joh. Seb. Bach) S. 179

Totentanz, Parafrasi sul “Dies irae” S. 525

Igor Stravinskij
(1882 – 1971)
da L’oiseau de feu (trascr. Guido Agosti) Danse infernale
Berceuse
Finale

It was almost four years ago that Giovanni played in the Sala dei Giganti in a sunday morning series dedicated to young competition winners .Giovanni,I had already heard in Bolzano and had immediately realised that here was potentially a remarkable musician and passionately dedicated pianist.I wrote about that first concert in Padua giving it the title ‘A Giant amongst the Giants’

Giovanni Bertolazzi – “A Giant amongst the Giants”

Giovanni has now grown into a very mature young man with a quarter of a century behind him as his playing is growing steadily in stature.He has been taken under the wing of the Keyboard Trust and has already played in London on two occasions.On the first occasion he took advantage of the generosity of Leslie Howard ,the leading Liszt expert of the day and Artistic director of the KT ,to discuss repertoire and consult scores with a true expert.Leslie had been a esteemed student of Guido Agosti who had studied with Busoni who in turn had been a student of Liszt.On the same occasion he played the Liszt Sonata to Peter Frankl at his home and they spent many hours discussing it together.Giovanni on his second visit to London last June took the National Liberal Club by storm as he gave the first in a series of six concerts for young musicians in a hall which had seen Rachmaninov and Moiseiwitch before the war.Last autumn he toured America and astounded all that heard him including the New York critic Jed Distler one of the most informed critics of our day. I like to think that Giovanni and I have become friends since that fateful day in Bolzano when I by chance bumped into him with his father and was able to congratulate him on the superb performances he had given in the ‘Busoni’.

It is this artistry that has flowered into a towering presence where he is merely the medium between the composers and his audience.I have heard most of the works in today’s programme but such was his way of recreating the music that I was bowled over by so many things that I had not noticed before.One of the most remarkable things about Giovanni’s playing is his kaleidoscopic sense of colour and with just the right amount of showmanship that allows him to reenact the music before our astonished eyes.Remarkable ,no nonsense contrasts in the Trio of the Scherzo but it had also been noticeable from the very first notes of this early sonata.A sonata where the genius of Beethoven suddenly comes to the fore as he takes the form bequeathed to him by his teacher Haydn and transforms it with his irascible genius into the sonatas that were to be the thermometer for a life span in 32 steps.

I have written about Giovanni’s performance quite recently in London but suddenly in Giovanni’s hands one becomes aware of what a great work this early sonata is.It is ,of course ,the Largo that is so poignant and already points to the things that are to come in the last great trilogy.Giovanni on a piano that at first seemed rather muffled, here in this great slow movement he discovered its secrets and he created a full string quartet sound where even the rests took on a searing significance as each gasp became more and more intense.A mastery of touch that allowed a non legato bass but with a legatissimo melodic line of such subtle tenderness.Slightly leaning on the inner notes of the chords in the octaves it gave a real string quartet feel as one could suddenly be aware of what ravishing beauty the young Beethoven was capable of .The opening of the Scherzo- Allegro was like opening a window to let fresh air in after such intensity.It was in the Trio with its rolling harmonies with injections of electric shocks that must have been truly astonishing in Beethoven’s time and it was this same surprise and stupor that this musician ,the same age as Beethoven when he penned such marvels,was able to show us today.A rondo that was all elegance and delicacy and on each appearance still more insinuatingly presented.But this was rudely interrupted by an episode of overwhelming power and rhythmic energy.The most noticeable thing was the clarity that Giovanni brought to the music with never hard or ungrateful sounds but always rich and full of a string quartet or orchestral texture.This was not just a great virtuoso but a musician of stature dedicated to recreating the music and surprising even himself as the music was allowed to unravel so naturally from his extraordinarily sensitive ten players.

I am reminded of Kantarow who is one of the blessed few that lives every note and like Giovanni makes the music speak in a musical conversation that keeps us enthralled from the first to the last.A story that has to be told ….and what a story!It was the same immediacy that he had brought to Haydn’s sonata in F that opened this well balanced programme.An Allegro moderato that was all brilliance and charm .From these very first notes the subtle legato of the right hand with the gentle non legato of the left was a transcendental tour de force of touch that I have not heard played with this Matthay type simplicity for too long .The ravishing beauty of the Adagio had me thinking that this surely is the birth of ‘bel canto’.A sense of balance that allowed the melodic line to glow and shine with golden beauty and ornaments that unwound with the ease and grace of a great singer.Haydn marks the Finale Presto but surely not so fast as to loose the sense of fun and games that the composer is treating us too.Giovanni’s kaleidoscopic palette of colour allowed him nevertheless to shape this movement with subtle shading but surely Giovanni you can let your hair down now and have more fun after the burning intensity you had shown us in the sublime Adagio?

Giovanni’s Liszt playing is well known as his CD’s can already testify.CD’s that were produced by Borgato the makers of superb instruments and infact the preferred piano of Radu Lupu whenever he played in the Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza.

Hopefully this marriage between Borgato pianos and a star pianist will bring lustre to both in the name of art.Mr Borgato was present tonight together with Giovanni’s father and both were visibly bowled over as were we all by what we were about to be treated to after the interval.

It was Liszt that he and Kevin Chen had surprised the world with at the International Competition in Budapest.Both top prize winners Chen a genial figure who at fourteen ,a prodigious genius who went on to astonish the juries of Geneva at 16 and Rubinstein at 18.Like Lim or Trifonov it is an early presumptuous genius that may or may not mature well.Giovanni has been carefully delving into the scores and studying intensely helped by many great musicians like Jean Eflem Bavouzet and Peter Frankl in particular.It is this time that has been so important to allow the music to mature within this already superbly trained musician.Here mention should be made of the five years vigorous training that Giovanni received in Catania from Epifanio Comis .We live in an age when time to stop and think becomes ever more precious .An age of instant comunication, fast travel and where quantity seems to be more important that quality.

All this to say that I was overwhelmed by Giovanni’s performances of Liszt and Agosti ( Agosti my own teacher and great friend who I will celebrate tomorrow in Forlì where he was born and is buried .A student of Busoni who was in turn a student of Liszt.Liszt who had been taught by Czerny,a student of Beethoven who in turn had been a student of Haydn – small world !).

Liszt’s “Weinen,Klagen,Sorgen,Zagen ‘ I have never been aware of what a remarkably beautiful work it is until today.It was played with a simplicity as the opening desolate notes were whispered into our ears only to be transformed into a work of a true believer with genial resources in his hands and heart.Totentanz too ,usually a work of scintillating virtuosity here was transformed into a satisfying whole where each variation whilst given its own character was part of a much larger architectural design.Astonishing technical fireworks abound,of course ,but like with Arrau never forgetting the extraordinary musical invention of a master work.

Breathtaking virtuosity with double notes I have never heard before played with such colour and ease.Glissandi that shot across the keyboard like streaks of lightening but linked always to an overall musical line.But it was Agosti’s ‘Firebird’ where all of Giovanni’s technical brilliance and kaleidoscopic sense of colour produced an unforgettable performance that is for me undoubtedly the greatest I have ever heard.There have been some remarkable performances from two stars such as Kantarow and Rana recently but what Giovanni produced today I could only imagine coming from the hands of Agosti himself.All those that flocked to Agosti’s studio in the summer months at the Chigiana in Siena have never forgotten the sounds that came from this rather reserved musical genius.

The opening was indeed a ‘Danse Infernale’ as Giovanni suddenly let rip with amazing technical command, authority and above all a rhythmic drive that was exhilarating and exciting.The hushed tones of the Berceuse were bathed in pedal and whispered with a glowing fluidity in a magic sound world that kept us all mesmerised .It is always a magic moment when the clouds open and the ‘Firebird’ is revealed but today the ravishing beauty that Giovanni was able to create still is with me as I write these few poor lines to try to understand myself and share with others such a wondrous musical experience.The gradual build up to the final tumultuous wave of sounds was truly masterly .

I thought of the young pianist I had heard all those years ago in Bolzano and the long difficult path he has had to pursue since.A trial of fire indeed for a young man who dedicates his life to his art but what joy he finds as he comes out of the jungle to become one of the most exciting performers before the public today.

An encore was introduced very eloquently considering the tour de force that Giovanni had been through .The ‘Valse Triste’ in a transcription by Cziffra of the violinist Vecsey.A violinist almost forgotten these days but as Giovanni had told us he had played for the Amici della Musica di Padova in 1928 .What he did not tell us was that Agosti had written his transcription of the ‘Firebird’in that same year!A vintage year indeed!Also I was just told en passant that Guido Agosti was the pianist!

I have written about Giovanni’s performance before so let’s just enjoy it together now.

Here is a link to a recent performance Giovanni gave in Milan for the Serate Musicali :

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwig_sbD7YuDAxXn7LsIHdKWDjIQtwJ6BAgXEAI&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dc0Z7x8ud_lc&usg=AOvVaw2EeXKl4xTiU1cdMu8-qEnR&opi=89978449

Franz von Vecsey was a Hungarian violinist and composer, who became a well-known virtuoso in Europe through the early 20th century. Born: March 23, 1893, Budapest ,Hungary Died: April 5, 1935, Rome his Full name: Ferenc Vecsey

GIOVANNI BERTOLAZZI
Giovanni Bertolazzi è il vincitore del 2° Premio e di 5 premi speciali al Concorso Pianistico Internazionale “Franz Liszt” di Budapest (2021).
Nato a Verona nel 1998, si è avvicinato al pianoforte da bambino, crescendo in una famiglia particolarmente interessata alla cultura, all’arte ed alla musica.
Dopo aver conseguito il diploma accademico di I livello in Pianoforte con 110 e lode presso il Conservatorio “B. Marcello” di Venezia con Massimo Somenzi, decide di seguire gli insegnamenti della scuola pianistica di Epifanio Comis presso l’Istituto Superiore di Studi Musicali “V. Bellini” di Catania, dove ha conseguito il diploma accademico di II livello con 110, lode e menzione speciale.
Durante i suoi studi, ha frequentato diverse masterclass di pianoforte tenute da illu- stri pianisti e pedagoghi come Lily Dorfman, Joaquín Achúcarro, Matti Raekallio, Violetta Egorova, Boris Berezovsky, Stephen Kovacevich e Jean-Efflam Bavouzet. Ha vinto più di 40 premi in concorsi pianistici internazionali, tra cui il 1° Premio al Concorso Pianistico “Siegfried Weishaupt” di Ochsenhausen (2017), il 1° Premio al Concorso Pianistico Internazionale “Sigismund Thalberg” di Napoli (2018) e il 4° Premio al Concorso Pianistico Internazionale “Ferruccio Busoni” di Bolzano (2019). Nel giugno 2019 a Milano ha ricevuto il “Premio Alkan per il virtuosismo pianisti- co”. Da gennaio 2020, Giovanni è sostenuto artisticamente dalla Associazione Culturale “Musica con le Ali”. Nel luglio 2022 è stato premiato con il “Tabor Foundation Award”, riconoscimento assegnatogli dalla Verbier Festival Academy in occasione del Verbier Festival (Svizzera).
Si è esibito in importanti sedi tra cui Teatro La Fenice di Venezia, Palazzo Pitti di Firenze, Teatro Politeama Garibaldi di Palermo, Teatro Bellini di Catania, Palazzo del Quirinale a Roma, Sala Verdi del Conservatorio di Milano, “F. Liszt” Academy of Music di Budapest, Liszt Ferenc Memorial Museum a Budapest, Landesmusikakademie di Ochsenhausen, Kadrioru Kunstimuuseum di Tallinn, Steinway Hall a Londra. Inoltre è stato ospite di prestigiose organizzazioni musica- li come Serate Musicali di Milano, Amici della Musica di Padova, Bologna Festival, Amici della Musica di Firenze, Verbier Festival, Cziffra Festival di Budapest nel- l’ambito del quale è stato anche invitato a registrare un programma dedicato a Beethoven e Liszt per Bartók Rádió.

Haydn’s six Piano Sonatas Hob. XVI:21-26 were published in 1774 with a dedication to Prince Nicholas Esterházy I. The Sonata in F major Hob. XVI:23 is undoubtedly the most popular of them. The playful opening movement with its two contrasting themes, the wonderfully melancholic Adagio in f minor and the lively Presto finale make this work a prime example of the classical sonata,

Painting of Ludwig Van Beethoven by Joseph Karl Stieler made in the year 1820

Sonata no. 4 in E flat major, opus 7: Beethoven himself named this pianoforte sonata Grande Sonate because it was published by itself in 1797 – unusual for the time. It remains his second-longest sonata, behind the Hammerklavier Sonata op 106. Beethoven’s pupil (and Liszt’s teacher) Carl Czerny wrote: “The epithet appassionata would fit much better to the Sonata in E flat op. 7, which he wrote in a very impassioned mood”. It may be that the reason behind such passionate music was the composer’s attraction for his dedicatee, the then 16-year-old pupil Anna Luise Barbara Countess von Keglevich, and it is possible be that her father had commissioned Beethoven to write the work for her.

Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen (Weeping, lamenting, worrying, fearing),BWV 12, is a church cantata composed by J.S.Bach in Weimar for Jubilate ,the third Sunday after Easter with the first performance on 22 April 1714 in the Schlosskirche, the court chapel in Weimar.
Variations on “Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen,” S. 180 is one of Franz Liszt’s most significant works. Written after Liszt joined the Third Order of Saint Francis and during a time of deep personal tragedy, it reflects both Liszt’s religious journey and his coping with suffering and shows daring explorations of chromaticism that pushed the limits of tonality. It was arranged for organ one year after the piano version was composed and became one of his best-known compositions for organ.The work dates from 1862 and was motivated by the death of Liszt’s elder daughter, Blandine and is dedicated to Anton Rubinstein.This massive set of variations was written by Franz Liszt when two of his three children had died within three years of each other; he had resigned his position of Kapellmeister to the court of Weimar due to continued opposition to his music, and finally his long sought marriage to Princess Caroline Wittgenstein had been thwarted by political intrigue.Giovanni played the heartrending prelude S.179 which precedes the massive set of variations S.180.

Totentanz (Dance of the Dead): Paraphrase on the ‘Dies irae’, S126 for pianoforte and orchestra is notable for being based on the Gregorian hymn Dies irae as well as for its many stylistic innovations. The piece was completed and published in 1849, and later revised twice (1853-9 and early 1880s. All these versions were also prepared for two pianos). In the late 1860s, Liszt published a version for pianoforte solo, S525. Some of the titles of Liszt’s pieces, such as Totentanz, Funérailles, La lugubre gondola and Pensée des morts show the composer’s obsession with mortality, as well as his profound Christian faith, these things being apparent from Liszt as a teenager right up until his last days – more than 50 years later.

The Dance of Death (Totentanz) from Liber Chronicarum [Nuremberg Chronicle], 1493, attr. to Michael Wolgemut

In the last movement of the Symphonie fantastique by Berlioz the medieval (Gregorian) Dies Irae is quoted in a shockingly modernistic manner. In 1830 Liszt attended the first performance of the symphony and was struck by its powerful originality. Liszt’s Totentanz presents a series of variations on the Dies irae – a theme that his will have known since 1830 at the latest from Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique. As an early biographer noted, “Every variation discloses some new character―the earnest man, the flighty youth, the scornful doubter, the prayerful monk, the daring soldier, the tender maiden, the playful child.” A second theme, beginning at variation 6 – taken from the Prose des morts in the Catholic breviary – is itself varied before the first theme returns at the end of the work.

Liszt’s hand

Stravinsky’s score for The Firebird was written for Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes dance company, which premiered the work in Paris in 1910. Based on ancient Russian folk tales, it tells the story of the young Prince Ivan’s quest to find a legendary magic bird with fiery multi-coloured plumage. In the course of his adventures, he falls in love with a beautiful princess but has to fight off the evil sorcerer Katschei to eventually marry her. The suite presents the culminating scenes of the ballet in a piano transcription by the Italian pianist and pedagogue Guido Agosti (1901-1989), who studied with Ferruccio Busoni.

The Danse infernale depicts the brutal swarming and capture of Prince Ivan by Katschei’s monstrous underlings until Prince Ivan uses the magic feather given to him by the Firebird to cast a spell on his captors, making them dance until they drop from exhaustion. The Berceuse is a lullaby depicting the eerie scene of the slumbering assailants, leading to the Finale, a wedding celebration for Prince Ivan and his princess bride.Agosti’s piano transcription, completed in 1928, is a daunting technical challenge for the pianist. Most of the piano writing is laid out on on three staves in order to cover the multi-octave range of the keyboard that the pianist must patrol. The piano comes into its own in this transcription as a percussion instrument, to be played with the wild abandon with which a betrayed lover throws her ex-partner’s possessions off the balcony onto the street below.Judging from the shocking 7-octave-wide chord crash that opens the Dance infernale, Agosti captures well the bruising pace of the action, with off-beat rhythmic jabs standing out from a succession of punchy left-hand ostinati constantly nipping at the heels of the melody line. The accelerating pace as the sorcerer’s ghouls are made to dance ever more frantically is a major aerobic test for the pianist.

Relief comes in the Berceuse, which presents its own pianistic challenges, mainly those of finely sifting the overtones of vast chord structures surrounding the lonely tune singing out from the middle of the keyboard.The wedding celebration depicted in the Finale presents Stravinsky’s trademark habit of cycling hypnotically round the pitches enclosed within the interval of a perfect 5th. Just such a melody, swaddled in hushed tremolos, opens this final movement. It is a major challenge for the pianist to imitate the shimmering timbre of the orchestra’s brightest instruments as this theme is given its apotheosis to end the suite in a blaze of sonority that extends across the entire range of the keyboard.

Guido Agosti (11 August 1901 – 2 June 1989) was an Italian pianist and renowned for his yearly summer course in Siena frequented by all the major musicians of the age.It was on the express wish of Alfredo Casella that Agosti took over his class which he did for the next thirty years.Sounds heard in his studio have never been forgotten.

Agosti was born in Forli 1901. He studied piano with Ferruccio Busoni Bruno Mugellini and Filippo Ivaldiand earning his diploma at age 13. He studied counterpoint under Benvenuti and literature at Bologna University. He commenced his professional career as a pianist in 1921. Although he never entirely abandoned concert-giving, nerves made it difficult for him to appear on stage,and he concentrated on teaching. He taught piano at the Venice Conservatoire and at the Santa Cecilia Academy in Rome.In 1947 he was appointed Professor of piano at the Accademia Chigiana Siena .He also taught at Weimar and the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki.

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

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2022/01/17/giovanni-bertolazzi-in-rome-liszt-is-alive-and-well-at-teatro-di-villa-torlonia/

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2022/12/04/giovanni-bertolazzi-the-mastery-and-authority-of-liszt/

Giovanni Bertolazzi Liberal Club ‘En Blanc et Noir’ 5th June 2023

Giovanni Bertolazzi Liberal Club ‘En Blanc et Noir’ 5th June 2023 ‘A star is born!’

Giovanni with the piano technician looking on

An admirer,Giselle Pascal,looking at a pianist’s hands.She had heard Cziffra play Totentanz in Paris

Giovanni Bertolazzi con Caterina Isaia Museo Teatrale alla Scala di Milano

Complimenti a Caterina Isaia e Giovanni Bertolazzi che questa sera al Museo Teatrale Alla Scala di Milano, come ieri al Teatro La Fenice di Venezia, hanno emozionato il pubblico in una Sala Esedra sold out!
Il Salotto Musicale, realizzato in collaborazione con il Museo Teatrale alla Scala, torna a settembre…grazie a tutti e al prossimo appuntamento con l grande musica dei migliori giovani talenti italiani!

Caterina Isaia and Giovanni Bertolazzi at the Teatro La Fenice Sala Esedra Venice La Scala La Fenice

Giovanni Bertolazzi triumphs on the Keyboard Trust tour of USA October 2023 Virginia-Washington-Philadelphia- Delaware – New York

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/06/02/the-gift-of-music-the-keyboard-trust-at-30/

Zoltán Kocsis, pianist and conductor, born 30 May 1952; died 6 November 2016

Zoltán Kocsis, died aged 64 following a long illness, was a member of a distinguished troika of Hungarian pianists – with Dezsö Ránki and András Schiff – who emanated from the late 1960s class of Pál Kadosa at the Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest. Schiff, although the youngest of the trio, was the first to embark on an international career, while Kocsis, like Ránki, remained closer to Hungary ,engaging fruitfully with his compatriots, provocatively and often courageously towards officialdom. Kocsis’s contribution to the culture of his native country was all the more valuable in that he was not only a pianist and conductor, but also a teacher, arranger, musicologist, composer, record producer and critic.

Underpinning that versatility was a sense of mission: a burning desire to pass on the insights and experience of previous generations. To that end he would proselytise on behalf of, for example, Rachmaninov’s or Bartók’s performances of their own works, even when this approach ran counter to orthodoxy. Thus his interpretations of Bartok (he recorded the complete piano works, both solo and with orchestra , to high acclaim) exemplified his conviction that. The ‘barbarism’ traditionally projected in the ubiquitous motor rhythms was too extreme, too mechanical. Kocsis preferred a more flexible and sensitive approach, as had been demonstrated, he maintained, by Bartók himself.

Rubato was indeed a prominent feature of all Kocsis’s playing, whether in his ravishing account of Grieg’s Erotik, in the subtle inflections of Debussy’s Clair de Lune, evoking the preternatural stillness of a moonlit night, or in the transcendental figuration of Liszt’s Les Jeux d’Eau à la Villa d’Este .The other predominant characteristic of his performances was the pellucid tone, consistently sensuous even in passages of heightened emotion and enhanced by the singing quality he unfailingly brought to melodic lines.

As a conductor, Kocsis achieved prominence as co-founder with Iván Fischer of the Budapest Festival Orchestra in 1983. Remaining as an artistic director until 1997, he helped establish the orchestra as one of the leading world ensembles, with appearances at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Vienna Musikverein, BBC Proms and Salzburg and Lucerne festivals. In 1997 he became music director of the Hungarian national Philharmonic Orchestra , nailing his colours to the mast with a performance of Schoenberg’s massive Gurrelieder in his first season. Inventive programming and contemporary repertoire remained features of his orchestral and solo piano programmes: among the composers who wrote works for him was György Kurtág, another of his teachers at the Liszt academy.

Born in Budapest, son of Mária (nee Mátyás) and Ottó Kocsis, Zoltán began his piano studies at the age of five and continued them at the Béla Bartók Conservatory, where he also learned composition. Moving on to the Liszt Academy in 1968, he was still a student when he won the Hungarian Radio Beethoven Competition in 1970. The following year he toured the US, and in 1972 appeared in London and at the Salzburg and Holland festivals. Rapidly establishing a career as an international pianist, he also achieved celebrity status in Hungary, as conductor and teacher as well as pianist. His academic pursuits continued to inform his activities on all fronts: meticulous in his study of texts and sources, he brought a scholarly, inquiring mind to the art of performance. He was appointed to teach at the Liszt academy in 1976.

Dividing his time between playing and conducting, he appeared with leading orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic and Royal Concertgebouw, as well as the Hungarian National Philharmonic. He also toured extensively in Europe,America and the Far East.

With his cherubic features, shock of wavy hair and penetrating, often idiosyncratic, readings, he had a charismatic stage presence, and was especially renowned for his exceptional pianistic talents, on account of a series of prizewinning recordings. In addition to the complete Bartók series, he made some acclaimed recordings of Debussy, Rachmaninov, Liszt and Dohnányi. Drawing on his talents as composer and arranger, he made his own version of Rachmaninov’s Vocalise, concluding with imaginatively virtuosic figuration.

His transcription of the prelude to Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde , which at the climax spills on to multiple staves, deployed virtuosity to project the heights of passion. It is possible to feel that his account of the Liebestod from the same work (this time using Liszt’s version) emphasised passion at the cost of Isolde’s transfiguration; a similar criticism may be levelled at his forceful rather than enraptured Prelude to Lohengrin. Elsewhere, however, his undoubted virtuosity was harnessed to a sensitivity and poetic imagination that made his artistry compelling.

In 1986 he married the pianist Adrienne Hauser . After their divorce, in 1997 he married the pianist Erika Tóth. She survives him, as do their son, Krisztian, also a pianist, and daughter, Viktoria, and his son, Mark, and daughter, Rita, from his first marriage.

I concerti di Zoltán Kocsis per gli Amici della Musica di Padova

28 aprile 1983
B. Bartók: C. Debussy:
R. Wagner:
For children (I fascicolo)
Arabesque n. 1 – Tarantelle Styrienne (Danse) – Pour le piano Berceuse hé roique – Images (oublié es)
Parsifal: Scena delle fanciulle-fiore e Finale (trascr. Z. Kocsis)

19 novembre 1992
L.v. Beethoven: B. Bartók:
F. Chopin:
F. Chopin:
F. Liszt:
Sonata op. 2 n. 1
Sette Bagatelle op. 6: QuattroMazurche(op.7n.2,op.17n.4,op.24n.1,op.67n.2) Polonaise-Fantaisie op. 61
Da Anné es de pè lerinage, Troisiè me Anné e, Italie:
IV: Les jeux d’eau à la Villa d’Este – VI: Sunt lacrymae rerum Csárdás macabre

27 gennaio 1998
C. Debussy: W.A. Mozart: B. Bartók:
Douze Préludes Libro II Fantasia in do min K 475 Dieci Pezzi da Mikrokosmos Sonata 1926

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2020/10/25/giovanni-bertolazzi-a-star-shining-brightly-at-the-presidents-palace-rome/

Giovanni Bertolazzi in London

The year had begun with the 60th Wedding anniversary of John and Noretta our founders

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/01/08/diamonds-are-forever-the-60th-wedding-anniversary-of-noretta-and-john-founders-of-the-keyboard-trust/

After which the young Malaysian pianist Hao Zi Yoh undertook our annual North Italian Tour of Venice,Padua,Vicenza and this year added Florence :

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/01/24/hao-zi-yoh-italian-tour-for-the-keyboard-trust-the-refined-elegance-and-sensibility-of-a-great-artist/

This was the beginning of a very exciting and successful year in which we had a series of concerts in Hazlemere for Stephen Dennison with: Adam Heron ,Thomas Kelly and Milda Daunoraite

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/02/12/hhh-concerts-and-the-keyboard-trust-a-winning-combination-of-youthful-dedication-to-art/

The ever generous Stephen had also invited two of our star pianists to perform in his series at the Cranleigh Arts Centre : Victor Maslov and Damir Durmanovic together with our illustrious Artistic Director Leslie Howard who had celebrated his 75th birthday at the Wigmore Hall whilst fighting health problems that have thankfully been resolved.

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/04/18/leslie-howard-75th-birthday-concert-an-experience-beyond-compare-the-true-heir-to-agosti-busoni-liszt/

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/04/01/victor-maslov-at-cranleigh-arts-a-great-artist-illuminates-and-enriches-our-lives/

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/09/05/damir-durmanovic-at-cranleigh-arts-a-musician-speaks-with-simplicity-and-poetry/

An important new series at the National Liberal Club was made possible with the generosity of the Robert Turnbull Trust administered by Rupert Christiansen .The first concert was with Giovanni Bertolazzi on the 5th June – the first of six recitals in the sumptuous surrounds of the Liberal Club thanks also to Yisha Xue’s Asia Circle.

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/06/06/giovanni-bertolazzi-liberal-club-en-blanc-et-noir-5th-june-2023-a-star-is-born/

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/06/14/adam-heron-at-the-national-liberal-club-an-eclectic-musician-of-refined-taste-and-eloquence/

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/09/05/milda-daunoraite-at-the-national-liberal-club-sparks-flying-with-refined-piano-playing-of-elegance-and-simplicity/

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/11/07/nikita-lukinov-at-the-national-liberal-club-a-supreme-stylist-astonishes-and-seduces/ Nikita also stood in at the last minute for the Festival en Blanc et Noir also part of the Robert Turnbull Trust

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/07/18/lukinov-gramophone-review-review/

A series of concerts at the Harold Acton Library in Florence included the winners of the Busoni Competition who are awarded by the Trust a career e development prize including a London concert – this year’s winner,Arseni Mun,will play at Steinway Hall on the 26th June

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/09/02/and-then-there-were-three-the-busoni-competition-the-final-part-1-and-2/

In the meantime Ivan Krpan,Emanuil Ivanov,Chloe Jiyeong Mun and Jaehong Park played in this KT Festival in Florence which was concluded with Minkyu Kim and will include Steinway Hall in Milan thanks to our dearest friend Maura Romano.

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/03/01/ivan-krpan-busoni-2017-in-florence-mastery-and-simplicity-at-the-service-of-music/

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/03/31/

emanuil-ivanov-premio-busoni-2019-al-british-in-the-harold-acton-library-a-room-with-a-view-of-ravishing-beauty-and-seduction/

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/06/07/chloe-jiyeong-mun-in-florence-a-musical-feast-of-whispered-secrets-of-ravishing-beauty/

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/11/10/

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

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/12/02/minkyu-kim-in-florence-and-milan/

Our American tour was a triumph for Giovanni Bertolazzi who is fast becoming a star on both sides of the Atlantic with a helping hand from the KT .

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/10/16/giovanni-bertolazzi-triumphs-on-the-keyboard-trust-tour-of-usa-october-2023-virginia-washington-philadelphia-delaware-new-york/

Our annual concert on Ischia for the Walton Foundation was given by Pedro Lopez Sales who will also play in our series in the Liberal Club in March

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/09/05/pedro-lopez-salas-in-paradise-a-standing-ovation-at-la-mortella-the-walton-foundation/

Concerts in Cyprus for the Pharos Arts Centre with Victor Maslov and a triumph for Damir Durmanovic with star violinist Guido Sant’Anna ……..Ivan Krpan will close the year with a concert on the 14th December.

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/04/03/damir-durmanovic-in-cyprus/

Thanks to the generosity of Dr Hugh Mather and his remarkable team at St Mary’s. Perivale we had a true marathon with ten pianists playing in two days :

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/10/02/autumn-piano-festival-saturday-30th-september-sunday-1st-october-2003/

This was intended to give a platform to the artists that we had selected to audition for us augmenting the six dates that Steinway Hall very generously give us every year

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/02/12/pavle-krstic-intelligence-and-virtuosity-at-the-service-of-music/

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/03/09/alexander-doronin-at-steinways-for-the-keyboard-trust/

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/04/20/ruben-micieli-triumphs-in-london-for-the-keyboard-trust-at-steinway-hall/

Giulia Contaldo in London at Steinways for the Keyboard Trust

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/06/23/gabriele-sutkute-at-steinway-hall-for-the-keyboard-trust/

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/10/23/louis-victor-bak-at-steinway-hall-for-the-keyboard-trust-a-review-by-angela-ransley-the-french-connection/

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/11/23/ayane-nakajima-at-steinway-hall-noble-grace-and-celestial-lyricism/

Our annual organ recital at Westminster Abbey was given by the Italian organist Efisio Aresu.

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/07/25/efisio-aresu-at-westminster-abbey-for-the-keyboard-trust/

It was a wonderful surprise to learn that one of our latest recipients of the Weir Trust, of which we are execeteurs ,won the Gold Medal at the coveted Clara Haskil International Piano Competition .Magdalene Ho ,19,will be playing for us in February in Florence and Milan .

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/11/08/magdalene-ho-the-genial-clara-haskil-winner-at-19-takes-leighton-house-by-storm/

Two summer concerts at St Martin in the Fields,thanks to Richard Thomas,with a church full to the rafters for two popular concerts by two of our most charismatic pianists.

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/08/16/luca-lione-a-lion-is-let-loose-in-trafalgar-square-with-playing-like-a-composer-as-if-the-music-were-his-own/

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/08/02/tyler-hay-reaching-for-the-stars-from-candlelight-to-starlight-a-masterly-display-of-artistry-and-showmanship-at-st-martin-in-the-fields/

Tyler Hay also astonished us all with his mastery of an unknown Brazilian Composer whose works he had learnt especially to play in our collaboration with the Brazilian Embassy in the beautiful ex Cunard Hall in Trafalgar Square

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/06/16/tyler-hay-and-david-zucchi-celebrate-the-work-of-radames-gnattali-at-the-sala-brasil/

There were concerts at the Erin Arts Centre on the Isle of Man with George Todica and Minkyu Kim playing and introducing their programmes to very enthusiastic  audiences 

St Jude’s Prom is an annual engagement and this year Victor Maslov took them by storm.

Tomoki Sakata was chosen to play at the Michelangeli Festival in Cles the town where Noretta has a family home as did Michelangeli.

A harpsichord recital in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival with Dominika Maszczynska

There were tours of Germany with Can Arisoy and Milda Daunoraite organised by Dr Moritz von Bredow 

Two concerts thanks to Simone Tavoni at the Festival ‘Sous les Arbres’ in France Lunel – Viel with Ilaria Cavalleri and Thomas Kelly

Simone had played in Viterbo and Roma 3 University and also a concert in the Natural History Museum in Livorno .

Simone Tavoni at Livorno Classica flying high with poetic reasoning and with Dinosaurs overhead

He had also invited the KT to the Kensington and Chelsea Concert Society of which he is a trustee :https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/11/15/25295/

And so to our last concerts in Cyprus at Pharos Arts Centre with Ivan Krpan and Rome with Evelyne Berezovsky at Roma 3 .Two stars shining brightly to close the year for us .

Nikita Lukinov will open the new year with our Italian tour of Venice/Padua/Abano and Vicenza – starting on the 13 January in Venice and closing in Vicenza on the 16th .

This is just a personal view and there are many concerts that time and space could not accomodate and I hope to expand on this reduced chronicle in the New Year.

Another beautiful tribute from a mother to her daughter in Villa Aldobrandini in Frascati.
The distinguished French pianist Marylene Mouquet dedicates a special Christmas concert to her daughter Patrizia every year after her tragic death in a road accident exactly nineteen years ago on this day the 10th December.

Marylene Mouquet at Villa Grazioli for the Michelangeli Association in celebration of Beethoven

Christmas comes to Frascati The gift of music illuminates the city.

This year a chamber music concert with works for violin and piano by Mozart and Brahms .A trio by Mendelssohn with viola instead of cello and lieder by Dvorak and Brahms (with piano and cello).

David Greiner was the splendid baritone of great presence and very clear diction.He was helped in the Canti Biblici op 99 by the very sensitive playing of Marina Cesarale.

For the Brahms op 91 Jingbo Wang added the beauty of his cello to the lusicious beauty of the voice.

This lead so naturally into the last of Brahms violin Sonatas n.3 in Dminor op 108 where Alina Maria Taslavan and Luigi Di Domenicantonio found their voice together in a passionate and moving account of this sonata.Playing with the lid full open of the Steinway – that I know very well from my concerts here with the much missed Lya De Barberiis.-he managed to create an almost orchestral sound without ever overpowering the ravishing beauty of Alina’s sumptuous playing.They had opened with the Sonata K.377 where the balance was very much weighed in the favour of the piano and rather overpowered the refine subtle tones that Alina brought to their duo.

A very interesting trio by Mendelssohn with a viola in place of the usual cello for a piano trio.This obviously early work was played with great style with all three musician blending into one magnificent whole.Problems of balance with the piano vanished as these three young players allowed the music to pour from their souls ,united with vitality ,passion and technical brilliance.

A moment of beauty and reflection from six fine artists whilst the world outside waits to celebrate Christmas.

Sunday April 28th the return of 19 year old piano genius Shunta Morimoto.

Shunta Morimoto – A colossus bestrides Villa Aldobrandini as it had when Liszt was in residence – complete review with Tokyo link to Schumann op 13

We came to hear Beethoven with Lupo and Gatti but it was Brahms that stole our hearts.
After a performance of Beethoven’s first piano concerto of dynamic brilliance and refined beauty Benedetto by great insistence was enticed into playing an encore.
It was as though the heavens had opened as he caressed the keys with an aristocratic sense of style and a kaleidoscopic range of sounds in the Brahms Intermezzo in A op 118 n.2.

The whispered opening almost unnoticeably grew in sound and weight to a sumptuously rich climax.The duet between voices in the central episode was of orchestral proportions as they wove together with a golden glow of warmth that seemed to entice us in to the sublime world that was evolving from Benedetto’s hands.The gradual disintegration of the ending was played with barely audible sounds that seemed to shimmer and gleam with poignant poetry in this visionary landscape.
A Beethoven where Benedetto had defined the opening with a driving rhythmic insistence that contrasted so well with the whispered legato of the central episode.
The Largo was played with such intimacy but at the same time the notes were projected into the upper reaches of the Zubin Mehta hall.
Daniele Gatti too was a sensitive partner who was able to create such an initimate atmosphere from the superb young players he had before him.

The rondo just shot from Benedetto’s hands where his artistry in knowing how to shape and sculpture the sounds brought this movement so vividly to life.
Mention should also be made of the delicacy of his playing in the ‘little’ cadenza of the first movement but even more beautiful were the final notes from the piano that he allowed to glisten as they flowed like jewels from his fingers before the final explosion from the orchestra brought to a conclusion a remarkably refined performance of what was infact Beethoven’s second Concerto!

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2018/02/23/benedetto-lupo-at-the-rfh-london/

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2019/06/19/benedetto-lupos-final-diploma-recitals-for-the-accademia-di-s-cecilia-in-rome/

Considered by international critics as one of the most interesting and complete talents of his generation, Benedetto Lupo made his debut at thirteen years of age with Beethoven’s First Concerto; he immediately earned distinctions in numerous international competitions, including the Cortot and the Ciudad de Jaén competitions in Europe, and the Robert Casadesus, Gina Bachauer, and Van Cliburn competitions in the United States. In 1992, as his intense performance activity brought him to the Americas, Japan, and Europe, he won the Terence Judd Award in London.

Benedetto Lupo has played on numerous occasions at New York’s Lincoln Center, Salle Pleyel in Paris, Wigmore Hall in London, Berlin’s Philharmonie, Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels, the Tanglewood Festival, the Lanaudière Festival, the Oxford Festival, the International Festival in Istanbul, the Enescu Festival in Bucharest, and at Copenhagen’s Tivoli Festival. He has been guest of the leading Italian theatres –Teatro alla Scala in Milan, San Carlo in Naples, La Fenice in Venice, the Teatro Comunale theatres of Bologna and Florence, Turin’s Teatro Regio, Teatro Verdi in Trieste, Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa, Teatro Filarmonico in Verona, Teatro Massimo in Palermo, Teatro Lirico in Cagliari, and Teatro Petruzzelli in Bari – and of the major national concert institutions, including the Orchestra dell’Accademia di S. Cecilia in Rome, the RAI National Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra Verdi in Milan, I Pomeriggi Musicali, the Orchestra Regionale Toscana, Unione Musicale in Turin, La Società del Quartetto in Milan, the Accademia Filarmonica Romana, Amici della Musica in Florence, Festival Pianistico Internazionale in Bergamo and Brescia, and the “Micat in Vertice” season of the Accademia Musicale Chigiana.

Of the world-famous orchestras he has played with, in North and South America, mention may be made of the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony, the Boston Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Baltimore Symphony, the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, the New World Symphony, the Saint Louis Symphony, the Seattle Symphony, the Vancouver Symphony, Les Violons du Roy, and the Orquestra Sinfonica Brasileira; in Europe, he has performed with the London Philharmonic, Gewandhaus Orchester in Leipzig, the Rotterdam Philharmonic, the Hallé Orchestra, the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester, the Stuttgarter Philharmoniker, the Orquesta Nacional de España, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte Carlo, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Liège, the Bergen Philharmonic, the Slovak Philharmonic, the Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse, and the Bruckner Orchester Linz. The conductors he has worked with most frequently include Yves Abel, John Axelrod, Piero Bellugi, Umberto Benedetti Michelangeli, Fabio Biondi, Daniele Callegari, Christoph Campestrini, Aldo Ceccato, Nicholas Collon, Yoram David, Vladimir Delman, Gabriel Feltz, Gabriele Ferro, Ed Gardner, Andrew Grams, Giancarlo Guerrero, Lü Jia, Vladimir Jurowski, Jean-Jacques Kantorow, Stanislav Kochanovsky, Pavel Kogan, Bernard Labadie, Louis Langrée, Marko Letonja, Alain Lombard, Nicholas McGegan, Fabio Mechetti, Juanjo Mena, Kent Nagano, Daniel Oren, George Pehlivanian, Zoltan Pesko, Michel Plasson, Josep Pons, Carlos Miguel Prieto, Lawrence Renes, Corrado Rovaris, Joseph Silverstein, Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, Michael Stern, Gregory Vajda, Alexander Vedernikov, Antoni Wit, Hugh Wolff, Kazuki Yamada, and Xian Zhang.

In addition to his recordings for numerous radio and television broadcasters in Europe and the United States, Lupo has recorded for TELDEC, BMG, VAI, NUOVA ERA, and the complete works for piano and orchestra by Schumann for ARTS. In 2005, a new recording of Nino Rota’s Concerto Soirée was released for Harmonia Mundi, winning no fewer than five international prizes, including the “Diapason d’Or.”

A pianist with an enormous repertoire, Benedetto Lupo can also boast a major chamber and teaching career; he holds master classes at major international institutions and is often invited to the juries of prestigious international piano competitions. Since the 2013/2014 academic year, he has been professor of piano in the master courses at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, where, in December 2015 he was named “Active Academician.”

Tuesday 5 December 2.00 pm

Some more remarkable playing from this young musician who I had heard in the early stages of his student career at the Guildhall.It was a Beethoven competition streamed during the pandemic where he played very musically and diligently and did in fact win the competition.I would never have imagined though that he would mature ,even under such superb musical guidance from Martin Roscoe and Ronan o ‘Hora,into the artist that we have now witnessed twice at St Mary’s within the last ten days.His performance for the Liszt Society as winner of their previous competition revealed an artist who had grown in stature since the previous years victory.Now again after only ten days I am astonished by his even more mature mastery of style and pianistic colour allied to a security both technical and musical.Not only giving note perfect ( in every sense) performances but being able to share his obvious love and passion for music with such eloquent and intelligent words.The exquisite sounds of chiselled beauty are those that only a true believer like Messiaen would dare write with such fervent devotion.Deep mediative sounds combined with a very devout atmosphere where layers of chiselled sounds would be thrown on top with heart rending meaning and untamed devotion.The performances of two of the Preludes showed a kaleidoscopic sense of colour allied to a musicianship that could guide us so directly to the very core of the creation where William had told us that so few notes could mean so much.The number of notes was to increase quite considerably as Messiaen matured and his devotion became ever more intense.The ‘Regard de l’Esprit de Joie’ is a well known tour de force for any pianist.It was Jean- Rodolphe Kars who brought it to our attention in the rounds of the first Leeds Competition over 50 years ago.Substituting for Michelangeli at the last minute too at the Royal Festival Hall we had a chance again to hear this clean clear brilliance that allowed the music of Messiaen to hypnotise us with his religious and his ornithologic obsession.Kars became a Trappist Monk as he obviously felt the music in the same way as Messiaen!William played it with the same clarity and ‘Aimard’ type brilliance and precision that was quite remarkable for a live performance from memory .Anyone who has seen the score of Messiaen’s works will appreciate what a tour de force that truly is.To all this was added the ‘Spanish’ part of the recital with insinuatingly tantalising performances of Debussy in Spanish mood( how right William was to note that it takes French composers to write convincing Spanish music!) .A Mompou that can be better appreciated in this context and in smaller quantities than we are being exposed to these days.

There was a simple beauty and a gracious sense of style that he showed in the Haydn Variations that he brought vividly to life with each variation given its own character but within a framework that was masterly held together.Even the slight addition of ornaments was done with subtle good taste that just added to the refined beauty of these variations.Mozart too and even the appoggiatura played as acciaccatura in the last movement was the choice of a thinking musician who could bring Mozart’s characters centre stage with such evident bucolic enjoyment and joie de vivre.The Andante too was played with profound simplicity and a wondrous range of sounds but always with the sense of style and graciousness that were of their time.No encore was possible after the tumultuous ending created by his Messiaen but it would not have surprised me if he,like Serkin,would have sat down and played the Aria from the Goldberg Variations ………followed by their thirty or so off spring!Chapeau indeed dear William onwards and upwards!

Messiaen: ‘La Colombe’ from Preludes

  

William Bracken is in high demand as a recitalist, concerto soloist, chamber musician and teacher. The Wirral-born pianist has won numerous awards including 1st prize at the 2022 Liszt Society International Piano Competition and 1st prize, press prize and audience prize at the 2023 Euregio Piano Award international piano competition. He is currently continuing studies at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London where he also holds a position as assistant professor of classical improvisation. Concert highlights include several concerto performances at The Barbican, Liverpool Philharmonic Hall, St. John’s Smith Square and recitals at Chipping Campden Festival, LSO St. Luke’s and most recently Wigmore Hall, where he was praised by the Telegraph for his “courage and stamina and musicality in abundance” and “an ability to hold an audience in the palm of his hand”.

William has worked with many of today’s leading musicians including Stephen Hough, Richard Goode, Simon Trpceski and Paul Lewis. In 2022 William was made a scholar of the Imogen Cooper music trust which involved participating in a week of intensive study in the south of France with renowned pianist Dame Imogen Cooper – that summer he also won a full scholarship to attend the Aspen Music Festival and Summer School in Colorado U.S.A, studying with Hung-Kuan Chen and Fabio Bidini. William performs a large and diverse range of repertoire and also has a keen interest in jazz and improvisational elements of performing classical music. He is supported in his postgraduate studies with profs. Martin Roscoe and Ronan O’Hora by the GSMD.

Liszt in Perivale – The Universal Genius – The voyage of discovery continues

Ileana Ghione 3rd December 2005. Joan Booth 3rd December 2017

“She passed away the same day as my wife (12 years previously) in the light of the Super Moon and I like to think that Ileana opened her arms to light the way for my dearest friend.”

In Praise of Joan

It was just a year since Ileana had died and I decided to dedicate a mass to her in the Cathedral of her home town of Asti.She felt her roots very deeply and we wouid often come to Asti to see her mothers sister and grand children who we were glad to have helped when their father died and they were still teenagers.
Massimo Scaglione,her lifelong friend and distinguished television and stage director, would often invite Ileana to performances in Asti -The photo is from an evening he dedicated to Ileana a few years before.
I came back now a year later which was just enough time to be abandoned by ‘our’ family who we had shared everything with so generously over our thirty years together with esteem and love and much else besides.
Parassitic greed meant that I now arrived in ‘our’ city alone with terrible rumours spread by Ileanas brother and sister of my evil machinations and intentions
Milena Vukotic and Renzo Rosso two such warm faithful friends spurred me on to commemorate my adored wife who had left me alone too soon.
The cathedral was full to the rafters and I decided ,spurred on by Milena to talk about Ileana and our love story of thirty years.
No sign of our ‘cousins ‘ or close family was very hurtful but there are so many things that are revealed when a close family member dies.
The next morning in the hotel in the main square that we had always stayed in together I was having breakfast feeling very alone when the waiter asked if he could talk to me.A friendly respectful voice ‘Of course’……’I just wanted to tell you how moved we all were when you spoke about your love for Ileana ….we come to church so often and hear about people in distress or disasters but we never could have imagined a love that you described to us last night ‘.
The next year Eugenio Guglielminetti the great set designer and artist ,also from Asti ,designed a garden in the centre of the city to be dedicated to their illustrious citizen Ileana .
Eugenio who had advised and designed Ileanas homes,theatre and stage sets died before the opening ceremony but we went ahead dedicating the garden to them both.

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0?ui=2&ik=e365e67791&attid=0.1&permmsgid=msg-a:r-1987856679908467406&th=192871e60abd40a9&view=att&disp=safe&realattid=646E1F21-6F90-4D3A-AAAC-FDF90C780A01&zw

Ileanas brother and sister ,cousins and family members were nowhere to be seen and after their evil machinations have joined Ileana in the family tomb that I care for.There are the lemons that I went to our home to collect in Sabaudia to make the tomb more beautiful . Ileanas mother had built it much to our amusement at the time .It now needed to be cared for and a beautiful garden created to house our beloved Ileana who after all had also paid for it and given the world so much of herself.

Eighteen years on the Foundation that we both wanted to create has been abandoned .
It was created immediately after her death so our thirty years dedication of bringing culture to the Eternal City could continue and flourish long after we were no longer on this earth and above all give a much needed platform to aspiring young actors and musicians .
This ,after years of wrangling with a legal system that is so slow and unjust,has not been possible.A system where you are guilty and have to prove your innocence becomes fodder for professionals with enormous fees .Guilty or innocent depending on which way the wind blows over a fifteen year period as fees reach sky high proportions without any guarantee of success.The vultures were all around waiting to zoom in for the kill knowing how to take advantage of a legal system that does not protect the innocent or the accused .
But thanks to my adopted family of Roberta Blasi Ercole Palmieri Luca Palmieri ,Matteo Palmieri Francesca Langella and Ilaria Gregori the Teatro Ghione is going from strength to strength and hopefully our wishes will be respected despite such unexpectedly despicable opposition from within.
I can now begin to mourn in peace knowing that I have completed our mission the best I could!

Today I lay a wreath on the grave of Joan in Ewelme deep in the heart of Oxfordshire ……..Ileana knew and loved Vlado and Joan and their idyllic love nest in Ewelme that we visited so often.

They will both be looking on today with a knowing smile as I await to join them

Life is indeed a mystery as the waiter asked me what dessert I would like and then coming back again he said we have banana split today .
Little could he have known the significance of the very first thing that united Ileana and I 45 years ago .
It came the day after Ileana’s birthday .
We were travelling down to Siena together Ileana driving the young repetiteur flown in from London to help his old teachers wife Lydia Stix Agosti with her inexplicably named course for actors :From Schoenberg to today’.
Driving her own car and singing operatic arias on the way we stopped for a snack and she had a banana split that she said was her favourite desert.
In the Campo later that evening we were having a welcome drink with the class and I ordered a banana split for Ileana . She was so moved that I had remembered that this was the first seed of a love that was to last almost thirty years.
Ileana had suffered as only those that have had a loved one commit suicide can understand .Her beloved husband Ezio Gagliardo had suffered from depression and had decided to take this drastic step leaving Ileana shocked distraught and mistrusting.The idea that someone could have remembered something so trivial as a love for banana split was the first step in eventually being reborn and able to live and to love life again.
The waiter today could never have known why a banana split should have brought tears to my eyes !

Unforgettable try through recital on Perlemuter`s piano with the amazing 104 year old companion for so many years of Vlado .
And the astonishing Mark Viner .
Wonderful,sounds.Wonderful music.Wonderful company.Thank you to all .February 2017

Minkyu Kim was born in South Korea in 1995. In 2017, he began his studies at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, where he is currently studying for a Doctor of Performance. Minkyu has performed piano concertos with the Scottish Ensemble and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, and has had several chamber music concerts with Seoul National University Philharmonic Orchestra. He is a specialist in the sublime music of Franz Liszt

Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 7 in D major, Op. 10 No. 3

I. Presto
II. Largo e mesto

  III. Menuetto: Allegro 

  IV. Rondo: Allegro  
 

Alkan: Le festin d’Esope op 39 n.12  from Douze études dans toutes les tons mineurs en deux suites.

Liszt:

  En rêve — Nocturne, S207

  Trübe Wolken – Nuages gris, S199

  Bagatelle sans tonalité, S216a

Grosses Konzertsolo, S176.

An extraordinary recital by Minkyu Kim in Florence
An eclectic programme played with the simplicity and humility of a great musician with a voracious appetite for many neglected masterpieces.With a transcendental technical commmand he thrilled the audience in the library of the celebrated aesthete Harold Acton with Beethoven’s early Sonata op 10 n. 3 where his genius was already beginning to manifest itself with its profound and intense slow movement.Alkan’s pianistic genius was revealed with astonishing brilliance as his animals were let out of their cage and allowed to sprawl all over this 1876 Bechstein.

But it was the Genius of Liszt that Minkyu was to demonstrate to us with the ‘Grosses Konzertsolo’,the much neglected monumental forerunner of the B minor Sonata .He played it with towering committed artistry that will surely astonish the Professors of the Royal Scottish Academy where he is about to complete his doctorate before embarking on an obligatory military career in the Korean army!

“Il penseroso” a poem and sculpture by Michelangelo that sits in the Medici Chapel that had inspired Liszt to write a piece for his ‘Years of Travel’ when he visited the city in 1838 .Minkyu had learnt it especially as a homage to Liszt and to Florence on this occasion …..an encore from an eclectic thinking musician and superb virtuoso pianist.It was fascinating to hear him explain the ‘preludes’ he had improvised between pieces as was the practice in the 18th Century to prepare the public for the next piece.And to know that the ‘prelude’ to the Grosses Konzertsolo was from the orchestral introduction of it that Liszt had insisted be played before his orchestral version (left unfinished by Liszt but completed and recorded by Leslie Howard )

Minkyu Kim a pianistic and musical genius at St Mary’s

Minkyu Kim – mastery exults to the glory of Liszt

Minkyu Kim at St Mary’s Viva Franz Liszt – the poet of the piano!

Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 7 in D major, Op. 10, No. 3, was dedicated to the Countess Anne Margarete von Browne, and written in 1798. This makes it contemporary with his three string trios op 9 , his three Op. 12 violin sonatas, and the violin and orchestra romance that became his op 50 when later published. The year also saw the premiere of a revised version of his second piano concerto whose original form had been written and heard in 1795.The three Op. 10 sonatas are usually described as angular or experimental, as Beethoven began moving further and further away from his earlier models. This third sonata of the set is the longest and is the only one of the Op. 10 sonatas that has four movements and Beethoven’s pupil the teacher of Franz Liszt described it as ‘grand and significant’

Le festin d’Ésope (Aesop’s Feast), op .39 No. 12, is the final étude in the set Douze études dans tours le tons miners (Twelve studies in all minor keys), Op. 39, published in 1857 (although it may have been written during the previous decade). It is a work of twenty-five variations based on an original theme and is in E minor. The technical skills required in the variations are a summation of the preceding études.

The work requires exceptional virtuosic skills, with extremely fast overlapping octaves, fast scales with left accompaniments, enormous leaps, rapid octave chords, tremolos, double octaves and trills. A typical performance of this piece lasts 10 minutes.

At a later stage in his life Liszt experimented with “forbidden” things such as parallel 5ths in the “Csárdás macabre”and atonality in the Bagatelle sans tonality (“Bagatelle without Tonality”). Pieces like the “2nd Mephisto-Waltz” are unconventional because of their numerous repetitions of short motives. Also showing experimental characteristics are the Via crucis of 1878, as well as Unstern!, Nuages Gris and the two works entitled La lugubre gondola of the 1880s.

En rève (‘Dreaming’) was composed in 1885 and unlike in many of the works from the last years of Liszt’s life, nothing disillusioned or bleak, but rather a note of acceptance and reconciliation.

Nuages gris or Trübe Wolken,was composed on August 24, 1881. It is one of Liszt’s most haunting and at the same time one of his most experimental works, representing , “a high point in the experimental idiom with respect to expressive compositional procedure.” Yet it was only in the second half of the twentieth century that the significance of Liszt’s late experimental works began to be appreciated. “Arguably, Liszt was the first composer to establish the augmented triad as a truly independent sonority, to consider its implications for modern dissonance treatment, and to ponder its meaning for the future course of tonality. Liszt’s accomplishments were summarised in Busoni’s phrase, as the ‘master of freedom’.Debussy probably had Nuages gris in mind when he composed his own Nuages .On a more mundane note it was used in the shocking scene at the morgue in Stanley Kubrick’s last film Eyes Wide Shut.

Bagatelle sans tonalité was written by in 1885. The manuscript bears the title “Fourth Mephisto Waltz”and may have been intended to replace the piece now known as the Fourth Mephisto Waltz when it appeared Liszt would not be able to finish it; the phrase Bagatelle ohne Tonart actually appears as a subtitle on the front page of the manuscript.

While it is not especially dissonant, it is extremely chromatic becoming what Liszt’s contemporary Fétis called “omnitonic”in that it lacks any definite feeling for a tonal center.Like the Fourth Mephisto Waltz, however, it was not published until 1955.

Années de pèlerinage S.160-161-162-163is a set of three suites for solo piano by . Much of it derives from his earlier work, Album d’un voyageur, his first major published piano cycle, which was composed between 1835 and 1838 and published in 1842.Années de pèlerinage is widely considered as the masterwork and summation of Liszt’s musical style. The third volume is notable as an example of his later style Composed well after the first two volumes, it displays less virtuosity and more harmonic experimentation.

The title Années de pèlerinage refers to Goethe’s famous novel of self-realization, whose original title Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre meant Years of Wandering or Years of Pilgrimage, the latter being used for its first French translation.Liszt clearly places these compositions in line with the Romantic literature of his time, prefacing most pieces with a literary passage from writers such as Schiller, Byron or Senancour, and, in an introduction to the entire work, writing:

“Having recently travelled to many new countries, through different settings and places consecrated by history and poetry; having felt that the phenomena of nature and their attendant sights did not pass before my eyes as pointless images but stirred deep emotions in my soul, and that between us a vague but immediate relationship had established itself, an undefined but real rapport, an inexplicable but undeniable communication, I have tried to portray in music a few of my strongest sensations and most lively impressions.^”

Deuxième année: Italie” (“Second Year: Italy”), S.161, was composed between 1837 and 1849 and published in 1858 by Schott. Nos. 4 to 6 are revisions of Tre sonetti del Petrarca which was composed around 1839–1846 and published in 1846.All three are based on Sonnets, or Canzone, by the Italian Renaissance poet Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374). They are meditations on love, specifically the poet’s passionate love for Laura de Noves. In the first, Benedetto sia ‘L giorno -Blessed be the day…., Canzone LXI, sometimes erroneously noted as Sonnet 104), he prays for divine blessing on the joys and sufferings of love. The second, Pace non trovo – I find no peace….. Canzone CXXXIV; sometimes erroneously noted as Sonnet 47is more agitated. In it, the poet ponders the confused state love has put him in. Enthralled to his lady, he feels imprisoned yet free, he burns with love, yet feels he is made of ice: in modern psychological parlance, a true state of ‘limerence’. The third, lividi in terra angelici costumi – I Beheld on Earth Angelic Grace…., Canzone CLVI; sometimes incorrectly listed as Sonnet 123, is an ardent love poem in which the poet describes the perfect beauty and purity of his love and its effect on all of Heaven and Nature.

In 1851 Breitkopf & Härtel published the solo piano work Grosses Konzertsolo S.176. Though not as popular as the later Sonata in B minor the work achieves significance by the fact that it anticipates the Sonata as a large-scale nonprogrammatic work. It shows structural similarities to the Sonata and obvious thematic relationship to both the Sonata and the Faust Symphony.

One unpublished earlier version of the work exists, titled in French in the manuscript Grand Solo de concert (S.175a). This version differs structurally from the published Grosses Concert-Solo, thus revealing the existence of interesting material for a study on the genesis of Liszt’s gradual innovations in constructing a large-scale musical organism, which were to come to full fruition in the Sonata.

In 1866 a two-piano version was published under the title Concerto pathétique (S.258/2) which, though not differing structurally from the Grosses Concert-Solo, introduces a more effective layout of the musical thoughts, mainly due to an innovative concerto-like treatments of the two piano version.The fact that the solo Grosses Concert-Solo has been overshadowed by the later two-piano version has obscured the importance of the former as one of Liszt’s largest and most ambitious original works for the instrument. The Grosses Concert-Solo anticipates several of the most salient features of Liszt’s undisputed masterwork, the Sonata in B minor , namely the nonprogrammatic “four-movements-in-one” form.The piece was written between 1849 and 1850, and dedicated to Adolf Henselt who professed himself unable to play it, even though Liszt had intended it as a competition piece for the Paris Conservatoire.

Leslie Howard the noted Liszt expert having recorded all the works of Liszt on over 100 CD’s .He is an Artistic Director of the Keyboard Trust and is president of the Liszt Society in London and is seen here talking about and playing the Grosses Konzertsolo :

Exploring Liszt with Leslie Howard