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Marcella Crudeli a force of nature who could quite happily have gone on playing all night.
Twenty one Hungarian dances rapidly, by public insistence,became twenty four!
Her young student Emanuele Savron,whom she shares with Leonid Margarius, looked exhausted as Marcella at least three times his anagrafical age looked ever more radiant.

Performances of great style and with Marcella’s infectious energy and ‘joie de vivre’ igniting the same fire and passionate involvement in her young companion joining in the obvious fun and enjoyment she was transmitting to us all.
But there was more than just that.From the passion and colours in the Isteni Czardas to the fun Marcella was already having with the syncopations of the Emma Csardas and the deliciously capricious Tolnai kakadalmas.The passionate outpouring from Emanuele in the Kalocsay-Emlek with the shimmering echo from Marcella before springing vividly into life again.The great elan and energy that Marcella injected into the Bártfai-Emlek was followed by the smalzy insinuations of Rozas Bogor bursting into continuous accentuated interjections of dynamic force and energy.There was the beguiling melody played with sumptuous rubato of the Volkslied and the great melodic fluidity of the Luisa Czardas.There was the deeply felt lament of nostalgia of the Poco andante n. 11 and the beautiful tenor melody from Emanuele’s hands in the Allegretto grazioso.The languid melodic line of the Andantino n.17 and to end with,the dynamic energy of the Vivace n.21.

Around the world of sentiments in only 21 days with these golden gems of Johannes Brahms.With the four hands of two artists that listen to each other with a sensitivity and sense of balance that they truly played as one!No greater compliment is possible for a duo pianistico on one piano where a sense of balance and use of the pedals is absolutely fundamental in creating a single whole satisfying performance!

Great artistry and an unerring sense of style with Marcella at the helm and Emanuele listening carefully as he regulated the balance between them to perfection.

Taking over the reigns from Marcella in a give and take that kept their audience enraptured by the rapport created together.
Different generations but united as one in their musical voyage of discovery together.

The Hungarian Dances by Johannes Brahms WoO1are a set of 21 lively dance tunes based mostly on Hungarian themes, completed in 1879.They vary from about a minute to five minutes in length.Brahms originally wrote the version for piano four hands (piano duet: two players using one piano) and later arranged the first ten dances for solo piano.In 1850 Brahms met the Hungarian violinist Ede Reményi and accompanied him in a number of recitals over the next few years. This was his introduction to “gypsy-style” music such as the csardas which was later to prove the foundation of his most lucrative and popular compositions, the two sets of Hungarian Dances (published 1869 and 1880).

Only numbers 11, 14 and 16 are entirely original compositions.The better-known Hungarian Dances include Nos. 1 and 5, the latter of which was based on the csardas “Bártfai emlék” (Memories of Bártfa) by Hungarian composer Bela Kéler,which Brahms mistakenly thought was a traditional folksong.A footnote on the Ludwig-Masters edition of a modern orchestration of Hungarian Dance No.1 states: “The material for this dance is believed to have come from the Divine Csárdás (ca. 1850) of Hungarian composer and conductor Miska Borzó.”

Giovedì 23 febbraio ore 20 Accademia Danimarca
La Musica è una cosa meravigliosa: Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms: Ventuno Danze ungheresi per pianoforte a quattro mani WoO 1
Marcella Crudeli – Emanuele Savron, pianoforte.

In questo appuntamento la celebre pianista Marcella Crudeli si presenta al nostro pubblico come interprete affiancata da uno dei suoi più talentuosi giovani allievi, Emanuele Savron.

Entrambi gli artisti della serata sono precedentemente apparsi in più occasioni nelle nostre programmazioni: Marcella Crudeli è l’anima del Concorso Chopin Roma ed Emanuele Savron è partecipante alla Young Artist Piano Solo Series tra i più apprezzati (finalista nell’edizione 2021-2022).

‘E’ stato un grande successo ieri sera il concerto all’Auditorium dell’Accademia di Danimarca a Roma per conto della Roma Tre Orchestra.
I protagonisti della serata sono stati Marcella Crudeli con il suo giovane e talentuoso allievo Emanuele Savron. Il programma era difficile ma nello stesso tempo accattivante per le musiche eseguite: l’integrale delle 21 Danze Ungheresi di J. Brahms a quattro mani.
L’esecuzione ha riscosso tantissimo successo con ovazioni e richieste di bis alla fine del concerto. L’interpretazione era focalizzata sulla dinamicità, sulla timbrica, e soprattutto sull’entusiasmo dei pianisti che hanno coinvolto tutti i presenti.
Sono intervenuti tanti amici, personalità anche del mondo dello spettacolo, che hanno tributato agli interpreti vivo apprezzamento per la validità dell’esecuzione e la gioia che hanno trasmesso al pubblico soprattutto in un momento così difficile per la cultura.’Marcella Crudeli

‘Questa foto rimarrà nella storia.
Marcella Crudeli, allieva di Alfred Cortot, dopo 2000 concerti in 80 paesi decide all’età di 82 anni di formare un duo con me.
Sono orgoglioso di questo e mi sento fortunato.
Grazie Maestro! ‘ Emanuele Savron

https://youtu.be/iXH7X1NepDQ

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2019/01/11/alberto-portugheis-the-renaissance-man/

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2020/06/26/martha-argerich-a-legend-speaks-hamburg-25th-june-2020/

What a surprise but then with Alberto life is always such a voyage of discovery.A true Renaissance man of many parts.In the kitchen or at the piano or sending messages to the leaders of the world to stop creating wars to fill their own pockets!Eight years ago Alberto invited me to be part of his 75th birthday celebrations with his schoolchild friend Martha Argerich.A Wigmore Hall packed to the rafters for an unforgettable occasion.Now eight years on I receive an invitation to Chopin’s 213th birthday celebrations!A concert including some of the major works of Chopin but also a chance to enjoy an after concert dinner of Polish Cuisine.Alberto apart from being the pianist that we know and have loved for a lifetime he is also a ‘cordon bleu ‘ chef having shared in the running of a restaurant with his lifetime friend Martha Argerich.The restaurant was called ‘Rhapsody’ at the end of Alberto’s road at the crossroads of Holland Park,West Kensington and ……………Shepherds Bush!I remember Shura Cherkassky telling me all about it.Shura had asked me when we first met if we had any mutual acquaintances in common.Alberto was one of them.Shura was not convinced and thought I was just making polite conversation until I pulled out of my pocket a card that had recently been given to me by a pianist who had played too in our season in Rome.ALBERTO PORTUGHEIS chef ……….the ice was broken and Shura and I became great friends for the next ten years!

Now an invitation to POSK Polish centre in Hammersmith.Opposite Latimer Upper School where Walter Legge and my brother had been students.

Sidney Harrison,my first teacher and a father figure for me,Norma Fisher and many others had also been to school at Latimer Upper.He was a television personality and lived in a big river fronted house in Chiswick.His next door neighbour was Eamon Andrews of ‘Crackerjack’ and ‘This is your Life’fame!It was Sidney together with Ingrid Bergman that were invited to open this Polish Centre in the late sixties when I was still a schoolboy,having been taken under the wing of the Sidney’s .I had never been inside ,though,until I received this invitation from Alberto.A magnificent theatre,Polish restaurant,library and a real oasis that had been staring me in the face for the past fifty years until I received Alberto’s invitation.

And at 82 the indomitable ever generous Alberto had prepared a programme that could well have been fit for a Prince – that of Artur Rubinstein whose much awaited yearly visits to London in June were always an eagerly awaited feast.Joan Chissell a critic who was also a poet could illustrate and illuminate a performance in two well chosen words.’Mr Rubinstein,the Prince of Pianists,turned baubles into gems’ described the exquisite performance of his friend Villa Lobos’s ‘O Prol do Bebe’ suite.It was interesting to note that Alberto had chosen to include the much debated repeat in the first movement of the B flat minor Sonata.I had asked him about it and enquired which edition he uses.He told me he had recently added the Ekier National edition to his library and when asked about the hotly debated repeat simply said it depends how I have played before and what I want to do after!Martha Argerich replied similarly to Temirkanov when he asked her what she did in a certain passage…..’you choose’ ,she replied with an innocent smile!

Well today Alberto was obviously in pensive mood because he included the ‘Ekier’edition repeat of the first introductory bars .Instead of playing them Maestoso he played them piano and misterioso as Gadjiev had done in the Chopin competition a year ago.Then it makes musical sense and of course how could it be otherwise with such master musicians at the helm.I have often been astonished at Alberto’s total fidelity to the composers wishes when I have brought some students to his house for dinner and discussions around music.Like Menahem Pressler he can point out details in the score that can in the heat of youthful performance be overlooked or at least not sufficiently understood.Giovanni Bertolazzi a recent top prize winner in Budapest was invited to Alberto’s home to play his prize winning performance of Liszt before tasting Alberto’s sumptuous cuisine and he was surprised to be stopped after just one page of the Liszt B minor Sonata!https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2022/12/04/giovanni-bertolazzi-the-mastery-and-authority-of-liszt/

Nicola Losito,Gabriele Sutkute (recent winner of the Chappell Gold Medal)and Can Arisoy have all benefitted from Alberto’s discerning musicianship and the luckiest his cooking too – ‘che non guasta’ as they say!

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2022/11/21/gabriele-sutkute-at-st-marys-refined-musicianship-and-artistry/

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2022/03/29/brazil-200-and-keyboard-trust-30-a-collaboration-born-on-wings-of-brazilian-song/

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.wordpress.com/2020/06/25/nicola-losito-takes-piano-city-pordenone-by-storm/

Today’s Chopin celebration was a recital where Alberto’s love and passion for works he has lived with for a lifetime shone through all he did.There was a weight and timeless quality where every note was pregnant with meaning.Nothing was thrown away,even the quixotic runs in Chopin’s much loved waltz in C sharp minor op 64 played as an encore.It followed a military invasion from the symbolic Héroique Polonaise in which Chopin’s troups were kept under the strict surveillance of Alberto’s lifetime experience of dealing with military coups!The Mazurkas op 24 were indeed ‘canons covered in flowers’ and were played with great personal involvement and fervent conviction.These little gems would certainly benefit from Joan Chissell’s poetic turns of phrase.A fourth Ballade that together with the Liszt Sonata and Schumann Fantasie are the pinnacles of the Romantic piano repertoire.Can it just be coincidence that they are all dedicated to each other?It takes one to appreciate one we used to say as children!

Is it not the innocence of children that inspired Schnabel to describe the performance of Mozart as too difficult for adults but too easy for children!Let us not forget too the monumental opening performance in Alberto’s recital of the Fantasie op 49.A lifetime’s experience guided his hands that despite his 82 years never wavered in front of Chopin’s driving rhythms or leaping octave declamations.Two Nocturnes op 15 including the much loved F sharp major and the ‘sturm und drang’ of its sister in F major were played with such overpowering conviction .An ovation for Chopin or Alberto or both!A lesson in humility and love that they both share so generously with the world.Love after all is eternal and long may it stay that way!

It was nice to see Deniz Gelenbe in the Green room afterwards to greet her colleague and friend after her triumphant concert a few days earlier for the Chopin Society in London. https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/02/20/the-arman-trio-at-the-chopin-society-sublime-music-making-of-weight-and-intimacy-to-ravish-the-soul/

An unexpected admirer from Wales where Alberto gave many educational recitals with the late Gwyneth George.Clutching a photo of an even more youthful looking Alberto than today and wanting to thank him for inspiring her and her school friends to love and cherish music which has guided them through life ever since.

Alberto refreshed and stimulated by his outing with Chopin was ready to taste the Polish Cuisine on offer with friends and admirers.I was sorry to leave but an early flight back home to Rome awaited,to applaud a colleague of Alberto’s from the same class of ‘41.A concert of the 21 Hungarian dances by Brahms for four hands with her young protégée ,Emanuele Savron,of sixty years younger!https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/01/21/marcella-crudeli-reigns-in-viterbo-a-lifetime-at-the-service-of-music/

Marcella Crudeli is like Alberto very much involved with the organisation of EPTA – the European Piano Teachers Association founded by the indomitable Carola Grindea.Sidney Harrison was the first President ……..small world !Links.chains,circles and music makes the world go around.And if music be the food of love …….please please play on …………..and turn up the volume

Tuesday 21 February 3.00 pm 

Masterly performances of a fervent believer.
B minor obviously has a great significance for a true believer.
The most profound work of all time is surely the Bach Mass in B minor a true declamation of faith.
And so it was today that Patrick Hemmerlé chose a programme where every work was in B minor even the final encore with the Prelude in B minor by Bach/Siloti.
The Bach Prelude and Fugue in B minor Book 1 with it’s prophetic twelve tone yearning fugue subject after the religious procession of the prelude.The deep insistent yearning also of the appoggiaturas in Cesar Franck with its final declaration of glory and exultation.
The Liszt Sonata restored to its greatness by a true musician where the opening themes on the first page were leading to the fervent explosion on the second.Such aristocratic grandeur of timeless wonder in the passionate climaxes with the remarkable left hand marcato that led us into the Andante sostenuto and so to the heart of the sonata that is the Adagio.
It was all played with such inevitable logic, links in a chain and of course it is this that links too the Franck with the Liszt.
Not only the transformation of themes within a formula but the passion not of ‘gigoloistic’ virtuosity but of deep profound sentiment.
Remarkable performances that I knew from Patrick would never be less than musicianly but today there was an overwhelming authority and conviction that should be an example to all those that dare open the first page of this pinnacle of the romantic piano repertoire.

Acclaimed for the originality of his concert programmes and the depth of his interpretations, Patrick Hemmerlé is a French pianist living in England. He can often be heard performing such works as the 24 Chopin Etudes, the 48 Bach Prelude and Fugues, or lesser-known composers. Recent engagements have taken him to New York, Los Angeles, Berlin, Paris, Vienna, and Prague, as well as many festivals and music society in England. Patrick has published 3 CDs, which have been well received by the international press. His latest recording project, to be issued in 2020 is a pairing of Bach’s Well Tempered Clavier and Fischer’s Ariadne Musica. He is in demand as a lecturer. He has given talks for the Cambridge University, as well as a cycle of concert-lectures on French music, presenting composers little known to the general public,. This led to the recordings of the piano music of Jean Roger-Ducasse and Maurice Emmanuel. Patrick is laureate of the international competition of Valencia, Toledo, Epinal, Grossetto, and more recently the CFRPM, in Paris, where his interpretation of Villa-Lobos’s Rudepoema, raised a great deal of interest. He was trained in Paris at the Conservatoire (CNR), under the tuition of Billy Eidi.

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2022/01/17/patrick-hemmerle-ravishes-and-seduces-the-senses-at-st-marys/

What a refreshing change to hear three musicians sharing their music together creating an intimate atmosphere where the music was allowed to speak so naturally and without any showmanship or rhetoric.It was Maude Tortelier who asked me one day if I knew what she meant when she spoke of ‘weight’.It is leaning into the very heart of a note like a limpet clutching a rock and it is in that weight that music can grow with an infinite variety of sounds without fear of explosive percussiveness.On the cello of course Paul Tortelier and above all his master Pablo Casals would dig deep into the note with the weight of the bow on the strings and the left hand never leaving the string – like an organist who has to find a way of never allowing the air to escape between the mechanically produced notes.Today we were privileged to have a violinist and cellist who have just such weight and could delve deep into the notes with a mastery that would allow their playing to follow their ears.Musicians listening so attentively to each other in a real musical conversation.Not a shouting match but as Menuhin described it:’mutual anticipation!’ (not quite in that context which was referring to English gentlemanly habits as opposed to Latin ‘mutual provocation’ but it applies the same).The wonderful ‘cello of Dorel Fodoreanu and the feeling we could trust his great musicianship to combine so unselfishly with the velvet beauty of the violin of Constantin Bogdanas of the ‘old’ school of Sandor Vegh or indeed Enescu himself! Two musicians who have been playing together for a lifetime with the magical link in the chain being Deniz Arman Gelenbe.The ravishing beauty of her playing and the sensitivity of her ears is a rare marvel indeed.To see the ‘arch’ of her small hand moving horizontally over the keys reminded me of Alicia de Larrocha who like Deniz was incapable of making harsh ungrateful sounds.Loud,passionate sounds of course but never percussive.Streams of sound that just seemed to pour from her fingers were like washes of colour that were enveloped into the sumptuous string sounds of her companions of forty years.Such glowing fluidity and beauty in the Beethoven Trio was followed by the nebulous washes of sound in late Fauré.A trio where the composer like Busoni was leaving his earlier mellifluous sounds for a secret world of nebulous atmospheres that no longer had sharp well defined edges.And the gaiety and light they brought to Dvorak’Dumky’ as they let their hair down and shared their delight in teasingly traditional nationalistic melodies.The most moving and finely spun performance,though,was kept to the very end with a short piece by Piazzola full of insinuating suggestive sounds and ravishing colours.

An afternoon of being allowed to share in intimate performances of ‘Hausmusik’ ( I wonder if google has ever heard of that!) where we,the audience,were drawn in to the music which we listened to in a hushed silence that belied the actual numbers that were privileged to be present.

Six years ago I wrote about Deniz’s concert in her ‘All about Mozart series’ at St John’s Smith Square https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2017/05/08/all-about-mozart-deniz-arman-gelenbe-and-friends-at-st-johns-smith-square/

An evening of Piano Quartets by Mozart and Fauré was indeed an evening to cherish .
A lesson of music shared with joy and dedication by four musicians whose enjoyment of playing together was evident from the freshness and spirit of spontaneous recreation they brought to the Mozart G minor and Fauré C minor Quartets.

Moving together with mellifluous sounds as they rode together on a great wave of musical discovery.

A pianist who hardly glanced at the score as it was so much part of his being.
Embellishing Mozart’s score as the composer himself would have done waiting for his colleagues to out do his spontaneous invention.

The string trio of course were more at home in Fauré where they played with much less respect as they allowed their natural musicality unrestrained freedom.
A sumptuous performance of a fluidity and passion that swept all before it .

The pianist though had also unlocked the secret of Mozart as he dabbled so intelligently in the historic performance practices of the day.
His string companions,though,were too respectful of the written notes rather than the hidden meaning behind them.

A fascinating evening of rare music making by Akiko Ono,Ana Dunne Sequi,Nina Kiva and Damir Durmanovic.
And all around this beautiful oasis of St Mary’s Twickenham the bistros and pubs in the charming Church Street intent on letting their hair down in these final few days of Carnaval .

A concert that had been pieced together in four days due to the indisposition of the original pianist.
But as Akiko said they had spent together two days full of fun,laughter and hard work.The result of their party together were two performances among friends sharing their superb music making with an audience who had decided that food for the soul was the way to celebrate this last weekend before spending forty days in the desert!

Mardi Gras refers to events of the Carnival celebration, beginning on or after the Christian feasts of the Epiphany and culminating on the day before Ash Wednesday, which is known as Shrove Tuesday.Day before Ash Wednesday 47 days before Easter Celebration period before fasting season of Lent Mardi Gras—also known as Shrove Tuesday—is Tuesday, February 21, 2023! From its origins as a spring fertility rite to the masked balls of medieval Italy to today’s Carnival festivities.

Ignas Maknickas at the Hattori Foundation 1901 Arts Club.
Chopin 2 Nocturnes op 27 and Schubert’s last sonata filled this intimate salon space with an hour of sublime music.

It is the second time this month that I have heard Ignas’s performance of Schubert and even in such short a time it has grown in assurance and stature.
Last time he very courageously paired it with the Schumann Fantasie.It is no coincidence that the Schubert was dedicated to Schumann by the publisher,Diabelli,as recognition of the admiration that Schumann had publicly declared for a composer whose works were greatly neglected after his early death.
Today Ignas shared it with the most beautiful pair of Chopin Nocturnes.Those in C sharp minor and D flat op 27 .A form that was inspired by John Field but the content was decidedly influenced by bel canto.

It was just this continuous outpouring of song that linked Chopin to Schubert and was especially noticeable today in Ignas’s eloquent hands.
The 1901 Arts Club started life as part of the next door school and when that closed became offices and later still part of London Underground operations where the Jubilee line was masterminded.
Thanks to the Hattori Foundation it has now been transformed into an exquisite intimate venue for chamber music and good conversation.
It was obviously an inspiration for our young pianist today.
The artistry of this young musician I have described many times but today this intimate atmosphere created a particular magic of its own,
A good but stubborn Steinway B piano that Ignas transformed into an instrument that could sing and dance under his slender agile fingers.
The hardest thing for a pianist is not playing loud and fast but to be able to play pianissimo and fast.
It requires a transcendental technique and a superbly regulated piano.It is infact not the transcendental eruptions that are a problem so much as the little menacing trill deep in the bass.It must reverberate in pianissimo and unwind without any slowing or smudging,It needs a virtuoso technique of Richter proportions but above all a piano perfectly regulated.It may be a detail but like the menacing four note motive in Beethoven’s Appassionata it is of fundamental importance.
Just as the rude interruptions of G in the final rondo,every time it returns it has to be with a different intensity and meaning.

Ignas with his natural musicality managed to persuade us that this was a perfectly regulated piano but not without some difficulty.
He transformed the opening of the sonata ‘molto moderato’ into a architectural whole by establishing the tempo from the bucolic dance like section that follows the long opening outpouring.The sublime mellifluous streams of song that were unstoppable for a poet destined to have all too short a time left on this earth.
It is what gave such strength to his performance where he allowed Schubert’s sublime streams of song to speak so simply without any underlining or eccentricity.
The Andante unfolded in an natural way that was all the more poignant allowing Schubert the last word.
Of course the heart of this last Sonata in the ‘Andante sostenutio’ slow movement miraculously written with many other masterpieces in the last months of his life.
It was played with a delicacy and ravishing sense of balance,the delicately embellished return ever more poignantly unfolded.
The nobility of the central chorale of almost Brahmsian proportions was played with disarming simplicity and of orchestral colour that made the contrast so moving knowing that just a few months later Schubert would breathe his last breath .

A scherzo all lightness -‘ con delicatezza’- but with the foreboding in the trio ever present.
Ignas played it with a refreshing youthful ‘ joie de vivre ‘ but the ‘spook in the night ‘left hand accents of the Trio are more a bow digging deeper that suddenly a blast from a brass band !
The last movement with its rude interruption was given an ebullient life,the one that was to be denied so imminently to the composer.
The great declamatory outbursts were played with rhythmic drive and fiery youthful passion but always within the overall structural sound of the whole performance.
It demonstrated Ignas’s natural musicianship that I had admired so much s few weeks ago in Perivale.
No encores were offered and certainly were not needed after such a poignant offering of poetic significance.

We all adjourned to the upstairs salon to join in convivial conversation with the artist and all those that had been lucky enough to be present at this artistic seance .
An evening all too rare to find in a great metropolis that seems to have no time to stop, stare and dream as we were allowed to do tonight .

The two Chopin nocturnes that opened the concert were a continuous outpouring of bel canto over a gently moving bass accompaniment.
If the first started in a mysterious haze of sound bursting unexpectedly into dance.The second in D flat was one of Chopin’s most beautiful melodic inventions.
Time stood still as it did on so many memorable occasion with Artur Rubinstein just a stone’s throw from this jewel of 1901 Arts Club.
Dwarfed by the Shard and the Gherkin but only in size.

It is quality not quantity that replenishes the soul as was so obvious to us all tonight !

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/01/24/ignas-maknickas-at-st-marys-a-poet-speaks-with-simplicity-and-fluidity/

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2022/02/10/ignas-maknickas-at-st-jamess-piccadilly-a-great-artist-in-the-making/

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2022/01/11/ignas-maknickas-fluidity-and-romance-for-the-imogen-cooper-music-trust/

Fryderyk Chopin (1810-1849)
Ballade No. 1 in G minor Op. 23
Ballade No. 2 in F Op. 38
Ballade No. 3 in A flat Op. 47
Ballade No. 4 in F minor Op. 52
INTERVAL
Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953)
10 Pieces from Romeo and Juliet Op. 75
Juliet as a Young Girl
Montagues and Capulets
Mercutio
Romeo and Juliet Before Parting
Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)
Gaspard de la nuit

Four Ballades played as four great statements by Boris Giltburg each one etched with hard driven emphasis.
This was a modern day Chopin that was shorn of all tradition and we were shown the great structure of each one with infinite care of detail but with a driving rhythmic pulse that did allow any sentimentality.
This was an almost Beethovenian Chopin of great weight and clarity.
On a magnificent Fazioli piano he rarely touched the soft pedal such was his technical control.In fact the left foot was used to turn the pages of an I pad discreetly hidden inside the piano.
An ‘aide memoire’ that surely was the reason that for all its magnificence Giltburg’s Chopin rarely touched my heart.It was in a way being present in a recording studio.
Some fleeting moments in the opening of the first Ballade or the delicate return of the opening in the fourth were rare moments to cherish.The high powered explosions in the second or the coda of the fourth seemed out of context being overpowered and played with excessive weight and drive.
The chords at the climax of the fourth I have never heard so detached and rather than being a consequence of the climax they seemed rather clinical and out of place.
Here though was a Chopin of great authority written in stone not in sand.

I remember helping Vlado Perlemuter enter that door onto this very stage when in his 90th year he gave his last concert.He played the four ballades as one with a weight and real legato that relayed the magic of Chopin to his adoring public.The distinguished pianist Irene Kohler came back stage in tears.I pads did not exists and even if they did Vlado knew the scores after a lifetime of living with them.Joan and I waited for him backstage as we had always done in the Ghione Theatre in Rome from when he made his Italian concert debut at the age of 81!Right to this last appearance entering that door was always like going to the guillotine!

The second half was a different ‘kettle of fish’ with ‘diabolical suggestions’from the first to the last with a ravishing contrast of water nymphs and moonlight.
The characterisation and orchestral sense of colour in four pieces from Romeo and Juliet were indeed Ill fated lovers for Valentine’s day.Breathtaking volumes of sound and savage conviction swept all before it with a magnificence that I was not expecting after his comparatively clinical studio performances of Chopin.
Gaspard too was played with a sumptuous kaleidoscope of colour with the fleeting water nymph weaving her way in and out of a glittering sheen of water before climbing the heights with devastating effect and astonishing bravura.A very subdued Le Gibet where the tolling bell became part of this desolate landscape where we had to strain to differentiate them but where the melodic line was chiselled out with deadly impersonal precision.
Scarbo produced the fireworks even at the astonishing pace that this impish goblin was allowed to race around the keyboard.
Passionate outbursts where Giltburg just threw himself into the fray with total devastating abandon.The infamous repeated notes were played with a drill like precision that made the menacing legato even more terrifying.

Claire de lune was the ideal respite for such hard driven performances of Prokofiev and Ravel and it was played with timeless lingering beauty.
The Wiggies were on their feet craving for more and now the disguise was totally lifted as we were torpedoed into an avalanche of diabolical suggestions that left us all totally exhausted and happy to go back home …..perchance to dream …..I sincerely doubt that!

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2022/12/09/emanuil-ivanov-in-capua-the-bells-of-their-100-churches-tolling-brightly-ignited-by-his-mastery-and-dedication/

Dr Mather’s comment of sensational was an understatement indeed .
Phenomenal technical assurance allied to refined intelligent musicianship combined to astonish,amaze and seduce in the complete Etudes Tableaux op 39 in celebration of Rachmaninov’s 150th anniversary of his birth.Superhuman control of sound made each of these tableaux come vividly to life with Nobility,Sensuality and Exhilaration.

The famous fifth In E flat minor I have never heard with the same searing passion and aristocratic control with contrasts tinged with bitter sweet Russian nostalgia.The ‘Red Riding Hood’ study number six was enough to scare the life out of us with its continual roaring interruptions and its ever more driving insistence .There was beauty as the rhapsodic melody of number eight was allowed to expand so naturally leading to the imperious declamation of the ninth.the final study was played with majestic grandeur and scintillating march rhythms of glittering virtuosity.There was ravishing beauty in the question and answer of the languid second study in A minor leading to the intricacies and swirling brilliance of the third with the breaks suddenly applied at the end where the the last cadence was reduced to a reverberating echo.The deeply brooding seventh marked ‘lugubre’ and Lento was only the opening of a transcendental accumulation of chords that were played with quite phenomenal technical and musical assurance.A tour de force of musicianship and virtuosity that was indeed breathtaking and exhilarating .

Two Scarlatti sonatas opened the concert .Crystalline clarity and rhythmic Spanish propulsion with dynamic contrasts of superhuman control.

But the surprise was still to come with Emanuil’s delicious theme and variations,written last year as a birthday present for his girlfriend.
He was happy to declare on this Valentine day that it was a piece full of sincerity and loving expression.
Ravishing beauty of an original theme developed into a series of variations that like bagatelles were full of character and amazing gymnastics.A cloud of sound in the bass was created at the climax on which the theme came back ever more tender and lovingly played.
What a charmer this wonderful young pianist is!
Off now to play Saint Saens Egyptian Concerto with the Sophia Philharmonic and next month to wow the Florentine public in the Keyboard Trust’s new series in the beautiful Harold Acton Library.
Emanuil as winner of the 2019 Busoni Competition will play on the 30th and Ivan Krpan winner of the 2017 Competition will play on the 2nd.
It reminds me of the duel between Thalberg and Liszt in Princess Belgioso’s salon.
A duel between giants indeed !

Last but not least was the jewel in a regal crown with an encore of ‘Reflets dans l’eau’.A prism of magical reflections of sumptuous ravishing sounds.The final chord was a revelation of clarity where Agosti had told me that Busoni played the last chord split from top to bottom but the superb musicianship of Emanuil suddenly revealed the solidity of the final chord and the final notes at the extremes of the keyboard just vibrations or should I say reflections.
There was magic in the air today at St Mary’s!

Emanuil Ivanov attracted international attention after receiving the First prize at the 2019 Ferruccio Busoni Piano Competition in Italy. This achievement was followed by concert engagements in some of the world’s most prestigious halls including Teatro alla Scala in Milan and Herculessaal in Munich. Emanuil Ivanov was born in 1998 in the town of Pazardzhik, Bulgaria. From an early age he demonstrated a keen interest and love for music.

He regards the presence of symphonic music, especially that of Gustav Mahler, as tremendously influential in his musical upbringing during his childhood. He started piano lessons with Galina Daskalova in his hometown around the age of seven. He later studied in and graduated from the Bertolt Brecht language high school in Pazardzhik. Ivanov studied with renowned bulgarian pianist Atanas Kurtev from 2013 to 2018. He is currently studying on a full scholarship at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire under the tutelage of Pascal Nemirovski and Anthony Hewitt. Ivanov has won prizes in competitions such as “Alessandro Casagrande”, “Scriabin-Rachmaninoff”, “Liszt-Bartok”, “Young virtuosos” and “Jeunesses International Music Competition Dinu Lipatti”. He was also awarded the honorary Crystal lyre and the Young Musician of the Year Award – some of the most prestigious awards in Bulgaria. In 2022 he received the honorary Silver Medal of the London Musicians’ Company and later in the same year became a recipient of the Carnwath Piano Scholarship.

His participations in masterclasses include those of Dmitri Bashkirov, Dmitri Alexeev, Stephen Hough, Vladimir Ovchinnikov, Peter Donohoe, etc. In February 2021, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, Ivanov performed a solo recital in Milan’s famous Teatro alla Scala. The concert was live-streamed online and is a major highlight in the artist’s career. He has also performed at many festivals in Bulgaria and has also given solo recitals in France, Italy, Germany, Austria, Cyprus, South Africa, the United Kingdom and Poland. He has played with leading orchestras in Bulgaria and Italy.

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2021/02/27/emanuil-ivanov-at-la-scala-to-the-glory-of-god-and-beyond/

This is the last Busoni with attachments to the two previous editions (without photos)where winners were Emanuil Ivanov and Ivan Krpan https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2021/09/04/busoni-international-piano-competition-2021/

A heartfelt celebration of Andrew Ball finished with a strange unexpectedly moving twist last night.

Performances from his illustrious friends and colleagues with Andante’s ,Adagio’s,Adieu ,and even Silent Noon.

An eulogy from Vanessa Latarche,the magnificent Head of Keyboard who Andrew Ball had bequeathed to her caring hands in 2005.
But the last performance was left to Thomas Kelly,his musical son,who Andrew had taken under his wing as a youth at the Purcell School and later had brought to perfect his extraordinary talent at the RCM .
Tom came on in a beautiful new jacket to celebrate the father figure that Andrew had been right up to the end of his long fight with Parkinson’s.

It was a jacket that he bought especially with the fee from a concert he gave a few days earlier for the Keyboard Trust.A concert that to say little was sensational!
https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/02/12/hhh-concerts-and-the-keyboard-trust-a-winning-combination-of-youthful-dedication-to-art/
He and Benjamin Grosvenor are bathed in a sense of style from a different age -The Golden Age of piano playing- of an ultra sensibility to sound and an ease of playing that is always horizontal like swimming in water never vertical like laying bricks.
A pianist who listens to himself and is in love with the sounds he can conjure out of a black box of strings and hammers.
A supreme illusionist the one I had heard five years earlier in competition for the Joan Chissell Schumann prize.He already had a sound of his own and of course ran off with the prize that Joan Chissell has bequeathed to the college.
It was she that had penned :’Mr Rubinstein turned baubles into gems’ as Rubinstein had ravished us in the Royal Festival Hall with a selection of miniatures from the ‘Doll Suite’ by his friend and protégée,Villa Lobos.
Carnaval is certainly not a bauble but the pictures that Schumann depicts were gems indeed in Tom’s hands.
Andrew had come in especially to support his star pupil and friend.
To see them together afterwards belied the refined aristocratic performance that had won him Joan’s prize.
Today Tom came on in his beautiful new tuxedo to pay homage to his teacher and friend,
No Adagios or Adieu’s for him but an extraordinary performance of Busoni’s Carmen Fantasy.Full of radiance and sunshine with a scintillating display of his- their artistry.Where in every note there are hundreds of possibilities of sound that makes the music speak in a way that is so rare in these times of super virtuosistic pianists where quantity seems to have taken precedence over quality!
This is the great lesson that Andrew Ball has bequeathed to us with his remarkable young protégée.
But at the end of the visionary Carmen fantasy clouds appear dampening the high spirits as tragedy takes over.
It was here that Tom plunged straight into the ‘Liebestod’ by Wagner in the famous transcription of his son in law,Liszt.
It was here that the emotion struck too deeply and Tom had to stop,he could not continue.
Fatigue and emotion had taken over and it was a moving and sincere tribute to a remarkable man much missed!
I rang him immediately afterwards and asked if he would like to meet and suggested he join the faculty of friends and colleagues and his actual mentor Dmitri Alexeev.

He agreed but confided that he felt so embarrassed!
To show one’s emotions so openly in front of so many illustrious colleagues was the greatest and sincerest tribute that he could ever have made !
Bravo Thomas forward and upwards in celebration of the art of Andrew Ball

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/01/08/thomas-kelly-reaching-for-the-stars-a-voyage-of-discovery-at-leighton-house/

Thursday 16 February 3.00 pm

An eclectic programme from a musician who can make even the most unfamiliar music speak with a voice of such subtlety and dynamism that one is compelled to listen.
A musician with a range of colours that very few can match.A technical assurance allied to a total commitment that is mesmerising.
Such were the ingredients today and it is is this compelling sense of communication that is rare indeed.A musician who not only listens to himself but is totally convinced about the sounds that he is creating.
An artist ready to honour the great concert halls of the world as he is indeed starting to do.
There was a kaleidoscope of colour that he found in the Ukrainian Karabyts preludes.The deeply felt melodic outpouring with the magic bell like sounds that he was able to produce in the first of the five that he chose from the set of twenty four was a technical tour de force .
There was a deep questioning with the continuous motion of the bass in the second and the deeply contemplative chorale line of the third with the expansive mellifluous melodic outpouring of the last.
It was the same intimate world as Mendelssohn because everything he played was like a voice with a different word on every note or phrase- Songs without words indeed.But sometimes music speaks louder than words and like in the postlude of Schubert’s songs can arrive in places where words are just not enough .
Of course the world of Mendelssohn is much more accessible to our more conventional ears but it is the same sound world.
The gentle weaving bass of the first song without words or the ravishing beauty of the ‘Venetian song ‘ of the second.The gentle staccato accompaniment in the third on which flows a melodic line full of Victorian sentiment.But never for a moment was it sentimental but always played with aristocratic poise and a subtle sense of rubato .The ‘Bees wedding ‘ is rarely played in concert these days.The last time I heard it was from Rubinstein as an encore and today it was played with the same timeless ease and character that I remember.Pedro also found some enchanting will’ o the wisp inflections that brought a smile to my face.
Great artists are a continual surprise even in the most familiar of pieces!
The Lieberman ‘Gargoyles’ in four movements was played with amazing clarity and phenomenal dexterity.In Pedro’s hands it was not empty virtuosity but full of meaning and driving force.There was ravishing beauty too of the beautiful mellifluous singing line over the almost inaudible chordal accompaniment in the second movement.The purity of the melodic line of the third had something of the same character as some of Rachmaninov’s mellifluous preludes with the gently flowing accompaniment to a melodic line of such purity.The perpetual motion of the last movement and the ever increasing dynamic drive and excitement was a tour de force of masterly control and viruosity.
The other Ukrainian composer this time of the nineteenth century was Bortkiewicz and Pedro played one of his highly romantic studies op 15.
A continuous outpouring of romantic sounds of sumptuous yearning beauty played with rich voluptuous sound contrasted with moments of supreme delicacy.
The Ginastera Sonata I have written about his remarkable performance before in the attachment that follows.But enough to say that it is a truly convinced and convincing performance of savage rhythms and driving energy.Even the whispered second movement is a tour de force of intricate playing of such clarity at such a quiet level .The slow movement was played with truly heartfelt sentiment with the beauty of the way he just stroked the keys that matched the beauty of the sounds he was able to produce.
Of course the last movement was an avalanche of dynamic energy and spectacular virtuosity.
A Prelude by Scriabin played as an encore produced sounds of a luminosity and liquidity that this young musician just pulled out of his magic box.
A box that all too few know the combination of and which is a secret shared only by the greatest of artists.

Born in 1997, Pedro López Salas is a Spanish pianist who is currently studying the Master of Performance Degree with Prof Norma Fisher at the Royal College of Music in London, awarded with full scholarship and the title of “Steinway Scholar” and the “Leverhulme Honorary Arts Scholarships”. He is a “Keyboard Trust” artist, as well as a “Talent Unlimited” artist, both from the UK. He has been awarded with more than 40 prizes at International and National piano competitions, among them, the Second Prize at the “International Paderewski Piano Competition” of Bydgoszcz (Poland), as well as four special prizes, including the best semifinal recital. The First Prizes at the Malta International Piano Competition; “Composers of Spain” CIPCE International Piano Competition (Las Rozas, Madrid); “Joan Chisell” Schumann Prize of the RCM (London); “Ce´sar Franck” International Piano Competition (Bruxelles), Second Prize and four special Prizes at the Ferrol International Piano Competition, etc. He has also received crucial inspiration from internationally renowned masters such as Dmitri Baskirov, Dmitri Alexeev, Alexander Kobrin, Pavel Nerssesian, Pascal Nemirovsky, Pavel Gililov, Marianna Aivazova, Mariana Gurkova and Ludmil Angelov.

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2022/11/04/pedro-lopez-salas-the-style-and-authority-of-a-great-artist-the-keyboard-trust-in-florence-goes-british/

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2022/03/18/pedro-lopez-salas-at-st-jamess-seduced-by-the-weight-and-style-of-a-great-artist/