Thursday 13 October 3.00 pm

Fresh from the Kew Academy having flown in from Salzburg where as students they met and have now created a superb trio.
Perivale was full to the rafters to hear two of the great masterpieces for piano trio by Beethoven and Brahms.
Living and rehearsing together in Kew prior to their tour which has included Manchester London and tomorrow Amsterdam.Madeline not only plays the cello divinely but she has the same love for cooking and the house has been ringing with music and the most wondrous smells from the kitchen.Callum is a dab hand at the computer and Isobel loves to practice and keep us all in order.
It is only experiencing life together that a trio can come alive as it did today with each one knowing instinctively what the other might do.Like the cat chasing the mouse ,waiting and watching ready to pounce.Each one a master of his or her instrument.The piano lid fully opened because Callum is a good driver who knows where he is going and Madeline sits in the curve of the piano knowing that the wooden lid will reflect her beautiful cello playing without any forcing.Isabel coming into her own playing in perfect harmony with her two friends.Some extraodinarily luminous playing from Callum taken over by the soaring passion of Isabel and Madeline in the sublime Brahms trio. Bringing the same meditative mystery to the Brahms Adagio that they had brought to the whispered Largo of the ‘Ghost’trio.What energy there was in the Allegro of the Beethoven and the sheer joy at the end of the first movement of the Brahms was exhilarating.
Hugh Mather has hit the nail on the head when he says St Mary’s is the ideal venue for chamber music as was proven today by a packed house listening in rapt attention to these three wonderful young players.I bet Hugh Mather is watching in from home too where he is on family duties with a well earned rest from the hundreds of concerts that he presents every season.
Roger Nellist was the expert presenter today having come down from his perch in the video studio to share in the fun we were all having on stage.

Isobel  Warmelink was born in Rotterdam in 1996, and studied at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, graduating in 2018. She is now finishing her master studies at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg, Austria. In January 2022  she  won first prize at the prestigious Oskar Back violin competition in Utrecht. As a soloist  Isobel  has played with several orchestras, such as the Residentie Orchestra, the National Youth Orchestra of the Netherlands, the Orchestra of the Royal Conservatory of The Hague and the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century. She performs regularly with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam and she travelled with them through Europe, Asia and the United States.

Born in 1999 in Paris, France, Madeleine Douçot studied cello with Marie-Thérèse Grisenti until 2015. In 2016 she entered the Mozarteum University, Salzburg, and she now continues her Master Studies there. She is laureate of several national and international competitions, Madeleine started performing from a very young age, giving many concerts and recitals in Paris, Saratov and Moscow. She is now regularly playing in Austria, Germany, France and Italy, both as a soloist and as a member of the « Trio Tempora », founded together with the Romanian clarinetist Marius Birtea and the Hungarian pianist Emese Wilhelmy in 2017. 
In 2020 she entered the « Young Talents » programme of Jaroussky Academie in Paris. She recently joined the Métamorphoses String Quartet, an outstanding French ensemble.

Callum Mclachlan was born into a family of musicians, and started lessons with his father at the age of 7, and entered Chetham’s School of Music at age 11, where he studied with Dina Parakhina. He currently studies at the Universität Mozarteum in Salzburg and at the Cologne Hochschule fur Musik. He has performed at many prestigious concert venues in the UK, Europe and USA. In 2019, he made his New York recital debut.. He has won 1st prizes in the Welsh International Piano Competition, The Youth Scottish International Piano Competition, the RNCM Chopin Competition as well as reaching the final of the EPTA Piano Competiton. He was a finalist of Robert Schumann Competition Zwickau and semi-Finalist of the Ferrol Competition, and most recently, he was selected as one of 20 participants for the Santander Paloma O’ Shea Competition. He is a Talent Unlimited Artist. He is also a Hattori Foundation Senior Finalist, who generously support his musical and artistic endeavours.

St Mary’s Perivale Tuesday 11 October 3.00 pm

Some wonderfully descriptive playing by a musician who can make the piano speak louder than words.Hovering over the keyboard like a cat about to pounce he brought these descriptive pieces vividly to life.A superb technical control and a kaleidoscopic sense of colour allied to a sumptuous sense of balance brought a radiance and immediacy to all that he did.
From the crystalline elegance of Rameau to the soaring romanticism of Schumann and the utmost delicacy of Debussy.
But it was the muffled sounds of the Turkish pipes that Fazil Say depicts in his Black Earth that brought back the terrible story of a pianist sentenced to death by a regime where he is now considered a hero.

Dr Mather may have been concerned for his piano that like mine after visits from Stockhausen and Adulescu I was forced to write in the contract that the piano could only be played with two hands and two feet in the traditional manner!
He need not have worried because it is obvious that Antoine truly loves the piano where others may hate it .

Franco-Belgian pianist Antoine Préat was born in August 1997 in Paris. Described by the French radio as “one of the most gifted pianists of the youngest generation”, and as “a young artist with a distinctive voice”, Antoine is in demand both as a chamber musician and a soloist.Antoine made his orchestral debut at 17, playing Rachmaninov’s second concerto under the baton of Mihnea Ignat, and has since performed with orchestras such as Orchestra of Alicante, the Tonerl Chamber Orchestra, the Sainsbury Soloists, the Academy Festival Orchestra, the London Student Orchestra, the Resonate Chamber Ensemble. Antoine is regularly invited to perform in France as well as in Europe and the United States in halls such as the Salle Cortot, Salle Gaveau, Wigmore Hall, Thayer Hall, Paris Beaux Arts Museum, Frederyk Chopin Institute. 

His performances have been broadcast on the BBC and France Musique. Performance highlights include festivals such as the Nohant Chopin Festival, Lisztomanias, Chopin à Bagatelle, les Concerts d’Esther, Marathon Chopin (for his bicentenary), les Nuits du piano in Paris, and Jeunes talents. Antoine is an avid chamber musician, and dedicates himself to his piano duo, Duo Martelli, currently studying under Amandine Savary’s tutelage at the Royal Academy of Music. He was the youngest artist to be invited to join the Centre de Musique de Chambre de Paris, (directed by Jerome Pernoo) with whom he gave a series of concert at the Salle Cortot in Paris, sponsored by Deutsche Gramophone.He has been a finalist/prizewinner in numerous national and international competitions such as the Ettlingen competition for young pianists, the Concours International de la Ville de Gagny, the Concours international d’Ile de France, received an honor prize at the New York Début Piano Competition, and more. 

Antoine began his studies at the Junior Paris Conservatoire (CRR de Paris). One year later, he made his public debut at the Salle Gaveau. In 2011, he was invited to continue his studies at the Ecole Normale de Musique A. Cortot, from which he graduated with a distinction at the age of 17. He then continued his studies at the Royal Academy of Music in London, under the tutelage of Tatiana Sarkissova, where he received the Colin Murray Award (2016) and Vivian Langrish Award (2018) for highest mark in an examination as well as the Bache Fund Award for special achievement (2019). Antoine is currently enrolled as Master of Arts student at the Academy under Christopher Elton’s tutelage. He is very fortunate to be supported by Talent Unlimited as well as the Munster Derek Butler Award and the Winifred Christie Trust Award. 

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2021/03/15/antoine-preat-aristocratic-artistry-at-st-marys/

https://youtube.com/watch?v=hwl-UiiPLjw&feature=share

50th Anniversary Gala of the Santander International Piano Competition and a sad but joyous farewell for Paloma O’Shea the Founding President.

Barry Douglas ,the elder statesman winner many years ago,gave a sterling performance of the Appassionata.The complete opposite of another winner,Floristan,who played it yesterday as Rubinstein winner too with quicksilver colour in a voyage of discovery.
Barry’s voyage had arrived at its glorious destination and Floristan is still searching for his Etiopia but both were faithful interpretations seen through a different lense.https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2022/10/09/juan-perez-floristan-takes-london-by-storm/

A magnificent performance of the Brahms Quintet with the present winner the 23 year old Canadian Jaeden Izik Dzurko and the magnificent Casals Quartet.Jaeden an excellent partner to his magnificent colleagues.What a marvel to see Vera Martinez- Mehner rise out of her seat as she and her colleagues watched each other waiting to see what the other would do.Like the Kelemen Quartet with Peter Frankl recently they had moved the standard shape of the quartet to fit this passionate score .First Violin and Viola on the outside with cello under the lid of the piano and what a wonder he was too!Looking so expectedly at the pianist as this young man was too …..music making of infectious improvisation.The viola waiting to pounce too as the young pianist joined in this wonderful circus act.An act where they were all on the high wire risking all for the sake of the music …….and what music.We certainly needed another interval after that emotionally exhausting journey.

Another interval to cleanse the air and prepare for the solo piano of Jaeden.

Top of the class performances of Albeniz El Albaicin and Rachmaninov’s troubling first Sonata.Impeccable performances of extraordinary technical prowess at the service of the music. Performances though that were strangely black and white compared to the kaleidoscopic colours that Floristan could find on a Yamaha piano yesterday.
But then Floristan is quite unique and in many other ways this young man is too .

At only 23 Jaeden gave greatly assured performances .Albeniz was remarkable for the rhythmic insistence of the hypnotically repetitive opening giving way to hauntingly mirrored utterances of beguiling insinuation before bursting into glorious flames of unbridled passion.The Rachmaninov is notoriously difficult to master with an architectural line that must lead the way and not be distracted by the enormous amount of notes that embroider it’s path.It needs a kaleidoscopic palette of colours to distinguish between the actual line and the streams of gold and silver that embroider it.Jaeden’s command of the transcendental difficulties was remarkable as was his sense of architecture but the driving brooding opening and passionate obsessive declarations were absorbed into a clarity of detail that needed to be hidden in mystery like a cauldron of boiling water always present and about to burst
I have only heard one truly successful performance of this and that was from Alexandre Kantarow in a concert streamed live during the pandemic from the Philharmonie de Paris.Martin Garcia Garcia winner of Cleveland came close too in Cremona the other day.He told me that this once very neglected Sonata was now being played by many top pianists at Juilliard in New York these days.We have been over saturated with the second sonata since Horowitz’s staggering performance that he astonished the world with in one of the concerts of his Indian summer .

Jaeden came close and am sure as he matures and suffers more the path will become clearer.
Two encores of Scriabin and I think Medtner had the audience on its feet for this remarkable young virtuoso

https://www.jaedenizikdzurko.com/biography

Wonder of wonders a miracle of ravishing playing where time just stood still as we listened breathless in wonder . A young man who recreated the music not only before our eyes but where he too is astonished by the wonders that flow from his fingers.
Has the menace of the Appassionata ever been more terrifying than in the opening few bars or the sumptuous beauty that follows that until now only Rubinstein could make glow like gold.
Chopin Preludes that I had heard streamed live from Duszniki Festival together with the same group by Liszt but tonight created an electric atmosphere that made words superfluous .Where most pianists have a range of ten gradations in every note ,Floriestan has 100 but even that is a ridiculous calculation because it is infinite .
At last an artist, the worthy heir of Rubinstein.An artist who lives and breathes music.
I have written about some of programme from Verbier last summer but tonight there was the Appassionata where stood the Wanderer Fantasy and there is still so much to say about an artist who lives and breathes music so intensely.

An Appassionata of absolute clarity but veiled in mystery where the rests spoke louder than the notes.From the very opening with a dynamic energy within the whispered notes.The phrases ending abruptly in silence after a trill that unwound with spine tingling nervous energy.The menacing bass notes played totally expressionless sent a cold shiver down our backs before the inevitable irascible explosion.Fragments appearing on expressionless repeated notes led to the sumptuous richness of the second subject played with a timelessness that I have not heard since Rubinstein’s performances in London.The mysterious descending scale bathed in a veiled mist led to an explosion of rhythmic energy of breathtaking contrast.The opening theme’s gentle appearance in the left hand marked only forte by Beethoven as it spread over the entire keyboard with ever more fervour before the point of arrival with the sforzandi and its immediate disintegration.The second subject now got gradually more intense leading suddenly to fortissimo cascades of notes and the menacing four notes from the opening unmasked revealing the real force behind their opening menace.The final virtuosistic cascades of notes were built up with levels of sound ever more intense until the bubble burst with devastating effect and it was here that Floristan had been saving his true dynamic force raising himself up in the seat as Rubinstein would do at the key moment in the movement .It took our breath away for its audacity and seemingly improvised freedom.Beethoven’s great temperament had been unleashed before the agitated coda dissolves into a mist of sound that is all very clearly Beethoven’s wishes for those that can understand them.This was a remarkable recreation of the score where not only the composers wishes had been digested fully but also an understanding of the composers temperament,personality and the times he lived in .

For us tonight Floristan had become Beethoven.

The Andante con moto was played in whispered tones as the variations became more and more agitated leading to the mysterious arpeggiando chord (did I hear it played top to bottom ?) and the final fortissimo chord heralding the start of the Allegro ma non troppo.It was played with swirls of sound with a great sense of urgency and ever increasing intensity never allowing the dynamics to take over or disturb the relentless rhythmic pace that he had set .Even the coda was played with great control until the final page where the wild beast of Beethoven was unleashed with devastating effect.

The Preludes by Chopin in Floristan’s hands were not those described by Fou Ts’ong as 24 problems but these were 24 jewels of ravishing beauty as the rays they projected shone with such radiance and subtle colouring within a sound world that was like a shell into which we were invited to look.The improvised beauty of the opening flourishes were transformed into a brooding almost lumbering second prelude on which the melodic line was placed so freely with subtle shaping of great delicacy.The lightness of his left hand in the third allowed the melodic line to sing without any forcing and was even allowed to breathe with the same liberty as a singer.The beauty of the fourth was enhanced by the opening rather rapid tempo that was allowed to dissolve into three beautifully placed chords of great significance.The whispered entrance of the fifth’s meanderings led to the luxuriance of the melodic line of the sixth suddenly bathed in a warm glow of pedal and where the final few bars were like a dream or reminiscence of what had come before.The grace and delicacy he brought to the seventh belied the fact it is the shortest of them all!The eighth grew out of this so naturally -one can see where Scriabin got his inspiration from- beautifully shaped with timeless phrasing despite the fistful of notes that have to be contemplated.

The added bass notes in the ninth just added to the nobility and beauty and contrasted with the jets of jeux perlé interspersed between the simple melodic line.The frenzy and sense of dance in the twelfth was allied to a precision and clarity but given also shape and colour.The shimmering beauty of the thirteenth allowed the melodic line to float with subtle delicacy and breathless beauty.The almost secret entry of the wind blew itself out before the great bel canto singer took the stage with ‘raindrops’from heaven.Adding some slight embellishments of his own that only added to the beauty and legato line as a great singer might do with the superlative breath control of a Caballée.Even the usually overblown central section was allowed to grow so naturally and never was an unwanted visitor to this extraordinary tone poem.There was beauty and transcendental control with richly highlighted inner harmonies that added a golden richness to the sixteenth and seventeenth.There was passion and rhetoric in the cadenza of the eighteenth having crept in almost unnoticed before exploding before our very eyes.The transcendental difficulties of the nineteenth were ignored by a pianist that lives and breathes only music and the fullness of the C minor chords of the twentieth became a whispered secret in only a few magical bars .The octaves of the twenty second were played with the same mellifluous colour that had illuminated all the preludes .Chopin’s flowing jeux d’eau was of timeless beauty as the final prelude crept in with such subtlety without for a moment becoming the usual bombastic show piece we are used to in lesser hands.He even found time for a magical pianissimo in the ever boiling intensity and the final dive from the top to the bottom of the keyboard was greeted by three ‘D’s’of such colour and subtle vibrancy and not the usual bomb shell final blast played helter skelter with the right hand A performance where Floristan allowed the music to breathe and vibrate so naturally but also keeping the overall architectural line from the first improvised notes to the final beauty of the last three magic gongs.

Franz Liszt composed Sposalizio, which means marriage in Italian ,after being inspired by Raphael’s painting The Marriage of the Virgin.The first piece from Deuxième Année de Pélerinage :Italie (Second Year of Pilgrimage: Italy), published in 1858.Starting with a simple pentatonic melody, which is transformed into a complex musical shape. The melody is then transformed into a type of wedding march leading to the grand climax before dying away to a mere whisper.It was played with beautiful hand movements caressing the keys as I have only seen the like from Volodos, producing magic sounds with even the thumbs delicately punching the notes deep into the keys with passiona\te fervour within an almost whispered confession.The melodic line floated on the ever busy left hand that even in the most passionate climax never overpowered the melodic line and sense of overall shape.Coming full circle and ending with the same delicately played configurations as at the beginning. it prepared the scene for the brooding contemplation of ‘Pensieroso’

The concept of ‘Il pensieroso’ which Michelangelo Buonarroti symbolized in his idealized representation of Lorenzo di Piero de’ Medici at Florence’s Cappelle Medicee might have had even earlier roots but it became a fascinating subject for many years after Michelangelo’s time. ‘Il pensieroso’, this time was in Liszt’s Années de pèlerinage, Deuxième année: Italie. The inspiration for the main title of the three cycles for piano solo came from Goethe whose Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre (years of the journeyman) provided the idea. Much later in Liszt’s life, parts of ‘Il pensieroso’ surfaced once again in the second part of his Trois odes funèbres, La notte where Michelangelo meets Liszt, Milton, Goethe, Händel, and last not least the British/American Painter Thomas Cole.In La notte Liszt divides his attention between the tomb of Giuliano de’ Medici which shows the sleeping woman to the left symbolizing the night and the tomb of Lorenzo de’ Medici who is portrayed as the man who is deeply thinking seemingly in an introspective and melancholy mode. If Liszt’s La notte came after the untimely death of his daughter Blandine at childbirth, it adds tragedy to the composer’s life of highs and lows, of extremes and contradictions that it followed the early death of Liszt’s son Daniel which had been reflected in the music of Les morts. Here Liszt was seeking guidance from Hugues Félicité Robert de Lamennais, a priest and author who had Liszt’s confidence and trust throughout most of Liszt’s life. It is Lamennais’s presence when Liszt subtitled the work ‘oraison’ (prayer or oration). Les morts was dedicated to Liszt’s daughter Cosima who survived her father by almost a half-century. Liszt’s music can be said to represent a philosophy of art, poetry and religion, the complex sources he drew from,
the multitudes of inspiration from an unending number of origins and the awareness that Liszt’s work transcended music in a multitude of ways and means.

A deeply introspective performance where Floristan barely touched the keys before Liszt’s chords of the final scene from Tristan and Isolde opened a flood gate of a gasping,breathless unending build up of fragments that led to the final crowning passionate outpouring.It was played with a magical sense of colour with golden streams of sounds that grew so naturally with an inner passion and intensity that was mesmerising.Even the most passionate of climaxes was played with a beauty of sound from a pianist who could never play vertically but saw the long lines with his body movements as horizontal and deeply etched into the keys.The aching silence that greeted the final moments of this marvel were proof enough of the trance that had been created by this true poet of the Keyboard.

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2017/01/13/juan-perez-floristan-at-the-wigmore-hall/. Prize winners concert of the Santander Competition .

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2022/08/16/juan-perez-floristan-poetry-and-seduction-of-the-rubinstein-laureate-in-Poland

The stage of Kings Place was transformed for the evening into an intimate salon of sublime music making with a Schubertiade of eight hands on one piano.

Kings Place had tried its best to unwrap itself for the evening but with a card machine that did not work and only one place where programmes were on sale.

A public convenience that was a bit like scaling Everest or descending into Hades !Some rather duff furniture on stage in the hope of creating an intimate atmosphere in this most antiseptic of concert halls.
It was trying too hard again to please .
It was enough the sublime creation of Schubert on its own to create the magic that eludes the PR boys of Kings Place.
An even distribution of boy and girl created a fascinating glimpse of the artistry of all four fine musicians who listen so unselfishly to each other.

Katya Apekisheva’s ravishing sensibility in the Divertissment was truly inspired as had been her Schubert B flat in this festival last year.
https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2021/10/10/london-piano-festival-circus-of-dreams/

Also a protégée of Imogen Coopers Music Trust,Dominic Degavino,created a magic atmosphere much helped by the sensitive musicianship of Charles Owen who had also played a major part sustaining Katya .He also joined Imogen Cooper in a very musicianly account of Lebenssturme where the mutual sensitivity of Schubert’s chameleon like changes of colour was breathtaking.
Imogen together with her protégée Dominic played as one in a monumental performance of the sublime masterpiece that is the F minor Fantasy .

But it was the combination of the two ladies that stole our hearts with a performance of the rarely heard Variations on an original theme.
Delicacy,passion,virtuosity and simplicity combined with four hands locked in a true love duet of refined music making of perfect ensemble.
It was more than that ….they played as one ….their hearts beating together.

Magic had taken the stage …….it took just the genius of Schubert and the artistry of the medium between us and his soulmates.
If only Kings Place could wrap this up and keep it safe for my next visit.

https://youtu.be/PMRFkRLto9M

Aidan Milkdad a name to remember ……astonishing playing for the Imogen Cooper Music Trust.A Liszt Sonata of such clarity and assurance with an architectural understanding that made you almost forgive his youthful passion that ignored Liszt’s very specific dynamic instructions.
But there were so many memorable things that when he has had a serious talk with Dame Imogen he will understand that there can only be one climax that must be the very pinnacle of the sonata.
The tumultuous and overpowering climax before the return of the deep mysterious opening chords.He played the fugato at breakneck speed too (because he can!) and then of course he had to put the break on.There were so many beautiful things though and a technical ease that allowed such clarity.The opening with its murmured mystery so beautifully shaped and that reached sublime heights in the final bars when Aidan hinted at a dissonance so unexpected but for that so moving.As Ashkenazy once said,the final two pages of Sonata are some of the most moving in all of music.It was after all the spectacular gymnastics that this young man had understood that these final pages were the very core of this masterpiece and he was able to reveal it’s soul as only a kindred spirit could do.No wonder Liszt scratched out his triumphant first draft for the sonata where like Busoni with the Goldberg variations it finished in a blaze of glory.The genius of Liszt was able to pen one of his most moving utterances that pointed to the future.The Genius of Liszt has no bounds.Q.E.D.

I remember,as students,buying the fifty pence Turnabout recording of Alfred Brendel who was a beacon in a world of empty virtuosi who would dare dabble their feet in such dangerous waters.
Of course Beethoven’s op.110 was given an exemplary performance with scrupulous attention here to the composers indications and much else besides.There was a fluidity and luminosity to the sound contrasting with the butterfly clarity of the leggiermente and the simplicity with which he played the astonishing change from E flat to D flat before the development.His scrupulous attention to Beethoven’s very precise markings where his left hand meanderings were so clear but never overpowered the right hand melodic line as it found its way back home.What poignancy he brought to the coda and the final two chords played with such delicacy of one who is truly listening to every sound he makes.The Allegro molto was played very deliberately with great care of the dynamics.The treacherous trio held no fear for this young man but if he had given more weight to the bass notes that Beethoven marks to be accented it would have given much more weight and meaning to his continuous meanderings.There was a sublime timeless beauty to the Adagio which led to the serenity of the fugue.It built to a climax before the miraculous change of key and the melodic line breathing its dying breath – ‘perdendo le forze,dolente’.The simplicity and mastery of his playing was very moving as it wove its way inexorably to the triumphant final pages building the tension that was to explode in the glorious outpouring of its arrival home.Dame Imogen was looking on in admiration at her young disciple,how could it be otherwise!
Scriabin’s hypnotically obsessive 3rd Sonata was played with fluidity and radiance with his youthful passion and exuberance in the tumultuous climaxes and how could one criticise when the impact was so overwhelming.Power,passion and luminosity but above all radiance and sumptuous beauty like jewels sparkling brightly in the intoxicating perfumed air.The 5 preludes op 5 by Scriabin too that had opened his programme with the passionate outpouring of the second,ravishing beauty of the third and elegance of the fifth all played with such kaleidoscopic colour and style.

A ravishingly solid performance of the nocturne op 9 for the left hand alone was his way of thanking the audience.Scriabin’s right hand had been almost irreparably damaged trying to get his fingers around Liszt’s Don Giovanni paraphrase.

There was no risk of that with our young hero tonight as he dedicated to our hostess,Anne Machin,a dazzling transcription by Volodos of Liszt’s 13th Hungarian Rhapsody.
Left to young virtuosi like Aidan these days to astonish and amaze as the elder statesman Volodos turns to the classics.
It was indeed a fizzling end to a remarkable concert by a 21 year old pianist who is obviously headed for the heights.

On his knees before Dame Imogen asking forgiveness for giving way to such undisguised showmanship.How could we not forgive him as we were all enthralled and involved in the excitement this young man had generated with his astonishing virtuosity.

Tuesday 4 October 3.00 pm

Some superb playing from Siquian Li not only a magnificent technical command but the intelligence from the class of Norma Fisher that gave such weight to all that she did .From the sparkling multi coloured bagatelles of Carl Vine through the impatient improvisations of Beethoven’s rarely heard Fantasia op 77 where his irascible character had much in common with Schumann’s dual personality.Schubert’s G flat impromptu calmed the ruffled waters with simplicity and sublime beauty.Liszt’s monumental B minor Sonata was given a reading where intelligence and technical prowess went hand in hand with passion and beauty.Her authority and ability to think always from the bass gave an architectural strength and character to one of the greatest masterpieces of the piano repertoire

A ‘rising star of the piano’, Chinese pianist Siqian Li brings elegance, dynamism and exceptional musical quality to her performances. Commended for her ‘virtuosity and talent’ (Annecy Classic Festival), her ‘huge emotional range and effortless pianistic control’ (Paul Lewis CBE), and her ‘graceful and touching’ (Emanuel Ax) approach, Siqian has appeared in concerts and recitals around the world. Dedicated to the musical arts and connecting with audiences, Siqian is equally content on intimate stages as she is on the major stages. She has performed at international concert halls including the Bridgewater Hall, Beijing Forbidden City Concert Hall, Tokyo Ginza Yamaha Concert Hall, Cairo’s Arabic Music Institute and Boston’s Jordan Hall, and in more unusual settings, with recitals at London’s 1901 Arts Club, the ever-charming Fidelio Cafe and Luke Jerram’s breathtaking GAIA The Earth Exhibition.Consistently active on the festival circuit, Siqian has given recitals at Annecy Classic Festival, Festival d’Auvers sur-Oise, Dinard Festival International de Musique, Lancaster Music Festival, Shanghai International Music Festival, and BNP Paribas Rising Star Piano Festival, amongst others. A keen collaborator, Siqian actively seeks out opportunities to work with inspiring international artists. In 2021, Siqian collaborated with Latvian violinist Roberts Balanas on his debut album, which was released on Linn Records and has surpassed 150k plays on Apple Music. Elsewhere, Siqian has collaborated with a wide range of musicians worldwide, from the principals of the China National Symphony Orchestra to violinist Jack Liebeck. The level of depth Siqian brings to her musical exploration, coupled with her shining pianism, has led to her winning numerous awards, including the top prize of the Chappell Medal Piano Competition, the Imola International Piano Competition, Krainev International Piano Competition, and the Yamaha China Piano Competition Conservatoire. Siqian was also a semi-finalist of the Leeds International Piano Competition in 2018.Siqian has performed live on BBC Radio 3 – In Tune and appeared on BBC Radio London – The Scene . Passionate about sharing thoughts and ideas in writing, Siqian’s articles have been featured on various publishers and websites including Classical Music UK and Piano Addict Blog . An enthusiastic teacher, Siqian teaches privately in London and has given masterclasses internationally, in institutions ranging from Yamaha Music China to Lancashire’s Rossall School. Siqian is a Yamaha Young Artist. She studied at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing with Professor Huiqiao Bao, then went on to obtain a Master of Music Degree and a Graduate Diploma at the New England Conservatory in Boston in the class of Professor Alexander Korsantia, before receiving an Artist Diploma at the Royal College of Music in 2020 under the tutelage of Professor Norma Fisher.

Norma Fisher at Steinway Hall The BBC recordings -On wings of song- the story continues

Li Siqian – streams of ravishing gold at St Mary’s

https://youtube.com/watch?v=AhE4AAYT13s&feature=share

Damir Duramovic at Pushkin House with a refined performance of 19th century Slavic piano music .

Performances of aristocratic style with a refined kaleidoscopic palette of sounds.Culminating in a complete performance of Rachmaninov Preludes op 23 where the volcanic eruptions of the B flat and C minor preludes were followed by the rhythmic drive of the fifth in performances of breathtaking depth and drive.

It was in the study by Scriabin op 2 offered as encore that the true Slavic soul was revealed with playing of great weight and sentiment.Not a trace of the sickly sentimentality that we hear from lesser mortals who do not understand the real poetic soul of a people who were free to express their feelings of a true heart that beats always in the Slavic soul.

A group of rarely heard preludes by turn of the century Russian/Ukrainian composers.Blumenthal is well known to be the first teacher of Horowitz but his own piano music has still to be discovered.A kaleidoscope of subtle sounds of great naturalness.The nuances and colours created a magic atmosphere in a beautiful but sparsely furnished room where the atmosphere was created solely by the streams of beautiful sounds that Damir coaxed from an old but friendly Steinway.There was passion too and a technical command totally at the service of the music.A discovery of a world of a different era with music written by and for the performers themselves.Today we are gradually finding interpreters like Damir or Mark Viner that can make it relive.It needs a great sense of style but above all a sense of colour and polyphony where music is caressed rather than hammered out on the piano .An illusion that with great artistry a box of strings with hammers can be transformed into a celestial harp.An artist that can create the impression that the piano can sing as beautifully as the greatest of bel canto singers.A world that looks back to the world of Chopin rather than to the new world of Stravinsky and Prokofiev.

Damir is a remarkable musician brought up by musical parents who are used to improvising in Bosnia and Herzegovina where traditional music is heard and performed spontaneously everywhere rather than concert performances.Damir came to the Menuhin school at an early age where he received a unique musical education from artists such as Marcel Baudet and Robert Levin.So it was no surprise that deciding to play the complete Preludes op,23 by Rachmaninov he chose to play them in an order that each one was the dominant of the next.

Starting with the hauntingly beautiful prelude in F sharp minor with its brooding left hand so reminiscent of the second of Chopin’s preludes op 28 and the final repeated chords each one played so differently as it dies away to a murmur just like so many of Chopin’s Preludes and Studies.

I will keep to the printed order just for clarity and so to the mighty B flat Prelude which Damir ended with.A tour de force of sumptuous sounds with the wonderful tenor melody in the central section just revealed rather than hammered out as is so often heard in lesser hands.A flurry of notes like rush hour leading to the triumphant return of the opening and the excitement and transcendental difficulty of the coda.Fearlessly played chords that carried us on a wave of exhilaration to the final heroic cadence.The quixotic questioning of the third in D minor was answered by the robust beauty of the fourth in D major.A sumptuous string orchestra of Philadelphian richness and beauty,the gentle embroidered meanderings never interfering with the flowing melodic line.The G minor fifth Prelude was played with rhythmic drive and energy that was startling and at times overwhelming.The ending thrown off with nonchalant ease just like his Paganini Rhapsody or the G sharp minor prelude op 32.Rachmaninov was after all one of the greatest virtuosi of his day and he obviously knew how to tease and beguile his audiences as much as ravish and seduce them.Vlado Perlemuter often used to recount the pianist who came on stage looking as though he had swallowed a knife but then would produce the most beautiful sounds he had ever heard.The most romantic of Preludes in E flat was followed by a transcendental performance of the west wind puffing and blowing in the C minor that followed.The romantic meanderings of the eighth were followed by the feux follets difficulties of the ninth in E flat minor.Damir played this most difficult of Preludes with astonishing ease concentrating solely on the musical shape and colour with breathtaking audacity.Surely the haunting beauty of the tenth in G flat is so similar to the sixth of Chopin’s Preludes.It is however imbued with a voice that is uniquely Slavic ,full of nostalgia and brooding.

An hour of real music making from a poet of the piano.A true illusionist who can transform this old black box creating an intimate atmosphere in a rather cold room.Making us believe for a moment that we are in the most sumptuous of salons in one of the great pre revolutionary palaces.

The first pieces in the concert are by the Russian Romantic composer Anatoly Lyadov (1855-1914), known for his piano miniatures, a number of orchestral works and folksong arrangements. In 1870 he entered the St. Petersburg Conservatoire to study composition with Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov. On graduating, Lyadov became a professor, teaching composition for more than three decades, his students including Sergei Prokofiev, Nikolai Myaskovsky and other notable figures. 

Next in the programme, the Preludes from 1931 by one of Lyadov’s students, Sergei Bortkiewicz (1877-1952) – a Ukrainian Romantic composer and pianist of Polish ancestry, born in Kharkov, then a part of the Russian Empire. After studying in St. Petersburg and Leipzig, from 1904 he spent ten years in Berlin. When the First World War began, he was deported back to Russia. Soon after, the Bolsheviks occupied his family estate, and later took Kharkov. In 1920 Bortkiewicz and his wife fled the country. Spending time in Istanbul and in Belgrade, they finally settled in Vienna. The music of Bortkiewicz is influenced by Chopin and Liszt, as well as Tchaikovsky and early Scriabin. In an interview from 1948 he said, “Today, one is probably inclined to dismiss all melodicists as epigones. Certainly, very often wrongly. As far as I am concerned, romanticism is not the bloodless intellectual commitment to a program, but the expression of my most profound mind and soul.“ 

The concert will continue with the 1890s pieces by Felix Blumenfeld (1863-1931). He was born into a family of Polish and Austrian Jewish origin, in Yelysavethrad (present-day Kropyvnytskyi city in Ukraine), in Kherson Governorate of then the Russian Empire. Some time after Lyadov, he was a student of Rimsky-Korsakov at the St. Petersburg Conservatoire. Alongside his composition practice, Blumenfeld was a conductor and a prominent pianist. From 1918 to 1922, he was the director of the Lysenko Music and Drama School in Kyiv, before he moved to Moscow, where, until the end of his life, he taught in the Conservatoire, having an influential role as a piano teacher. 

The complete set of Preludes Op. 23 by Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943) will close the concert. Composer, pianist and conductor, Rachmaninoff was born into Russian aristocracy in the Novgorod Governorate. He studied in the Moscow Conservatoire with A. Siloti (piano), A. Arensky (composition) and S. Taneyev (counterpoint). Being a famous pianist, throughout his life Rachmaninoff was often travelling abroad on tours. Soon after the 1917 Revolution in Russia, his estate was confiscated by the communists. By chance, granted a tour to Scandinavia, he and his family left Russia, and never returned. For the rest of his life he was living between the United States and Switzerland, focusing most of his professional activity on piano performance.

PROGRAMME

Anatoly Lyadov 

Three Piano Pieces Op. 57 (1900-05): 

I. Prelude

II. Valse

III. Mazurka

Sergei Bortkiewicz 

Preludes Op. 40 (1931):

No. 3 Con moto

No. 4 Sostenuto

No. 6 Andantino dolente

No. 7 Appassionato

Felix Blumenfeld

Preludes Op.17 (1892):

No.10 in c-sharp minor

No.15 in D-flat major

Etude de concert Op. 24 (1897)

Sergei Rachmaninoff

Preludes Op. 23 (1901-03), the complete set.

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Damir Durmanovic is an internationally sought-after performer, who has performed at venues and festivals across Europe and the UK. He has won prizes in numerous international competitions, including the Beethoven Intercollegiate Junior Competition in London, Adilia Alieva International Piano Competition in Geneva and Isidor Bajic International Piano Competition in Novi Sad. Durmanovic is a scholar at the International Academy of Music in Liechtenstein and regularly participates in the courses organised by the academy.

Durmanovic began his studies at age of eight in his home country, Bosnia and Herzegovina, with Maja Azabagic before continuing his studies at the Yehudi Menuhin School where he studied with professor Marcel Baudet. He is a graduate from the Royal College of Music where he studied with Dmitri Alexeev. He is supported by the Keyboard Charitable Trust, as well as the Talent Unlimited Scheme.

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2022/06/29/damir-durmanovic-at-st-marys-stars-shining-brightly-in-perivale-today/

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2022/04/18/damir-duramovic-at-cranleigh-arts-a-musician-speaks-with-simplicity-and-poetry/

St John’s Smith Square was in party mood with a concert to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of China-UK Ambassadorial Diplomatic Relations and the 73 anniversary of the People’s Republic of China.A concert in which the young pianist/composer Yuanfan Yang played movements from his third and fourth concertos also performing solo piano pieces and accompanying Yue Guo with his extraordinary Chinese bamboo ‘Di-Zi’ flutes.

Two choirs performed firstly a work by John Rutter ‘For the Beauty of the Earth’in which Yuanfan added some magic sounds on the piano.Yuanfan’s own work ‘Hometown Far Away’ was performed by joint choirs and orchestra in a final triumphant outpouring of joyous music making.

The beauty of Yuanfan’s playing was mirrored in the joyous atmosphere that was created by the Berlin Metropolitan Orchestra under George Hlawiczka and the two choirs seated in the gallery above the orchestra.Apollo Premadasa at only eight years old is not only a composer but also a cellist,trombonist,percussionist and pianist too.As the programme said far more poetically than I could ever do :’Apollo’s soul belongs to music and shares his passion for this art form and the feelings towards the world we live in via his performing and composing’

Yuanfan too showed his remarkable gifts at a very early age.His mother tells me of being complimented by another mother ,at a children six year old birthday party, on how well her son played the piano and wanted the name of his teacher for her child too.’But he does not play the piano’ she exclaimed ‘and we do not have a piano in the house!’ Genius shows itself in many mysterious ways .Yuanfan now is receiving accolades world wide for his superlatively intelligent and sensitive artistry as a pianist and also as a creative artist.Yuanfan lives in a world of his own ,a world of wondrous beauty and discovery.

Disputes and politics are not part of this Eutopia and as the distinguished speaker said today:’It is music that will draw us all together .It is the universal language ‘

Words are dangerous because they cannot express the real soul and understanding that can exist only in sounds.Fou Ts’ong ,the great Chinese pianist,surprised everyone in Warsaw when he won the top prize for his performances of the Mazurkas,the national dance of Poland.’But it is the same soul and feeling expressed in Chinese poetry’ ……the heart of Chopin is universal and beats with the same warmth and understanding in every soul.One just has to try to share the universal message captured within to realise it is this sentiment which will unite us in the end.

Some superlative playing of great authority from Yuanfan playing his fourth concerto.A beautifully melodic work that Yuanfan embellished with arabesques over the entire range of the keyboard.Yuanfan’s own work ‘Waves’ was played with great virtuosity and a kaleidoscopic sense of colour.Strangely enough his third concerto was much more complex and less melodic than the fourth.The splendid orchestra also performed the second movement of the Symphony 1 War Child written by the eight year old Apollo Premadasa.

Mention should be made of Yuanfan’s extraordinary improvisatory skills.Asking the audience for a melody and also a style they would like to chose he proceeded to astonish with a improvised virtuoso performance that astonished and amazed .

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2021/10/29/yuanfan-yang-premio-chopin-2018-celebrates-the-30th-anniversary-of-rome-international-piano-competition/

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

Friday-Sunday 30 Sept to 2 October ST MARY’S PERIVALE CHOPIN FESTIVAL 2022. 20 pianists play solo recitals over 5 sessions.

Friday 30 September 7 pm Chopin Festival Session 1 :7.00 Viv McLean Largo in E flat, Nocturne in E minor Op 72 no 1, Mazurkas Op 7 nos 1-3, Nocturne in F Op 15 no 1, Polonaise in A Op 40 no 1, Ballade no 3 in A flat Op 47, Scherzo no 3 in C sharp minor Op 39, Nocturne in C sharp minor Op Posth
7.55 Mengyang Pan Grande Valse brillante in E flat Op 18, Waltz in E minor Op Posth, Waltzes Op 69 nos 1&2, Variations on ‘Là ci darem la mano’ Op 2
8.25 Michal Szymanowski Mazurkas Op 6, Nocturne in G minor Op 37 no 1, Impromptu no 3 in G flat Op 51, Nocturne in F minor Op 55 no 1, Waltz in A flat Op 42

What a wonder the start of a three day Chopin festival with some of the finest pianists imaginable.
St Mary’s has never been so full and on a bleak wintery day there was no stopping a public just longing to hear three mini Chopin recitals.There must be hundreds listening in on line too as I was and what a joy it was to hear not only the better known works of Chopin but also some of the rarities too.

On hearing Chopin himself playing in the Paris salons of the day the variations on La ci darem la Mano op 2 Schumann announced the arrival of a star in their midst with ‘Hats off gentlemen a genius’ and that was only one of his early showpieces.And a show piece it was tonight with a brilliant performance by Menyang Pan.Playing not only with brilliance and breathtaking jeux perlé there was the aristocratic style that she gave to all she played.Some of Chopin’s waltzes were played with such character and colour that was quite breathtaking in its refined beauty and charm.

Michal Szymanowski flying in especially from Poland to play a series of Mazurkas that were so full of the zest and spirit of his native land.
Nocturnes too played with such nobility of sentiment ,the same he brought to the G flat impromptu.Playing with the same ravishing colour and charm that Rubinstein used to beguile us with on his much awaited yearly visits to London.The famous waltz in A flat with cross rhythms was played with a sense of line and irresistible rhythmic drive but the astonishing thing was the way he just threw of the final bar with impish nonchalance.

The opening honours were given to a St Mary’s favourite:Viv McLean who started with an almost unknown Largo in E flat that for me was quite a discovery.Finishing though with a ravishing performance of one of Chopin’s best known nocturnes in C sharp minor op.posth.
In between were sandwiched fine performances of the third Ballade and Scherzo and the famous Military A major Polonaise where his sterling musicianship allowed him to steer us so clearly through these well know waters with great artistry.But his performance of the nocturne op 72 n.2 is what will remain with me for a long time for its heartrending simplicity and aristocratic poise.
Two sessions tomorrow and two on Sunday add up to 12 hours of absolute bliss .
I never thought I would enjoy listening to Chopin’s music as much as I did tonight ………..but I missed the wine, the joie de vivre and infectious enthusiasm of Hugh Mather and all his ‘family’ of music lovers in this beautiful deconsecrated church just 20 minutes from the heart of the great metropolis.

Saturday 1 October 2 pm Chopin Festival Session 2 : 2.00 Ashley Fripp Mazurkas Op 24, Impromptu no 1 in A flat Op 29, Nocturnes Op 9 nos 1&2, Barcarolle Op 60
2.45 Amit Yahav Prelude in C sharp minor Op 45, Waltzes Op 64 nos 1&2, Nocturne in G minor Op 15 no 3, Mazurkas Op 56, Scherzo no 4 in E Op 54
3.30 Joanna Kacperek Nocturne in C minor (1837) Waltz in A flat Op 64 no 3, Polonaise in E flat minor Op 26 no 2, Rondo à la mazur Op 5, Scherzo no 2 in B flat minor Op 31
4.00 tea interval
4.30 Andrew Yiangou Nocturne in G Op 37 no 2, Trois Nouvelle Études, Waltzes Op 70 nos 1-3, Andante Spianato and Grande Polonaise Op 22
5.15 Callum McLachlan Waltzes Op 34 nos 1-3, Mazurkas Op 63, Nocturne in E Op 62 no 2, Scherzo no 1 in B minor Op 20

More superb playing from Perivale on the second day of their Chopin Festival .Opening with Ashley Fripp only a few days after his superb solo recital with a scintillatingly subtle jeux perlé account of the first impromptu just thrown off with the charm and ease of another era .Mazurkas and Nocturnes just flowed from his hands with streams of golden sounds and subtle colours but it was the Barcarolle that stood on its own as a true monument and played even more beautifully than the other day.There was an ease and flow but with an aristocratic control that was quite memorable. https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2022/09/21/ashley-fripp-at-st-marys-poetry-and-intelligence-of-a-great-musician/

There was such subtle poetry from Amit Yahav with Chopin’s late Prelude op 45 where the layers of sound just flowed in a non stop stream of magic sounds.The mazurkas were played with true understanding but the fourth Scherzo stood out for its nobility and fleeting beauty of one of the most elusive but surely one of the greatest of Chopin’s creations.

And what a revelation was Joanna Kacperek recently married to Andrew Yiangou .

All that she played was gold in impeccable performances of rare beauty from the Nocturne in C minor 1837 to the deep brooding of the E flat minor Polonaise .The grace and charm of the Rondo à la mazur to the mighty sturm und drang of the famous B flat minor Scherzo.It was a ravishing display of born musicianship …..what a wonderfully talented couple she and Andrew are and they are from Ealing ….there is something about the air over that way that is full of the sound of music

And to the last two performances before the supper break .Andrew Yiangou the local boy and now distinguished artist of great authority.The three novelles Etudes written in 1839, as a contribution to “Méthode des méthodes de piano”, a piano instruction book by Ignaz Moscheles and François-Joseph Fétis.Two against three,staccato against legato,three against four a conundrum of technical and mental difficulties that just disappear with the sheer beauty of creation.Andrew played them with great authority shaping these gems into perfect miniatures that Chopin was to develop into his truly masterly op 25 studies that we eagerly await tonight from Patrick Hemmerlé.There was grace and charm that he brought to the waltzes op 70 with ornaments that glistened with oiled brilliance.But it was the Andante spianato and grande Polonaise that Andrew showed us his mastery and authority but not before he had entranced us with the perfumed succulence of the spianato …a term that Chopin was to use only once.

The artistry of Callum McLachlan was breathtaking in its old style grace and charm.The grandiloquence of op 34 n.1 was followed by the heart rending yearning of the op 34 n.2.It was the so called cat waltz that Callum let his hair down and put caution to the wind as this poor cat was treated to a speedy Gonzales romp of youthful verve and audacity.The beauty of his mazurkas were only outdone by the ravishing tone and aristocratic poise of the late nocturne op 62.If his virtuosity and passion were breathtaking in the first scherzo it was the slow Christmas melody that Chopin quotes as an antidote that showed off his true artistry.Such wondrous sounds and colours and a rubato that was of a mature artist way above his 22 years. A great artist in the making and part of a remarkable family of superb musicians .

Chopin Festival Session 3 : 7.00 pm Julian Trevelyan Mazurkas Op 41, Impromptu no 2 in F sharp Op 36, Nocturne in B Op 9 no 3, Polonaise-Fantaisie in A flat Op 61
7.45 Patrick Hemmerlé Allegro de concert Op 46, Tarantelle Op 43, Études Op 25
8.30 interval
8.45 Thomas Kelly Rondo in E flat Op 16, Mazurkas Op 50, Mazurkas Op 67, Nocturne in E flat Op 55 no 2, Ballade no 1 in G minor Op 23

What an opening to the evening session of this Chopin Festival .I knew Julian was good but I did not realise how good
( as Serkin exclaimed on hearing Perahia for the first time )until he started his recital tonight.I have heard him give magnificent performances of the Hammerklavier or Diabelli variations that were absorbing and some times even controversial but today from the very first notes of the four Mazurkas he played there was a sound that was like a daguerreotype photo in its veiled beauty.Like an improvisation and even if the second one almost skidded off the tarmac it was breathtaking in its audacity.The melancholic nostalgia mixed with the dance rhythms in the last one was extraordinary.The pastoral serenity he brought to the opening of the F sharp Impromptu made me think of the similarity to the Barcarolle,that was to come in the last years of Chopin’s life with its outpouring of song and aristocratic climax dying to a mere whisper.The Nocturne op 9 n.3 had all the whimsical beauty of Lhevinne’s historic performance with unbelievably ravishing ornamentation that was truly breathtaking .The Polonaise Fantasie was one of the most moving performances I have ever heard .I remember the first time I heard it was from the hands of Perlemuter with his weight and limpet like legato that I never thought I would hear again until tonight .Even if he split the hands in the opening wave of notes it was done with the beauty of a Volodos and a feeling that this was indeed a great wave of sound moving inexorably ahead.If the right hand did not sometimes wait for the left it was so overwhelmingly convincing.I was surprised by his capricious left hand staccato accompaniment just before the middle episode but it was a prelude to chords of such intensity that followed and that I can only thank God that I lived to hear ( as Curzon said of Lupu’s Beethoven 3.)
All these wonderful pianists but with Julian at the fore like a beacon shining brightly amongst the stars.

Talking of stars there followed immediately after this performance the recital of the remarkable Pollini type figure of Patrick Hemerlé. They are colleagues who frequent each other’s performances and share a mutual discovery of music together.Patrick I have heard many times before but today the poetry he found in Chopin’s studies op 25 left me breathless in admiration.Above all moved by the ravishing sounds and deeply personal character he brought to each of these perfect gems.Patrick is a musician who believes deeply in following the composers wishes and like Pollini it is to Patrick that one turns to hear a score come alive in performance before turning maybe to other performers for a more individual interpretation.He has revealed works as far apart as Villa Lobos Rudepoema or as today the Allegro de concert by Chopin.The score brought to life with superlative musicianship and technical mastery.But today there was even more .Chopin had unleashed in Patrick his soul that he normally keeps hidden behind his superlatively inquisitive mind.It was evident from the opening Allegro de concert ,which is the first movement of a third piano concerto that Chopin never completed.If the opening was surprisingly coquettish it grandually built in sonority and passionate involvement that I have rarely noted in Patrick’s alway masterly performances.The Tarantelle too was thrown off with all the ease and charm that obviously Chopin wanted to convey to the ladies of the Paris Salons.
I have heard Patrick play all 24 Chooin studies in public in a remarkable tour de force of musicianship and resilience.But today was different.Patrick allowed us to look into his soul with a reading of the slow 7th study that was emotionally so moving.Already the tenor counterpoints in the A flat first study had given an idea there was something special in the air.The magnificence of the last study where the waves of sound grew to fever pitch of overwhelming emotion brought a spontaneous standing ovation from the usually warm but shy audience at St Mary’s.

Well they say miracles don’t occur in the same place once but in St Mary’s they certainly happen three times !

Thomas Kelly brought tears to my eyes as I realised that this very talented young pianist that I had spotted five years ago has now become an artist of towering stature.I would go to say after what he shared with us tonight the finest pianist of his generation.
The Mazurkas that he played op 50 and op 67 opened up a sound world and a natural flow of musical invention that I have not heard since Smeterlin or Perlemuter.The ravishing beauty of the C sharp minor op 50 was breathtaking in its beauty and the meaning he dug from deep within the notes …..he found the very soul of Chopin that is hidden deep inside the Mazukas.The wondrous colours of the G major op 67 or the dance like melancholy of the G minor or the deeply contemplative A flat .Thomas revealed a whole world as he found the very soul of Chopin with his limpet like fingers that dug ever deeper into the very heart of the notes.The scintillating Rondo op 16 I had not heard since Magaloff .Thomas played with the same aristocratic style but with ravishing sounds of such radiance and fluidity.The notes just flew from his fingers with the oiled brilliance and consummate ease of a past era.The nocturne op 55 n.2 was played with bewitching sounds that seemed to sparkle in the distance as the melodic line flowed with a constant flow of ravishing sounds.
I have never heard the old G minor war horse open with such beauty and restraint .Thomas restored the G minor Ballade to us in a new costume.All the inevitably traditional rhetoric was gone and instead there were breathtaking moments of discovery.Sounds that took me by surprise as one realised that this young man truly loves the piano and is sharing his great love affair with us.Intimate secrets,canons covered in flowers but above all an aristocratic musicianship that marks him out like Benjamin Grosvenor born into another world …..the world of fantasy and wonder …..the world that only the greatest artists can reach.Exciting because Thomas’s is a voyage of discovery that is always evolving and who knows to,what heights it might lead!
Unbelievably moving performances and indeed an evening that will long be remembered and that luckily was recorded so my words are not only a mere memory as Mitsuko Uchida would say.Thank you Hugh and your team for sharing this world with us ….a truly magic carpet in Perivale

Sunday 2 October 2 pm Chopin Festival Session 4 : 2.00 Dinara Klinton Nocturne in F sharp minor Op 48 no 2, Mazurka in A minor Op 68 no 2, Sonata no 2 in B flat minor Op 35
2.45 Sasha Grynyuk Fantasy in F minor Op 49, Mazurkas Op 30, Waltz in A minor (1843), Waltz in E flat (1840), Waltz in A flat (1827), Waltz in E flat (1830)
3.30 Yuanfan Yang 24 Preludes Op 28
4.15 tea interval
4.45 Martin Cousin Nocturnes Op 37 nos 1&2, Bolero Op 19, Berceuse Op 57, Polonaise in A flat Op 53
5.25 Ignas Maknickas Mazurkas Op 59, Nocturnes Op 27 nos 1&2, Ballade no 4 in F minor Op 52

Another extraordinary line up of pianists for the final day of the Chopin Festival.
Dinara Klinton one of the finest pianists of her generation was so disturbed by events in her native Ukraine that she did not know if she would be able to concentrate today.Persuaded by the ever caring Hugh Mather she played even better than ever .A Nocturne in F sharp minor of such depth of sound and profound beauty followed by the haunting message of the Mazurka in A minor.
But it was Chopin’s great masterpiece of the Funeral March sonata that showed off her aristocratic musicianship and an unerring sense of style that allowed such shape and colour and a ‘rubato ma non troppo’ ( to quote the title of Tito Aprea’s fascinating book).As Hugh commented afterwards there was such an electric atmosphere in the Trio of the Funeral March that you could have heard a pin drop in a hall full to the rafters for this wonderful series .The wind blowing over the graves with Dinara’s superb fingers was a wind of great dynamic force finding refuge only in the mighty final chords.

Sasha Grynyuk gave a performance of the F minor Fantasy of such authority and passion where the transcendental arpeggiando chords were of burning intensity.Fearless almost reckless they took our breath away with their audacity.There was great weight to the melodic line of the central episode that just grew so naturally out of its surrounding.The Mazurkas op 30 were played with ravishing colours and sense of style and three little known waltzes were thrown off with irresistible charm and style.The last in E flat (1830) was a favourite encore of Peter Frankl whose 87th birthday is today.Sasha has much in common with Peter for his intelligent musicianship and sense of style .A technical command of the keyboard at the service always of the music.He like Peter is music’s servant.

I had heard Yuanfan Yang yesterday in an evening dedicated to him by the Chinese community in London in St Johns Smith Square.He played movements from his third and fourth concertos plus one of his solo pieces and improvising on themes given by the audience.His fourth concerto owes more to Hollywood than to Ades but for a musician still only in his mid twenties it was a remarkable display of musicianship.https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2022/10/04/yuanfan-yang-a-celebration-in-music-the-universal-language-of-all-nations/
Gold Prize winner a month ago of the Casagrande competition that could in the past boast Perlemuter and Badura Skoda on the jury Yuanfan showed the other side of his remarkable music personality.It was the side he shared with us today with a magnificent account of the 24 Chopin Preludes .Playing now with even more authority than a year ago when I heard him play them in Rome .Yuanfan inhabits a world of his own,the world of music.Anything else is secondary to the message that he carries in his own music and in his music making .A remarkable musician and man whose performance of the Preludes today must surely rank with the greatest of performances that we could hear on the concert platform today.

The final two recitals this afternoon started with a fascinating performance of the rarely heard Bolero played with great panash and infectious rhythmic verve.It was the same grandiosity that Martin Cousins brought to the famous Polonaise Héroique.If the cavalry were a little hard footed it may have been because he was tied to the score and this is one piece where as Rubinstein had shown us so often showmanship and freedom are essential ingredients for this the most majestic of Chopin’s compositions.The two nocturnes however were given intimate performances of great beauty with the solidity and musicianship of consummate artistry.

Ignas Macknickas is a young musician who I heard four years ago playing Mozart double concerto with Alim Baesembayev (the winner of the last Leeds Competition)I had noticed his natural technique long fingers and relaxed arms that gave such fluidity and luminosity to all he did.A natural talent that has at last realised that playing the piano is 90% hard work and 10% God given talent.So it was wonderful to see this young man now flowering into an artist of stature with a performance of one of the greatest works of the Romatic era – the fourth ballade.Together with the Liszt Sonata and Schumann Fantasy these are the very pinnacle of inspiration.
His performance was of great fluidity and authority.Beautiful luminous sounds and a naturalness of movement that was mirrored in the ravishing beauty of the sound he produced .The treacherous coda was played with great excitement but shaped with artistry.The same artistry he had brought to the two nocturnes op 27 with the penombre of the first and the radiant luminosity of the second .The mazurkas too were played with that youthful spirit and sense of ‘joie de vivre’ that was a hallmark of all he did.

Chopin Festival Session 5: 7.00 Julian Jacobson Polonaise in C sharp minor Op 26 no 1, Mazurkas Op 33, Polonaise in C minor Op 40 no 2, Mazurka in F minor Op 68 no 4, Polonaise in F sharp minor Op 44
7.50 Roman Kosyakov Fantasy-Impromptu Op 66, Mazurkas Op 17, Nocturne in C minor Op 48 no 1, Ballade no 2 in F Op 38,
8.30 interval
8.45 Cristian Sandrin Nocturne in B Op 62 no 1, Sonata no 3 in B minor Op 58
9.25 Rokas Valuntonis Nocturne in F sharp Op 15 no 2, Études Op 10

And so to the final session of this extraordinary festival.
It was Julian Jacobson who had pondered through the night of how to making a really fitting contribution to this extraordinary event .He had recently found in the Fontana archives the missing page to the Mazurka in F minor op 68 n.4.A page that Chopin had written on his death bed and had only just the strength to write the bare notes.But notes of such chromaticism that pointed to the future even in his final hours.He prepared it during the morning of the concert as a surprise gift from an extraordinary musicologist.
Julian is also a very fine pianist who plays the entire piano repertoire.He will be playing the 32 Beethoven Sonatas soon from memory in Central London.Starting at 10 am with op 2 and finishing at 10 pm with op 111.
He recently played 7,45 minute recitals on a cruise ship in the Americas as his duo partner was indisposed at the last minute.An amazing musical mind that could contemplate such a tour de force.
Adding three polonaises and the mazurkas op 33 to his programme he gave performances where music just seemed to pour from him so naturally .The Mazukas in particular were played with such live wire colours and rhythms that they seemed almost improvised such was their freshness .The great C minor Polonaise op 40 was played with heartrending nobility and op 26 with its youthful call to arms and joyously innocent dance rhythms.The great F sharp minor Polonaise was played with aristocratic nobility and the complex middle mazurka episode was allowed to flow with a compelling natural forward movement .

Roman Korsyakov’s agile fingers allowed the Fantasie Impromptu to weave its magic web with beguiling colours and passion.The beautiful middle episode sang with pleading sincerity.Roman’s superb sense of balance allowing the melodic line to sing with such subtle colouring which was the hallmark of his remarkable performance of the C minor nocturne that followed A miniature tone poem and one of the greatest of nocturnes played with a remarkable sense of grandeur and poetic beauty.The same beauty he brought to the second ballade but where also his transcendental control of the piano allowed the tempestuous interruptions to astonish and excite before dying away to a mere whisper.
Roman winner of the 2019 Hastings Competition gave him a triumphant London debut with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and he has recently ignited the enthusiasm of the audiences on Cyprus in a recital for the Keyboard Trust of which he is a distinguished artist.

CrIstian Sandrin by coincidence was to be the duo partner on Julian’s cruise but was called to his father’s bedside in Bucharest at the last minute .His father is a distinguished Rumanian pianist who I hope was well enough to watch his son’s remarkably poetic performance of the B minor Sonata ._
An Allegro Maestoso of rare beauty where he took all the time to allow the poetry to be revealed in a timeless flood of song.CrIstian,an Ashkenazy look alike,is born to sit before the keyboard and is a very natural pianist where his movements from on high follow the movement of the music with the same beauty as a Volodos or Giulini.The middle episode of the Scherzo too revealed such poetic truths and contrasted with the scintillating outer episodes played with true jeux perlé of great brilliance.The rondo final movement was paced like a master growing ever more in sound and excitement until the bubble burst with extraordinary virtuosity and brilliance.The nocturne in B too was unraveled in a timeless stream of poignant sounds with trills that were just reverberations from on high adding to the magic atmosphere that he created.

It was Rokas Valuntonis who closed the festival late on Sunday evening.A performance of the F sharp nocturne op 15 that Rubinstein used to play with timeless ease and beauty.Rokas unravelled the beautiful middle episode with the same ease and with a enviable liquid sound .It was the oiled ease of his playing and radiant sound that reminded me of Geza Anda.A technical command of the keyboard and its secret colours that often astonishes .His studies op 10 may not have been the perfection that had astonished a while back in Perivale but it was of such brilliance and style that it was quite unique.The ravishing beauty of the slow third and sixth studies were of a radiance and poetic meaning that had made his Kinderscenen also in Perivale a while back so extraordinarily moving.The opening study was played with a brilliance and ease that was astonishing as was the famous black key study.Just thrown off with an ease but also a musicality that shaped the music in a ravishingly enticing way.If there were moments of doubt ,due to the late hour ,there were none where the music was concerned and I have rarely heard the arpeggio study n.11 played with such jewel like beauty.The passion and virtuosity of the Revolutionary study was a fitting ending to this festival of having the privilege to listening to 12 hours of Chopin’s genius played by such remarkable artists.
It also allowed some of the finest young musicians a platform to share their music with music lovers world wide thanks to the superb streamig facilities that Dr Hugh Mather and his team have created with passion and expertise in this beautiful historic venue.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC43OVDn283J__YlsucboMlw