ChristopherAxworthy-MusicCommentary

As always a fascinating journey of discovery with Roberto Prosseda with his appearance with the London Philharmonic introducing the pedal piano to London audiences.

The last time he was here was with the then unknown conductor Yannick Nezet Seguin with Mendelssohn’s 3rd piano concerto ( fragments of a third concerto never finished but assembled and completed by Marcello Bufalini).

Roberto went on to record it with Riccardo Chailly and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra for Decca.

(The unknown Nezet Seguin has since become director of the Philadelphia Orhestra after Riccardo Muti!)

And this time he brings to London Gounod’s Concerto for Pedal Piano in E flat -1889.

He was shown the then unpublished score in 2010 by Gerard Conde who explained that Gounod had given the original manuscript to Lucie Palicot for whom his four works were written.

A student of the son of Alkan ,Elie Dalaborde It was her appearances in Paris at the Salle Pleyel in 1882 ,having also heard Alkan himself in 1875 , that inspired Gounod and he gave her sole rights to the concerto.

Unfortunately she retired from the concert stage in 1895 when she married for the second time and the manuscript disappeared.

A report from the musicologist Paul Landormy recalled :”I remember what a strange impression was produced by the sight of this graceful and dainty person perched on a huge case containg the lower strings of the pedal-board beneath a grand piano resting on it.What surprised us above all,pleasantly enough to be sure,was to see Mme Palicot wearing a short knee-length skirt ( entirely necessary but astonishing in those days),and her pretty legs darting most adroitly to reach the different pedals of the keyboard she had at her feet !”

Roberto Prosseda  has recorded all four works by Gounod for Hyperion directed by Howard Shelley in his Romantic Piano Concerto Series.

He had commisioned from the Italian organ builder Claudio Pinchi an innovative system so that a pedal piano can be created from any two grand pianos.

Two Steinway D pianos one on top of the other with the Pinchi system that allows them to be transformed into a pedal piano.

The problem is that the pedal technique used for the organ cannot be applied since it requires a particular sensitivity of touch,as the pedals control a piano with hammers and strings.

So a more pianistic approach is required,using the weight of the leg and transferring the weight from one note to another in order to achieve a legato and enable a rich sonority and good control of dynamics.

The sustaining pedal is seldom used as both feet are often busy playing the pedal board.The hands are required to play differently than on a normal piano as the player’s balance and seating position are often altered by the constant movement of the legs!

No one was aware of all these difficulties listening to the superb performance of Gounod’s long lost concerto.

The outer movements were extremely rhythmically controlled in their question and answer between pianos and orchestra .

It was in the beautiful Adagio and in the Schumann encore – the fourth of the six Canonic studies for pedal piano – that one could appreciate to the full the supreme artistry and superb sense of style of Roberto Prosseda.

Infact I was witness backstage to the orchestral players coming one by one to congratulate Roberto especially for the beauty of his performance of the Schumann encore.

Praise indeed coming from his colleagues in the London Philharmonic.

It is very nice to see the success of the young pianist who studied in the Sergio Cafaro/Martinelli household a stone’s throw from our theatre in Rome(Teatro Ghione) and was reared by the Campus Musicale in his home town of Latina.

He often used to play in our theatre in Rome as ” try outs ” for his appearances in International Competitions .

I well remember the joy of Fou Ts’ong on hearing that Roberto would be playing in his Masterclasses.

He also went on to study with Fou Ts’ong and William Grant  Nabore at the International Piano Academy in Como  created and run  by William Nabore a former disciple of Carlo Zecchi (Martha Argerich is honorary President).

For some years he was artistic director of the Pontine Festival together  with Fabrizio von Arx  continuing their great tradition by bringing Elisso Virsaladze,Charles Rosen  and many others to the summer festival in Sermoneta in the grounds of the Caetani Castle.

A festival started in the 60’ by Menuhin/Szigeti and Alberto Lysy.

His father was Igor Markevitch and his mother was Donna Topazia Caetani from whom he chose to take his name to prolong the family lineage.

Not only  with a renowned father whom I heard many times on this very stage but also with a superb pedigree of studies with Nadia Boulanger and Franco Ferrara.

He gave some superb performances of Messiaen : Hymne and the Symphonie fantastique by Berlioz that I well remember his father performing with such electricity here all those years ago.

We await many new discoveries from Roberto Prosseda in London on his remarkable journey in the music world where he delves with such intelligence and artistry .

Not a week goes by without hearing another remarkable young pianist in the series of Tuesday afternoon piano recitals at St Mary’s in Perivale.

And Hugh Mather has struck gold again today with a young pianist from Hong Kong: Rachel Cheung.

Looking at her biography it was reassuring to see that her early training she had received from a fellow student of mine at the Royal Academy in London.

Eleanor Wong studied with Frederick Jackson a remarkable musician who died conducting the Verdi Requiem in the Dukes Hall of the RAM .His final words were to carry on as they carried him off in an ambulance.

Eleanor had won all the major prizes and also carried off silver medal at the Vercelli competition in Italy.

She used to knock on my door where I was practicing every evening to play through her programmes to this young first year student.

Of course I was very impressed but not nearly as impressed as seeing her forty years later on the jury of the Leeds International Piano Competition.

Great reports were coming from Hong Kong of this superb trainer of young pianists as we were to hear today from Rachel Cheung.

It was nice to see also that after graduating from Hong Kong Academy with First Class Honours Rachel had gone on to complete her studies with the legendary hungarian pianist Peter Frankl at Yale University in America.

One of the youngest competitiors in the Leeds Competition in 2009 at the age of 17.

She was awarded fifth prize the year that Gulyak Sofya was awarded the Gold medal.

She went on to win prizes in many other major competitions and recently conducted from the keyboard Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto with the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris at the Play-Direct Academy led by Stephen Kovacevich.

It was hardly surprising that St Mary’s was packed to the rafters for the beautiful programme of Franck,Schumann and Liszt presented by this remarkable young musician.

Still only 26 she played with the authority and control of a master.

Starting with the hauntingly beautiful transcription by Harold Bauer of Cesar Franck Prelude,Fugue and Variation op 18 for organ.

It was clear from the beautiful liquid tone and the way that she moved so naturally at the piano that we were in the presence of a true musician and poet of the piano.

So often the works of Franck for solo piano and piano transcriptions from the organ can sound so thick and heavy and these days rather outdated.

Rachel managed to convey with an almost whispered appearance of the recurring melody a feeling that this was the only possible medium for this piece.

Even the Fugue was played with the same delicate tone colour and the reappearance of the melody at the end was quite magical.

She looked exactly as I remember Eleanor did at the piano all those years ago.

A beautiful natural way of almost conjuring the sounds out of the keyboard.

The main work on the programme was the Fantasy in C Major by Schumann.

Charmingly presented to the public explaining that it was an outpouring of love for his beloved Clara and there are many references to her throughout the work .

Not least the quote from Beethoven  :To the distant beloved – An die ferne geliebte at the end of the first movement.

It is dedicated to Liszt who in turn dedicated his B minor Sonata to Schumann.

The two pinnacles of the Romantic piano repertoire.

And it was to Liszt that Rachel turned to close the programme ;the Mephisto Waltz n.1.

I well remember Peter Frankl giving a masterclass in Oxford on the Schumann Fantasy and explaining the difficulty of keeping the structure of the first movement in mind amidst the continual fluctuations of tempo that Schumann asks for.

It was exactly this that marked Rachel’s performance as very special today.

All the passionate outpouring of love for Clara was there together with the extreme tenderness and subtle sense of colour and exquisite phrasing.

All this held tightly together to the final magical quote from Beethoven.

Ever more in diminuendo to the bell like final chords and the three final bass chords almost disappearing into the infinite.A remarkable control of sound completely mesmerised the audience.

The march of the second movement was played with great rhythmic impetus but I felt the dotted rhythms of Schumann could have been less clipped and more melodically shaped.

The middle section was beautifully shaped though.

Hampered I fear by a small hand but she managed to conquer the infamous difficulties of the coda magnificently.

The last movement was magically played managing to play with great feeling but always keeping the great melodic line in view architecturally.The melodic line in the bass in the coda was sublime and her control of sound remarkable.

The minutes of silence that greeted the final chords was evidence enough of the magic she had created this afternoon.

This was obviously the Eusebius side of Rachels’ character.

Now with the Mephisto Waltz n.1 we were treated to Floristan and a truly fearless performance of this virtuoso showpiece.

There was though a virtuosism of great subtlety with infinite shades of colour in the most transcendental scale passages.

A middle section of heartrending sentiment and a coda in which she threw herself completely at the infamous octave leaps that the virtuoso Liszt had conjured up.

The birdcalls at the end were played with a clarity and precision before throwing herself at the double octave ending.

One can understand why she won the Audience Award at the 15th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition.

In fact it was by popular demand that she played Widmung by Schumann in the Liszt transcription where the two composers were at last consoled in a performance at once delicate,passionate and virtuosistic.

But above all it was the the poetic intelligence and complete command of the keyboard that kept us spellbound for this short recital in Hugh Mather’s remarkable series.

An immediate invitation for a return match was greeted with cheers from this very appreciative audience today.

It was in 1976 under the enlightened management of William Lyne that the Wigmore Hall was relaunched.

He had persuaded Artur Rubinstein to give just one last concert in his long career in order to save the Wigmore Hall from the threat of demolition.

A concert on the 31st May 1976 when an almost blind Artur Rubinstein played for the very last time in public.

His final piece the B flat minor Scherzo by his beloved Chopin he abandoned as he could no longer see the great leaps involved.

He proceeded to play two studies op 10 n.4 and one we had never heard him play in public before op 25 n.2.

Both of which took our breath away.

It was a truly memorable recital that had included Schumann Carnaval,Beethoven op 31 n.3 Ravel Valses Nobles and Chopin Nocturne op 27 n.2 and Scherzo op 31.

An audience in delirium and Rubinstein with not the slightest sign of having played a recital that would have worn out much younger colleagues.

He turned to the audience and begged them not to allow the hall to be demolished.

He had started his career in 1912 in the Bechstein Hall and he was happy to finish it here in the newly named Wigmore Hall 54 years later.

He invited the audience to go backstage for this very last time.

He was being greeted by all when he could sense that there was someone very exceptional in front of him.

”I may be blind but not too blind to know when a beautiful lady is standing in front of me.”

Lauren Bacall was charmed of course as only Rubinstein knew how.

William Lyne not content with just Rubinstein devised in typical antipodean style a month of celebrations with concerts that included Elisabeth Schwarzkopf,Henryk Szeryng, Peter Pears with Julian Bream and Murray Perahia,Melos Ensemble,Parikian, Fleming,Roberts Trio and a concert in memory of David Munrow who was to have directed the Early Music Consort.

The Hall was reborn and has since under the enlightened antipodean Managements of William Lyne and now John Gilhooly become one of the most sought after and revered chamber music venues.

It has created its own audience who fill the hall night after night for artists such as Andras Schiff,Steven Isserlis,Angela Hewitt,Joshua Bell ,Graham Johnson etc etc .

Little could they have imagined that the hall was born on the wings of song.

For just down the road on the South Bank a young enthusiastic pianist was devising programmes for singers with themes under the name of the Songmakers’ Almanac.

It took a little while for William Lyne and Graham Johnson to find each other and to realise that the ideal place for this new adventure was infact in the reborn Wigmore Hall.

With the first steps on stage of Graham with his colleagues from the RAM :Felicity Lott,Anthony Rolf Johnson,Richard Jackson,Ann Murray it was love at first sight.

A love affair that has lasted over 40 years.

Visibly moved as Graham Johnson remembered all those who had been on this long journey of discovery with him but were no longer with us.

The voice of “Tony”Rolfe Johnson brought a tear to his eyes as it still brought to us a tingle of excitement with the sublime exchange between voice and piano of this singer whose life was cut short much too early.

Sharing with us so generously his memories of 40 years of the almanac which he had idealised for these great young singers who were just happy to have programmes devised for them rather than jotting down their pieces on the back of a brown envelope.

Geoffrey Parsons was not immediately convinced.

Singers sing and accompanists follow !

He soon changed his tune and became an invaluable part of the Almanac as did the veteran Gerald Moore.

Officially retired in 1967 to tend his rose garden rather than darting from one continent to another.Gerald Moore took the Almanac audience by surprise one evening by joining Graham at the piano for a Schubertiade.

What greater endorsement could there be than that for a young man who had been seduced by song at the age of 21 playing with Felicity Lott in the class of Flora Nielson.

Graham and I had been contemporaries at the Royal Academy.

He had come on an Associated Board Scholarship from South Africa to study with Harry Isaacs .

I with Sidney Harrison but we shared chamber music coaching together with John Streets.

I well remember him telling Graham that he did not have to play every note as if someone was sticking a knife into him!

But Graham was already ultra sensitive to beautiful sound and he would also regularly quote the great poets to us in the student canteen much to our bewilderment.

Graham took part in the BBC Cello Competition directed at Dartington by Eleonor Warren.

He partnered Jonathan Williams a very fine cellist and the son of one of the Trimble sisters who had a well known piano duo at the time.

But when he struck up the Rococo Variations by Tchaikowsky it was the sheer beauty of the sound of Grahams’ orchestra that has remained with me all these years.

As Graham told us he was preparing the usual Concerto and Sonatas of a solo pianist ………………..that is until at the age of 21 he fell madly in love ………..with song.

Thanks to that great singing teacher Flora Nielson.

A lover he has never betrayed in fact it has become stronger as he delved deeper and came into contact in those early days with musicians of the calibre of Schwarzkopf,De Los Angeles,Pierre Bernac,Peter Pears,Gerald Moore,Walter Legge ,Hugh Cuenod etc etc.

He even helped Benjamin Britten write down his opera Death in Venice when he became physically too frail to write down the marvels that were still in his heart and mind.

This is just a small part of the fascinating journey that Graham shared with us on a Saturday morning here on his beloved stage.

Pointing to the spot where an already invalid Peter Pears had participated at an Almanac dedicated to him and had stated :

”The Wigmore hall is the place where singers can sing better than they ever thought possible”

How many programmes had been meticulously prepared and in preparing them how deeper his love had become.

His CD recording of the complete Schubert Songs has become a classic and his volume that accompanies it a reference for all that wish to know every detail of Schuberts heart and mind.

It was a story that Graham shared in is inimitable way.

With elegance,wit and above all intelligence in which his passionate involvement rang out so strongly.

A few years ago after one of his many recitals he was honoured with the Gold Medal of the Wigmore Hall.

He was presented too with a carriage clock.

Graham in thanking John Gilhooly immediately  quipped “but I have no intention of retiring!”

I introduced him via internet to Dame Fanny Waterman.

I had been listening in Italy over the radio to a recital transmitted from the Wigmore Hall.

Mesmerised by the beauty of Graham’s playing in writing to Dame Fanny with birthday greetings I mentioned that I had just been overwhelmed by the concert.

”But I was listening too in Leeds and he is the greatest accompanist alive .“

Fanny has chosen artists of the calibre of Murray Perahia and Radu Lupu to win her competition and is rarely wrong when it comes to playing the piano.

They have since become friends and mutual admirers.

I am involved too with helping to monitor and point in the right direction extraordinarily talented young pianists on the verge of important careers in music.And I often say to these Lions of the Keyboard if you want to learn how to make the piano sing listen to Graham Johnson.

Ever generous he came to one of the Keyboard Trusts’ Prize Winners Wigmore debut of a magnificent Russian pianist who had sought from Graham to find his secret of true legato hidden in that black box of hammers and strings.

A wonderful illuminating morning that I just hope will be recorded for posterity or at least published as an important document of someone who has changed the face of music appreciation.

Not content with all that he does he has just finished an important book on Poulenc which is about to be published in the UK.

The Green Room crowded by his friends and admirers after an hour and a half cut short only because time ran out.

“Am I too loud” his mentor Gerald Moore would ask.

No No dear Graham but much much “more” please.

The good news is that at the invitation of John Gilhooly,Graham has devised a new Songmakers’ Almanac series that begins on the 24th January 2019.

The Wigmore and Graham Johnson are indeed floating once again on Wings of Song.

It was in 1989 that Marcella Crudeli decided that Rome merited a competition like many of the other major cities.

With her enormous energy and indomitable spirit the first Rome National Competition was won by Roberto Prosseda and Enrico Camerini.

Two pianists that had been giving recitals from an early age in the Ghione Theatre which for years tried to give a platform to musicians who for one reason or another were not being invited to perform in Rome.

( Young and old alike included Vlado Perlemuter,Guido Agosti,Shura Cherkassky,Annie Fischer,Dame Moura Lympany,Fou Ts’ong,Peter Frankl,Rosalyn Tureck,Gyorgy Sandor,Alicia De Larrocha,Peter Katin,Ruggiero Ricci,Idil Biret,Dominique Merlet,Bruno Canino,Pina Carmirelli,Jeno Jando,Vadim Repin,Mikhail Pletnev,Tatiana Nikolaeva,Andor Foldes,Paul Tortelier,Janina Fialkowska,Angela Hewitt,Ivo Pogorelich,Friedrich Gulda,Jerome Rose,Dmitri Alexeev,Oxana Yablonskaya ,Boris Berman,Gervase De Peyer,Bary Tuckwell,Paul Badura-Skoda,Franco Mannino,Fausto Zadra,Lya De Barberiis,Martha Noguera,Alberto Portugheis.Alexander Romanovsky,Bruno Canino,

Karlheinz Stockhausen,Luciano Berio,Marilyn Horne,Lucia Valentini Terrani,Carlo Bergonzi,Jose Cura,Mariella Devia,Margaret Price,Dame Gweneth Jones,Olga Borodina,Dmitri Hvorosovsky,Nicolai Gedda,Giuseppe di Stefano,Goffredo Petrassi,Eliot Carter, Dame Eva Turner,Roberto Prosedda,Jayson Gillham,Alexander Ullman,Vitaly Pisarenko,Pablo Rossi,Leslie Howard,Carlo Grante,Enrico Camerini etc)

The Theatre was built and run by the distinguished actress (my wife) Ileana Ghione for over thirty years.

It is still going strong and is a just monument to her.

And as Marcella Crudeli said in her closing speech tonight at the end of its 28th edition: “This is the International Piano Competition of Rome” and not the Marcella Crudeli Competition as it is familiarly known.”It must carry on long after I have gone.”

The same sentiments of my wife who died on stage in her theatre 13 years ago.

It was a nice coincidence that in the interval between the Final and the gala concert at the Teatro Quirino – Vittorio Gassman I was able to visit an exhibition mounted for a colleague of that other famous Italian actor Vittorio Gassman- Marcello Mastroianni.

The final exhibit is a film where he quotes Kafka saying so poetically that the hill that had seemed so far away in his youth was now only a stone’s throw away.

It is truly admirable to see the strength of women ready to fight for what they believe in and to never give up until they succeed.

Such was the determination of Fanny Waterman with the International Competition that she brought to her city of Leeds.

Sulamita Aranowska did the same for her adopted city with the London Power Piano Competition.

Carla Grindea too founded EPTA(European Piano Teachers Association) with Perlemuter President and Sidney Harrison ,chairman.

It is now an organisation worldwide of which Marcella Crudeli is the Italian representative.

The first competition was followed the following year by the first “International” Competition which has since seen 28 editions.

A list of prize winners over the years includes Dmytro Choni,Dmitry Masleev,Denis Zhdanov,Ilya Maximov,Luca Rasca,Boris Giltburg all of whom have gone on to distinguish themselves in competitions such as Van Cliburn,Tchaikowsky,Queen Elisabeth and forge great careers.

It was Enrico Camerini who won the very first Roma 1991 prize and was today on the jury of the competition together with Carles Lama( Spain),Martin Munch and Frank Wasser (Germany),Kathryn Page(UK),Arturo Stalteri(Italy).

The President of the jury was Enrica Ciccarelli,distinguished pianist and artistic director of the Societa dei Concerti in Milan.

I was only able to listen to the Final round with orchestra of the three finalist selected during a week of sessions at the Confraternita di S Giovanni Battista de’ Genovesi.

.Soo Jin Cha from South Korea opened with Chopin First Concerto op 11.

Actually studying with Pavel Gililov in Salzburg whose assistant, Ilya Maximov, had won the Rome 2008 prize.

At 33 she was the eldest of the three finalists and was able to give a very fine beautifully shaped performance inspite of an orchestra and conductor who had not played this repertoire before.

The slow movement in particular was of ravishing beauty.

The outer movements equally beautiful but missing the drive and rhythmic energy that Rubinstein had taught us was so much part of Chopin’s personality.

She went on to win second prize and give some equally poetic solo performances in the gala concert.

Her Chopin Mazuka op 17 n.4 brought spontaneous applause for its poetry and complete understanding.

Debussy “Jardins sous la pluie” and Rachmaninov Etude Tableau op 39.n.5 were equally beautiful but here again missing that energy and drive that was missing too in the Concerto.

Some very fine professional performances under difficult circumstances from an artist of some experience

Gen Li at 27 ,who I have heard in London play Prokofiev superbly well (St John Smith Square celebration concert for his teacher Deniz Arman Gelenbe on her retirement from Trinity college).

He also studied with Bryce Morrison and now receives guidance from Dmitri Alexeev.

His choice of Mozart D minor Concerto K466 took me by surprise especially as he had played Prokofiev 7th Sonata and Liszt Mephisto Waltz n.1 in the previous rounds.

Very clean and clearly played with a rather cheeky little cadenza added to Beethoven’s,all perfectly in style.

Some beautiful playing but somehow missing that demonic spark that I know he possesses.

A little too in awe and respectful he gave a very solid musical account but as with Soo Jin Cha it missed that special spark that holds an audiences’ attention to every single note as with a Curzon or Serkin.

Gen Li was give third prize and went on to astonish us with his Mephisto Waltz at the final gala.

Although not note perfect as he was obviously drained after a gruelling week competing, it did have that spark that marks his performances out as “very special “in that piano expert Bryce Morrison’s words .

Yuanfan Yang,the scottish pianist of chinese origin, at only 21 was the youngest of the three finalists.

Trained from an early age at Chethams with Murray McLachlanwhere he received that superb early training and support that is so important and that Chethams continues to surprise and provide in abundance.

Now with Christopher Elton at the Royal Academy in London he is not only a pianist but also a composer in his own right.Having played his own piano concerto all over China to audiences in their thousands.

He has also been accepted by the Keyboard Charitable Trust of which I am a co artistic director together with Leslie Howard and Elena Vorotko,for monitoring and guidance.

He gave a very fine performance of Beethoven 3rd Concerto under very difficult circumstances indeed.

Enough said that every time he played a trill in the cadenza the conductor gave the up beat and brought the orchestra in.

There are many trills in the cadenza unfortunately and the magical coda was the sacrificial lamb to the conductor’s inexperience.

Far from being put off Yuanfan rose to the occasion with an injection of Beethovenian fervor that had been missing in a beautiful but rather lightweight performance.

It was the performance that gained him first prize and another performance of the entire concerto at the Gala Concert.

This time both orchestra and conductor were in almost complete syntony with our young soloist who had retained the same authority and Beethovenian rage acquired under duress that same morning.

Receiving numerous prizes in particular the Medal from the President of the Republic,the Cuomo Foundation and the International Federation of Chopin Societies. Also generous sponsors glad to be associated with Marcella Crudeli and her crusade to bring youth into contact with culture in the name of the Eternal City.

In fact it is the Cuomo Foundation that prominently states:

“The Art of Education is Education of the Heart”

A very fine account of Beethoven’s 3rd Concerto followed where all the difficulties of the morning performance had been ironed out.

A charming speech of thanks from Yuanfan was followed by a very poetic account of La Campanella Study by Liszt.

And then the surprise of the evening which took us all by storm after an evening of prizes and performances that had started three hours earlier.

Yuanfan had been asked by some of the jury if he would give an example of his improvisations that they had heard about from me.

Marcella Crudeli provided the theme which was “La ci darem la mano” and there followed a transcendendal performance in which Marcella’s melody appeared in every part of the piano amidst the most amazing Lisztian or Thalbergian arabesques and octaves.

This is what we had been waiting for.

Someone born to play the piano fearlessly with that “goie de vivre” and authority that had up until now been lacking.

It brought the house down and as the cheering died down we realised that “our” Marcella had done it again!

Mention should be made of her beautiful performance of the Fantasie Impromptu by Chopin as accompaniment to the historic film archives of the past editions.

A young Lithuanian at only 17 years old had won two categories and gave some very fine if rather lightweight performances of Rachmaninov and Tchaikowsky.

Kasparas Mikuzis is obviously a name to watch as he gains in experience and authority

A cheer from the audience for the piano duet team made in Italy of Giuseppe Carmine Atorino and Armando Sabbarese .

A performance of Petrouschka more remarkable for the fact that they played this very complex work without the score than for its lack of demonic rhythmic drive and colour.

I wish I could have heard more of this duo than the Stravinsky.

Obviously the jury had, and justly gave them first prize.

Remarkable though were the two piano team of Kyungchan Nahk and Jonghwa Park from South Korea.

A strepitoso performance of Lutoslawski’s Pagnini variations.

In which that spark that had been missing from many of the young pianists was ignited by the pianist with the lid to the piano and complimented by the composure of the one without.Sorry to say I do not know the names of each one individually but what does it matter when the sparks fly in such an exciting and intelligent performance

Before the ceremony the National Hymn with orchestra and with a performance of the choir of young ladies with speaking impediments expressing the music so movingly with the movement of their hands.

As my wife would so often say “It is not only theatre but also a social service “

It can help so many express our true feelings in a world where we seem afraid of having them at all!

Words so eloquently expressed by the President of the Jury: Enrica Ciccarelli in her thank you speech to Marcella and her colleagues on the jury

Elisso Virsaladze in Latina in memory of Riccardo Cerocchi

Wonderful to see Elisso Virsaladze back in Latina to pay homage to Riccardo Cerocchi the founder of the Campus Musicale in Latina and of their summer Festival Pontina in Sermoneta.

She is not only a great artist but a wonderfully warm human being who gave up her time to come to Latina to pay her own homage to a remarkable man that she had known in the many years that she has been giving classes in Sermoneta.

In fact this leggendary musician only holds classes in Moscow ,Fiesole and Sermoneta.

Such is her generosity though that she had been teaching, I am told by one of her students, 13 hours a day for five days in Fiesole prior to arriving just in time to play a long and complex programme of Schumann and Chopin!

To have her back and playing so wonderfully well.

Listening to the magical sounds that she conjured up from a Fazioli piano we could fully understand why Rubinstein had been in tears with her moving performances at the very first Rubinstein Competition.

Infact although Emanuel Ax won first prize she got Rubinstein’s very special prize of concerts worldwide following in his shadow.

Both she and her good friend Emanuel Ax have since been feted by music lovers worldwide.

She even came to Rome to play in the theatre that my wife,Ileana Ghione and I had just opened.

She was promoted by the Canadian Embassy and Guido Agosti who had been on that first Rubinstein jury came to applaud her too.

She became a great friend and came back as many times as her worldwide career would allow.

She even brought Harry her future husband to meet us.

She gave a concert in 2006 in memory of my wife who had died on stage a few months earlier in December 2005..

Playing the Chopin Barcarolle she whispered to me in the wings afterwards that,that was

Ileana.

Very special people for me indeed both Janina and Ileana.

But already some years ago she was told by her doctors that she would never play the piano again due to a growth in her left arm.

Miraculously she proved them all wrong.

Infact she made her come back just a year after this dramatic prediction , in a little town in Bavaria to which her friends flocked.

She played the Chopin B minor Sonata just to prove her point that her seriously weakened left arm was ready to go again.

It is exactly the left hand in the Finale of the Sonata which is feared by every pianist.

She has been playing even better since.

The critics noting that the great virtuoso pianist had now acquired an even more profound voice.

And now years later another illness has struck but also another miracle and she is with us again playing so beautifully.

” Des Abends” was even more beautiful than her mentor Artur Rubinstein.

Jeux d’eau was a miracle of sound and one could almost see “ The river god who laughs at the water as it caresses him “to quote De Regnier.

The Mazuka op 50 n.3 was like a miniature painting in sound.

I have never heard it played with such layers of colour and such character.

A real tone poem with a heartrending story to tell.

The second Ballade and the F minor Fantasie were given passionate performances but always with that nobility and simplicity that was so much the mark of Rubinstein’s then revolutionary break with tradition.

The final beseeching notes of the Fantasie before being enveloped by a wave of sound in many ways made me think of Ravel’s Ondine.

Only the final noble chords reminding me that we were at the end of a marvellous journey with Chopin.

The second Ballade too from the tender almost Schumannesque (it is in fact dedicated to Schumann) melody being so violently interrupted by Chopin’s storm.

A real virtuoso performance that lead so beautifully into the magical mazukas that make up op 50.

The Mozart Sonata was a real lesson of how one can keep the classical style but make the phrasing so much clearer by a subtle change of colour and shape.

I found the first movement a little too fast to allow the Maestoso marking to take effect But it was so beautifully shaped and the development section so dramatic with the trills glowing so beautifully.The chromatic scale that leads back to the recapitulation was quite miraculous.

The opening of the slow Andante cantabile was sung with such a beautifully pure expressive voice and the phrases shaped to absolute perfection .The tempestuous middle section took us aback as a storm that gradually awakens as the clouds thicken

The Presto was taken as Mozart had indicated but played with a clarity and sotto voce that made the appearance in the left hand almost whispered so much more dramatic instead of the usual rather jagged performances that this work is usually treated to.

I thought the magical change of key could have had a slightly more relaxed tempo but such was Janina’s vision that we were swept away by the whispered urgency of Mozart’s message .

The Fantasiestucke op 12 by Schumann were played much as I remember Rubinstein in his last performances in London.

Every movement had a marvellous story to tell and was a little tone poem in its own right.

From the magical sounds of Des Abends to the dramatic outburst in Aufschwung.

The beautiful lines woven so movingly in Warum to be answered by the whimsical chords of Grillen.

In der Nacht and Traumes Wirren showed us that here was still the great virtuoso that we had always known but with a voice that made every note speak so tellingly.

The story she had to tell in Fabel truly reminded me of Rubinstein who could make the simplest of pieces talk as never before.

The grandiosity of Ende vom Lied was followed by a disintigration that was depicted so clearly we could almost imagine the end of a story beautifully told and so back to sleep.

Just one short encore …infact the minute waltz played with the clarity and charm of a true Chopin player who has polish blood in her veins.

It was very fitting that a favourite such as Mengyang Pan should be celebrating the 100th Tuesday afternoon concert in Hugh Mather’s prestigious series of piano recitals at St Mary’s in Perivale.

And the novelty that it should be live streamed to China too.

I understand there is a move to live stream all the recitals from Perivale in the near future.

I first met Mengyang in Monza in Italy where I had been invited to be on the jury of the Rina Sala Gallo International Competition.

I was asked by one of my dearest friends Constance Channon-Douglass who was too ill to be able to be part of the jury.

I do not normally accept these invitations as the Circus aspect of these events does not appeal to me .

I am not totally convinced that they are helpful except perhaps to the one who comes in first.

It is for the artistic damage to the other artists that I am concerned.

However I well remember two of the contestants: Julien Brocal for his performance of Schumann Carnaval and Mengyang Pan for her performance in the final of the Emperor Concerto.

I also remember the wonderful encore only of the eventual first prize winner Sangiovanni Scipione after a rather poor performance of Liszt Concerto n.2 hampered by an orchestra that had obviously not rehearsed enough a work they had not played before.

Such is the Circus aspect but it is nice to know that all three are forging ahead with notable careers .

What I did not know at the time was that Mengyang Pan was a student of two of my esteemed colleagues in London.

Tessa Nicholson at the Purcell School where Mengyang received her early training from the age of fourteen leaving the Central School of Music in Beijing where she had studied since the age of nine.

Tessa is fast building a reputation for training brilliant young musicians both at the Purcell School and the Royal Academy.

Mark Viner,Tyler Hay,Karim Said and Alim Beisembayev amongst many others have a lot to thank her for.

Mengyang Pan went on to study with another much esteemed colleague, Vanessa Latarche ,head of Keyboard Studies at the Royal College and former star pupil of the much missed Eileen Rowe in Ealing.

Mengyang’s performance of the Emperor I have long remembered and have on DVD from the competition.

I remember it for it’s clarity,precision but mainly for her complete understanding of Beethoven’s world that can go from the imperious to the most touching without any warning.

Such was Beethoven’s complex character .But always in Beethoven there is an underlying forward current that gives a terrific sense of architecture even in his simplest works.

It was just this that made her performance of what can sometimes seem much overplayed “Appassionata” Sonata op 57,so refreshing and in many ways original.

Her Grandiose approach to the opening Allegro was of great effect.That slight wait before an important bass note sometimes even adding an octave very subtly was of aristocratic nobility.

The accentution of the downward scale on the first of the groups of five was a bold decision that was totally convincing.

The playing of the great arpeggiandi with one hand towards the end of the movement would have had the approval of Arrau and all the great Beethoven interpreters.

The struggle to play such passages without splitting the hands in a more pianistic way is exactly the struggle that Beethoven infused into the very core of his music.

Anyone who had seen Serkin at work would realise just what it means to struggle and suffer as Beethoven obviously did to the bitter end.

Dramatic contrasts and taught rhythms were all here but together with a flexibility when the time came to reveal the heart and soul that was also very much part of Beethoven’s character.

The Andante con moto played with the weight of a true string quartet where every part gave such substance to this long cortege.The impetus and subtle shaping of the variations was a lesson to behold and the sudden interruption even more astonishing because of it.

The Allegro was played with great precision and energy.

I found the occasional jeux perle and clipped chord of arrival not quite in keeping with her overall majestic conception of this masterpiece.

But masterpiece it is.

Restored so brilliantly to its rightful place and sent with much love all the way to China.

The second half of the programme was dedicated to Spain.

All brilliant rays of light and heartrending nostalgia.

Mengyang loves teaching and comunicating as was shown by her delightfully informed introductions.

She does infact hold important posts at Imperial College,Blyth Centre for Music and the Visual Arts and St Paul’s School.

Lucky them is all I can say as she introduced us to a relatively unknown work by Albeniz.

His Cantos de Espana op 22.

But sugaring the pill with an old warhorse of the great virtuosi of the past :Moszkowski’s Caprice Espanol op 37.

(I had studied with Perlemuter whose first teacher was Moszkowski and I have never been able to reconcile that fact with this illustrious interpreter of Chopin and Ravel)

Many of the Cantos are well known from the guitar transcriptions.

The Prelude in particular with its repeated notes and urgent interruptions so typical of the Spanish folk idiom.

Superbly managed and contrasted with the long languid melody in the tenor register of the Orientale.Allowed to sing so touchingly and commented on by a coquettish right hand.

The Scot Joplin ease of Sous le palmier was greeted by the sombre drum roll of Cordoba where the question and answer between the hands was a pure delight.

Seguidillas was full of sun and light alternating between the subtle and delicate only to be enveloped by the infectious dance rhythms that are so much part Spain.

Caprice Espanol was given a performance in the style of the Golden age of piano playing as we have heard in recordings of Levitski,Godowsky,Rosenthal and Cherkassky.

The magic world of  jeux perle and subtle hinted melodies that appear and disappear like gems in the brilliant sun.

Such sounds conjured out of her magic hands just thirty minutes on from such an exemplary Beethoven.

It took us all by surprise and her charming thank you to the audience in Perivale and China ,in which she exclaimed what fun she had had and hoped that we had too.

Her encore of Gershwin’s first prelude brought the house down and a wish to hear much more of this charming young lady with a bag so full of remarkable jewels

I like to think that it was not just a coincidence that Umberto Jacopo Laureti and Adrian Brendle were performing in two different venues on two different nights in the centre of London over the weekend.

Both are ex students of my old Alma Mater the Royal Academy and more importantly coached by the only British pianist to have won first prize at the Artur Rubinstein Competition in Tel Aviv.

I am talking ,of course ,about Ian Fountain.

It is a well known fact that many illustrious musicians who live in London are very rarely invited to perform in the capital.

Infact Ian Fountain was on a plane to a concert tour in China whilst leaving us with two of his prize students in London.

It is obvious listening to the extreme intelligence and musicianship of these two young artists that the coaching they have received over the past years has helped shape their artistry and will be a solid base for future growth in their up and coming careers.