The 12 Finalists of the 65th Busoni Piano Competition:
Ennian Bai. Elia Cecino Christos Fountos Yungyung Guo Dongyoung Kim Sandro Nebieridze Shion Ota Zeyu Shen Jakub Sládek Zhonghua Wei Yifan Wu (2005) Jialin Yao
The Solo Finals will be held on August 30th & 31st!
The six candidates selected for the Chamber Music Final are:
From September 2 to 4, the candidates will have the unique opportunity to shine both as soloists and as chamber musicians, performing masterpieces by Schumann, Dvořák, Brahms, Shostakovich, and Franck with the prestigious Simply Quartet quartet from Vienna.
Teatro Comunale Stadttheater
FINALISSIMA
Orchestra Haydn Orchestra George Pehlivanian Direttore Dirigent Sandro Nebieridze Sergej Rachmaninov Rapsodia su un tema di Paganini, op. 43 Rhapsodie über ein Thema von Paganini, op. 43 Yifan Wu Ludwig van Beethoven Concerto n. 3 per pianoforte e orchestra in do minore, op. 37 Klavierkonzert Nr. 3 c-Moll, op. 37
– Intervallo – Pause – Christos Fountos Sergej Rachmaninov Concerto per pianoforte e orchestra n. 1 in fa diesis minore, op. 1 Klavierkonzert Nr. 1 fis-Moll, op. 1
Sandro NebieridzeYifan Wu Christos Fountos4th 5th and 6th prize
Lista completa dei premi | Vollständige Preisliste
Premio Fryderyk Chopin Preis Jialin Yao Premio Senior Jury Preis Zhonghua Wei Premio Junior Jury Preis Sandro Nebieridze Premio speciale musica da camera | Sonderpreis für die beste Interpretation eines KammermusikwerkesChristos Fountos Premio speciale per la migliore l’interpretazione di musica pianistica contemporanea | Sonderpreis für die überzeugendste Interpretation zeitgenössischer Klaviermusik Zhonghua Wei Premio per l’esecuzione di un’opera di Busoni | Preis für die überzeugendste Interpretation eines Werkes von Busoni Yangrui Cai Keyboard Career Development PrizeYifan Wu Premio Alice Tartarotti Preis Yifan Wu
Grazie a FORST, Main Sponsor della Finalissima | Danke an FORST, Hauptsponsor des Grand Finale
Genius is certainly not easy to live with as we have experienced today from a young man who I have followed and admired for some years whilst he has been studying with Dmitri Alexeev. A young boy who could master some of the most complicated works ever written for the keyboard from Bach’s Goldberg Variations to Beethoven’s Diabelli. Then we experienced the rebellious youth with flowing locks and individual ideas. Today we are experiencing a young man where every sound he makes on the keyboard touches him almost painfully. I remember Graham Johnson with whom I shared chamber music lessons with John Streets, who would tell him that he did not have to play as though a knife was being driven into him with every note he played. But there was a super sensibility to sounds that touched him so deeply and is why and how he has become the Gerald Moore of our day . I often tell aspiring young ‘virtuosi’ to listen to Graham to learn how to make the piano sing.
Jackie’s is a very exciting talent because it is a real voyage of discovery that is continually evolving. Of course what comes across is his passionate love of the sounds he is making and how they touch him so deeply. Sometimes with exaggeration as there are no half measures with his all or nothing playing of searing intensity.But as Barbirolli was to say in defence of Jacqueline Du Pré, often criticised for playing with too much passion and extravagance, ‘ If you don’t play with passion in your youth what do you pare off in maturity?’.
Certainly to see Jackie hit the final three D’s of the preludes with his fist is hard to accept or his strange arrangements of notes in the third prelude or the jiggery pokery of alternate hands for the vibrating flourishes of the Polonaise – Fantaisie.This was a small price to pay for a Chopin Nocturne op 62 n.1 that had a rare sense of freedom with a wondrous range of colour. Less successful was the Polonaise -Fantaisie op 61 where his playing lacked an overall architectural shape, sacrificing it for some memorable moments.Proven by the fact that he played the final A flat like a shot in the dark instead of like a gentle closing of fantasy as it had opened.The Barcarolle op 60 the twin of the Polonaise too, starts with a deep C sharp that just opens up the sonority of the piano and closes with the same sound. The actual climax of the work, as with the Polonaise Fantaisie comes long before the end.
It was in the smaller forms that the true genius of this young man rang out so memorably. Fou Ts’ong called these Preludes 24 problems because they each have problems, whether interpretative or technical, and Jackie imbued each one with life or death intensity that kept us enthralled.These well known preludes were reborn as he recreated each one with burning passion and ravishing beauty. Nowhere in this consideration have I spoken about the technical mastery and perfection of this young man, which was remarkable. It was just the means to allow him to express the deep inner meaning that the music provoked in him.
Waving his hands like a painter before they actually stroked the canvas with the improvised freedom of the first prelude. A deep brooding to the second where the accompaniment almost eat the melody live as it was allowed a voice of its own. No idea why he wanted to play the opening of the third with two hands when he has a technical mastery the envy of most! He allowed the melodic line, though, to float above this wave of sounds.The famous fourth prelude was played with a drama enacted with riveting intensity followed by the subtle brilliance of fifth and the ravishing beauty of the melodic line in the sixth. The seventh may be the shortest prelude but when played as Jackie did it became a breath of fresh air of glowing beauty.
It was the eighth which ignited the passion and burning intensity within this young man where he was allowed this outlet with playing of mastery and conviction. The grandeur of the ninth with its sumptuous climax and miraculous ending was followed by a brilliant fleeting jeux perlé just ornamenting the sumptuous melodious chords of arrival. A beguiling rubato to the eleventh where the branches of Chopin’s trees were allowed to flow with extraordinary natural beauty and freedom. A burning intensity to the twelfth with its dynamic drive. The thirteenth in many ways the most strikingly beautiful of the preludes was played old style with broken hands because he was searching for the magic sounds that the great pianists of the past knew lay in the cracks. Jackie listening to every note with quite extraordinary sensibility. The wind of the fourteenth ,a mere breeze as it built in intensity only to burn itself out revealing the radiant beauty of the ‘Raindrop’. A real tone poem opened as the central episode unwound with disturbing turbulence.The sixteenth with its study like brilliance was played with the amazing assurance of a young virtuoso who must now listen more to the bass which will give more meaning and depth of sound to this study that is above all a miniature tone poem. Beautiful long lines and ravishing freedom to the seventeenth was greeted by the dynamic cadenza of the eighteenth. The nineteenth is one of the technically most difficult of the preludes ,but in Jackie’s masterly hands it became the Aolean Harp of Chopin’s dreams. The mighty C minor was played with the enormous conviction of this young artist as it disappeared so magically, leaving the beautifully mellifluous twenty-one to lead us to the final three preludes , played with poetic fantasy and passionate persuasion. A remarkable performance full of blemishes and exaggerations but the preludes have never kept me riveted to the seat as much as they did today. This was a young man with a poetic soul gradually coming to terms with his youthful passion and mastery , where his deep love for music was overpowering and deeply moving. I look forward to the next instalment in Jackie’s thrilling voyage of discovering himself through his music.
The waltz op 18 was an unexpected encore. It was played with brilliance rather than charm, starting with chiselled notes that might well have broken the toes of Les Sylphydes!
Jackie is a great artist who is living, searching, suffering every moment as he strives to recreate the vision of his poetic sound world.
Jacky Zhang is a young composer, pianist, songwriter, and producer. Still only 17 he is a fourth year undergraduate currently studying piano and composition at the Royal College of Music. He has won the first prize of the UK Piano Open International Competition in 2020, Premio Alkan International Piano Competition in 2022, and both Classical and Romantic sections at the Cantù International Piano and Orchestra Competition in 2023 and was a finalist in the BBC Young Musician 2024. Jacky has performed at many festivals and venues and has played concertos by Saint-Saëns, Mozart, Beethoven, and Rachmaninoff with well-known world-class conductors.
Beethoven Piano Society of Europe | Jed Distler Concert Wednesday, September 3, 1.10 pm sees the latest in our St James Piccadilly lunchtime series. We were lucky enough to be able to secure a date for the extraordinary New York-based pianist and composer Jed Distler on his current European tour. Many of you will also know Jed as perhaps the world’s leading authority on piano recordings, historical and modern.
Jed after all the Beethoven Sonatas was quite happy to add the Funeral March from the Eroica Symphony before entering into his unique sound world.
I had met Jed at a musical fair in Cremona and we hit it off immediately but then who wouldn’t ! Jed knows more about pianos and pianist than anyone alive or dead and is also one of the nicest people I know .It is an honour to have him as a guest in my house but he asked me not to write about his concert today so as not to be accused of conflict of interests. So ‘mum’s’ the word but the recording is here and can be enjoyed at your leisure without any words from me !
So I am not writing any more than to say I have rarely heard this Fazioli- or any other come to that – sound so beautiful as it did today!
I look forward to his performance of Shostakovich ‘Leningrad’ Symphony with Cristian Sandrin next week ,and there I will let rip with unconstrained praise and admiration for two such eclectic musicians
I have heard Tessa and Ben play many of the Scharwenka transcriptions of the Beethoven Symphonies over the past seven years. It is very touching to see the old battered copy of the Symphonies on the piano stand and know that it was the very copy that stood in her mother’s studio when Tessa was growing up.
Tessa and Ben are both highly esteemed artists not only in their homeland but also in their adopted home in London. Since those early days when I first heard them they have been discovered and have now made some highly acclaimed CD’s as a piano duo. As Dr Mather said St Mary’s may be too small for an orchestra but Sharwenka has proven him wrong, as today we heard the Pastoral Symphony in all it’s glory on this newly restored piano that is more used to Sonatas than Symphonies.
Tessa and Ben over the years have truly learnt how to play as one with an extraordinary sense of balance created by two great artists that listen to themselves and adjust accordingly. Tessa may have been at the bass end for the Beethoven but even when she played at the top the balance was just as superb.
I have written many times about their Beethoven performances but today I was overwhelmed by their superb performance of Elgar. The Introduction and Allegro like the violin or cello concerti have something so unique about the sound world that one can envisage the green pastures and wondrous landscapes that surrounded the composer as he wrote music that fits the era of Bernard Shaw or Constable and fills it with such sumptuous rich sounds.
The British Brahms you could almost call him and when I hear this music I immediately envisage Sir John Barbirolli or Sir Adrian Boult who I was lucky enough to experience in my student days at the Royal Academy and Royal College that I frequented almost daily in my teenage years. I remember Barbirolli when I, like Tessa, was a student at the Royal Academy, and I followed his rehearsals with the student orchestra. I can still see this short very passionate man walking through the cello section and looking the players in the eye to get them to play with more passion. The first recording of the cello concerto with Jaqueline du Pré is legendary but she was often criticised for playing with too much passion. ‘ But if you don’t play with passion when you are young what will you pare off later in life?’ Little was he to imagine that we would never know ,as she was struck down at only 28. Luckily she had Daniel Barenboim at her side who had managed to give her the maturity and security that only true love between genius can provide. A Golden couple indeed!
Boult on the other hand at the college would stand on the podium like a Military gentleman waving a very long stick. But the intelligence and passion that the stick contained was a great lesson indeed and it was his recording of the Elgar Introduction that I would play over and over again as a student.
Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony is one of the marvels of creation and the fantasy and imagination that Beethoven was able to portray was made even more poignant by the titles he gave each movement.
It was such a good idea to play these two ‘Pastoral’ gems one after the other. Not to compare but to wallow in genius that can portray in music such wondrous scenes. Tessa suggested, as a future project , Bruckner Symphonies in the arrangement of Otto Singer which sounds like a wondrous voyage of discovery .
I know that Jed Distler ,who will shortly play in Perivale is preparing Shostakovich Leningrad symphony with Cristian Sandrin that they will play in London shortly.He is also playing four hands all the Mahler Symphonies. St Mary’s may be redundant no longer !! Watch out Hugh ……….as the little one said move over !
In 2010, Tessa Uys and Ben Schoeman established a duo partnership after being invited to give a two-piano recital at the Royal Over-Seas League in London. Ever since, they have performed regularly at music societies, festivals and at the BBC. They have recorded six volumes encompassing the nine symphonies by Beethoven arranged for piano duet by Xaver Scharwenka, alongside two-piano works by Schumann, Saint-Saëns and Busoni for SOMM Recordings. They have received praise for this “landmark” project, and it has been described as a “tour-de-force” in the BBC, Gramophone and International Piano Magazines.
Tessa Uys Born in Cape Town, Tessa Uys was first taught by her mother, Helga Bassel, herself a noted concert pianist. At sixteen, she won a Royal Schools Associated Board Scholarship and continued her studies at the Royal Academy of Music in London where she studied with Gordon Green. In her final year she was awarded the MacFarren Medal. Further studies in London with Maria Curcio, and in Siena with Guido Agosti followed. Shortly after this Tessa Uys won the Royal Over-Seas League Competition and was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music. During the past decades, Tessa Uys has established herself an impressive reputation, both as concert performer, and as a broadcasting artiste, performing at many concert venues throughout the world. She has performed at the Wigmore Hall, Southbank, Barbican and St John’s Smith Square, and has played under such distinguished conductors as Sir Neville Marriner, Walter Susskind, Louis Frémaux and Nicholas Kraemer. https://www.impulse-music.co.uk/tessauys/
Ben Schoeman Steinway Artist, Ben Schoeman was the first prize laureate in the 11th UNISA International Piano Competition in Pretoria, winner of the gold medal in the Royal Over-Seas League Competition in London and was also awarded the contemporary music prize at the Cleveland International Piano Competition. He has performed in prestigious halls on several continents, including the Wigmore, Barbican and Queen Elizabeth Halls in London, Carnegie Hall in New York, the Konzerthaus in Berlin, the Gulbenkian Auditorium in Lisbon, Cape Town City Hall and the Enescu Festival in Bucharest. As a concerto soloist he has collaborated in over 40 works with conductors including Diego Masson, Gérard Korsten, Yasuo Shinozaki, Bernhard Gueller, Jonathan McPhee and Wolfram Christ. He studied piano with renowned musicians such as Joseph Stanford, Michel Dalberto, Boris Petrushansky, and Eliso Virsaladze, and obtained a doctorate in music from City, University of London and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama with a thesis on the piano works of the composer Stefans Grové whose African-inspired music Schoeman has premiered and performed in numerous countries. Over the past decade, he has been a senior lecturer and research fellow at the University of Pretoria. He has served on the jury of international music competitions and his students have won top prizes. www.benschoeman.com
Franz Xaver Scharwenka born: 6 January 1850 died: 8 December 1924
Franz Xaver Scharwenka was born on 6 January 1850 at Samter, near the Polish city of Poznan, which was then in East Prussia. Both Xaver and his older brother Philipp (1847–1917) showed early signs of musical talent and were much encouraged by their father in their first music lessons. In 1865 the Scharwenka family moved to Berlin where the two brothers were enrolled at Theodor Kullak’s Neue Akademie der Tonkunst. Xaver made rapid progress, studying the piano with Kullak himself, a pupil of Carl Czerny, and composition with Richard Wuerst who in turn had studied with Mendelssohn in Leipzig. This formal musical education, together with his own natural ability and dedication, ensured Scharwenka’s success as both pianist and composer, and in 1869, a year after his pianistic debut at the Berlin Singakademie, his first compositions were published. Before 1874, when he took up a career as a travelling virtuoso, he had already been on Kullak’s teaching staff for some five years as professor of piano, and the experience thus gained was to prove invaluable in later years when he turned his attentions more to teaching, opening his own conservatory in Berlin in 1881, and subsequently a branch in New York in 1891 following his successful American debut. By the middle of the 1890s that institution had become one of the world’s largest, universally acknowledged as offering the highest quality of musical education. It was the outbreak of war in 1914 which forced Scharwenka’s retirement from the international concert platform after some forty years, during which time he had achieved the highest reputation worldwide, not only as a pianist of exceptional quality but also as a fine all-round musician, receiving numerous decorations and orders from most of the crowned heads of Europe, as well as many honours from various educational institutions. The last few years of his life were spent in semi-retirement in Berlin, where he died, a much respected man, in December 1924.
Otto Singer Jr., (September 14, 1863 – January 8, 1931), composer and conductor, produced piano transcriptions of all nine of Beethoven’s symphonies, at least 57 of Liszt’s songs, all four of Brahms’s symphonies, vocal-piano reductions (vocal parts plus solo piano) of 12 of Wagner’s operas (as well as instrumental solo piano versions for some of them), as well as transcriptions of other works by Richard Strauss, Brahms, Beethoven, Bruckner, Tchaikovsky, Mozart, and Mahler, among others including this Elgar
Pedro Salas is a very fine pianist whose playing I have long admired, following his career during his studies in London with Norma Fisher and Vanessa Latarche.
He has now graduated with considerable honours and is perfecting his studies at home in Spain with Stanislaw Ioudenitch in the Conservatory in Madrid where he also holds a teaching post. Winner of numerous important International Competitions Pedro has set his sites on the Chopin Competition in Warsaw. Having been a top prize winner in the Paderewski Competition his presence in Warsaw was guaranteed for the 2025 Chopin Competition in Warsaw.
The good thing is that it will lead to a feast of wonderful performances and the discovery of so many marvellous young musicians dedicating their youth to perfecting their art.
I have heard recently some wonderful things from Andrzej Wiercinski, Diana Cooper, Jackie Zhang, Ryan Wang ,Yuanfan Yang and now Pedro Salas .All wonderful performers many playing the same Chopin Polonaise – Fantaisie op 61 and Preludes , but all completely different.
Chopin’s late Nocturne op 62 was played with great sensitivity and an extraordinary almost improvised freedom creating a bel canto of beauty and timeless wonder.
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Chopin’s very youthful Waltz B 150 is full of nostalgia and the refined elegance of it’s time ( I had infact chosen it to accompany some scenes in Ibsen’s Doll’s House) and it was very moving to hear the unmistakable genial voice of Chopin played with the aristocratic good taste that was Chopin’s birthright. The second posthumous Waltz is of scintillating brilliance of liberation and freedom where even here Pedro found some magical inner counterpoints that he underlined with subtle prism like rays of beauty.
The Polonaise-Fantaisie opened with imperious sounds that reverberated so naturally over the entire keyboard. Pedro played them in just one sweep taking the last note (like Wiercinski) with a slow descending left hand where harmonic and visual beauty went hand in hand. It was this poetry that Pedro was to imbue in this extraordinary original creation where ‘war and peace’ are combined in a flow of beauty of sumptuous sounds and dynamic rhythmic drive arriving at the final explosion of exhilaration and aristocratic control. Pedro allowing the music to calm until the final whispered notes hovering over deep bass reverberations are greeted by a plaintive single A flat. It completes this perfectly shaped work that like its partner the Barcarolle op 60 , finish in paradise not in crowd pleasing triumph. Pedro chose the six preludes from 7 to 12 instead of 13 to 18 like many of his colleagues. Chopin never played all his twenty four Preludes together choosing ( as Sviatolasv Richter was to do ) a selection as obviously has been requested by the competition rules !
A beautifully simple n. 7, the shortest of all the preludes was followed by the passionate outpouring of the 8th ( obviously of great inspiration to Scriabin ). Full rich sound to the 9th was followed by the delicate cascades of notes of the 10th. The beautiful flowing line of the 11th was played with a beguiling beauty and contrasted with the stamping militaristic 12th . Pedro played each one like miniature tone poems shaping them with sensitivity and poetic inspiration .
It was at the end of the recital that Pedro like all great performers had created an atmosphere where every note was being shadowed by an audience totally seduced by this hot blooded young spaniard. An ‘Andante spianato’ of ravishing beauty with a subtle sense of balance that allowed the melodic line to sing so naturally above the hovering waves of sound in the bass. A simplicity and clarity that allowed Chopin’s bel canto to rise above this delicate wave with the natural shape of Monserrat Caballé! A mazurka that was played with a glowing simplicity and subtle freedom before the entry of Pedro’s orchestra, and a complete change of character, as the Grande Polonaise Brillante was allowed to take wing. Even here there was a subtle bel canto which turned into streams of jeux perlé that were played with a beguiling mastery and palette of colour. Powerful octaves and agitated chords but always with the brilliance and masterly sense of elegance with which Chopin conquered the salons in Paris on his arrival as a teenager escaping the political unrest in his homeland.
Pedro is a great musician with a refined tonal palette and rare good taste but he also has Spanish blood in his veins and can raise the temperature with imperious showmanship and mastery. An ovation from this lunchtime audience and an unexpected encore where Pedro’s great artistry was allowed to lead the audience through a most beguiling ornamented version of Chopin’s famous E flat Nocturne. Embellishments recently published in the most complete edition of Chopin’s works and are original embellishments that Chopin would give away as presents to his pretty aristocratic pupils. Kochalski recorded some of them in 1938, and recently ornamentation has become more and more common place.
Pedro played this magic web of sounds with such beauty and mastery that the audience held their breath as we used to do when Caballé would sing a chain of notes with such perfection of unbelievable breath control.
The entire audience were on their feet to thank this young man for the beauty he had shared with them this lunchtime and to wish him a voyage on the same wings of song to Warsaw.
Born in 1997, Pedro is a Spanish pianist who is currently studying the Master of Performance Degree with the legendary pianist and pedagogue Norma Fisher at the “Royal College of Music” in London (RCM), awarded with full scholarship and the title of the “Leverhulme Honorary Arts Scholarships”. He is a “Talent Unlimited” artist, as well as a “Keyboard Trust” artist, both from the UK.
He has been awarded with more than 40 prizes at International and National piano competitions (among them, the First Prizes at the Malta International Piano Competition; International Piano Competition “Composers of Spain” CIPCE (Las Rozas, Madrid); “Joan Chisell” Schumann Prize of the RCM (London), etc.)
He has also received crucial inspiration from internationally renowned masters such as Dmitri Baskirov, Dmitri Alexeev, Alexander Kobrin, Pavel Nerssesian, Marianna Aivazova, Pascal Nemirovsky, Pavel Gililov and Ludmil Angelov.
He has performed throughout Spain and Europe in auditoriums such as the “Manuel de Falla” in Granada, “Teatro Circo” in Albacete, Aachen Theater, “Wiener Saal” in Salzburg and as a soloist with the Orquesta de Valencia (OV) in the “Palau de la Música” in Valencia and with the Real Orquesta Sinfónica de Sevilla (ROSS) in the Teatro de la Maestranza in Seville, he has been praised by the critics as “more than an excellent pianist, he is a soloist and almost a conductor, judging by his scenic development” (Ritmo magazine) or “enormous security and great capacity of the young pianist to endow Liszt’s concerto number 2 with expressiveness and poetry” (El correo de Sevilla). Also, in the “Miguel Delibes” of Valladolid, playing with the OSCYL (“Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León”); “Teatro Canónigos de la Granja” of Segovia and “Centro Cultural Nicolás Salmerón” of Madrid and with the CSKG orchestra, performing the second piano concertos of F. Chopin and F. Liszt, etc. Among his scheduled performances, it deserves an specoal mention the “Rhapsody in Blue” by G. Gershwin at the ADDA in Alicante and the “Auditorio Internacional de Torrevieja” with the OST (“Orquesta Sinfónica de Torrevieja”), as well as having been invited to perform Rachmaniov’s concerto number 2 again with the ROSS at the Teatro de la Maestranza in Seville, given his fabulous previous reviews with Liszt’s 2. In addition, in 2022 he will make an international concert tour in the UK (London), Russia (Severodvinsk and Arkhangelsk), as well as Spain (Lleida, Albacete,etc.).
He has offered numerous interviews for international and national press, radio and television. “Three encores, standing audience and a long line of spectators lined up to congratulate the young Spanish pianist. Pedro López Salas brightened up the evening in Milan” (Cultura di Milano).
I have heard Diana Cooper many times over the past few seasons in London, as she unknowingly prepared to participate in the Chopin Competition in Warsaw in 2025. There has been a very drastic selection of videos sent in from the hundreds of applicants who wanted to follow in the steps of Bruce Liu who was the winner in 202I. Diana is one of the lucky few selected to go to Warsaw, into the ring where the gladiators will fight to the end in this Circus arena that these competitions have created. https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2016/05/16/piano-competitions-a-consideration/
Diana is a great artist but working on her Chopin programmes I have noticed that added to her intelligence and pianistic mastery, she has acquired an authority that is made of the humility and respect for the text of Chopin that he had bequeathed to the world, mostly written in his own hand. A so called Chopin tradition has grown up since his death where the idiosincracies of great pianist – entertainers has sometimes turned Chopin’s so called rubato into a grotesque distortion aimed at titivating the senses and arousing the approval of the audience. Chopin has no need for that because he was able to create a new art form for a piano that now had pedals, and a soul of its own that lies within the very notes, and needs no external icing on the cake! It was Rubinstein who broke away from this so called tradition and as Perlemuter once told me there is no-one who knows the scores better than he.
Diana realises this and her superb musicianship and sensitivity give her playing a strength and nobility that allows Chopin’s own voice to shine through. I have quoted from some of my past reviews below but there were a few works that I had not heard her play before. The Polonaise Fantaisie,the Berceuse ,three Mazurkas and the Waltz op 42 that I have added an appreciation to, below each piece.
A Polonaise – Fantaisie played with strength and passion with a superb use of the pedals that allowed Chopin to create this new form in the last year of his life, where the Polonaise and fantasy were inextricable interwound. A very noble opening but I would think twice before splitting the long vibrations between the hands as it ruins the impression of an artist making one stroke with his brush. Diana however could create of this extraordinary work one great architectural shape, that took us to the beautiful central episode with such inevitability and a sense of riding on a wave of sounds always moving forward. Leading to the return of the opening declamation and with dynamic drive to the sumptuous climax of glorious exultation and aristocratic nobility.
‘Diana Cooper at Bechstein Hall – ‘freedom and flexibility of rare artistry’ – ‘ravishing sounds of refined delicacy mingled with robust declamations’. This is what I jotted down as she recreated the Mazurka op 30 n. 3 that opened this extraordinary Chopin Recital.She shared with us in just a few minutes a tone poem with a kaleidoscope of colours and emotions. ‘Canons covered in flowers’, never have Schumann’s words come so vividly to life. A piano that I have heard played by many very fine artists, but today the sounds she found with a miraculous sense of balance and sensitivity , a subtle palette of colours, I would never have thought possible. A bass that resounded with the deep velvety resonance reminiscent of a Bosendorfer or Shegeru Kwai – a middle register of Bluthner or Fazioli richness – an upper register that of the Hamburg Steinway of yore.’
What a joy to hear the other three Mazurka’s that make up this set . The beguiling nostalgia of the C minor never forgetting the refined elegance and fantasy of this dance so deeply embedded in Chopin from birth. The boisterous dance of the B minor was played with exhilaration and excitement. There was ravishing beauty and an extraordinary range of sounds in the C sharp minor mazurka with it’s ever questioning phrases.
There was the same sense of style and refined elegance in the waltz op 42 that she played in Perivale as an encore .
‘The Fourth Scherzo, an elusive work of extraordinary fantasy and chameleonic changes of character that have made it less accessible to all but the greatest of interpreters. Diana played it today with a kaleidoscope of sounds as she took us into a fantasy world of fleeting quixotic fancy and ravishing washes of sumptuous melody. In Diana’s masterly hands even the glistening jeux perlé that abounds was played with a clarity starting with the pedal but then continuing without, that was quite breathtaking in it’s audacity.The bare notes of the introduction to the ‘più lento’ central episode I have rarely heard played with such poignancy, where one could feel the collegiate atmosphere created and of her leading us by the hand into a wondrous land of beauty .The radiance and sumptuous beauty of the imperious final few bars gave us that rich sound of a truly ‘Grand Piano’ with a depth and richness of magisterial authority. ‘
I have never forgotten a performance of the Chopin ‘Berceuse’ that I had heard from Norma Fisher in the London Piano Series at the Wigmore Hall in the sixties. I had been taken by ‘our’ teacher Sidney Harrison, who had taken me under his wing as a schoolboy and wanted to introduce the winner of the Liszt Scholarship at the Royal Academy to his prize student, now and established artist worldwide. It is Norma Fisher who has been mentoring Diana and it was this rich aristocratic sound that I was reminded of today. A refined simplicity almost a classical style ( Mozart A minor rondo comes to mind) as the variations evolved glistening and shimmering with silvery sounds of glowing beauty. The beauty of C flat floating with subtle beauty into the atmosphere creating a magic aura of sublime beauty taking us to the whispered ending.
‘It was this same authority that opened the B minor Sonata,with the power of a drama that was about to unfold. Searing passion and breathless declamations gave way to a bel canto with an inner energy, as Diana had conceived the whole movement in one glorious architectural whole. Moments of extraordinary beauty as counterpoints just shone like jewels catching the light.There was no repeat but straight into the development with overwhelming drive and authority. The Trio of the Scherzo was given unusual importance with contrapuntal strands that all made such sense and were the guiding light for this movement that can sound, in lesser hands, so disjointed. An imperious opening to the Largo played with extraordinary intelligence and sensitive musicality as she gave a monumental shape to passages that can seem like senseless beautiful meanderings. She brought a breathtaking climax played with her extraordinary ability to feel and search for a balance that would allow beauty, passion and delicacy to live under the same roof. The ‘Presto non tanto’ was played with beguiling menace as it became ever more excited and exhilarating, all leading to the final tumultuous explosion and the triumphant left hand fanfare taking us to the final chords of breathless inevitability.’
Winner of numerous awards including 1st Prize at the Brest Chopin Competition, 1st Prize at the Halina Czerny-Stefanská International Competition in Poznan (Poland) and 1st Prize at the Concurso Internacional de Piano de Vigo (Spain), Diana Cooper has been invited to perform in various venues and festivals in France and abroad, including the Nohant Chopin Festival, the Festival Chopin à Paris, the Salle Cortot, the Hrvatski dom Split in Croatia, Chopin’s manor in Zelazowa Wola in Poland, the Teatro Filarmónica de Oviedo… In 2023 and 2024, she was selected to take part in the project Un été en France avec Gautier Capuçon, for which she performed solo and chamber music in several open-air concerts across France, including in Corsica. She was invited in 2018 to take part in the radio program Générations Jeunes Interprètes on France Musique and, in 2023, performed as a trio in the television programme Fauteuils d’orchestre, broadcast on France 5. In 2024 she was chosen to take part in a masterclass with Yuja Wang, filmed and produced by the BBC for the art series Arts in Motion. She appeared with several orchestras including the Orkiestra Symfoniczna Filharmonii Kaliskiej, in Poland, performing Chopin’s 1st concerto under the baton of Maciej Kotarba. Born in Tarbes (France), Diana is a graduate of the Conservatoire de Paris (CNSMDP), the Ecole Normale de Musique Alfred Cortot and the Royal College of Music in London. Her main professors include Norma Fisher, Philippe Giusiano, Rena Shereshevskaya, and Marie-Josèphe Jude. Diana has recently recorded her first CD, featuring works by Haydn, Chopin and Ravel, after winning 1st Prize in the Concours d’aide aux Jeunes Artistes organised by the Festival du Vexin.
The art of Chopin’s bel canto seduces the senses in the Riviera di Ulisse
The two Chopin concerto’s ignite the perfumed air in the Teatro Romano of Minturno as the ravishing melodic invention of the young Chopin was allowed to unfold on the golden web with which they were born.
Players from the orchestra da camera di Mantova were ready to join this wondrous voyage of discovery, as the jewel like sounds of the chiselled beauty that Luigi sculptured with his refined fingers wafted over the centuries of history that surrounded us.
Players from one of the finest chamber orchestras in Europe were : Filippo Lama and Filippo Ghidoni ,violin; Tessa Rippo,viola; Leonardo Notarangelo,’cello; Alessandro Schillaci,double bass. I have heard the Chopin Concerti several times with a chamber ensemble of string quartet but this is the first time with a quintet. The double bass gave a depth of sound that gives so much more strength to the ‘tutti’s’ where one can easily miss the full climactic moments of the piano continued into the orchestral tutti’s. It was the superb viola of Tessa Rippo who could even imitate Chopin’s horn call in the second concerto and the sumptuous beauty of the first violin of Filippo Lama that could give such full radiance alone. The ‘cello and second violin too filling the textures with chamber music subtlety but there were one or two strange non legato phrasings where we missed the weight of the orchestra.
Chopin concertos that have never been allowed to sing so eloquently and vibrantly. Even the brilliant jeux perlé became but streams of wondrous sounds greeting an audience that this theatre has not seen since the Romans found and inhabited this wondrous paradise.Hopefully this rediscovery of well known classics in chamber formation will continue next year with the 3rd Season of the Riviera di Ulisse. I have heard recently the Beethoven Piano concertos being reborn in the arrangement for piano and quintet by Vinzenz Lachner There is of course the supreme magic of Mozart’s own three concerti K413,K 414,K 415 for piano and quartet that I had heard years ago from Fou Ts’ong and the Allegri Quartet and that I have never forgotten.
the sindaco of Minturno presenting the concert and more music in this magic Teatro Romanocentre Natalie Gabrielli Carroccia together with her husband bringing magic to this sacred land
Chopin, 28, at piano, from the joint portrait of Chopin and Sand , by Delacroix 1838 Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin. 1 March 1810 Żelazowa Wola ,Poland -17 October 1849 (aged 39) Paris, France
Chopin’s compositions for piano and orchestra originated from the late 1820s to the early 1830s, and comprise three concert pieces he composed 1827–1828, while a student at the Central School of Music in Warsaw, two piano concertos , completed and premièred between finishing his studies (mid 1829) and leaving Poland (late 1830), and later drafts, resulting in two more published works. Among these, and the other works in the brilliant style which Chopin composed in this period, the concertos are the most accomplished.
Variations on ‘Là ci darem la mano’in B♭ major (1827), Op. 2.
Fantasy on Polish Airs , in A major (1828), Op. 13.
Rondo à la Krakowiak , in F major (1828), Op. 14.
Piano Concerto n. 2 in F minor (1829–1830), Op. 21.
Piano Concerto n. 1 in E minor in E minor (1830), Op. 11.
Grande polonaise brillante (1830–1831), in 1834 expanded with an introductory Andante spianato for solo piano, and a fanfare-like transition to the earlier composition, together published as op. 22
Drafts for more concertos, ultimately resulting in the Allegro de Concert for solo piano (1832–41), Op. 46.
The Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor, Op. 11, was written in 1830, when he was twenty years old. It was first performed on 12 October of that year, at the Teatr Narodowy (the National Theatre) in Warsaw, with the composer as soloist, during one of his “farewell” concerts before leaving Poland
Teatr Narodowy
It was the first of Chopin’s two piano concertos to be published, and was therefore given the designation of Piano Concerto “No. 1” at the time of publication, even though it was actually written immediately after the premiere of what was later published as n. 2. The presenter of the concert form S. Cecilia Academy in Rome , told us that it was published as number one because the orchestral parts of the other concerto could not be found!
The premiere, on 12 October 1830, was “a success…. a full house”. There was “an audience of about 700” and the he concerto was premiered with Chopin himself at the piano and Carlo Evasio Soliva conducting. The piece was followed by “thunderous applause”. Seven weeks later, in Paris, following the political outbreaks in Poland , Chopin played his concerto for the first time in France at the Salle Playel . It was received well, once again. François-Joseph Fétis wrote in La Revue musicale the next day that “There is spirit in these melodies, there is fantasy in these passages, and everywhere there is originality”. Opinions of the concerto differ. Some critics feel that the orchestral support as written is dry and uninteresting, for example the critic James Huneker , who wrote in Chopin: The Man and his Musicthat it was “not Chopin at his very best”. Sometimes musicians such as Mikhail Pletnev feel a need to amend Chopin’s orchestration.On the other hand, many others feel that the orchestral backing is carefully and deliberately written to fit in with the sound of the piano, and that the simplicity of arrangement is in deliberate contrast to the complexity of the harmony. It has been suggested that the orchestral writing is reminiscent of Hummel’s concertos in giving support to the piano rather than providing drama. Harold Schonberg , in The Great Pianists, writes “…the openings of the Hummel A minor and Chopin E minor concertos are too close to be coincidental”.However, Schumann took a rather different view when he reviewed Chopin’s concerti in 1836 declaring that “Chopin introduces the spirit of Beethoven into the concert hall” with these pieces.While composing it, Chopin wrote to his friend Tytus Woyciechowski, saying “Here you doubtless observe my tendency to do wrong against my will. As something has involuntarily crept into my head through my eyes, I love to indulge it, even though it may be all wrong”. This sight may have been the well-known soprano Konstancja Gladkowska, believed by some to be the “ideal” behind the Larghetto from Chopin’s Second Piano Concerto, although some believe Chopin may have been referring to Woyciechowski
The Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor, . op. 21, was written in 1829. Chopin composed the piece before he had finished his formal education, at around 20 years of age. It was first performed on 17 March 1830, in Warsaw, with the composer as soloist. It was the second of his piano concertos to be published (after n. 1), and so was designated as “No. 2”, even though it was written first.
A star shining brightly in Fondi as the artistry of Jonathan Fournel shows how passion poetry and mastery can intoxicate and mesmerise the audience of the Riviera di Ulisse Festival of Luigi and Natalie Carroccia .
Fondi a magical town to discover due to the unpredictable weather the concert in the Chiostro di San Domenico was moved into their auditorium
Bach played with a kaleidoscope of colour and aristocratic nobility.The Bach Italian Concerto was played with extraordinarily refined colouring that was respectful of the period it was written. Full of fantasy and dynamism in every note but with a very refined musical palette without ever loosing the dynamic drive that is so much part of the genius of Köthen. The slow movement was very expressive but strangely very orchestral with rich but delicate sounds (as Jonathan was to find in Brahms later too). Here there was an architectural shape of the nobility and authority of a thinking and feeling musician. The last movement sprang from his masterly fingers with dynamic drive and a rhythmic energy of exhilaration and ‘joie de vivre’, Counterpoints that were so clearly differentiated by contrasted dynamic levels of sound. There was also no rallentando or grandiose ending to ruin the architectural shape that had been created by the master of knotty twine so perfectly differentiated by Jonathan’s true pianistic mastery.
Brahms played with almost orchestral richness that was both tender and passionate.Three Intermezzi op 117 that Brahms described as ‘three lullabies of my grief’ were played with whispered luminosity and a delicately chiselled orchestral beauty. Op 117 n.1 is based on an anonymous Scottish Ballade : ‘lie still and sleep; It grieves me sore to see thee weep’ ,where Jonathan found a beautiful gentle doubling of the tenor register. As the melody returned the gently rocking from the bass to the soprano created a frame of pure magic, with barely audible final notes placed with infinite delicacy and breathtaking beauty.There was the insinuating beauty of the second in B flat minor with a richness but also a tenderness and an ending of exquisite beauty. A central episode that has been described as :’man as he stands with the bleak, gusty autumn wind eddying round him’ was indeed played with a rich full tone of glowing beauty and timeless wonder. The third in C sharp minor is the most disturbing with it’s almost oriental feel to the opening doubling of the melodic line and which Jonathan transformed into a wondrous tone poem of beguiling insinuating beauty.
And finally the Liszt Sonata played with fearless abandon and respect for the pinnacle of the romantic piano repertoire.
Restored to its rightful place with breathtaking beauty and earthshattering conviction but above all the respect for the genius of Liszt, as Jonathan recreated this masterpiece as rarely ever heard since Gilels. I have never experienced the almost religious rite of the opening with hands poised as he was about to embark on a truly wondrous voyage. The dynamic values within forte may have been slightly the same but this was a man playing with passionate commitment and quite extraordinary technical mastery. As Barbirolli famously said of criticism of Jaqueline Du Pré ;’If you don’t play with passion and love when you are young what do you pare off when you are older’. Jonathan,like Du Pré, is a great musician and always foremost in his playing was the sense of line and an overall sense of balance. Sometimes at the height of passionate involvement suddenly reducing the sound so it could lead to the climax without any hard or ungrateful sounds. The sign of a great musician is the meaning that is given to the rests or silences between the notes and it was this that became so noticeable as Jonathan began the descent into the recapitulation after the searing intensity of the central movement. The gradual disintegration into descending scales like glistening jewels just coming to rest after such a traumatic experience was truly memorable for the energy that he could install in notes of such seeming simplicity. There were terrifying contrasts between the enormous sonorities of the chords and the touching delicacy of the recitativi. Passion and poetry combined in a truly memorable performance of this pinnacle of the romantic piano repertoire. The fearless mastery of the treacherous final octaves were played at a speed that would have put fear into any other pianist as they passed from the right hand to the left with quite extraordinary passionate involvement and remarkable accuracy.
The final visionary pages were played by a true poet but also a thinking musician, where rests I have never noticed before became as eloquent and meaningful as the notes. There were moments of aching silence as Jonathan reached the heights with three delicately placed chords, the last one played quieter than the others , as Liszt asks, and barely touching the final B. Moved by this moment of recreation as he involved us in this act of mutual communion that can only happen in live performance. Again it was the aching final silence that spoke even louder than the notes because we were all involved in this almost religious rite of recreation.
As Gilels so rightly said ‘live performance is like fresh food and recorded performances like canned food’. And as the ‘Bard’ said : ‘If Music be the food of love, please oh please play on’.
Exhausted but not completely spent this young man could still create a magic spell with the Bach-Siloti Prelude in B minor.The shadow of Gilels watching from above as this young man recreated the magic that was his many years ago.
Natalie Carroccia,co artistic director and distinguished musicologist thanking Jonathan
A star was truly born tonight with Jonathan Fournel’s much awaited return to Italy after winning the Gold Medal at the Queen Elisabeth Competion in 2021 .
The very first competition in 1938 was won by Emil Gilels, could that be a coincidence or is great artistry born on these wings of song?
This is Gilels playing the same Bach-Siloti that Jonathan treated us to as an encore :
Jonathan began studying piano at age seven in his hometown of Sarreguemines in eastern France before entering the Strasbourg Conservatoire. At 12, he was admitted to the Saarbrücken Musikhochschule in Germany, where he studied with Prof. Robert Leonardy and Jean Micault. Around this time, he also began working with pianist Gisèle Magnan, from whom Jonathan received mentorship for years. At 15, he entered the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris, studying with Brigitte Engerer, Bruno Rigutto, Claire Désert, and Michel Dalberto, and graduated with honors five years later. In September 2016, Jonathan joined Louis Lortie and Avo Kouyoumdjian’s class at Chapelle Musicale Reine Elisabeth in Belgium for five years.He is a guest at prestigious venues and festivals including the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Gewandhaus Leipzig, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, NDR Landesfunkhaus Hannover, Rheingau Musik Festival, Klavier Festival Ruhr, Konzerthaus Vienna, Philharmonie de Paris, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Auditorium de Radio France, Louis Vuitton Foundation, La Roque d’Anthéron Festival, Piano aux Jacobins Festival, Les Concerts de Poche, Verbier Festival, Sommets Musicaux de Gstaad, Sala Verdi Milan, Suntory Hall, Kioi Hall Tokyo, Philharmonie Luxembourg, Flagey, Bozar Brussels, de Bijloke Gent, Louisiana Museum Denmark, Kumho Art Hall Seoul, Tongyeong Concert Hall, Sala São Paulo, Warsaw Philharmonic, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall and Usher Hall Edinburgh.Jonathan has performed under the baton of conductors such as Alexandre Bloch, Jean-Claude Casadesus, Thomas Dausgaard, Stéphane Denève, Sascha Goetzel, Howard Griffiths, Jonathon Heyward, Eivind Gullberg Jensen, Gabor Kali, Lio Kuokman, Alexander Markovic, Peter Oundjian, Daniel Raiskin, Pascal Rophé, Michael Schønwandt, Fan Tao, and Hugh Wolff. He has collaborated with orchestras including the NHK Symphony Orchestra, Macao Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, Orchestre National d’Île-de-France, Orchestre de Chambre de Paris, Orchestre National de Bordeaux, Orchestre National de Lille, Orchestre National de Montpellier, Deutsche Radio Philharmonie, Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie, Brussels Philharmonic, Belgian National Orchestra, European Union Youth Orchestra, NOSPR Katowice, Slovak Philharmonic and the Croatian Radio and Television Orchestra.
Artistic director and master pianist , friend and colleague of the artists. With Julian Kainrath https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2025/08/28/julian-kainrath-rides-high-on-the-wings-of-ulisse-some-enchanted-evening/gastronomic feast after the concerts in this land kissed by the Godsthe proof of the pudding is certainly in the eating behind the scene preparations gastronomic delights to enhance the intoxicating senses of Bach,Brahms and Liszt our hosts for the gastronomic treats Luigi Carroccia ,artistic director with his wife Natalie, seen here applauding his friend and colleague,Jonathan, before his own concert tonight of the two Chopin Piano concerti in the Teatro Romano in Minturno https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2024/05/04/luigi-carroccia-the-poet-of-the-piano-chopin-concerti-op-11-and-21-in-rome-orchestra-delle-cento-citta-directed-by-luigi-piovano/Emil Gilels was born in Odessa. He did not come from a musical family: his father worked as a clerk in the sugar refinery and his mother looked after the large family. At the age of five and a half he was taken to Yakov Tkach, a famous piano pedagogue in Odessa. He completed his first period of studies with unprecedented ease. In 1929 aged twelve, he gave his first public concert. In 1930 he was accepted to the conservatory in Odessa into the class of Berta Reingbald. Her main goal was his participation in the First All-Union Competition of Performers which was announced to take place in 1933 in Moscow. Gilels’ playing created a sensation – when he finished his programme the auditorium rose up in tumultuous ovation and even the jury stood to applaud. The question of first prize was not even discussed: in a unanimous decision Gilels was announced the winner. The competition changed Emil’s life – he was suddenly famous throughout the land. Following the competition, Gilels embarked on an extensive concert tour around the USSR. In 1938 Gilels and Flier set off to the Queen Elisabeth Competition. They were expected to uphold the victories of the Soviet violinists, lead by David Oistrakh a year earlier, and to return in triumph. Gilels was awarded the first prize and Flier took the third. Moura Lympany,second and Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli 7th ! The whole musical world began to talk about Emil Gilels. Following the competition he was meant to embark on a lengthy concert tour, including a tour of the USA. These plans were abruptly interrupted by the Second World War. On home soil Gilels became a hero: he received a medal for his achievements, was greeted by a welcome party upon his return and in the Soviet consciousness his name sounded in equal rank with the names of famous explorers, pilots and film stars. Final (29/05/1938) programme : PYOTR TCHAIKOVSKY Concerto n. 1 in B flat minor op. 23 JOHANNES BRAHMS Variations on a Theme by Paganini op. 35 I FELIX MENDELSSOHN Scherzo (A midsummer night’s dream ) RICHARD WAGNER Mort d’Yseult MILY BALAKIREV Islamey FRANZ LISZT Hungarian Rhapsody n. 6 in D flat major JOSEPH JONGEN Toccata Emil Gilels Orchestre Symphonique de l’INR, dir. Franz AndréArthur Rubinstein dedication to Emil Gilels, “from my heart, your old friend Arthur Rubinstein.” 17 January 1960
In May 1929, aged 12, Gilels gave his first public concert.In 1929, Gilels was accepted to the Odessa Conservatory into the class of Bertha Reingbald. Under the tutelage of Reingbald, Gilels broadened his range of cultural interests, with a particular aptitude for history and literature. In 1932, Artur Rubinstein visited the Odessa Conservatory and met Gilels, and the two of them remained friends through the remainder of Rubinstein’s life.Rubinstein recounts that in hearing this red haired teenager he declared that if he ever came to the west Rubinstein may as well pack up his bags retire Franz Liszt Born. 22 October 1811 Doborján, Austrian Empire Died 31 July 1886 Bayreuth
The Piano Sonata in B minor S.178 is in a single movement . Liszt completed the work during his time in Weimar, Germany in 1853, a year before it was published in 1854 and performed in 1857. He dedicated the piece to Robert Schumann , in return for Schumann’s dedication to Liszt in his Fantasie in C major op 17 .A copy of the work arrived at Schumann’s house in May 1854, after he had entered Endenich sanatorium. Clara Schumann did not perform the Sonata despite her marriage to Robert Schumann as she found it “merely a blind noise”.The Sonata was published by Breitkopf & Härtel in 1854 and first performed on 27 January 1857 in Berlin by Hans von Bulow. It was attacked by Eduard Hanslick who said “anyone who has heard it and finds it beautiful is beyond help”.Brahms reputedly fell asleep when Liszt performed the work in 1853, and it was also criticized by the pianist and composer Anton Rubinstein . However, the Sonata drew enthusiasm from Richard Wagner following a private performance of the piece by Karl Klindworth on April 5, 1855. Otto Gumprecht of the German newspaper Nationalzeitung referred to it as “an invitation to hissing and stomping”. It took a long time for the Sonata to become commonplace in concert repertoire because of its technical difficulty and negative initial reception due to its status as “new” music. However by the early stages of the twentieth century, the piece had become established as a pinnacle of Liszt’s repertoire and has been a popularly performed and extensively analyzed piece ever since
The complexity of the sonata means no analytical interpretation has been widely accepted. Some analyses suggest that the Sonata has four movements, although there is no gap between them. Superimposed upon the four movements is a large sonata form structure, although the precise beginnings and endings of the traditional development and recapitulation sections have long been a topic of debate. Others claim a three-movement form, an extended one-movement sonata form, and a rotational three-movement work with a double exposition and recapitulation. Liszt effectively composed a sonata within a sonata, which is part of the work’s uniqueness, and he was economical with his thematic material. The first page contains three motive ideas that provide the basis for nearly all that follows, with the ideas being transformed throughout having been inspired by Schubert’s Wanderer Fantasy and the transformation of themes that Liszt’s son in law Wagner was to make his own.
The quiet ending of the Sonata was an afterthought; the original manuscript contains a crossed-out ending section which would have ended the work in a loud flourish instead. Vladimir Ashkenazy considers these final two pages to be the most inspirational of all the romantic piano repertoire .
Richard Zhang was born in Jiashan, China in 2005 and showed a great interest in music at a very early age. He began playing the piano when he was six, studying with William Zhou
Frédéric Chopin: Nocturne No.1 , Op 55.
Although rather slow Richard’s aristocratic musicianship shone through this most beautiful of all Chopin Nocturnes which was in fact the favourite of that magician of the keyboard Shura Cherkassky.https://fb.watch/BNojHde30K/
It was obvious that Richard has had some wonderful training from the Menuhin School where he has been studying with Marcel Baudet who has instilled in so many young musicians a real sense of musicianship and respect for the score. Damir Duramovic and Can Arisoy are both products of Marcel Baudet at the Menuhin School and have both received a real grounding in true musicianship going on to graduate from the Royal College and The Guildhall .https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2022/03/29/brazil-200-and-keyboard-trust-30-a-collaboration-born-on-wings-of-brazilian-song/
Many years ago I had the honour to be on the jury of the Monza competition with Marcel and could witness the musical integrity and humility that he now shares with his lucky students. It was this musical integrity that allowed this nocturne to sing with simplicity and a superb sense of balance where the bel canto could sing sustained by a discretely placed bass. Even the coda unfolded with refined colouring in which the bass melody was allowed to emerge with great beauty.
Claude Debussy: Images, série I I. Reflets dans l’eau II. Hommage à Rameau III. Mouvement
A beautiful fluidity to the sound in ‘Reflets’ as there was a gradual build up to the passionate climax but always with control and an architectural sense of line. The final page was of refined beauty and ravishing colouring. There was an aristocratic poise to ‘Hommage’ with some beautiful atmospheric pedal effects and a haunting sense of line to the final page before the sotto voce of ‘Movement’. Played with transcendental control and fantasy as it wove its way into the stratosphere with refined brilliance.
Robert Schumann: Faschingsschwank aus Wien, Op 26 I. Allegro, (Sehr Lebhaft), B-flat major II. Romanze (Ziemlich Langsam), g minor III. Scherzino, B-flat major IV: Intermezzo, (Mit Größter Energie), e-flat minor V: Finale, (Höchst Lebhaft), B-flat major
There was a great sense of forward movement and an overall sense of line even in the differing interludes of the ‘Allegro’ that was played with a dynamic drive of passionate intensity.There was a simplicity and beauty to the ‘Romanze’ that was contrasted with the capricious driving rhythms of the Scherzo where lightness and beauty were given to the musical line. The ‘Intermezzo’ just burst from Richard’s fingers with controlled passion but always with a superb sense of line and phrasing of refined elegance. The ‘Finale’ showed off Richard’s remarkable ‘fingerfertigkeit’ that together with a relentless drive even in the mellifluous contrasting episodes finally exploded with exhilaration and excitement in the coda of the final bars.
A full church greeted this young man with a justly deserved ovation and it augurs well for his studies that will continue with Ronan o’Hora at the Guildhall – another superb trainer of so many remarkable young musicians.
In October 2015 he met the harpsichord maker Ferguson Hoey at the China Music Exhibition, and tried a harpsichord for the first time. Immediately realising his exceptional talent, Mr. Hoey arranged for him to come to the UK and audition at the Yehudi Menuhin School. Here he continued his piano studies with Marcel Baudet.
Richard has given various solo performances in China and Europe, taking part in a number of concerts in the Menuhin Hall and other venues since joining the school. In December 2017 he was the soloist for a performance of Finzi’s Eclogue with the school’s Junior Orchestra, a mature performance much praised for its meditative qualities. In February 2018 he performed Liszt Transcendental Studies in Amsterdam to considerable acclaim.
His love of chamber music came to the fore in the Menuhin School’s Summer Festival 2018, when he performed Schumann’s Piano Quintet with other pupils. In March 2019 he progressed to the finals of the Aarhus International Piano Competition in Denmark and in June performed with other students at London’s Wigmore Hall. In the Summer Festival he joined string players at the school in a dazzling performance of the Dvorak Piano Quintet. Then in October he partnered Alina Ibragimova in the Violin Sonata by Debussy at Zamira Menuhin Benthall’s 80th Birthday Concert in the Menuhin Hall. In 2021 Richard was awarded Distinction in the Tunbridge Wells International Music Competition.
Richard has taken part in master classes with many distinguished teachers including Cristina Ortiz, Angela Hewitt, Klaus Hellwig and Jacques Rouvier. His musical interests and repertoire are wide-ranging, from early C17th keyboard masters up to contemporary composers. He also composes and has been a contributor to the “250 Piano Pieces for Beethoven” international composition project.
He has been awarded a scholarship to study at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and in addition to this generous bursary, he has been selected by the Keyboard Trust to receive the 2024 Dr. Weir Legacy Award to help support his further studies.
He will also be joining Talent Unlimited since his study at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
The mighty Chaconne was wafted into this magic land with mastery and the magisterial authority that is of the very few. An extraordinary architectural and rhythmic drive that allowed this great gothic cathedral to arise from the hands of this young man creating a unified whole of extraordinary potency. Even the contrasting episodes were combined so naturally with that aristocratic authority and humility that I well remember on listening to Menuhin when he gave a lecture recital at the Royal College of Music. An illustrated lesson in which he described the difficulty of phrasing and bowing in a way that would never break the musical line. It was this today that I heard from Julian with a musical line that from the opening to the final triumphant ending was never allowed to sag or loose the energy within the very notes themselves.
It was Ruggiero Ricci who played this great work at his 80th birthday concert in London. He insisted on standing up for this work whereas the others he had to play sitting down. He had been to a Chinese restaurant the night before the Wigmore Concert and was left with food poisoning on the actual day when Jack Rothstein had organised a celebration for one of the greatest violinists of our age.
There was no celebration for him after the concert but a trip to spend the night at the London Clinic nearby. Liver sausage sandwiches and a bill for fifteen hundred pounds for the night. ‘ That was the most expensive Chinese meal I have ever had ‘,he quipped in his dry American humour’ .
Julian of course played it standing up with his back to the sea and the magnificent outline of Gaeta and Formia creating a magical backdrop in this almost unknown paradise that is the Gianola Park.
Like Ysäye whose Dies Irae was also heard floating in this rarified air as the birds glided by to see where such wondrous sounds were coming from. I remember Ruggiero Ricci playing this Sonata in a solo recital he gave for Euromusica in Rome. Julia his wife could not accompany him this trip so I looked after him as over the years they had become close friends. He had made a mistake packing his shoes and had two different ones that he tried to hide by standing one on the other whilst giving a phenomenal display of mastery – his left hand even in his 70’s was the envy of all other violinists.
He was staying in his usual Hotel S. Anna the other side of S.Peters Square. After a dinner next to the theatre , I accompanied him back to the hotel. We did not know that S. Peter’s Square is shut at night ! No problem exclaimed Ruggiero as he climbed over the barrier and we were chased by the police through the square. Ruggiero had the priceless Huberman Strad under his arm!
The Ysaÿe Sonatas are a ‘tour de force’ for any violinist and Julian played this second sonata with impeccable technical perfection but also a sense of style that made sense of the capricious nature of the work . All the ‘tricks of the trade’ that a master violinist could contemplate were mastered with ease and the final variations were quite breathtaking in their dynamic drive.
An encore of the Sarabande from the same Partita n. 2 was a magical farewell before de scaling the heights from paradise to the parked car!
Natalie Gabrielli with the Sindaco di Minturno Gerardo StefanelliLuigi Carroccia with Julian in the ‘Green Room’ before his appearance on stage
con Luigi Carroccia artistic director of the Festival gastronomic delights after the musical ones Julian Kainrath is one of those unique talents that the world needs. His insights are deeply rooted in the wisdom of the past while simultaneously possessing a keen foresight into the future. Louis Lortie Julian Kainrath is a highly talented violinist and a wonderful friend. I have had the pleasure of performing with him when he was 15. His playing is becoming more and more confident and personal. He is intelligent, curious and versatile. He has a bright future ahead of him! Till Fellner
Winner of the International Classical Music Awards (ICMA) Discovery Award in 2022 at the age of 16, and of the Ysaye International Music Competition in 2025, Julian Kainrath regularly performs both as a soloist and recitalist. Born in Merano, Italy, he started his violin studies at the age of six and has been given public performances since he was ten years old. Announcing the ICMA’s Discovery Award the President of the Jury Remy Franck said: “our winners are the expression of the highest artistry”. Julian’s appearance under conductor Adam Fischer with the Luxembourg Philharmonic Orchestra at the Luxembourg Philharmonie was highly praised by critics: “In the second program item, the audience was treated to a particularly outstanding performance. The 16-year-old violinist Julian Kainrath from Merano, winner of the Discovery Award, not only gave a brilliant rendition of the Introduction and Rondo capriccioso by Camille Saint-Saens, but also, despite his young age, knew how to give this work a very personal interpretation, after which one can hope for much more to come from this true artist”. During the 2024/2025 season, Julian performed recitals and concertos with orchestra in Italy, Germany, France, Austria, Switzerland, and the United States. Highlights include his debut in Venice at the Apollonian Halls of Teatro La Fenice; a performance of Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin at the Ristori Baroque Festival in Verona; debuts with the Leverkusen Symphony in Germany, the University of Milan Orchestra, and the Bari Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Neil Thompson; as well as a Bach-focused project with the Klassische Philharmonie Bonn. He also undertook several tours across cities in Italy, Austria, Germany, and Belgium. His 2024 summer festival appearances included the Engadin Festival in St. Moritz, Switzerland; the Althafen Stiftung in Berlin; and the Tonadico Festival in Italy. In 2025, he performed in Austria (Stiftskonzerte Klassik), Rome (Riviera di Ulisse Festival), and Bulgaria (Art Gallery of Sofia). In the upcoming season, Julian will return to the Merano Music Weeks Festival in Italy, perform with the Zürcher Kammerorchester under the direction of Daniel Hope, and embark on an extensive tour in Italy alongside pianist Lilya Zilberstein.Julian’s performances included recitals with pianists Till Fellner and Louis Lortie. The recital at the BA Classica Festival in Busto Arsizio, Italy, with the great pianist Louis Lortie was a milestone in Julian’s musical development: “The concert offered moments of sublime music thanks to the synergy between the two performers, which deeply moved the audience,” wrote the critics. Since then, Louis Lortie has become an important mentor and point of reference. During the 2020 pandemic, Julian was invited by the Konzerthaus Wien, the renowned concert hall in Vienna, to participate in their virtual concert series Konzertzuhaus. Together with the celebrated pianist Till Fellner, Julian performed a Beethoven violin sonata to mark the composer’s anniversary year. Shortly afterward, the two were invited to perform a full recital in Appiano, Italy. Julian has also performed at the Società del Quartetto in Bergamo, at Amici della Musica in Padua, at the Austrian Cultural Center in Washington, D.C., USA, and at the Jeunes Talents Festival in Cannes, France. He appeared at the Suoni a Ledro Festival, in the Sala delle Colonne of the Leonardo da Vinci Museum in Milan, in Trieste with the Ferruccio Busoni Orchestra, and at the magnificent Ehrbar Saal in Vienna, Austria. He has performed in the Angelika-Kauffmann-Hall in Schwarzenberg, Austria; at the Teatro alla Scala Museum in Milan; at the Teatro Ristori in Verona with the orchestra I Virtuosi Italiani; at the Bergerac Festival in France; and in Bern, Marseille, Munich, and Liechtenstein. Since the age of 15, Julian has maintained an intense performing schedule. In previous seasons, he was invited to perform at numerous venues in Italy, including the Settimane Musicali Festival in Merano, the Società dei Concerti in Milan, Mattinate Musicali Internazionali in Trieste, Camerata Ducale in Vercelli, and the Bolzano Bozen Festival with the Streicherakademie Bozen orchestra. At the age of 14, Julian was selected as a “resident student” at the 26th Verbier Festival, where he performed concerts and took masterclasses with renowned violinists such as Pamela Frank, Donald Weilerstein, and Kristóf Baráti. He also studied under violinist Ilya Gringolts at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena, Italy, and had the opportunity to perform a recital dedicated to Steve Reich together with Gringolts. He participated in the Sommerakademie Schloss Heiligenberg under the guidance of Marc Bouchkov and was awarded a prize for his performance. Julian made his orchestral solo debut in South America (Bolivia) in 2015, at the age of 10. In 2016, he was invited by the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine to perform in Kyiv. At the age of 13, he toured with the Innstrumenti Chamber Orchestra, performing at the Haus der Musik in Innsbruck and at the Kursaal in Merano, earning enthusiastic praise from the press (“the young South Tyrolean has such an organic connection to his instrument, and outstanding technique and musicality,” “the applause was for the 13-year-old Julian Kainrath, who confidently played Sarasate’s Zigeunerweisen… what a fullness of sound came from his instrument!”, “he dashed through the variations with bravura and received a thunderous ovation”). Julian has also performed at the Arsonore Festival in Graz, in the Young Excellence in Concert series in Salzburg, in recital in Bressanone, Italy, and appeared in a RAI broadcast performing works by Paganini and Bartók. Julian studied violin with Dora Schwarzberg in Vienna and was admitted at the age of twelve into the class of Boris Kuschnir at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Graz, Austria. Since 2023, he has been a student of Marc Bouchkov at the Conservatoire Royal de Liège in Belgium. From 2019 to 2021, Julian was a scholarship holder of the International Music Academy in Liechtenstein. Eugène-Auguste Ysaÿe 16 July 1858 – 12 May 1931 was a Belgian virtuoso violinist,composer and conductor . He was regarded as “The King of the Violin”, or, as Milstein put it, the “tsar”.
The Sonata for Solo Violin, Op. 27, No. 2 “Jacques Thibaud” is in four movements from Six sonatas for solo violin by Eugène Ysaÿe, each one dedicated to one of Ysaÿe’s contemporary violinists.6 Sonatas for solo violin op 27 (each dedicated to a different famous violinist and written in their corresponding styles)
Sonata No. 1 (“Joseph Szigeti “)
Sonata No.2 (“Jaques Thibaud “)
Sonata No.3 (“Georges Enescu “)
Sonata No. 4 (“Fritz Kreisler”)
Sonata No. 5 (“Mathieu Crickboom”)
Sonata No. 6 (“Manuel Quiroga”)
Sonata No. 7 (posthume) (“Manuel Quiroga”)
Characteristics of the “Thibaud” sonata
Obsession; Prelude
Malinconia
Danse des Ombres; Sarabande
Les furies
Sonata No. 2 was dedicated to Jacques Thibaud , a friend of Ysaÿe’s. The fact that Thibaud had lived in Ysaÿe’s home, and the fact that Ysaÿe once lent his Guarnerius and Stradivarius to Thibaud when Thibaud’s violin adjustment was not ready for concert, show Ysaÿe’s admiration for his friend. This sonata greatly resembles the style of Johann Sebastian Bach, and includes direct quotations of his music within.
I. Obsession – Prelude :Poco vivace
At the very beginning of the movement, Ysaÿe directly quotes the beginning of Prelude from J.S.Bach’s Partita n. 3in E major for solo violin. Much like Bach’s E major Prelude, the movement consists of virtuosic sixteenth notes throughout, yet Ysaÿe’s use of chromatic tonality clearly sets the piece in the genre of early 20th century music. Direct quotes from Bach’s Prelude appear frequently, showing Ysaÿe’s “obsession” with Bach’s work. Another prominent theme is the “Dies Irae”, a plainchant from the Catholic Mass for the Dead Ysaÿe often employed his own symbols to indicate specific directions to players; for example, in the 74th bar of this movement, he uses one of his symbols over the first note of each beat to indicate that these notes should be played by the whole bow.
II. Malinconia – Poco lento
The Malinconia contrapuntally resembles the style of Bach, perhaps most of any of the movements of the second sonata. It employs the siciliano rhythm, found in the first solo sonata for violin by Bach. It specifies the violinist to play with a mute, to dampen the tone and volume, something fairly unusual for a solo sonata. The Dies irae is not stated within the movement until the final few bars, where it is played uninterrupted on top of a drone.
III. Danse des ombres – Sarabande (Lento )
The sarabande is based on a theme-and-variation pattern. The theme itself is again a variation of Dies irae. In the first few bars, the theme is played with pizzicato , making it sound as if played by guitar or lute. The movement consists of six variations, and each variation develops gradually to the end. In the first variation, for example, Ysaÿe instructs the player not to use vibrato , in order to maintain a simple tone. The last variation is composed of technically demanding thirty-second notes , all played forte. Then, the theme is repeated, but this time, it is played with the bow.
IV. Les Furies – Allegro furioso
The Dies Irae melody appears recurrently throughout the movement. Some of the Dies Irae figures are played sul ponticello, for instance in measures 41 and 58.
Johann Sebastian Bach 1748 portrait holding a copy of the canon BWV 1076 Born 21 March 1685 Eisenach Died 28 July 1750 (aged 65) Leipzig
The Partita in D minor for solo violin, BWV 1004 Johann Sebastian Bach , by , was written between 1717 and 1720. It is a part of his compositional cycle called Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin .
Allenande
Corrente
Sarabanda
Giga
Ciaccona
Except for the ciaccona, the movements are dance types of the time, and they are frequently listed by their French names. The final movement is written in the form of variations, and lasts approximately as long as the first four movements combined.Yehudi Menuhin called the Chaconne “the greatest structure for solo violin that exists”.
Joshua Bell has said the Chaconne is “not just one of the greatest pieces of music ever written, but one of the greatest achievements of any man in history. It’s a spiritually powerful piece, emotionally powerful, structurally perfect.”
Johannes Brahms in a letter to Clara Schumann described the piece, “On one stave, for a small instrument, the man [Bach] writes a whole world of the deepest thoughts and most powerful feelings. If I imagined that I could have created, even conceived the piece, I am quite certain that the excess of excitement and earth-shattering experience would have driven me out of my mind.” He later transcribed it for piano left hand.
autograph of the Chaconne
This was the first concert in this years’ series .
On Friday the 29th August in Fondi for the third concert in Riviera di Ulisse 2025, the long awaited appearance in Italy of Jonathan Fournel, 2021 winner of the Gold Medal at the Queen Elisabeth of the Belgian’s Competition.
The programme includes; Bach Italian Concerto, Brahms Intermezzi op 117 and the Liszt B minor Sonata .
Jonathan began studying piano at age seven in his hometown of Sarreguemines in eastern France before entering the Strasbourg Conservatoire. At 12, he was admitted to the Saarbrücken Musikhochschule in Germany, where he studied with Prof. Robert Leonardy and Jean Micault. Around this time, he also began working with pianist Gisèle Magnan, from whom Jonathan received mentorship for years. At 15, he entered the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris, studying with Brigitte Engerer, Bruno Rigutto, Claire Désert, and Michel Dalberto, and graduated with honors five years later. In September 2016, Jonathan joined Louis Lortie and Avo Kouyoumdjian’s class at Chapelle Musicale Reine Elisabeth in Belgium for five years.He is a guest at prestigious venues and festivals including the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Gewandhaus Leipzig, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, NDR Landesfunkhaus Hannover, Rheingau Musik Festival, Klavier Festival Ruhr, Konzerthaus Vienna, Philharmonie de Paris, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Auditorium de Radio France, Louis Vuitton Foundation, La Roque d’Anthéron Festival, Piano aux Jacobins Festival, Les Concerts de Poche, Verbier Festival, Sommets Musicaux de Gstaad, Sala Verdi Milan, Suntory Hall, Kioi Hall Tokyo, Philharmonie Luxembourg, Flagey, Bozar Brussels, de Bijloke Gent, Louisiana Museum Denmark, Kumho Art Hall Seoul, Tongyeong Concert Hall, Sala São Paulo, Warsaw Philharmonic, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall and Usher Hall Edinburgh.Jonathan has performed under the baton of conductors such as Alexandre Bloch, Jean-Claude Casadesus, Thomas Dausgaard, Stéphane Denève, Sascha Goetzel, Howard Griffiths, Jonathon Heyward, Eivind Gullberg Jensen, Gabor Kali, Lio Kuokman, Alexander Markovic, Peter Oundjian, Daniel Raiskin, Pascal Rophé, Michael Schønwandt, Fan Tao, and Hugh Wolff. He has collaborated with orchestras including the NHK Symphony Orchestra, Macao Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, Orchestre National d’Île-de-France, Orchestre de Chambre de Paris, Orchestre National de Bordeaux, Orchestre National de Lille, Orchestre National de Montpellier, Deutsche Radio Philharmonie, Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie, Brussels Philharmonic, Belgian National Orchestra, European Union Youth Orchestra, NOSPR Katowice, Slovak Philharmonic and the Croatian Radio and Television Orchestra.
On Saturday 30th August in the Teatro Romano in Minturno ,the fourth concert 2025, Luigi Carroccia performs the Two Chopin Piano Concerti
A violinist’s dream come true Roman Simovic writes : ‘Recording complete Ysaÿe sonatas has always been a dream of mine’. Full album coming 29 August 2025
Roman Simovic writes :Recording complete Ysaÿe sonatas has always been a dream of mine. Full album coming 29 August 2025 Stinchcombe reviews the latest classical CDs
Ysaÿe: Sonatas for Solo Violin, Roman Simovic (LSO Live CD & SACD) ★★★★★ The Belgian violinist and composer Eugène Ysaÿe (1858-1931) was nicknamed “The King of the Violin” for his amazing virtuoso technique and refinement as a chamber musician and founder of the lauded Quatuor Ysaÿe. He composed too but none of his eight concertos were published in his lifetime. He wrote one undoubted masterpiece, a set of Six Sonatas for Solo Violin of 1924 inspired by hearing the great Joseph Szigeti play Bach’s solo sonatas and partitas. Ysaÿe’s set pays homage to them but he never indulges in pastiche and mock-baroque, and uses the musical language of his own time. He does allow himself a moment of whimsy in the opening of Sonata No.2 which has a direct quote from the Prelude of Bach’s Partita in E minor, as if the soloist were overheard practising before beginning Ysaÿe’s piece. Each Sonata was dedicated to a soloist and with their style and technique in mind, from star players like Szigeti, Jacques Thibaud, George Enescu and Fritz Kreisler to the little-known Matthieu Crickboom who played second fiddle in the Quatuor Ysaÿe. Tackling the Six Sonatas requires phenomenal technique, versatility and imagination and Roman Simovic, leader of the London Symphony Orchestra and a world renowned soloist, has all three. Ysaÿe’s is a well-designed programme beginning with the longest and most Bachian, the four-movement No.1 in G minor dedicated to Szigeti, with its Grave opening and a fugato section, and ending with the sparkling single movement No.6 infused with dance rhythms from the dedicatee Manuel Quiroga’s native Spain. Simovic chills the bone with No.1’s weird sul ponticello effects and delights with the irresistible Iberian gaiety of No.6. There’s lots to admire along the way; No.3’s gradual build up from dark mutterings to blisteringly fast conclusion; No.2’s wistful slow ‘Malinconia’ movement played raptly by Simovic and his extrovert panache in the final whirlwind rustic dance of No.6. He is aided by Jonathan Stokes’ perfect sound balance, recorded at Jerwood Hall in the LSO’s St Luke’s Centre, giving Simovic an almost palpable presence.https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2024/03/20/christopher-axworthy-dip-ram-aram/
ChristopherAxworthy-MusicCommentary 