The birth of a great artist yesterday at the POSK theatre in Ravenscourt Park,London.

A young pianist of exceptional talent where the more talented you are the more you are disturbed by the impossible task of seeking perfection.

Andrzej Wiercinski I have been listening to for some years ever since his first appearances over ten years ago in that Mecca for all aspiring young musicians. St Mary’s Perivale is where Dr Mather and his team offer a concert and recording to artists that have dedicated their youth to art and just need an audience to continue their voyage of discovery with.

I even took him to play at La Mortella – Andrzej Wiercinski at La Mortella Ischia The William Walton Foundation – Refined artistry and musical intelligence in Paradise
https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/05/11/andrzej-wiercinski-at-la-mortella-ischia-the-william-walton-foundation-refined-artistry-and-musical-intelligence-in-paradise/

But today I heard a pianist who was at one with the music with performances of great personality but totally at the service of the composer.

His Kreisleriana seemed as an improvisation such was his extraordinary palette of sounds allied to a scrupulous attention to the score. A fleetingly chameleonic change of character from the passionate opening to the sublime intimate flights of fantasy. A breathtaking performance where he had us sitting on the edge of our seats in anticipation of the secrets that this Poet of the piano would reveal in what is quite the greatest interpretation I have ever heard.

It is a work in eight episodes that is not easy to shape into one unified whole. Andrzej found the key in the sumptuous bass sounds that was the common denominator that pervaded the entire work. A bass that could allow for the piano to open up its sonorities and create sounds of full richness and passionate intensity as it could allow for the most exquisite sounds of barely murmured sentiments. The opening was a hurricane of passion where the intricate weaving strands in the right hand of quite considerable virtuosity were sustained by the rich full bass and masterly use of the pedal.The central episode was allowed to ride on this sumptuous rich wave of sound without having to slow down as it grew out of what came before and was to come after.Ravishing playing of such subtle shaping and delicacy before the hurricane regained its energy with even more passionate energy. There was extraordinary beauty to the legato of the second episode with the deep bass melody just hinted at as was the melodic line in the right hand all incorporated into this one long outpouring of song. Interrupted by the first Intermezzo that was played with clockwork precision and drive and contrasted so well with the continual wave of song that was forever present.The second Intermezzo was remarkable for its sense of line, and the prominence given to the bass in the final few bars was indeed a master stroke. It was the clarity of line and sumptuous sounds bathed in pedal that made the central part of the third episode quite memorable, with one melodic strand overlapping the other in a duet of sumptuous beauty. Again it contrasted with the spiky rhythmic drive of the outer episodes.The coda ‘Noch schneller’ was breathtaking for it’s animal excitement and enormous sonorities that were never hard but always with a sense of line and overall shape. A tour de force of control of sound quite apart from the extraordinary precision and finger dexterity. There was a simplicity to the disarming ‘sehr langsam’ of the fourth episode played with poignant intensity, the tension released with the gentle song of the ‘Bewegter’. Within all the capricious rhythmic elements of the fifth episode, Andrzej managed to find the musical line that in turn was linked with the mellifluous central episode, where even here one seemed to grow so naturally out of the other. A wonderfully passionate outpouring to this central episode that was a true explosion of romantic fervour. A whispered beauty to the melodic line in the sixth episode where out of nothing there seemed to be born new life, in one of those magic moments that only the poet Schumann could envisage.The ‘sehr rash’ of the seventh was played with a brilliance and animal fervour that was overwhelming in its dynamic drive and digital perfection. Even in these transcendentally difficult passages Andrzej could steer us through a maze of notes giving them an architectural, expressive shape and meaning. Wonderful to hear the non legato chords in the coda that suddenly become legato as they come to rest on a cloud of beauty.The last episode is probably the most difficult to hold together and it was here that Andrzej showed a complete understanding of Schumann’s chameleonic change of character. There was the beautiful bass melody allowed to flow so gracefully in the first episode and the wondrous use of the pedal and the deep bass notes in the second that allowed a build up of sonority without any hardness or exaggeration. The gently rhythmic outer episodes were sustained by deep bass notes as the work finished with whispered notes deep in the bottom of the keyboard.

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The young talented teenager now on the edge of thirty has become a very great artist.

Chosen to present the newly acquired manuscript of Chopin’s Fourth Ballade for the Polish Institute in Warsaw, he changed the announced programme of the third Ballade to the fourth.

A press conference was held to present the manuscript of the Ballade in F minor, Op. 52, composed in 1842. My participation was the presentation of the national version and the version from the manuscript so as to highlight the differences. Such a wonderful experience. You can watch the entire conference at the link below.: https://www.youtube.com/live/QHk1LbWTYWE?si=ad_uKXvFSJVjxBER

But it was the opening Nocturnes op 55 and the Mazukas op 50 that immediately revealed his great artistry. A freedom that had in its midst a burning energy that carried him on a wave of sound where the music just seemed to pour out of him.

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Of course the B minor Sonata and the F minor Ballade showed his architectural understanding not only of the structure but what true Bel Canto can mean.

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Hats off to Norma Fisher, and Roger Nellist of Perivale, who have been monitoring and helping him in these past few years where his seemingly unattainable vision was so close but yet so far.

‘Je sens, je joue, je trasmet’ was used to describe Cherkassky many years ago and with Andrzej today has never been more actual

Andrzej Wiercinski in Ruislip A great artist free to conquer the world
https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2024/06/26/andrzej-wiercinski-in-ruislip-a-great-artist-free-to-conquer-the-world/

Andrzej Wiercinski at St Mary’s Perivale Beauty and style combine with aristocratic poise and poetry
https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2024/09/08/andrzej-wiercinski-at-st-marys-perivale-beauty-and-style-combine-with-aristocratic-poise-and-poetry/

Cox – A celebration The Wiercinski brothers amaze delight and rejoice
https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/06/21/geoff-cox-a-celebration-the-wiercinski-brothers-amaze-delight-and-rejoice/

Unfortunately Bach could not make it on stage at the end of a ravishingly beautiful performance of his Goldbergs by Cristian Sandrin last night .

His presence was felt strongly, though, in this most beautiful of London Concert Halls.

These were not the monumental variations that the High Priestess of Bach would offer in a quasi religious seance. These were seen through another prism, one that had inspired three young composers,commissioned by this eclectic musician, to enhance the aspect of beauty and ravishment that Bach had been commissioned to write to inspire the dreams of an insomniac. Perchance to dream indeed !

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Nearly two hours of music as our genial host like all serious musicians played all Bach’s repeats, bar one, adding discretely with the use of an I pad the three where the ink was still wet on the page .

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Not content with a truly astonishing tour de force of memory and stamina Cristian seemed elated.

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Bach’s work seemed to have on him quite the opposite effect from its commission as he extracted the three new variations and allowed them to shine on their own with ravishing beauty around this magnificent edifice. Encore took on a new meaning just as the title the ‘New Goldberg Variations’ had promised.

A triumph and a refreshingly original performance of one of the greatest creations of all keyboard works. Lucky Milan who will get seconds on Friday for Hans Fazzari’s Serate Musicali !

Cristian Sandrin plays Goldberg Variations the start of a lifetime journey of discovery from Perivale to Bucharest
https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2022/05/17/cristian-sandrin-plays-goldberg-variations-the-start-of-a-lifetime-journey-of-discovery/

Goldberg triumphs in Berlin dedicated to Sandu Sandrin by his son Cristian
https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/11/05/goldberg-triumphs-in-berlin-dedicated-to-sandu-sandrin-by-his-son-cristian/

The opening of a much needed Young Artists Series at the new Bechstein Hall that is fast making it’s mark as an important new concert venue in London, just complimenting its next door neighbours of Wigmore Hall and Bob Boas Salon in nearby Mansfield Road. An important new venue especially for young musicians who have dedicated their youth to art and are just in need of a public to continue their voyage of discovery together.

What better choice could there have been than a young man perfecting his quite considerable skills at the Guildhall under such esteemed musicians as Charles Owen and Lucy Parham ,who we have recently applauded in this very hall.

Thomas Masciaga ,a young Italian from Ivrea whose evident love for the piano shone through everything he did.

Just two Sonatas both in B minor and both played with ravishing sound and a musicianly sense of style. I have rarely heard the Chopin scherzo from the B minor Sonata played as beautifully with a jeux perlé so exquisitely shaped.

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The mighty Rondo Finale: ‘Presto non tanto’ was so beautiful that each time the rondo returned it was played ever more radiantly and not just treated with the usual brutal force and lack of finesse of lesser artists . The cascades of notes after the imperious chords were truly like wafts of golden sunlight shining on the ever more exciting forward drive.

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The opening of the sonata was indeed Maestoso and if his love for Chopin’s glorious outpouring of Bel Canto meant that he had to sacrifice the overall architectural shape of the movement , it was the price he had to pay for having such an exquisitely sensitive heart .

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The mighty chords at the opening of the Largo were the consequence of the final notes of the scherzo and heralded a bel canto of beguiling freedom and beauty.

This was playing of a supreme stylist who could bring to life a work so often manhandled by so called virtuosi.Thomas has all the same virtuosity but it was canons covered in flowers!

The Haydn Sonata too was played with exquisite style but also with a kaleidoscope of colour with a first movement of beauty and grace and an architectural shape that suited the style of its age. A ‘Menuetto’ of beguiling delicacy and pastoral innocence with the spell broken momentarily only by the imposing ‘Trio.’ The return of the ‘Menuetto’ was gracefully embellished, as is the vogue these days, but wonder whether an artist who can make the modern piano speak with such an exquisite voice needs to add embellishments that were of an age when the magnificent voice of the Bechstein of today was not yet envisage.The ‘Presto’ was played with brilliance and grace with lubricated fingers of crystalline clarity. The ritornello here (he had ignored it in the Chopin) just added to the sumptuous enjoyment that he was providing this morning.

Hats off to the director Terry Lewis, present this morning ,to applaud this young artist in a hall he has fought for many years to bring to fruition.

Beethoven in all his glory tonight at Bechstein’s. The first and last cello sonatas, the penultimate twin of op 102 and the virtuoso show piece variations ‘See the conquering hero comes’.

After the deep contemplation of the opening ‘Adagio sostenuto’ this first sonata of Beethoven burst into an outpouring of joy with the sun shining unusually brightly for Beethoven. Even the Allegro Vivace final movement was full of playful energy and shifting colours.Youthful brilliance and exhilarating energy were the hallmarks of a performance that reminded me of that ‘Golden couple’ almost fifty years ago. A light still shining brightly with these two genial musicians.

Op 102 n.1 where the plaintive cry of the cello was answered by the simple benediction of the piano before the eruption into the imperious Allegro vivace. It was played with dynamic relentless drive and with its abrupt non nonsense Beethoven ending.The question and answer of the Adagio was followed by the unexpected changes of character in the Allegro vivace in a performance of great authority and musical integrity.

The variations that followed the interval were a series of brilliant show pieces for each instrument with each player trying to outdo the other. The eleventh variation showed the genial invention of Beethoven with the poignancy of the two instruments united in an Adagio that was to point to the final and greatest inspiration of Beethoven with his Sonata op 102 n.2.

It was here, in this final sonata, that both players were inspired to give a mesmerising performance of this great work, from its opening call to arms ( every bit as arresting as the Fifth Symphony) and the Adagio of searing beauty with a deep soulful communion of great poignancy. Played with poise and aristocratic weight, its gentle hints barely whispered of what was to come with the mighty Fugue final movement. A movement played with quite considerable mastery not only technically but above all for the music line that together they could carve out of this monumental construction. Veni Vidi Vici indeed

It is this that could well have given the title to performances tonight of dynamic drive and searing intensity.

Guy Johnston and Mishka Momen Rushdie, two players that play as one .

The piano lid fully opened and the cellist using the sound board of the piano to project sounds that rarely we hear in the concert hall united with such vibrancy and energy.

Guy Johnston and Mishka Momen Rushdie are both masters linked inexorably together to bring Beethoven’s thoughts to us ‘hot off the press.’ These were performances in this sumptuous new hall that were born of an intelligence and musical integrity of an age when there was time to dig deep into the very core of the music and extract the meaning that hides behind the seemingly innocuous black and white symbols on the page.

These were performances that in the not too distant past one would travel to Marlborough or Prades to hear and learn from.

Beethoven composed five sonatas for cello and piano, between 1796 (op. 5 nos. 1–2) and 1815 (op. 102 nos. 1–2)

In February 1796, Beethoven set out on a tour of East-Central Europe, starting with Prague and working his way to Berlin via Dresden and Leipzig. Berlin had been one of Europe’s musical centers but was, by the time Beethoven arrived that May, in dire musical straits. Johann Friedrich Reichardt, the distinguished composer who had brought the city’s musical life to distinction in the 1780s, had been relieved of his post for pro-French-Revolution sympathies. (He apparently let slip that the best kind of king was one with no head during a card-game in Hamburg, something that didn’t exactly thrill his boss, King Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia.) Among the few performers of distinction who remained in the Prussian capital was the cellist Jean-Louis Duport, a favorite of the king, who was himself a fine amateur cellist. So it was only natural that Beethoven should write some music for cello and piano during his stay in Berlin. His first two Cello Sonatas, Op. 5, and the Variations on “See the conqu’ring hero comes” from Handel’s Judas Maccabaeus were the results. The Judas Maccabaeus Variations date from this Berlin visit; they, too, were published by Artaria (without an opus number) in 1797. The theme – probably the best-known from Handel’s entire oratorio – was an especially felicitous choice on the part of the young Beethoven. He may not have known it, but Handel occupied a special place in Friedrich Wilhelm’s affections. The king, during his days as crown prince, had declared his musical independence from his predecessor, Friedrich the Great, by sponsoring a massive performance of Handel’s Messiah in the Berlin Cathedral. Beethoven, too, held Handel’s music in the highest esteem. The theme, with its measured tread and lofty bearing, provided the composer with the basis for an engaging set of 12 variations. The eleventh variation, an extended adagio, is the longest “slow movement” Beethoven would write for cello and piano until his final work for the pairing, the Sonata, Op. 102, No. 2.

Nikolaus Kraft (1778-1853) was the eldest son of the cellist Anton Kraft (1749-1820). In 1801 he travelled to Berlin together with his father where he received cello lessons for one year from the virtuoso cellist Jean-Louis Duport (1749-1819), who was employed there at the Prussian court of King Friedrich Wilhelm II. Nikolaus, as well as his father, was also for a time a member of the Schuppanzigh string quartet – named after its founder the violinist Ignaz Schuppanzigh (1776-1830) – which gave a number of first performances of Beethoven’s string quartets.The Krafts were not the only cellists with whom Beethoven worked during his life. In spring of 1796 Beethoven visited the Prussian court in Berlin, where he also met Jean-Louis Duport, and it was there that his op. 5 cello sonatas originated. These sonatas are regarded today as the first ‘true’ sonatas for cello and piano, as the two instruments are given equal importance.Jean-Louis Duport was one of the most influential cellists of his time. In the early 19th century he published a violoncello treatise entitled: Essai sur le doigté du violoncelle et sur la conduite de l’archet (Essay on fingering the violoncello and on the conduct of the bow) (Paris, 1806). This became one of the most influential cello treatises in the history of the cello; the exercises (Études) that are included in it are still practised by cello pupils today. 

At the time of Beethoven’s visit, Jean-Louis Duport was principal cellist in the opera orchestra and, together with his brother the virtuoso cellist Jean-Pierre Duport (1741-1818), also instructed the king on the cello. Beethoven and Jean-Louis Duport performed his op. 5 cello sonatas for the king, and apparently, Beethoven also intended to dedicate the two sonatas to him. This is evident from a letter, now lost, which Duport sent to him where he wrote: ‘Duport, acknowledges the dedication to him of Beethoven’s two sonatas for piano and violoncello and expresses the wish to play them with the composer’. In the end the op. 5 cello sonatas were dedicated to the King of Prussia, Friedrich Wilhelm II.

The Sonatas for cello and piano No. 4 in C major. op.102, No. 1, and No. 5 in D major, Op. 102, No. 2, were composed simultaneously in 1815 and published, by Simrock, in 1817 and were dedicated to the Countess Marie von Erdödy, a close friend and confidante of Beethoven.

The two sonatas were written between May and December 1815. The first copy by Beethoven’s copyist Wenzel Rampl was made in late 1815 but was then subject to further alterations by Beethoven. A subsequent ‘good’ copy was supplied in February 1816 to Charles Neate for proposed, though unrealized, publication in London. Beethoven then made further small alterations prior to their eventual publication by Simrock in Bonn.

During the period 1812 to 1817 Beethoven, ailing and overcome by all sorts of difficulties, experienced a period of literal and figurative silence as his deafness became overwhelmingly profound and his productivity diminished. Following seven years after the A major op 69 the complexity of their composition and their visionary character marks (which they share with the piano sonata op 101 the start of Beethoven’s ‘third period’.

The critics of the time, were often perplexed by Beethoven’s last compositions: ‘They elicit the most unexpected and unusual reactions, not only by their form but by the use of the piano as well…We have never been able to warm up to the two sonatas; but these compositions are perhaps a necessary link in the chain of Beethoven’s works in order to lead us there where the steady hand of the maestro wanted to lead us.’

Mishka Rushdie Momen a timeless message of comfort and beauty
https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2021/04/30/mishka-rushdie-momen-a-timeless-message-of-comfort-and-beauty/

Lunar New Year at the National Liberal Club in an evening of sumptuous delight organised every year by Yisha Xue for her Asia Circle.Curtis invited for the first five days of Snake Year.

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Dragon ,drums and many other delights to celebrate the opening of this New Year.The year of the Snake.

A culinary feast for over 100 distinguished guests but it was the twenty year old Taiwanese pianist Curtis Phill Hsu who stole the show with playing of such exquisite artistry that silenced an audience ready for revelry. We were stopped in our tracks in one of those collective moments when time stands still.

The winner of the Hastings International Piano Competition cast a spell over the festive atmosphere and illuminated our evening with the perfumed delights of Debussy but above all the timeless beauty he brought to Schubert’s G flat Impromptu.

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A sumptuous improvised paraphrase of a popular chinese film score was played with the ease and kaleidoscope of colours from a young man whose destiny is already sicured.

After the sumptuous Chinese New Year Celebrations at the NLC, Yisha together with Ian Brignall and Paul Newman, who had both travelled up especially from Hastings, having organised for the 2023 Hastings winner two extra concerts in Chelsea at the Sketch Club and finally on Sunday at the Arts Club.

Curtis Phill Hsu mastery and artistry of the 19 year old winner of Hastings International Piano 2024
https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2024/10/01/curtis-phill-hsu-mastery-and-artistry-of-the-19-year-old-winner-of-hastings-international-piano-2024/

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This little tour had in fact commenced with a full recital in Bob Boas sumptuous salon, neighbour of the Wigmore and Bechstein Halls,and had concluded after the NLC and Sketch Club with a Sunday evening concert at Chelsea Arts Club.

I never knew of the existence of the Sketch Club even though I have visited friends on many occasions who live almost next door on Cheyne Walk overlooking the historic Physic Garden. It is a journey back in time which quite frequently happens in the ‘Circoli’ that one can still occasionally find in noble old Italian cities, but I had no idea could be found in the centre of London! Mozart of course talks about going for a ride in the countryside of Chelsea but that is almost three centuries ago.

An amazing place full of the atmosphere of Artists from past times who came together to discuss, create and smoke! Similar of course to Montmartre at the turn of the 1900’s as described by Picasso,Stravinsky,Poulenc and Rubinstein.

A noble Blüthner sits in the vast studio,with painters’ easles stained with paint stacked in the corner, because it is a club still vibrant with activity. It was here that Paul Newman had organised a second full recital for Curtis of Debussy,Beethoven,Ravel and Schubert with a surprise item by Benjamin Britten. It was here that we could rediscover the true mastery of this young musician.

Opening with three Debussy Preludes from Book 1. ‘La file aux cheveaux de Lin’ was played with aristocratic weight, freedom and ravishing beauty.’Très calme et doucement expressif ‘ could not have found more sensitive hands as they carved out this well ‘trodden’ melody without a trace of sentimentality but with a poignant significance of poetic understanding.The final bars marked ‘murmuré et en revenant peu à peu’ was where Curtis brought out the inner parts that led so naturally upwards drifting into the distance before the two crystalline split notes of farewell. There was magic in the air in a place where the bohemian Debussy would have felt completely at home.The distance bells of ‘Les collines d’Anacapri’ were answered by the gradual awakening of the joyous excitement of the Neapolitan Riviera. Curtis created a wonderful sense of improvisation with chameleonic changes of colour and character as the melody was heard in the bass ‘avec la liberté d’une chanson populaire’. A passionate outpouring of subtle innuendo of sultry insinuation, was played with all the style of a jazz player before the return to the hustle and bustle of the mediterranean and the final ecstatic cry for joy that Curtis punched out with such gleeful exuberance.

The final prelude in this ‘tris’ was the most innovative and remarkable. Debussy was quite a considerable pianist and knew the scores of past masters well ,he even edited the works of Chopin. But it was here the three handed pianism of Thalberg and Liszt that created an ongoing wave of sound on which floated the glowing melodic line. Curtis played with the same mastery that I remember from Richter on his first visits to the West. Streams of notes played with such mastery that they become merely gold and silver sounds as the sails are allowed to float so naturally around the keyboard. A tour de force especially on a piano that was most probably the original one from the 1890’s when this club was first formulated! Richter ,too, used to enjoy his encounter with unknown instruments and the challenge of delving deep to find a soul that may have been hidden from all, until its master can tame them.

I have hear Curtis play Beethoven before, both the ‘Waldstein’ and ‘Hammerklavier’ revealed an artist with the same sacred fire of a Serkin.The same intellectual intelligence of all great interpreters searching deep into the score to discover what the composer really intended.

I have reviewed the ‘Waldstein’ before as you can read here :

Curtis Phill Hsu ‘Genius bestrides St Mary’s Perivale’
https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2024/11/27/curtis-phill-hsu-genius-bestrides-st-marys-perivale/

But every performance for a real thinking musician is a new voyage of discovery and it was this that came across with the dynamic rhythmic drive and inner energy that opened the ‘Waldstein’. Delius used to dismiss all other composers except himself with just a few words.Bach he would describe as ‘knotty twine’ whereas Beethoven was ‘all scales and arpeggios!’ It is this sonata and the ‘Emperor’ concerto that does in fact use scales and arpeggios in a truly genial way.

Curtis played with absolute rhythmic precision, even taking the tempo of the Allegro con brio from the tempo needed for the melodic second subject. A driving rhythmic impulse that did not turn corners in a ‘stylish’ way but realised that the abrupt changes of character were more tonal than slowing the tempo. Curtis with fingers like limpets that could play with Gilels and Gelber like precision, where every note was given its just weight and worth.The sudden changes from piano to sforzando in the development were as hair raising as they must truly have seemed in Beethoven’s day. An introduction to the last movement ( the slow movement Beethoven obviously considered too distracting for this whirlwind he had created and was later published as the Andante favori ).

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Curtis brought a weight and profound beauty to this deeply meditative outpouring with an architectural sense of line that led to the top G, that Beethoven, as if by magic, turns into the opening of the Rondo. An undulation of sounds as the composer has indicated, with very precise pedal markings, and which Curtis scrupulously interpreted. A tour de force of scales and arpeggios indeed, but what drive and architectural shape this young man, with great maturity, could lead us through a maze of breathtaking virtuosity.

‘Gaspard de la Nuit’ was written by Ravel with the intent of creating a piano piece of even more transcendental difficulty than Balakirev’s ‘Islamey’. ‘Scarbo’ is indeed one of the most difficult pieces in the piano repertoire and needs a virtuoso technique, but also a resilience that can keep the driving rhythms of the impish demon flitting around the keyboard with unrelenting skill. It also has moments of passionate outpourings that Curtis played with fiery conviction. Holding back with aristocratic authority before letting go with extraordinary vehemence.The deep bass gongs at the beginning of the mysterious central episode I have never heard played with such clarity or demonic devilry. Curtis not only was master of the notes but above all master of the character and subtle dynamic range that Ravel demands.

The opening ‘Ondine’ was played with extraordinary clarity on a piano that I doubt has ever been asked to respond to such mastery. The nymph sang out above the washes of sound and the lead up to the climax was breathtaking in its exhilarating ecstatic declamation. Wonderful control on a not easy piano as Curtis left the pedal down for the final whispered cry of the nymph before allowing her to flit off into the distance. ‘Le Gibet’ (the gallows swaying in the wind) showed the true mastery of Curtis because the truly great pianists are not those that can play louder and faster than their rivals but those that can play quieter and with total control. And nowhere more could one appreciate Curtis’s great artistry than in the much maligned G flat Impromptu of Schubert with which he closed his recital . I wonder if Curtis knew that today the 31st January was Schubert’s birthday in 1797.There was indeed magic in the air and a sense of timeless beauty as Curtis stretched the melodic line with the rarified breath control of the greatest of Bel Canto singers.

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And it was to the human voice that Curtis turned as he accompanied our host Paul Newman in a delicious rendering of Britten’s ‘Foggy Foggy Dew’.They had tried it out for fun in the afternoon with no idea of sharing it publicly, but Curtis was only too delighted to finish his recital together with such a genial host.

Ryan Wang ‘A star is born on the Wings of the Dragon’ at the National Liberal Club
https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2024/02/10/ryan-wang-a-star-is-born-on-the-wings-of-the-dragon-at-the-national-liberal-club/

The Year of the Tiger with Love Concert Yuanfan Yang and Shirley Wu at the NLC
https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2022/02/17/the-year-of-the-tiger-with-love-concert-yuanfan-yang-and-shirley-wu-at-the-nlc/

Jeonghwan Kim , winner of the 2023 Sydney International Piano Competition, making his debut at the Wigmore Hall with extraordinary finesse and mastery, more alla Godowsky than Rachmaninov .

Expecting Schumann op 8, Chopin op 58 and Valses Nobles which would have shown us a different side from the exquisite whispered sounds of clockwork precision of Ravel ‘Le Tombeau’ .The barely audible Chopin Berceuse was exquisite but Chopin’s filigree bel canto was thrown off with a lightweight beauty that was completely at odds with the gentle lapping rhythm where Chopin, as in his Barcarolle, sets the scene. Roots firmly embedded in the ground but here with Kim’s beautiful branches left to flounder on their own.

Mozart Minuet in D K 355 where Kim accentuated the pungent dissonances that seemed to reappear in Stravinsky’s Rag, that followed after Mozart’s Little Gigue K 574. Even the little gigue was played at Stravinskian tempos that denied the charm and grace of its age but allowed Kim to point us to the future, which was obviously his intellectual scope.

Stravinsky’s Piano Rag Music was commissioned by his friend Rubinstein who refused to play it in public!

Kim gave a superb performance where his clarity and kaleidoscope of sounds brought to life, with infinite charm and even grace, a piece that Rubinstein declared too ungrateful to inflict on his audiences. Stravinsky made amends by dedicating his own piano transcription of Petrushka to him, a few years later, allowing him to make a simplified version of a work of quite transcendental difficulty, for public performances, knowing full well that it would have kept the ‘Prince of Pianists’ locked in the practice studio for far too long!

After this Kim played Bartok’s 1923 Dance Suite full of ravishing sounds and dynamic contrasts. A rhythmic drive that was never overpowering in volume but more of a compelling inner rhythmic energy. A quite unique, masterly performance of a work that indeed needs the mastery of Kim to bring it into the concert hall.

Ravel’s ‘Tombeau’ was exactly the measure of Kim’s remarkable mastery, with the clockwork precision with which Ravel depicts and remembers friends who gave up their youthful lives in the conflict of the First World War. A conflict that was agreed in the comfort of Parliament by aristocratic politicians who never put foot in the trenches! Ravel was an ambulance driver and saw the tragic and useless end of so many of his generation. Absolute clarity and precision where all Kim’s great gifts came together for the beauty of Ravel’s recreation of baroque perfection. Streams of notes that rose and fell with infinite subtlety and beguiling atmosphere. An exquisite tonal palette to the ‘Fugue’ out of which the ‘Forlane’ sprang to life with a distant vision of paradise in its midst, and with the grace and charm of its magical ending. The ‘Rigaudon’ was played with a playful sense of colour and rhythmic energy with a central episode of haunting beauty, where the left hand’s detached notes accompanied the luminous glowing melody in the right. A ‘Minuet’ of beauty, radiance and delicacy flowing simply with exquisite unnoticeable rubato. Of course the ‘Toccata’ was played with absolute perfection where sudden rays of light would illuminate the most exquisite outpouring of melody (so similar to Mozart or Schubert with their sudden genial melodic invention ) Coming almost to a halt before the breathtaking final bars of quite extraordinary mastery, brilliance and above all of musical imagination.

Kim, a very serious musician and master pianist, announced that he does not play encores, but that he would improvise on notes given to him by us, the audience. Four notes shouted with glee, by audience members, that Kim proceeded to elaborate into a waltz with all the finesse and grace of a Levitski or Rosenthal. An extraordinary thinking musician and master pianist.

“A very complete pianist and artist

His virtuosity is astounding, his accuracy in the most complex passages breathtaking… 

[…] brought tears to my eyes” 

-Piers Lane

Born in Seoul in 2000, Jeonghwan Kim first began playing the piano at the age of six. In the following years, his numerous first prizes in national competitions led to his admittance to the “Seoul Arts Center Academy for Young Talented Musicians” at just nine years old. Since moving to Berlin in 2011, he has continued to earn extensive recognition in prestigious national and international piano competitions. At the 2017 International Liszt Competition for Young Pianists in Weimar, he received the third prize along with two special prizes.

In 2019, he was awarded the 1st prize at the Aarhus International Piano Competition in Denmark, prompting immediate Invitations to perform with the Aarhus and Odense Symphony Orchestras. He has since given concerts in major halls in Berlin, Weimar, Hamburg, and Aarhus, among others.

In 2022, he was awarded three prizes: in January, he won the 1st prize at the Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy competition in Berlin. Five months later, in June, he won the fourth
prize and the audience prize at the Sendai International Piano Competition.

In July 2023 he won the 1st prize along with two special prizes for his performance for the Bartok’s second piano concerto and the Best Overall Concerto Prize at the renowned Sydney International Piano Competition.

​

Since 2017, Jeonghwan has been studying at the University of Music Hanns Eisler in the class of Prof. Konrad Maria Engel. His former professors include So Yong Choi, Leda Kim, and Thomas Just. He has also participated in masterclasses with Jakob Leuschner, Bob Versteegh, and Robert Levin. Other crucial influences on his artistic development include Stephan Imorde, Konstantin Heidrich, Antje Weithaas and Jonathan Aner.

A very varied programme for the annual recital of a Keyboard Trust Artist, Giuliano Tuccia. A native of Forlì where he has created his own concert series celebrating the cities most famous citizen, the legendary pianist Guido Agosti.

Giuliano has music in his blood and looks like a born pianist at the keyboard with fingers that are like limpets that cling to the keys sucking the life blood from each one without ever producing a hard or percussive sound.

The early Clementi sonata he played with brilliance and clarity bringing a subtle beauty to the ‘Menuetto’ where the melodic line was allowed to sing with simplicity and ease.The sumptuous tenor voice answered by an ever more poignant melodic outpouring. A ‘Prestissimo’ of meanderings of brilliance. This early sonata was played with the grace and charm of its age and just needed that clockwork precision of which Michelangeli was such a master.

Four Nocturnes by Chopin were played with a freedom and beautiful Bel Canto from a different age.The Golden Age of playing of Lhevine,Rosenthal ,Godowsky, who were real magicians, who with a subtle use of balance and the pedals and sometimes unsynchronised hands, could give the effect that the piano could sing as mellifluously as any singer. It is an allusion because the piano is simply a box of hammers and strings but with subtle artistry it can appear to produce the same legato as the human voice. Giuliano obviously loves the piano and it was this same love that allowed him to make the piano sing with subtle heartfelt rubatos and a kaleidoscope of sounds. But it was Chopin who used to explain to his students that rubato could be likened to a tree with its roots so firmly planted in the ground that the branches were free to move and sway freely in the wind.

The first of Chopin’s twenty one nocturnes ,op 9 n. 1, was played with great beauty and the central episode with subtle whispered sounds, but the left hand was rather too agitated and did not quite created the base of simplicity that Chopin described to his students. Whilst being very beautiful with a ravishing cantabile sound it could have been played with more simplicity and the left hand allowed to unfold more naturally.The famous nocturne in E flat op 9 n. 2, that followed was of beguiling beauty and luminosity. A freedom sometimes at the limit of good taste but was played with such genuine and touching sentiment that we could overlook Giuliano’s youthful love for something so beautiful. There was a beautiful sense of balance in the C sharp minor Nocturne op posth where Giuliano allowed the music to sing with simplicity and subtle beauty. Chopin’s cross rhythms were played with aristocratic weight and the ending was of haunting beauty. The C minor Nocturne op posth was again played with old style rubato that rather held up the natural flow of this deeply bitter sweet outpouring of nostalgia. Hats off to Giuliano for presenting just nocturnes in his recital to show us what miniature masterpieces they really are, usually only played with other of Chopin’s works and rarely allowed to stand on their own as Chopin’s homage to the magic world inspired by Bellini.

It was in Liszt’s Second Ballade that all Giuliano’s gifts came together. It was played with great fantasy and a freedom with a real sense of the drama that was being enacted.There was the luminosity and almost prayer like comments of the Angels contrasting with the sumptuous tenor melody that is then transformed in so many different transcendental ways. Giuliano’s youthful passion transforming Liszt’s notes into a vivid tone poem of great emotional impact.

This was followed by Debussy’s hauntingly beautiful ‘footsteps in the snow.’ Whispered sounds of great fluidity and now the simplicity that his romantic soul had denied him before. There was also a burning intensity behind the seemingly sparse sounds that Giuliano was playing with extreme delicacy. The last work on the programme was ‘Le Collines d’Anacapri’ that brought us all the radiance and joyous Neapolitan confusion, with playing of subtle colours and dynamic drive, and the final brilliant notes played with chiselled ice cold perfection.

An encore of Rachmaninov’s torrent of romantic sounds with the Moment Musicaux op 16 n. 4. Giuliano threw himself fearlessly into the fray as Rachmaninov’s romantic soul was laid bare with red hot passion and considerable technical prowess.

Nicolò Giuliano Tuccia è considerato da Leslie Howard uno dei musicisti più sensibili e interessanti della sua generazione.
Nato nel 1999, comincia giovanissimo lo studio del pianoforte sotto la guida del Maestro Giancarlo Peroni. Si laurea brillantemente al Conservatorio “B. Maderna” di Cesena nel 2022 risultando vincitore di una borsa studio offerta dal Rotary Club. Attualmente frequenta l’Accademia Pianistica “Incontri col maestro” di Imola, sotto la guida dei maestri André Gallo, Alessandro Taverna e Igor Roma e il Master di secondo livello al Conservatorio “Francesco Venezze” di Rovigo con i maestri Federico Nicoletta e Roberto Prosseda.
Ha inoltre perfezionato i suoi studi in summer festival e masterclass, seminari e convegni con maestri di chiara fama internazionale quali: Edith, Fischer, Avedis Kouyoumdjian, Riccardo
Risaliti e Sergio Tiempo. Nicolò Giuliano Tuccia vanta oltre 50 premi in importanti concorsi pianistici nazionali ed internazionali quali “Concorso pianistico internazionale Sergio Fiorentino” (Menzione d’Onore), “Concorso pianistico Elevato” (Menzione d’onore), “Concorso pianistico internazionale di Vigo” (Semifinalista), Map concorso musicale internazionale a Los Angeles (primo premio), “Kings Peak International Music Competition” (secondo premio e premio speciale), concorso musicale internazionale di Londra (menzione speciale), Nota Music (duo cameristico) premio finalista e
molti altri. Nicolò Giuliano Tuccia ha suonato in sale prestigiose in tutta Europa e in Italia.
Tra i più importanti ricordiamo il “Teatro Galli” di Rimini”, il, il “Teatro Alighieri” di Ravenna, il “Teatro Atti” di Rimini, il “Foyer Respighi” del Teatro Comunale di Bologna, la Sala Corelli del “Teatro Alighieri di Ravenna”, “L’Oratorio San Rocco” di Bologna, il “Teatro Masini di
Faenza, la “Sala della Prefettura” di Forlì, il “Teatro Talia” di Gualdo Tadino, il “Cinema Teatro Don Bosco” di Perugia, il “Circolo Ufficiali” di Bologna, il “Palazzo Raffaello” di Urbino, la “Villa Carcano” di Lecco, il “Convitto Vittorio Locchi” di Roma, la “Main concert Hall” del
Conservatorio di Musica di Porto, l’Auditorium “Martin Codax” di Vigo, la “Salon Bank” di Vienna, la “Remonstrantse Kerk” di Alkmaar, la “St. Marie Perivale Church” di Londra, la “Main Concert Hall” dell’ Università di Semiotica Musicale di Helsinki, la “Main Concert Hall” della Galleria d’Arte del M.K. ciurlionis di Kaunas, la “Sala Concerti” dell’Auditorium Telki, la “Sala Eutherpe” di León, la “Cattedrale di Sant’Agata” della Badia di Catania, l’Auditorium” di Villa Rina di Padova”, la “Steinway Hall” di Londra, la “Casa della Musica” di Trieste, “Museo di Casa Martelli” di Firenze, il Teatro Fabbrica delle Candele di Forlì, Casa Menotti di Spoleto ,la “Beethoven Chamber Music Hall” di Bonn, La Grossersaal Scholss di Bergisch Gladbach, Colonia, la Gartensaal Schloss di Wolfsburg e la Concert Hall dell’IIC di Berlino, la Stanza della Musica a Roma per Rai Radio 3 e la Galleria Nazionale di Palazzo Spinola a Genova.
Sono diversi i festival a cui Nicolò ha preso parte. Tra i tanti ricordiamo Festival “Conoscere la Musica” a Bologna, “Misano Piano Festival” a Misano Adriatico, “Ravenna Festival”, Festival di ErConcerti “Le soirees Musicaux” in Emilia-Romagna, Festival “Le Note Tra i Calanchi” a Bagnoregio, Festival “Clivis Umbria”, “Kaunas Piano Festival” in Lituania, “Altalena Music Fest” in Ungheria, Festival della “Società Musicale” a Helsinki, Finlandia, Festival “HIMF in Olanda,
Festival “Roma Tre orchestra”, Festival autunnale della Chiesa di St. ’Perivale “ per il Keyboard Trust di Londra, il Festival della “Salon de la musique”, il “Festival Bellini” di Catania, il Larius
International Piano Fest di Lecco, il Festival del “Concorso Pianistico Elevato” a Bonn, Vienna e Oporto, il festival degli “Amici della musica di Casa Martelli” per l’associazione il Suono Giovane di Firenze, festival dell’Associazione Mozart Italia sede di Trieste festival dell’ Associazione Mozart Italia sede di Lecce, “Scriabin Concert Series” di Grosseto e per gli “Amici del Teatro Carlo Felice e del Conservatorio Niccolò Paganini di Genova”. Nicolò Giuliano ha suonato con l’Orchestra da Camera del Conservatorio Bruno Maderna di
Cesena, “Circle Simphony Orchestra” di Padova, l’Orchestra Sinfonica “Rimini Classica”

Nicolò Giuliano Tuccia ‘sensibility and mastery ignite the Harold Acton Library’ including a long distance review.
https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2024/10/12/nicolo-giuliano-tuccia-sensibility-and-mastery-ignite-the-harold-acton-library/

Diamonds are forever at Steinways – Giuliano Tuccia for the Keyboard Trust
https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2024/02/08/diamonds-are-forever-at-steinways-giuliano-tuccia-for-the-keyboard-trust/

Muzio Clementi was born four years before Mozart and outlived Beethoven by five. Thus this Italian pianist and composer helped fashion the entire Classical era in music. However, his pedagogical tour de force, the “Gradus ad parnassum”, has tended to negatively influence the esteem he enjoyed as an artist. His predilection for the finer points of part-writing and contrapuntal art blend here with a formal and dignified classicism. “Decisive and manly,” “most profound sentiment and delicacy,” and “imaginative humour” – thus does Beethoven’s contemporary Carl Czerny accurately describe the three movements of this expressive sonata. No autograph manuscript has survived and the first edition of the three sonatas op. 10, published in Vienna in 1798, forms the sole basis for the Urtext edition

The Ballade No. 2 in B minor, S. 171, was written in 1853.

Claudio Arrau , who studied under Liszt’s disciple Martin Krause, maintained that the Ballade was based on the Greek myth of Hero and Leander, with the chromatic ostinati representing the sea: “You really can perceive how the journey turns more and more difficult each time. In the fourth night he drowns. Next, the last pages are a transfiguration”.

The ballade is based largely on two themes: a broad opening melody underpinned by menacing chromatic rumbles in the lower register of the keyboard, and a luminous ensuing chordal meditation. These themes are repeated a half-step lower; then march-like triplet-rhythms unleash a flood of virtuosity. Eventually, Liszt transforms the opening melody into a rocking major-key cantabile and reiterates this with ever-more grandiose exultation. The luminous chords provide a contemplative close.Liszt wrote his two Ballades in 1845–49 and 1853 during a time of personal turmoil. The successful virtuoso increasingly saw himself as a composer who strove after formal clarity, as shown by the B minor sonata that was also composed in 1853. When Liszt began work on the first Ballade, he had just separated from his mistress of many years, Marie Comtesse d’Agoult. He called the first sketches for the work Dernières Illusions. A better-known work is the second Ballade in B minor, with whose ending he struggled (the two fortissimo endings in Liszt’s autograph have been published for the first time in the appendix to the Henle edition). It has been linked with the story of Hero and Leander, but it is more generally accepted to have been inspired by Gottfried Bürger’s ballad Lenore. Sacheverell Sitwell found in the work ‘great happenings on an epic scale, barbarian invasions, cities in flames—tragedies of public, rather than private, import’. Composed in the spring of 1853, shortly after the completion of the Sonata, the Second Ballade is a continuation of Liszt’s thoughts in the key of B minor, and similarly explores subtle methods of thematic transformation to achieve a range of evocative moods, bonded by their motivic coherence.

Martina Frezzotti on her way to Carnegie Hall stopped off to give a try out recital at the Reform Club at midday, donating all the proceeds to the Special Steinway Piano Fundraiser that will pay off the sumptuous Concert Grand that she played today.

Martina loves the piano and everything she does is made of this love .

More Guiomar Novaes than Yuja Wang but a wonderful stylist playing with aristocratic control.

Flying in just a few hours before the recital with a programme that would scare most pianists even in these days of the Lims,Chens and Trifonovs.

All Chopin with his Four Ballades, the Studies op 25 and as if that was not enough the Second Scherzo!

Martina is fearless in the face of technical challenges because they simply do not exist for her as she sees and feels only music. Even her small hands does not impede her in any way as she plays ,feels and transmits the message behind the notes with extraordinary beauty and a ravishing sense of balance.To hear the tender whispered beauty of the first two Ballades one could wonder how she would approach the final trilogy of op 25 or the animal excitement of the coda of the Scherzo. After the ravishing beauty of the slow seventh study and the magic of the double thirds study that was a tone poem of shade and light instead of clocking up a record for speed . There was a famous student of Vincenzo Vitali who would ask his companions at what number they were on with the metronome with Feux Follets ! Well, Martina was like a Lion on the Keys and the final three studies were breathtaking for their sumptuous full sound allied to a dynamic fearless drive.

The ending of the Scherzo I have only heard that sound allied to such excitement from Rubinstein.

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Let us not forget that Martina was one of the last students of Lazar Berman. Known as Laser Beam when he first appeared in the west! I remember trying to get out of the Festival Hall in London during his performance of all the Transcendental Studies of Liszt with a bombardment of sounds that offended my sensibility. How could a student of Goldenweiser, the teacher of Tatyana Nikolaeva, play with such disregard for sounds above mezzo forte? It was later ,though ,just when Martina was studying with him in Italy that he gave a recital in Rome that was supposed to be in the Park at the end of our road.The organiser,Teresa Azzaro, had asked me in case of rain if they could bring the artists to our theatre indoors. Well it rained on Berman and he came to the theatre, pale as a ghost, looking as though he was on his way out. He played all the Chopin Polonaises with a beauty of sound and aristocratic sense of style, the exact opposite of the young lion who had come to astonish us in the west thirty years or more previously. It was what I heard that day of Berman in old age that was exactly what he had obviously transmitted to Martina and probably many others in the Piano School in Imola.

The First Ballade one of the most molested of all Chopin’s works where the composers so called intentions are the complete opposite of what he wrote on the page. It is called the ‘Chopin tradition’ and it took Rubinstein followed by Pollini to get us back to what Chopin actually bequeathed to posterity. Martina showed us today the subtle beauty and sense of line allowing everything to sing, even the most florid and technically taxing passages. Always playing with a simplicity and the beauty of the true art of Bel Canto that was to influence and inspire Chopin.The Second Ballade too was delicate and with control and restrained beauty where even the sudden passionate outbursts belonged to the same family, with a sense of line and architectural shape without any abrupt shifts of gear.The Third Ballade the most pastoral of all four and with a grace and charm in which hides a stormy soul trying to get out. Even the acciaccaturas were made to sing with the beauty that she gave to her vision of this box of jewels. ‘Fiortiori’ like streams of gold just dusting the keys with a timeless beauty that gradually was to build to the glorious opening up of the heartstrings with simple unadorned majestic beauty. Her velvet gloves were very much in evidence, too, in the opening of the Fourth Ballade played with restraint and subtle sounds. If she missed the undercurrent that flows beneath the surface she had a vision of a work of searing beauty that was to find its culmination with the passionate outpouring of chords and the reply of the five barely whispered ones before the coda, that is usually played as a transcendental study. Martina played it with mastery and a sense of legato that made this, the culmination of all that had gone before. She had a vision of the Four Ballades as one whole, with sounds that did not shock or excite but seduced and ravished and that created a vision of beauty that is rare indeed!

The first study op 25 was played with the beauty of Bel Canto and as Sir Charles Hallée was to note in his diary on hearing Chopin play in Manchester, an Aeolian Harp was heard on which floated the melodic line.The second study too was played with strands of velvet beauty as they rose and fell with beguiling and teasing insinuation.This was the study that Rubinstein in his 90th year was to astonish us with in the last concert of his long career at the Wigmore Hall. He could not see to negotiate the leaps in ‘his’ Second Scherzo, but his heart and fingers were still of a young man. Afterwards in the Green Room Rubinstein declared that he may be almost blind but not so blind as to know when a beautiful lady is standing next to him! Lauren Bacall was enchanted as many before her had been hypnotised by the irresistible charm of the ‘Prince of the Keyboard’. The way that Martina shaped and played the studies reminded me so much of a record of Guiomar Novaes that I had found by chance when I was a student and have never forgotten for its velvet beauty and magisterial artistry.The fifth study was played as a tone poem where the beautifully lyrical central episode seemed to grow out of the outer more rhythmic sounds.The study in sixths too just grew out of the beautiful nocturne study that is the seventh and the ‘Butterfly’ study hovered over the keys with lightness and charm.The final tongue in cheek flick leading straight into the monumental octave study. A study memorable more for the delicacy and beauty of the central episode than the powerful sounds that Martina unleashed on an unsuspecting public.The ‘Winter Wind’ was a whirlwind of sounds of transcendental control and shape as the last so called ‘Ocean’ study was a breathtaking torrent of glorious sounds.

It is at this point that most pianists would have finished the programme with these two major works of transcendental difficulty. But Martina chose to add the Second Scherzo that Rubinstein too would end many of his recitals with. A range of emotions and a kaleidoscope of colour were played with ravishing beauty but it was the animal intensity that she gave to the last few pages that was truly breathtaking in its audacity and brilliance. New York does not know what is waiting for it and I just wish I could be there to hear it all over again.

January 21, 2025 6:30 PM

The London debut of the award-winning Italian trio featured Schumann’s stormy first piano trio and Fanny Mendelssohn’s, rarely heard, only work for the ensemble.

The Trio Hérmes was selected by the Fondazione Accademia Musicale Chigiana di Siena to be part in the Giovani Talenti Musicali Italiani nel Mondo project, an initiative established in collaboration with Ministero degli Affari Esteri e della Cooperazione Internazionale and CIDIM – Comitato Nazionale Italiano Musica.
Also within the Chigiana Musical Academy, the Trio received the Giovanna Maniezzo Award 2024, granted to them for their outstanding artistic qualities, promotion, and initiative within the contemporary musical scene.The ensemble has received the prestigious recognition of “Ensemble of the Year 2023” instituted by Le Dimore del Quartetto, being selected from over 92 ensembles from the best chamber music academies in Europe, and awarded for their rapid and consistent artistic and professional rise, thus receiving a scholarship and engagements at significant seasons and festivals.

The superb Hermes Trio were making their London debut in the refined atmosphere of Fidelio.

Having heard them last in the vast space of the President’s Palace in Rome, with a concert recorded live for the radio, it was refreshing to see these three young ladies in a more intimate space where their searing passion and musicianship could be savoured to the full.

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Paired with the Trio by Schumann in the same key of D minor that was played with the superb ensemble and technical mastery bringing this luxurious hors d’oeuvres to a sumptuous end. A first movement of romantic sweep and searing mellifluous intensity was followed by the excitement and exhilaration of the ‘Lebhaft’.It was played with superb ensemble and an hypnotic rhythmic drive. A beautiful solo for piano and violin opened the ‘Langsam’ with long languid lines where the cello and violin entwined their soulful playing with ravishing intensity.The dynamic drive and total conviction of the ‘Mit Feuer’ brought this well known masterpiece to an exciting end with our three young ladies playing with ever more passion and drive.

Just one short morsel added by great demand as an encore :‘Sguardi’ by Domenico Turi, as the air filled with the perfume of the cordon bleu menu that followed .

Programme:

F. Mendelssohn Hensel Piano Trio in D minor Op. 11
R. Schumann Piano Trio in D minor No. 1 Op. 63

Another beautiful space, curated with the same love and refined good taste as Raffaello in London, was with Maura Romano in Milan.It was where I first had the opportunity to listen live to the trio in a short cameo appearance at the annual Christmas festivities in the flagship of Steinway & Sons Milan ‘we could have danced all night’ Christmas is a comin’
https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2024/12/13/steinway-sons-milan-we-could-have-danced-all-night-christmas-is-a-comin/

The debut of this superb prizewinning trio in London was in the warm atmosphere of Fidelio. Created by the conductor Raffaello Morales where his love of music is evident in every corner of this refined space opposite the Italian church in the centre of London. Here are a few articles that I have written recently about this new important space in London for intimate music making :

Diabelli is box office at Fidelio where Genius meets Genius -Filippo Gorini and Raffaello Morales breaking barriers
https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2024/10/30/diabelli-is-box-office-at-fidelio-where-genius-meets-genius-filippo-gorini-and-raffaello-morales-breaking-barriers/

Angela Hewitt plays Bach and Brahms with the Fidelio Orchestra of Raffaello Morales
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Jonathan Ferrucci Touching Toccatas and much more besides
https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2025/01/17/jonathan-ferrucci-touching-toccatas-and-much-more-besides/

Samson Tsoy: Mastery and restless conviction reaching for the skies with Fidelian courage
https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2024/07/18/31232/

The Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor op 63, by Robert Schumann was written in 1847. It has four movements :

1. Mit Energie und Leidenschaft
2. Lebhaft, doch nicht zu rasch
3. Langsam, mit inniger Empfindung
4. Mit Feuer

The first piano trio (first of three works with this title plus the Fantasiestücke Op. 88 for the same forces) is in an intensely romantic style, and is the most celebrated of Schumann’s trios in the modern repertoire. The opening movement begins with a surging theme that is heard in counterpoint initially between the piano’s bass and the violin; the scherzo’s driving dotted rhythm shares its smoothly ascending contour with the flowing trio section. The third movement features a duet between violin and cello, and moves without pause to the heroic tonic-major finale.

The Piano Trio in D minor op 11 by Fanny Mendelssohn  was conceived between 1846 and 1847 as a birthday present for her sister, and posthumously published in 1850, three years after the composer’s death.

The trio is in four movements:

1. Allegro molto vivace
2. Andante espressivo
3. Lied: Allegretto
4. Allegretto moderato

In 1847, an anonymous critic in the Neue Berliner Musik Zeitung found in the trio “…broad, sweeping foundations that build themselves up through stormy waves into a marvelous edifice. In this respect the first movement is a masterpiece, and the trio most highly original.” Fanny Mendelssohn shared many of the same advantages of education and travel as her younger brother Felix, and was every bit as obviously talented and precocious a musician as he. But while some highly gifted women did forge public careers as performers, composing – or rather, publishing compositions – was almost exclusively a male domain at the time. Felix’s own attitude seems characteristic: “From my knowledge of Fanny,” he wrote in 1837,“I would say that she has neither inclination nor vocation for authorship. She is too much all that a woman ought to be for this. She regulates her house, and neither thinks of the public nor of the music world, nor even of music at all, until her first duties are fulfilled. Publishing would only disturb her in these, and I cannot say that I approve of it.”

Nonetheless, brother and sister consulted each other regularly about their music, and Felix allowed several of Fanny’s songs to be published under his name (an open secret). Fanny’s husband, the painter Wilhelm Hensel, was even more supportive and Fanny eventually took over the long-running Sunday musicales at the Mendelssohn home in Berlin, where her works were often performed. (Over 460 works survive, mostly songs and solo piano works.)

That was the scene for the premiere of her last major work, the Piano Trio in D minor, written for her younger sister Rebecka’s birthday in 1847 amid great political unrest and food riots. Fanny died a month later after suffering a stroke while rehearsing Felix’ oratorio Die erste Walpurgisnacht for a musicale; Felix followed her six months later from the same cause, which had also claimed both of their parents and their grandfather Moses Mendelssohn.

Some extraordinary playing at St Mary’s with a programme of two of the most perfect masterpieces from the piano repertoire.They were played one after the other in an effusion of beauty that was truly miraculous. I have heard Ariel many times during his period of study in London at the Royal Academy with Hamish Milne and Ian Fountain, and have always been impressed by his scrupulous musicianship and selfless dedication to the composers he is serving. On many occasions though I have found this intensity and seriousness compelling but also overpowering.

I have heard him play Schubert on numerous occasions,solo and in piano duet, and have found his playing always masterly but often rather Beethovenian. Beethoven was more driven by the orchestra whereas Schubert by the song which on occasion did come across.

Lanyi-Berecz at the Matthiesen Gallery ‘Notre amitié est invariable’
https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2024/11/28/lanyi-berecz-at-the-matthiesen-gallery-notre-amitie-est-invariable/

Today Ariel with this Fantasy Sonata was touched by the Gods and driven by the mellifluous outpouring of song that in Schubert was seemingly endless.

The Schubert G major Sonata opened with Ariel caressing the keys producing etherial sounds of radiance and beauty.There was a wondrous sense of balance within the chords that allowed the melody to sing as never before. Barely touching the keys and after the delicate intricacy of dance that Schubert magically conjures out of the opening heartfelt palpitations, Ariel threw his hands in the air allowing them to return to the keys only to create even more beauty. This time sustained by a gently underlined bass and allowing us to indulge once again in the magic that had filled the air at the opening. Suddenly the minor key and an intense passionate commitment from chords of questioning insistence, where they had been of passive acceptance. Finding paradise again as these demanding chords were allowed to cool down almost to a stand still as the miraculous vision of beauty was once more on the horizon.There is no rallentando in the score but Ariel’s poetic imagination knew instinctively what was in Schubert’s soul at this point. Everything Ariel played in this sonata sang as rarely before, as he even approached the coda on tip toe hardly daring to disturb such a heavenly place.

The ‘Andante’ was played with aristocratic beauty even if the opening up beat seemed a little too important. He allowed the music to flow with simplicity and beauty, but there was also great intensity, not of orchestral colour but of the song that was in his heart today. Some beautiful tenor counterpoints gently underlined in the chordal transitions made the etherial balance of the melodic line even more ravishingly beautiful.

The ‘Menuetto’ opened with Beethovenian vehemence but was here calmed with a beseeching reply and became part of its Forestan and Eusebius character. The ‘Trio’ was of restrained and whispered beauty with a glowing sound of delicacy and desolation.The ‘Allegretto’ was of true pastoral elegance where Ariel seemed to be enjoying the teasing eloquence of Schubert’s mischievous meanderings. Suddenly they were interrupted by one of those melodies that Schubert ,like Mozart, can illuminate a work, out of thin air, with genial magic and wondrous beauty. There was a slight hesitation that Ariel brought each time to the reappearance of the rondo theme, that was like a call to attention in anticipation of what would come next .The final few bars were of pastoral beauty and peace as this miracle was brought to an end with chords that were but reverberations of sound. A performance where the piano was allowed to sing its heart out, almost without bar lines, such was the mastery of Ariel today.

The Chopin B minor Sonata would seem an impossible task after such a monumental performance of Schubert. In Ariel’s hands all is possible as the opening Allegro Maestoso rang out with imperious authority. Ariel gave a sense of architectural shape to a movement that can often seem fragmented, but the slight freedom he gave himself in the Schubert was here in Chopin rather misplaced. Why add a rallentando before the sostenuto of the second subject or slightly delay the last chords of the opening phrases or draw out the embellishment a fraction too long? These are just minute details in what was without doubt a masterly performance where the scrupulous attention to detail and Chopin’s very precise phrasing and dynamic markings were a refreshing reminder of a work that has been so manhandled by so many so called Chopin specialists! Ariel played like the great musician he is, and if he turned corners occasionally with style it was the style of someone who loves the music deeply. Playing the repeat in the first movement ,as he did in the Schubert, as would a Serkin ,Arrau or other great thinking musicians. In Ariel’s hands it all made such musical sense and made the passionate outpouring of the development even more gripping. Chopin in Ariel’s hands today sang with a timelessness and the recapitulation was played with even more beauty with the second subject played as Chopin implies, with more intensity the second time around ( there is no diminuendo as in the exposition ).

The ‘Scherzo’ was played with a melodic jeux perlé and not just thrown off with easy brilliance. It linked so perfectly with the ‘Trio’ which had a shape and sense of direction with an energy of its own, before the return of the mellifluous ‘Scherzo’.The Imperious opening chords of the Largo were played almost without a break and Chopin even marks a crescendo and no rallentando on the last chords before it is allowed to melt into the ravishing cantabile and the gentle lapping of the barcarolle that accompanies Chopin’s simple bel canto.The ‘sostenuto’ was played with poignant meaning with gentle undulations shaped with masterly understanding and there was magic in the air as the last arpeggiated chord heralded the return of the theme with an even more pronounced rocking accompaniment. There was the beauty and clarity of the left hand in the coda, like a cello gently meandering towards the final farewell which was of two chords placed with the timing of a true master.The Finale :’Presto non tanto’ was given an aristocratic performance of extraordinary control as each time the ‘Rondo’ theme returned there was a slight pause as Ariel dug deeper and deeper sometimes even adding an extra bass note.The final time using Chopin’s own pointed fingering to give even more animal exhilaration and excitement. Igniting the atmosphere until the final explosions of technical bravura and even adding final octaves to give more emphasis to the burning energy generated in this masterly performance.

Born in Jerusalem in 1997, Ariel studied with Lea Agmon and Yuval Cohen. Based in London, he recently completed his studies at the Royal Academy of Music with Hamish Milne and Ian Fountain. He has received extensive tuition from eminent artists such as Robert Levin, Murray Perahia, Imogen Cooper, Leif Ove Andsnes, Steven Osborne, and the late Leon Fleisher and Ivan Moravec. Awards include 1st Prize at the 2018 Grand Prix Animato Competition in Paris and 1st Prize in the Dudley International Piano Competition, as well as a finalist award at the Rubinstein Competition.In March 2023, Ariel Lanyi was honoured to receive the Prix Serdang, a Swiss prize awarded by the distinguished Austrian pianist Rudolf Buchbinder. The prize is endowed with CHF 50,000 and is not a competition, but a recognition of a young pianist’s achievements and an investment in their future. Prior to this Ariel won 3rd Prize at the 2021 Leeds International Piano Competition. In the same year he was a prize winner in the inaugural Young Classical Artists Trust (London) and Concert Artists Guild (New York) International Auditions. Highlights this season include a recording with the Mozarteumorchester Salzburg under the auspices of the Orpheum Stifftung as part of their Next Generation Mozart Soloist series. Further afield Ariel takes part in the Bendigo Chamber Music Festival in Australia, gives concerts in the USA, and undertakes a tour of Colombia. In 2023 he was nominated as a Rising Star Artist by Classic FM. Over the last year Ariel returned to Wigmore Hall (as soloist and chamber musician), the Miami International Piano Festival, and Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont. He undertook a tour of Argentina and gave recitals in the Homburg MeisterKonzert series in Germany, the Menton Festival in France, Perth Concert Hall (broadcast by BBC Radio 3), and across the UK including the Brighton and Bath Festivals. In 2021 Linn Records released his recording of music by Schubert to critical acclaim. 

Ariel Lanyi illuminates Richmond Concert Society with the integrity and humility of a great artist
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Franz Schubert 1875 portrait, after an 1825 original
31 January 1797 – 19 November 1828 (aged 31). Vienna

The Piano Sonata in G major D. 894, op. 78 by Franz Schubert was completed in October 1826 The work is sometimes called the “Fantasie”, a title which the publisher Tobias Haslinger, rather than Schubert, gave to the first movement of the work. It was the last of Schubert’s sonatas published during his lifetime, and was later described by Robert Schumann as the “most perfect in form and conception” of any of Schubert’s sonatas.

The sonata is in four movements 

Molto moderato e cantabile 

Andante with two trios.

Menuetto :Allegro moderato – Trio 

Allegretto 

The original concept for the second movement was quite different from the version known today. Evidence of this can be seen in the score that Schubert sent to his publisher. 

The original manuscript, which has survived and is currently digitized in the archive of the British Library, reveals that after completing the minuet, Schubert decided to rewrite the second movement. He tore out the original version from the manuscript and replaced it with the version we know today. The first and last pages of the original movement remain, containing the end of the first movement and the beginning of the third movement, respectively.

Allegro maestoso

Scherzo: Molto vivace 

Largo 

Finale: Presto non tanto