ChristopherAxworthy-MusicCommentary

Widor  Symphony No. 6, 1st movement
Bach  Fantasia in C minor, BWV 562
Schumann  Studien für den Pedalflügel: IV. Innig, V. Nicht zu schnel
Thierry Escaich  Poèmes pour orgue: III. Vers l’esperance

Sunday 14 July 2024, 5.00pm

The Keyboard Trust at Westminster Abbey presenting
Timothy Stewart .
A child prodigy in Guildford and now at the Royal Birmingham Conservatory under the enthusiastic guide of Daniel Moult .At only 20 having won many prestigious prizes with many important recitals under his belt ,today he reached the ultimate goal of all organists to play the mighty organ of Westminster Cathedral .

A queue all down the road for a public that filled this vast historic edifice just as Timothy was to fill it with the noblest sounds from such a mighty instrument.
The ping of the tennis ball all but forgotten as many in the queue were watching the closing moments of Wimbledon Men’s Final before being truly overwhelmed by the artistry of this young musician.

The enormous sonorities of Widor were complemented by the knotty twine of Bach.
There was grace and charm too with two of Schumann’s Pedal Piano Studies op 56.
Finally the wake up call of ‘Vers l’espérance’ from the organ Poèmes of the contemporary Thierry Escaich .
An ovation for this young man who when asked how he found the experience simply replied :’ A dream come true ‘
Dreaming of the ‘ match’ tonight …….could it be a Spanish Inquisition !
Bruce Liu playing as the players go on to the pitch but he will actually be in London with kick off at the Wigmore at the same time as in Berlin.

He is currently in his first year at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire after having been awarded the DMC McDonald Foundation Scholarship Award. At the Conservatoire, he is studying for a BMus in Organ Performance under Daniel Moult and Nicholas Wearne as well as receiving regular tuition from visiting tutors such as Martin Schmeding, Erwan le Prado and Nathan Laube. Alongside his studies, he holds the post of Organ Scholar at Birmingham Cathedral (St Philip’s) where he assists the Organist and Assistant Organist in the daily music-making of the Cathedral.

Timothy has enjoyed recent competition success after being awarded First Prize at both the London Organ Competition held in St Clement Danes Church, London (2023), and the Leonard Gibbons Organ Competition which was held at St Chad’s Cathedral, Birmingham (2024) and Second Prize at the Kent Organ Competition (2024). In addition, he was a finalist in the Dame Gillian Weir Messiaen Competition (2024). He is active as a recitalist, having given recent performances at Portsmouth, and Chichester Cathedrals, Clare College, Cambridge and many other parish churches around the country. He was also invited to play at l’Abbaye Saint-Sauveur in Redon, France (2020). Future performances include recitals at Westminster Abbey and Coventry Cathedral.

Timothy Stewart began his musical training in singing and piano at the age of six. He started organ lessons aged twelve with Gillian Lloyd at the URC in Guildford. As a chorister at Holy Trinity, Guildford under Martin Holford, he was introduced to the organ’s qualities and potential and was also given opportunities to play voluntaries before and after services. He was then appointed to the post of organist at All Saints’ Church, Dummer, Hants and St Giles’, Ashtead whilst also assisting with organ playing at Holy Trinity and URC churches in Guildford. During this time, studying with Katherine Dienes-Williams (Organist and Master of the Choristers at Guildford Cathedral), he achieved distinctions in both grade 8 piano and organ.

Prior to starting his degree, Timothy took a gap year and was the Organ Scholar of Chichester Cathedral.  Alongside this position he was the principal accompanist to the choral society ‘Cantemus’, based in Havant.

Westminster Abbey
20 Deans Yard, London SW1P 3PA
Sunday 14 July 2024, 5.00-5.30pm

  

Review by Angela Ransley :

‘ HIGH ROMANTICISM ……AND THE UNSEEN MASTER ‘

Timothy Stewart at Westminster Abbey

Organ recital programme:

Widor  Symphony No. 6, 1st movement
Bach  Fantasia in C minor, BWV 562
Schumann  Studien für den Pedalflügel: IV. Innig, V. Nicht zu schnell
Thierry Escaich  Poèmes pour orgue: III. Vers l’esperance

 

                                                  Timothy Stewart

The Westminster Abbey Summer Organ Festival returns once again with its fabulous mix of celebrity recitals and fresh faces on the Young Artists Platform. This year the Keyboard Charitable Trust presented 20-year-old TIMOTHY STEWART a first year student from the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. Music has been his life since the age of 6: a full account of his progess can be found below.

The Westminster Abbey organ is a majestic instrument of five manuals and 94 stops offering a complex range of solo and combined registration. The recital opened grandly with the first movement of Widor’s Symphonie in G minor Op 42 no 2, first performed in 1876. This is one of ten such works which now form the backbone of the organ repertoire. They were called Symphonie because new organ-building techniques by French organ builder Aristide Cavaille-Coll extended the colour palette of the organ and created a warmer sound. Organists now refer to this type of instrument as Romantic or symphonic, hence Widor’s title.

Aristide played a vital role in Widor’s early life, being a friend of the family. He arranged his early tuition in Brussels and then supported his temporary appointment to Saint-Sulpice in Paris which lasted a mere 63 years! Aristide had installed one of his finest instruments there, which prompted a novel response from Widor: this organ demands new music, a new way of writing..Widor combined this post with teaching organ at the Paris Conservatoire before suceeding Dubois as professor of composition.

Both Widor’s prowess as a performing artist and mastery of compositional technique are found in this movement. Forceful chords announce the opening and also the central idea on which the movement is based. The organ has the unique ability to sing at every level and the main motive is used adventurously by Widor throughout the entire range of the instrument. Although marked Allegro, the organist needs to consider the Abbey’s acoustic. Timothywisely opted for a spacious tempo allowing appreciation of the musical detail. Registration was well chosen, with bright reeds lending clarity to the main theme, and darker colours enhancing the sinuous interludes.

 The Fantasia in C minor BWV 562 by JS Bach (1685-1750) is an early work dating from his period of service to the Duke of Weimar 1708-17. Its austere, tearful character derives from the long pedal notes extending over many bars and the falling, sighing phrase often associated with mourning: the final chorus of  St Matthew Passion comes to mind. It obviously had a special meaning for Bach as he returned to it near the end of his life to add a Fugue, which he never completed. This is consummate counterpoint with the falling phrase hardly absent from the five moving parts. A flurry of semiquavers brings the comfort of a major key – a signature ending for Bach.

 

The composer leaves us the notes. It is for the artist to make sense of them. Timothy gave us an impassioned account at a surprisingly high dynamic level, which emphasised the architecture of the contrapuntal writing. Solo stops were carefully chosen to emphasise new entries without disrupting the flow.

 

 

                                                        Weimar in the time of J S Bach

 If you pass near a church and you hear the organ playing, go inside and listen.. Never waste an opportunity to practise the organ: there is no other instrument able so swiftly to dispense with all that is impure and imprecise, both in the music itself and in the manner of playing it.

(Rules of House and Life 1850 – Robert Schumann).

 

Celebrated for his piano works and lieder, it should not be forgotten that Schumann (1810 – 1856)  also wrote masterly works for the organ. Two pieces followed from 6 Canonic Studies Op 56: Innig and Nicht zu schnell.  Keyboard instruments with a pedalboard existed long before the pedalier, for which these pieces were written, enabling organists to practice at home rather than in a freezing church. Bach owned a pedal harpsichord and Mozart had a pedal fortepiano. Schumann had a pedal piano made in 1843 and his enthusiam for it led to much composition.They were dedicated to his first piano teacher who predicted that Schumann would attain to fame and immortality and that in him the world would possess one if its greatest musicians. These works are now performed on the pipe organ.

Innig opens with a heart-stopping melody of rare beauty worthy of his greatest love songs. Despite th technical challenge of writing in canon, the expressive quality is always paramount. By contrast, Nicht zu schnell employs a texture of light chords to create a musical romp. In this work we see a different side of Schumann: one, who – unaided – had found his way to Bach when the popular view was that of an outdated contrapuntist. These are character pieces and Timothy found convincingly the individual nature of each. Innig could possibly have been indulged more: a little slower with greater elasticity within the phrase. Nicht zu schnell was delightfully crisp and clear – and huge fun!

 

Thierry Escaich (1965-) is a French organist, composer, teacher and improviser much in demand on the international stage. He is a worthy successor to the celebrated organist-composers of the late Romantic: Liszt, Franck, Saint-Saens, holding a senior church post in Paris  and teaching at the Paris Conservatoire. He was appointed Organist at Notre-Dame when it reopened  in 2024.

He has written over 100 works for a wide variety of forces and particularly for his own instrument.

Vers l’Esperance, the final piece in Timothy’s recital, comes from Poemes pour orgue, composed in 2002. Its subject is highly Romantic, portraying in Escaich’s own words:  a frightening flight from death and the hope of something beyond. It was inspired by Tunisian poet Suied:

 

Qu’est-ce qui nous traque                                                Who  is stalking us                   
et nous tord                                                                          And twists us
et se joue de nous                                                                 And plays with us

derrière nos masques?                                                      Behind our masks?
Qu’est-ce qui souffre                                                             What is suffering
et se révolte                                                                           And revolts

au fond de nous malgré nos rêves?  Deep inside us despite our dreams?
Qui es-tu, triste                                                                      Who are you, sad
matière silencieuse?                                                              Silent matter?

De quel parage du ciel es-tu,     From what part of the sky are you messagere oublieuse,                                                      Forgetful messenger

De quelle détresse                                                             From what distress 

Etu le gouffre indéchiffrable?            Are you the undecipherable abyss?

Qu-est-ce qui nous porte et nous appelle     Which carries us and calls us

Au-dessus de nous                                                                  Above ourselves    dans l’espérance?                                                                    Into hope?
 

Escaich’s music is notable for its forceful rhythms and startling dissonances, allowing the King of Instruments a lion’s roar. What a fitting climax to an ambitious half hour recital!  His formidable technique fully engaged, Timothy made full use of the 94 stops to create an dramatic sound image with  screaming brass reeds – oboe, trumpet and clarion – confirming the inescapable advance of Death. It was both thrilling and chilling..

 

Cesar Franck made the famous remark about his new Cavaille-Coll instrument: mon nouvel orgue..c’est un orchestre! (my new organ, it’s an orchestra!) There is no doubt that the symphonic organ led to a more expressive style of writing. Today’s composers – Widor, Schumann, Escaich –   all empowered the organ to sing high or low and to employ an amazing range of textures and colours. There is another common thread: all three organists were steeped in the music of JS Bach. Widor’s early training was in his works for organ and he astonished his pupils at the Paris Conservatoire by demanding the same. Schumann made his own way to Bach and honoured his debt by composing 6 Fugues on the name BACH. Escaich modelled his Etudes-Chorals on the chorale preludes. The influence of Bach remains regardless of the intervening years as the Unseen Master, ever ready to guide and inspire.

Timothy Stewart began his musical training aged 6 in singing and piano.  He started organ lessons aged 12 with Gillian Lloyd at the URC in Guildford.  As a chorister at Holy Trinity, Guildford under Martin Holford, he was introduced to the organ’s qualities and potential and was also given opportunities to play voluntary’s before and after services. He was then appointed to the post of organist at All Saints’ Church, Dummer, Hants and St Giles, Ashtead whilst also assisting with organ playing at Holy Trinity and URC churches in Guildford. During this time, studying with Katherine Dienes-Williams (Organist and Master of the Choristers at Guildford Cathedral), he achieved distinctions in both grade 8 piano and organ. Prior to starting his degree, Timothy took a gap year and was the Organ Scholar of Chichester Cathedral and alongside this position he was the principal accompanist to the choral society ‘Cantemus’, based in Havant.

He is currently in his first year at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire after having been awarded the DMC Mcdonald Foundation Scholarship Award. At the Conservatoire, he is studying for a BMus in Organ Performance under the tutelage of Daniel Moult and Nicholas Wearne, as well as receiving regular tuition from visiting tutors such as Martin Schmeding, Erwan le Prado and Nathan Laube. Alongside his studies, he holds the post of Organ Scholar at Birmingham Cathedral (St Philip’s) where he assists the Organist and Assistant Organist in the daily music making of the Cathedral.

Timothy has enjoyed recent competition success after being awarded first prize at both the London Organ Competition held in St Clement Danes church, London (2023), and the Leonard Gibbons Organ Competition which was held at St Chads Cathedral, Birmingham( 2024) and 2nd prize at the Kent Organ Competition (2024). As well as this, he was a finalist in the Dame Gillian Weir Messiaen Competition (2024). He is active as a recitalist, having given recent performances at, Portsmouth, and Chichester Cathedrals, Clare College, Cambridge, and many other parish churches around the country. He was also invited to play at l’Abbaye Saint-Sauveur in Redon, France (2020). Future performances include Westminster Abbey and Coventry Cathedral.

 

 

Angela Ransley is an advanced piano teacher and writer based in London. She is Director of the Harmony School of Pianoforte and works closely with the Keyboard Trust.

 

This is a link to one of the KT artists who has played the pedal piano in the Royal Festival Hall in London.The Gounod pedal piano concerto and as an encore a study for pedal piano by Schumann

https://www.facebook.com/notes/christopher-axworthy/get-closer-roberto-prosseda-and-oleg-caetani-at-the-festival-hall/10156098635657309/

Bruce Liu piano
Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) Piano Sonata in B minor HXVI/32 (by 1776)
I. Allegro moderato • II. Menuet • III. Finale.
Presto
Fryderyk Chopin (1810-1849) Piano Sonata No. 2 in B flat minor Op. 35
‘Funeral March’ (1837-9)
I. Grave – Doppio movimento • II. Scherzo •
III. Marche funèbre • IV. Finale. Presto
Interval
Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764) Les tendres plaintes (pub. 1724)
Les cyclopes (pub. 1724)
Menuet I and II (c.1729-30)
Les sauvages (c.1729-30)
La poule (c.1729-30)
Gavotte et 6 doubles (c.1729-30)
Fryderyk Chopin Variations on ‘Là ci darem la mano’ Op. 2 (1827)

Bruce Xiao Liu kicking off in London while the whole world is watching the kick off in Berlin .
I have no idea how the players are getting on but I do know that from the very first notes of the Haydn B minor Sonata Bruce created the same magic of the greatest musicians from a past age that are now just posters in the green room of a golden age.

It was Jed Distler ,the New York correspondent for the Chopin competition,who had immediately noticed this young man for his sense of colour and style in the Chopin Rondo op 2 .The one that Schumann on hearing Chopin play wrote :’Hats off gentlemen a Genius’.
The ravishing jewel like precision of the opening Allegro moderato of Haydn was with a delicacy and range of colours but always a great sense of style and elegant good taste .There was dynamic drive and superb clarity of a jeux perlé that was beguiling and mesmerising .Such crystalline clarity and beauty of shading that the only word to describe it , is exquisite. But not of a porcelain doll but of a passionate vibrancy of great daring and intelligence .
A Menuet that was a true jewel box of delicacy and a trio of passionate persuasion
A presto Finale that was of lightweight etherial brilliance with a ‘joie de vivre’ of scintillating impish good spirits .

The noblest of ‘Grave’ introductions to the Chopin B flat minor Sonata was that of a true storyteller who had something wondrous to share .A Chopin of aristocratic nobility and architectural shape and with a continual forward movement of passionate conviction. A relentless ‘doppio movimento’ that at times might have seemed too driven until one arrived at the sumptuous outpouring of the second subject.No worries about the much discussed repeat that Bruce had no time to even consider as he had seen this movement as a flowering of genial invention.
The menacing opening of the development in the bass was answered by the radiance and beseeching beauty of the reply in a question and answer of poignant significance .Leading to the mighty climax where the genial invention of Chopin turns the formal sonata form into a throbbing intensity where form and soul are united in a passionate outpouring finding an outlet only with the gloriously triumphant return of the second subject.A masterly control of balance allowed us to see so clearly a masterpiece opening up before our eyes as rarely before.A coda that was of a nobility and controlled passion that I have only ever witnessed from Rubinstein.
The Scherzo immediately entered with a dynamic rhythmic drive that was never hard or allowed to turn into a vulgar dance .There was a forward movement that was only to be relieved by a Trio of ravishing beauty of chameleonic colours and subtle rubato.
The funeral march entered with whispered insistence with a ponderous and relentless bass over which the melodic line was at first overheard from afar but gradually ,almost imperceptibly,growing in intensity until exploding into a passionate outpouring of overwhelming significance.
The ravishing beauty of the bel canto Trio I have never heard as today where above all there was an architectural shape and unexpected colours from within.The whispered repeats were of a beauty that was so natural that one almost dared not breathe in such rarified air.The end of the Funeral March too was a mere murmur as we in the public barely recognised a work we have known all our lives such was the act of recreation from a great artist of rare sensibility.The last movement was indeed a real wind that passed over the graves as notes became streams of sounds whispered,wailing and almost without form until a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel brought us to the final tumultuous chords .A movement of such originality that it is no wonder that Chopin’s contemporaries could not understand the visionary genius of a composer who was condemned to die before his fortieth birthday.Like Schubert ,who died even earlier ,both were much criticised for works lacking in formal construction .Theirs was such a revolutionary new vision that it needed another hundred years to pass before being recognised as works of genius.

After the interval a group of pieces by Rameau that was refreshing for the purity of sound and exhilarating for the transcendental ‘ fingerfertigkeit’ that this young artist demonstrated with such simplicity.We have often marvelled at Sokolov with his trills like taut springs of Swiss clock precision but today there was the same mastery but allied to a sense of colour like a prism shining light on unexpected corners of jewels glowing as they caught the light. Has ‘Les tendres plaintes’ ever sounded as beautiful as today where simplicity and beauty were combined with some remarkable colouring just hinted at in the bass? Dynamic playfulness of ‘Les Cyclopes’ with the left hand murmurings adding a throbbing heartbeat to the quixotic melody.There was elegance and delicacy to the two Menuets with the second played with a charming lilt before the whispered return of the first.A hypnotic rhythmic elan to ‘ Les Sauvages’ with a kaleidoscope of colours, and an infectious good humour to Rameau’s famous impersonations in ‘La Poule’. The Gavotte et 6 doubles is a real masterpiece .A remarkable theme and variations with an opening of disarming simplicity and a gradual increase in intensity as the variations become ever more virtuosistic.These pieces by Rameau as played today showed a technical refinement and controlled brilliance that was every bit as breathtaking as the more obvious Black Key Study that Bruce was to astonish us with as his penultimate encore.

Chopin’s Rondo op 2 was the work that Bruce chose to close his first London recital with since his triumph with this very piece in the Chopin competition in Warsaw.There was beguiling dance,dynamic drive and the breathtaking Bel Canto of a supreme stylist who could play with brilliance and the charm of a jeux perlé of another era – the Golden Age of piano playing of the likes of Lhevine,Hoffman or Godowsky. Notes that in this young magicians hands could make the music speak with extraordinary simplicity and subtle beauty.

Even the first encore of the Allemande from Bach’s Fifth French suite was played with refreshing originality with some subtle pointing of the bass and the colours of a pianist who like Van Cliburn said he would never play faster than he could sing. Chopin’s ‘Black Key’ study op.10 n.5 was breathtaking for it’s subtle colouring and astonishing technical brilliance.The last encore Chopin’s Nocturne op. posth in C sharp minor was played with a ravishing sense of balance and the disarming simplicity of this ‘new’ Golden Age .The path that this remarkable young artist is fast showing a world where music is allowed to speak with a voice of such stylish mastery and humanity.

Bruce Liu’s triumphant debut at the Edinburgh Festival

Bruce Liu takes London by storm

Bruce Xiaoyu Liu showing the way to Eutopia for Chopin’s 212th birthday

Stars shine brightly in Warsaw with Dang Thai Son,Bruce Liu and Lukas Geniusas

The 55 Haydn Sonatas are perhaps the least-known treasures of the piano repertoire. In them one can hear Haydn virtually inventing the classical style, from the early, somewhat tentative beginnings, through the bold experiments of the 1770s, to the adventurous late works. As with Beethoven (Haydn’s somewhat recalcitrant student) each sonata is a new exploration, and the element of surprise is ever present. Haydn delights in abrupt transitions, twists and turns, sudden pauses, and apparent non sequiturs; listening to him demands a constant alertness.

Many of Haydn’s string quartets bear curious nicknames (“The Lark,” “The Razor,” “The Frog,” etc.). I am tempted to call the very serious B-minor Sonata “The Bear”; the lumbering bass figure at the beginning, the repeated chorded growls in the bass, and a general air of surly brusqueness give it unusual power. In exquisite contrast, the central Minuet is one of the most delicate and graceful pieces Haydn ever wrote – an unusually Mozartean moment. The bear returns in the minor-key trio, accompanied later on by some angry bees buzzing in the right hand. The Presto hammers away in repeated notes, at the first movement’s opening third, and the bees also return with a vengeance. The end is stark and uncompromising. The b-minor Sonata is part of a group of six piano sonatas which, according to Haydn’s own handwritten catalogue of works, was composed in 1776. The autograph has not survived, and the first edition of 1778 was not authorised. However, numerous copyist’s manuscripts have survived in which Haydn had his six sonatas disseminated.

Franz Joseph Haydn
Sonata in B minor Hob. XVI:32

The jovial, witty and ever-cheerful ‘Papa’ Haydn writing in a minor key? What brought that on?

The 1770s, when Haydn’s Sonata in B minor was composed, was the age of Sturm und Drang (storm and stress) in German culture, an age when aberrant emotions were all the rage in music; and what better tonal avouring than the minor mode to convey these emotions? Composers such as C. P. E. Bach rode this cultural wave with enthusiasm, writing works that elicited powerful, sometimes worrisome, emotions by means of syncopated rhythms, dramatic pauses, wide melodic leaps and poignant harmonies of the type that minor keys were especially adept at providing.It is also important to note that the 1770s was the period in which the harpsichord was gradually giving way to the new fortepiano, precursor of the modern grand, and there is much in this sonata to suggest that it still lingered eagerly on the harpsichord side of things, at least texturally. The kind of writing you find in the first movement, especially, is the sort that speaks well on the harpsichord. Moreover, there are no dynamic markings in the score, as you would expect in a piece that aimed to take advantage of the new instrument’s chief virtue: playing piano e forte.This cross-over period between harpsichord and fortepiano plays out in the nature of the first movement’s two contrasting themes. The first is austere and slightly mysterious, amply encrusted with crisp, Baroque-style mordents on its opening melody notes. The second churns away in constant 16th-note motion – the very thing the harpsichord is good at. And while this second theme is set in the relative major, its subsequent appearance in the recapitulation is re-set in the minor mode, yet a further sign of the serious Sturm und Drang tone that pervades this movement.In place of a lyrical slow movement, Haydn offers us a minuet and trio – but where is the emotional drama in that? Haydn has a plan. His minuet and trio feature thematic material as dramatically contrasting as the first and second themes of the first movement. The minuet is in the major mode, set high in the register, sparkling with trills and astonishing us with melodic leaps everywhere, one as large as a 14th. The trio, normally con gured as sugary relief from the sti formality of courtly dance ritual, is daringly in the minor mode, set low, and grinds grimly away in constant 16th-note motion.

Haydn wouldn’t be Haydn if he didn’t send you away with a toe-tapping finale and such a movement ends this sonata. To that end, Haydn’s go-to rhythmic device is repeated notes, and this nale chatters on constantly at an 8th-note patter, interrupted at random, it would seem, by surprising silences and dramatic pauses – as if to allow the performer to turn sideways and wink at his audience.

Jean-Philippe Rameau, by Joseph Aved, 1728

Jean-Philippe Rameau, who
was not only a superb organist and composer but also,
in his day, a noted music theorist. The selections in
tonight’s concert are drawn from the suites that make
up his Pièces de clavecin, published in three volumes
over a period of twenty years (1706-26/7). In addition to
dance movements such as the Menuets or the Gavotte,
the suites contain a number of character pieces, with
titles such as Les tendres plaintes (‘The tender
complaints’) and Les cyclopes (both found in the Suite
in D minor). Les sauvages, from the Suite in in G minor,
was inspired by a performance Rameau attended in
1725 of a dance by Indigenous Americans brought to
Paris, and became so popular that he reworked it for
inclusion in his opera Les indes galantes. La poule,
meanwhile, is full of dramatic contrasts and features a
theme made up of repeated notes that musically
represents the clucking of the hen.

The French Baroque composer Jean – Philippe Rameau wrote three books of Pièces de clavecin for the harpsichord .The first, Premier Livre de Pièces de Clavecin, was published in 1706 ; the second, Pièces de Clavessin, in 1724; and the third, Nouvelles Suites de Pièces de Clavecin, in 1726 or 1727. They were followed in 1741 by Pièces de clave in En concerts, in which the harpsichord can either be accompanied by violin (or flute) and viola da gamba or played alone. An isolated piece, “La Dauphine“, survives from 1747.

Pièces de Clavessin (1724)

Two played tonight are from 1724 and are the first and eighth from his Suite in D : Les Tendres Plaintes – Les Cyclopes

1. Les Tendres Plaintes. Rondeau .An almost tongue-in-cheek character piece, with a title so hackneyed that Rameau was surely poking a bit of fun: Les tendres plaintes (‘The tender sighs ‘) It is nevertheless a ravishing pearl piece , and Rameau clearly thought enough of it to rework it as a ballet movement in Zoroastre (1749).
2. Les Niais de Sologne – Premier Double des Niais – Deuxième Double des Niais
3. Les Soupirs. Tendrement
4. La Joyeuse. Rondeau
5. La Follette. Rondeau
6. L’Entretien des Muses
7. Les Tourbillons. Rondeau
8. Les Cyclopes. Rondeau. Is the jewel of the set with a musical description of the mythological smithies who forged Jupiter’s thunderbolts in the deep recesses of the Earth. Here Rameau uses his special technique of ‘batteries’ which he claimed to have invented. As he explains in the preface to the 1724 collection: ‘In one of the batteries the hands make between them the consecutive movement of two drumsticks; and in the other, the left hand passes over the right to play alternately the bass and treble.’ Incidentally, Les cyclopes is believed to be one of the pieces played by the Jesuit Amiot before the Chinese Emperor; sadly, it seems to have not made much of an impression.
9. Le Lardon. Menuet
10. La Boiteuse

Nouvelles Suites de Pièces de Clavecin (1726–1727)

Suite in G major/G minor, RCT 6

1. Les Tricotets. Rondeau
2. L’indifférente
3. Menuet 1- Menuet 11
4. La Poule Among Rameau’s harpsichord pieces, La Poule is certainly one of the most famous. It is a perfect illustration of the French harpsichord style of the 17th and 18th centuries, characterized by the use of numerous ornaments, the concern for the picturesque and descriptive intentions, and the supreme elegance and refinement of the melody.
5. Les Triolets
6. Les Sauvages …Best and most celebrated pieces, Les Sauvages, later used in his opéra ballet Les Indes galantes (first performed 1735). The following year, at the age of 42, he married a 19-year-old singer, who was to appear in several of his operas and who was to bear him four children.
7. L’Enharmonique. Gracieusement.
8. L’Égyptienne

Suite in A minor, RCT 5

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1. Allemande
2. Courante
3. Sarabande
4. Les Trois Mains
5. Fanfarinette
6. La Triomphante
7. Gavotte et six doubles This is a theme and six variations (termed doubles) for harpsichord. The theme is titled Gavotte. The work is in A minor and has little harmonic interest and a simple melody

The Piano Sonata No. 2 in B flat minor , op .35 was completed by Chopin while living in Georges Sand’s manor in Nohant some 250 km (160 mi) south of Paris ,a year before it was published in 1840.

Some time after writing the Marche funèbre, Chopin composed the other movements, completing the entire sonata by 1839. In a letter on 8 August 1839, addressed to Fontana, Chopin wrote:

‘I am writing here a Sonata in B flat minor which will contain my March which you already know. There is an Allegro, then a Scherzo in E flat minor, the March and a short Finale about three pages of my manuscript-paper. The left hand and the right hand gossip in unison after the March. … My father has written to say that my old sonata [in C minor, Op. 4] has been published by [Haslinger] and that the German critics praise it. Including the ones in your hands I now have six manuscripts. I’ll see the publishers damned before they get them for nothing.^’

When the sonata was published in 1840 in the usual three cities of Paris,Leipzig and London the London and Paris editions indicated the repeat of the exposition as starting at the very beginning of the movement (at the Grave section). However, the Leipzig edition designed the repeat as beginning at the Doppio movimentosection. Although the critical edition published by Breitkopf & Hartel (that was edited, among others, by Franz Liszt, Carl Reinecke and Johannes Brahms ) indicate the repeat similarly to the London and Paris first editions, almost all 20th-century editions are similar to the Leipzig edition in this regard. Charles Rosen argues that the repeat of the exposition in the manner perpetrated by the Leipzig edition is a serious error, saying it is “musically impossible” as it interrupts the D♭major cadence (which ends the exposition) with the B♭ minor accompanimental figure.Others  agree, calling the repeat to the Doppio movimento“nonsense”. However some others advocates for excluding the Grave from the repeat of the exposition, citing in part that Karol Mikuli’s 1880 complete edition of Chopin contained a repeat sign after the Grave in the first movement of the Piano Sonata No. 2. Mikuli was a student of Chopin from 1844 to 1848 and also observed lessons Chopin gave to other students – including those where this sonata was taught – and took extensive notes.

Although the third movement was originally published as Marche funèbre, Chopin changed its title to simply Marche in his corrections of the first Paris edition.In addition, whenever Chopin wrote about this movement in his letters, he referred to it as a “march” instead of a “funeral march”.Kallberg believes Chopin’s removal of the adjective funèbre was possibly motivated by his contempt for descriptive labels of his music.After his London publisher Wessel & Stapleton added unauthorised titles to Chopin’s works, including The Infernal Banquet to his first scherzo in B minor Op. 20, the composer, in a letter to Fontana, wrote:

‘Now concerning [Christian Rudolf Wessel], he is an ass and a cheater … if he has lost on my compositions, it is doubtless due to the stupid titles he has given them in spite of my repeated railings to [Frederic Stapleton]; that if I listened to the voice of my soul, I would have never sent him anything more after those titles.’

In 1826, a decade before he wrote this movement, Chopin had composed another Marche funèbre in C minor, which was published posthumously as Op. 72 No. 2.Chopin, who wrote pedal indications very frequently, did not write any in the Finale except for the very last bar. Although Moritz Rosenthal  (a pupil of Liszt and Mikuli) claimed that the movement should not be played with any pedal except where indicated in the last measure, Rosen believed that the “effect of wind over the graves”, as Anton Rubinstein described this movement, “is generally achieved with a heavy wash of pedal”.The first major criticism, by Schumann , appeared in 1841 and was critical of the work. He described the sonata as “four of [his] maddest children under the same roof” and found the title “Sonata” capricious and slightly presumptuous.He also remarked that the Marche funèbre “has something repulsive” about it, and that “an adagio in its place, perhaps in D-flat, would have had a far more beautiful effect”.In addition, the finale caused a stir among Schumann and other musicians. Schumann said that the movement “seems more like a mockery than any [sort of] music”,and when Felix Mendelssohn was asked for an opinion of it, he commented, “Oh, I abhor it”. Franz Liszt, a friend of Chopin’s, remarked that the Marche funèbre is “of such penetrating sweetness that we can scarcely deem it of this earth”

Chopin heard Nicola Paganini  play the violin in 1829 and composed a set of variations, Souvenir de Paganini. It may have been this experience that encouraged him to commence writing his first Etudes (1829–1832), exploring the capacities of his own instrument.After completing his studies at the Warsaw Conservatory, he made his debut in ViennaHe gave two piano concerts and received many favourable reviews – in addition to some commenting (in Chopin’s own words) that he was “too delicate for those accustomed to the piano-bashing of local artists”. In the first of these concerts, he premiered his Variations on ‘La ci darem la mano ‘op 2 variations on a duet from Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni ) for piano and orchestra.He returned to Warsaw in September 1829,where he premiered his Piano Concerto n.2 Op. 21 on 17 March 1830.

The final piece in tonight’s programme formed the
centrepiece of the teenage Chopin’s debut concert in
Vienna, at the Kärntertortheater (which housed the
première of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony) in August 1829.This work, his Op. 2 Variations on ‘Là ci darem la
mano’ from Mozart’s Don Giovanni, has come down to
us in two versions, one for piano and orchestra and one
for solo piano. In the original opera, the duet is heard
during the first act, where Don Giovanni tries to seduce
Zerlina into coming to his castle, and sings to her,
‘There we will give each other our hands, there you will
say “yes” to me. See, it’s not far; let’s go, my dear, from
here’. Mozart’s charming melody was very popular in
the early 19th Century and formed the basis of
numerous other pieces, including a set of variations for
cello and piano by Beethoven (WoO. 28). It is therefore
hardly surprising that the 19-year-old Chopin chose his
own Variations on this theme to introduce himself to
the Viennese public.
The work opens with a slow, improvisatory
introduction, imbued with a sense of expectation.
When the theme does appear, it is presented cheerfully
and simply; however, Chopin soon launches into his
first variation, a virtuosic miniature in the so-called
‘brilliant style’, which then rapidly gives way to an even
faster variation, where the theme is presented in demi-
semiquaver motion in the right hand. In the more lyrical
third variation, it is the left hand’s turn at delicate
figuration, against the melody in the right hand. The
fourth variation, marked ‘con bravura’, is full of
treacherous leaps, just as exciting to watch as to listen
to, whilst the fifth takes a dramatic and deeply
expressive turn into B flat minor. Chopin saves his best
until last, however, with a spectacular finale in which
Mozart’s theme is cast as a brilliant polonaise. With
these Variations, dedicated to his school friend Tytus
Woyciechowski, the young virtuoso was propelled to
stardom. As Chopin wrote to his parents after the
Vienna concert, ‘at the end, there was so much
clapping that I had to come out and bow again’; the
work’s publication the following year, meanwhile,
inspired Robert Schumann to famously remark: ‘Hats
off, gentlemen – a genius!’.

On 7 December 1831, Chopin received the first major endorsement from an outstanding contemporary when Schumann reviewing the Op. 2 Variations in the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung (his first published article on music), declared: “Hats off, gentlemen! A genius.”On 25 February 1832 Chopin gave a debut Paris concert in the “salons de MM Pleyel” at 9 rue Cadet, which drew universal admiration. The critic Francois- Joseph Fetis  wrote in the Revue et gazette musicale : “Here is a young man who … taking no model, has found, if not a complete renewal of piano music, … an abundance of original ideas of a kind to be found nowhere else …”After this concert, Chopin realised that his essentially intimate keyboard technique was not optimal for large concert spaces. Later that year he was introduced to the wealthy Rothschild banking family, whose Patronage also opened doors for him to other private salons of social gatherings of the aristocracy and artistic and literary elite. By the end of 1832 Chopin had established himself among the Parisian musical elite and had earned the respect of his peers such as Hiller, Liszt, and Berlioz. He no longer depended financially upon his father, and in the winter of 1832, he began earning a handsome income from publishing his works and teaching piano to affluent students from all over Europe.This freed him from the strains of public concert-giving, which he disliked.

Chopin seldom performed publicly in Paris. In later years he generally gave a single annual concert at the Salle Pleyel, a venue that seated three hundred. He played more frequently at salons but preferred playing at his own Paris apartment for small groups of friends. The musicologist Arthur Hedley  has observed that “As a pianist Chopin was unique in acquiring a reputation of the highest order on the basis of a minimum of public appearances – few more than thirty in the course of his lifetime.”

First prize winner of the 18th Chopin Piano Competition 2021 in Warsaw, Bruce Liu’s “playing ofbreathtaking beauty” (BBC Music Magazine) has secured his reputation as one of the most excitingtalents of his generation and contributed to a “rock-star status in the classical music world” (TheGlobe and Mail).

Highlights of Bruce Liu’s 2023/24 season include international tours with the Tonhalle-OrchesterZürich and Paavo Järvi, the Philharmonia Orchestra and Santtu-Matias Rouvali, and the WarsawPhilharmonic and Andrey Boreyko, as well as the Münchener Kammerorchester in a play-directprogramme. Furthermore, he makes anticipated debuts with the New York Philharmonic, FinnishRadio Symphony, Danish National Symphony, Gothenburg Symphony and Singapore SymphonyOrchestras. He works regularly with many of today’s most distinguished conductors such as GustavoGimeno, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Gianandrea Noseda, Rafael Payare, Vasily Petrenko, Jukka-PekkaSaraste, Lahav Shani and Dalia Stasevska.

Bruce Liu has performed globally with major orchestras including the Wiener Symphoniker,Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Orchestre Philharmonique duLuxembourg, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony,The Philadelphia Orchestra, Orchestre symphonique de Montréal and NHK Symphony Orchestra.

As an active recitalist, he appears at major concert halls such as the Carnegie Hall, WienerKonzerthaus, BOZAR Brussels and Tokyo Opera City, and makes his solo recital debuts in the2023/24 season at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Philharmonie de Paris, Wigmore Hall London,Alte Oper Frankfurt, Kölner Philharmonie and Chicago Symphony Center.

Having been a regular guest at the Rheingau Musik Festival since 2022, Liu will return in summer2024 to feature in a series of wide-ranging events. In recent years, he has appeared at LaRoque-d’Anthéron, Verbier, KlavierFestival Ruhr, Edinburgh International, Gstaad Menuhin andTanglewood Music Festivals.

An exclusive recording artist with Deutsche Grammophon, Liu’s highly anticipated debut studioalbum “Waves” spanning two centuries of French keyboard music (Rameau, Ravel, Alkan) is beingreleased in November 2023. His first album featuring the winning performances from the ChopinInternational Piano Competition received international acclaim including the Critics’ choice, Editor’schoice, and “Best Classical Albums of 2021” from the Gramophone Magazine.

Bruce Liu studied with Richard Raymond and Dang Thai Son. Born in Paris to Chinese parents andbrought up in Montréal, Liu’s phenomenal artistry has been shaped by his multi-cultural heritage:European refinement, North American dynamism and the long tradition of Chinese culture.

Christopher Axworthy Dip.RAM ,ARAM

‘The Willie Wonka of the Piano’ Jed Distler

Ravel: Miroirs
Noctuelles (‘Moths’)
Oiseaux tristes (‘Sad birds’)
Une barque sur l’océan (‘A boat on the ocean’)
Alborada del gracioso (‘The jester’s aubade’) 
La vallée des cloches (‘The valley of bells’)

Rachmaninov : 6 Morceaux for piano duet Op 11
Barcarolle,  Scherzo, Chanson Russe, Valse, Romance and Slava. 

Ravel’s evocative Miroirs were played with ravishing colours and technical brilliance .
From the fleeting moths calmed for a moment by the solemn tolling of a languid chant before flitting off with featherlight ease and grace.Roman created just the sultry atmosphere in which the saddest of birds could sing their lament with glowing fluidity.Cascades of notes swept from his fingers as the waves enveloped the boat on the ocean before being calmed and with a miraculous song of thanks giving being floated with whispered magic on the now calmest of seas. Rhythmic energy and recitativi with the pulsating Spanish throbbing of passionate cries in Alborada that only a French composer could truly describe .A technical mastery that could cope with Ravel’s insinuating double notes and triple glissandi as only few could do.And finally a calm and desolate landscape where bells are heard in the distance with sounds without beginning or ending only proving that as T.S. Eliot says in the beginning is our end as infinite sounds reverberate in the distance.
This was the landscape that Roman so nobly depicted in sound today and it was wonderful to meet his wife who is certainly his peer pianistically but had also discovered during the pandemic a talent to paint the sea in pastels as she and her husband were guests in Hastings where Roman had been winner and is now ambassador of their International Piano Competition.Rachmaninov’s beguiling early suite for piano duet op 11 was played by husband and wife with charm,style and not a little Russian nostalgia.And charm there was too in the little encore by Respighi apparently based on Christmas which had Tanya leaping down to the bass to have the last word over her husband.
A truly joyous occasion of wonderful music making ‘en famille’

  

Roman Kosyakov is a Russian pianist, Ambassador for the Hastings International Piano Concerto Competition . He is a laureate of many international competitions : most recently he won the Third Prize and The Bridget Doolan Prize for the best performance of a piece by Mozart of The 12th Dublin International Piano Competition (Ireland, 2022); First Prize, Orchestra Prize and an Audience Prize of the XV Campillos International Piano Competition (Spain, 2021); a s part of “Fitzroy Piano Quartet” Roman won the Royal Over-Seas League Annual Music Competition string ensembles section (UK, 2020 ); Second Prize of the UK Piano Open International Piano Competition (UK, 2020); First Prize and the Orchestra Prize of the 14th Hastings International Piano Concerto Competition (UK, 2018) .Roman’s performance career includes engagements in the most important venues and festivals across the UK, US and Europe such as Kings Place, St James Piccadilly, St Mary’s Perivale and Cadogan Hall in London, Sursa Performance Hall in Ball State University, Lemington Festival, Battle Festival, Furness Classical, North Norfolk Festival, West Meon Festival and European Chamber Academy Leipzig. In 2019 recorded a debut CD for “Naxos” with works by Liszt. 

Tanya Avchinnikova is a pianist and an award winning soft pastel artist. After graduating from Belorussian Academy of Music and The Royal Birmingham Conservatoire she started her artists career. Recently she received the Unison Colour young artist award 2022; Enduring Brilliance, NY – President’s Award, 2023 and the Pastel Society West Design Faber Castell Award , 2023.  Tanya is also a Member of Pastel Society UK and a Signature Artist of Pastel society of America.

Roman Kosyakov a Masterly light shining brightly at St Marys

Roman Kosyakov Hastings prize winners’ concert with the RPO at Cadogan Hall under Kevin John Edusei

“Miroirs” – Ravel dedicated each of these five piano pieces to a member of the Parisian artistic circle “Les Apaches”. Ravel also belonged to this circle of poets, painters and musicians, giving first performances of many of his works at gatherings of this illustrious group.
In “Miroirs” he went a step further than in “Jeux d’eau”. The music was to sound as if it came from a sketchbook. The bold harmony irritated his contemporaries at first but pointed the way ahead for Ravel’s subsequent works. Around 1900, Maurice Ravel joined a group of innovative young artists, poets, critics, and musicians referred to as Les Apaches or “hooligans”, a term coined by Ricardo Vines  to refer to his band of “artistic outcasts”.To pay tribute to his fellow artists, Ravel began composing Miroirs in 1904 and finished it the following year. It was first published in 1906 and first performed by ricardo Vines inn that year. The third and fourth movements were subsequently orchestrated by Ravel, while the fifth was orchestrated by Percy Grainger among others.

Noctuelles” (“Night Moths”) is dedicated to Léon – Paul Fargue and is a highly chromatic  work, maintaining a dark, nocturnal mood throughout. The middle section is calm with rich, chordal melodies, and the recapitulation takes place a fifth below the first entry.

Oiseaux tristes” (“Sad Birds”) is dedicated to Ricardo Vines this movement represents a lone bird whistling a sad tune, after which others join in. 

“Une barque sur l’océan” (in English “A Boat on the Ocean”). Is dedicated to Paul Sordes , the piece recounts a boat as it sails upon the waves of the ocean. Arpeggiated sections and sweeping melodies imitate the flow of ocean currents and is the longest piece of the set.”Alborada del gracioso” (Spanish: “The Jester’s Aubade / Morning Song of the Jester”) is dedicated to Michel-Dmitri Calvocoressi , Alborada is a technically challenging piece that incorporates Spanish musical themes into its complicated melodies.

La vallée des cloches” (“The Valley of Bells”) is dedicated to Maurice Delage and evokes the sounds of various bells  through its use of sonorous harmonies.

Composed in 1894, the Six Morceaux, op. 11 for piano four-hands is among the finer compositions of Rachmaninoff’s youthful period following his studies at the Moscow Conservatory. The opening Barcarolle in G minor is dark and mysterious, its gently rocking rhythms depicting a gondolier navigating the Venetian canals beneath a moonlit sky. The piece builds to a dazzling climax with rapid figurations atop the rich and powerful chords so typical of Rachmaninoff’s piano music. These same figurations return to close the piece in a much brighter mood than it began. The following Scherzo in D major is a sprightly and brilliant composition with a relentless rhythmic drive. There is no actual Trio section, but instead a coquettish secondary theme that momentarily hold the Scherzo’s impetuosity at bay.

Occupying the third position in the set is the Chanson Russe, a set of variations on an unknown folk song. The piece begins quietly but builds quickly into a majestic variation in which the theme is heard against a rushing counterpoint of sixteenth notes. From this climax, the music recedes through a quiet variation only to be roused again at the final cadence. Next, the Valse is reminiscent of Chopin in its amalgamation of different waltz tunes. However, the style is certainly that of Rachmaninoff and possesses a power that is at odds with both the graceful Viennese dance and the ruminations of Chopin. Yet, the Valse is not wholly without elegance.

Fifth in the set is the Romance. In C minor, it is a passionate piece with a particularly poignant principal theme that seems to anguish over some grief. Brief moments of light shine across the otherwise dismal canvas of the Romance, but never break the otherwise gloomy air. Lastly, Slava! (Glory) closes the set. A set of variations based on the Russian chant used by Mussorgsky in Boris Godunov, it provides the opus 11 with a majestic and towering conclusion.  The Six Morceaux are among the earliest of Rachmaninoff’s mature works. Rachmaninoff had graduated from the Moscow Conservatory in 1892, and-only two years later-had already made a reputation for himself as a pianist and as a composer. These little pieces reflect themes of yearning and display some of Rachmaninoff’s famous intricate passagework. The Morceaux are often considered as the forerunners of his later 13 Preludes, Op. 32, from 1910.   

If there is a neglected area of Italian music, it is piano music, and in particular that for four-hands .Ottorino Respighi was a member of Italian classical music’s ‘golden generation’ for whom the opera was not the be-all and end-all. Yes, he composed operas, twelve to be exact, but his fame firmly rests on his orchestral output, which included the interesting and well worth investigating Sinfonia Drammaticaas well as concertos. People usually know his music through his Roman Triptych but he also composed some very engaging works on a smaller scale, including string quartets, works for violin and piano and piano works, of which the Sonata in F minor is very good. He was also to arrange some of his orchestral music for piano four-hands.Six Pieces which are quite short and remarkable.

Respighi: Six little pieces for piano duet of which Roman and Tanya chose the fourth as an encore

• Romanze
• Sizilanisches Jagdlied
• Armenisches Lied
• Weihnacht, Weihnacht!
• Schottische Weise
• Die kleinen Hochländer

The six pieces open with a Romanza which would be quite at home played by a musical box; the spritely tinkering fingers produces a pleasant melody. There is a more boisterous Canto di caccia siciliano, which has the air of a Neapolitan song, followed by a Canzone armena which is more lilting. This is followed by a jolly Christmas tune which was played today as an encore : Natale, Natale! But it is the final two pieces of the set which come as the main surprise here. The Cantilena scozzese and the Piccoli highlanders offer the listener music of a distinct Scottish lilt, charming.

Sunset in Rome with the sumptuous sounds of Stravinsky from Francesco Bravi and Adriano Leonardo Scapicchi

An illustrious public including Beatrice Rana and Massimo Spada whose Rite of Spring was the last time I heard it played in public on one piano .It is fifty four years since the very first time in London at the South Bank Festival with Ashkenazy and Barenboim in 1968.( As Beatrice kindly pointed out her ‘mother’ would have been 4 years old then !) Alberto Portugheis adds:’And l turned pages 54 years ago for Vloda and Daniel at the QEH. I will never forget Danny’s confusion in rehearsal, with the repeated chords, because Vladimir counted them aloud in ………. Russian!’

Even Michele Suozzo of the historic Barcaccia -the opera buff’s delight on Radio Rai 3 – was here to check out these two young musician’s dance steps .

Such an overwhelming success that these musicians from the Avos Academy were persuaded to add Stravinsky’s Danse Russe and Ravel’s Habanera as encores.

Opening with Debussy ‘Après-midi d’un faune’ as the sun turned the sky red over the Eternal City and the magic was set for the supreme artistry of two pianists who play as one!

From the very first notes there was a clarity that was slightly helped by very discrete amplification but maintaining still a kaleidoscope of colours that matched those that were being formed over the Eternal City with the sun setting on such a balmy night as this.( Hugh Mather full of admiration for this duo ,who he has invited back to Perivale next season, tells me it is raining in London as always!).There were washes of sound out of which emerged the magic atmosphere that only Debussy could conjure ( “Les sons et les parfums tournent dans l’air du soir”,’Springs’ to mind).

But it was the ‘Rite of Spring’ that truly ignited the atmosphere already with the wistful seeming innocence of the ‘Adoration of the Earth’. Here,immersed in the luxuriant vegetation of the Botanical Gardens, at the foot of the Gianicolum Hill overlooking Rome,we found ourselves involved in a monumental drama every bit as terrifying as the one played out centuries ago in the Foro Romano below us.

A beautiful sense of balance on a magnificent piano that had been especially prepared by that technical magician Mauro Buccitti.

Bravi – Scapicchi at St Mary’s A Piano Duo playing with one mind and one heart with ravishing colour,refined brilliance and savagery.

I have already written about their performance but I was struck by the freshness of their interpretation today where they played as one.An artistry that allowed them to show us such a clear path through this meandering drama as it unfolded before our eyes. Linking up so beautifully with the etherial beauty of Debussy ,the peace was soon to be broken by the throbbing savagery as the ‘Dances of the Young Girls’ were performed with naked abandon.Radiant beauty and delicacy with the ‘Spring Rounds’ where Francesco’s endless trill seemed to signify the trembling expectancy of all that was to follow.Adriano’s beautifully simple melodic line was like the first rays of sunlight illuminating such an intense scene.

A relentless forward movement and technical mastery brought this first part to an extraordinary close.Interrupted only by the etherial beauty of the ‘Sacrifice’.I had never been aware of the ravishing beauty and subtle shading of Stravinsky’s mellifluous outpouring until today. It was soon interrupted by the ‘Glorification of the Chosen One’. The menace behind the notes in the ‘Ritual Action of the Ancestors’ sent a shiver down our spine as we were now all totally involved in this drama that these two young artists were unfolding before us with mastery and absolute conviction .The throbbing intensity from Adriano was played with terrifying ‘sang froid’ whilst Francesco shot rays of light of brilliance over the proceedings. A tour de force of mastery and artistry brought this Rite vividly to life with a clarity and sense of architectural line that rarely I have experienced before.

Above all I was left with the impression of how much beauty there was in Stravinsky’s soul.It was Nadia Boulanger who told me as I played his 1924 Sonata to her how much sentiment there was in Mr Stravinsky’s music .Fifty years later I realise how right she was!

An ovation from a large audience who had come to hear these two young pianists from the Avos Academy in the last in their series in collaboration with La Sapienza University of Rome.

Danse Russe and Ravel’s Habanera were offered to an audience not wanting to break this magic spell too soon.Ravel was full of the insinuating Spanish idioms that only a French composer could imagine and was played with ravishing colours and passionate intensity.Danse Russe ,one could almost see the ballet being performed before our very eyes.A tempo di ballo rather than of showmanship virtuosity which opened up a tone poem of scintillating vibrancy.

Roma 3 Orchestra -Young Artists Series streamed live from Teatro Palladium Rome

 

Rhapsody in Blue comes of age in Velletri with the centenary performance played by Jacopo Feresin and Francesco Grano.
Other anniversaries could not escape the genial eyes of Ing Giancarlo Tammaro whose passion and erudite musicianship have guided twelve seasons since the very first at Villa d’Este to celebrate Liszt’s bicentenary.These two pianist had given such masterly performances just two months ago of Beethoven and Rachmaninov that Ing Tammaro was only too pleased to invite them back for this extra concert to close his 12th season.

Jacopo Feresin and Franceso Grano two superb musicians united with mastery,intelligence and artistry.

Seasons based around an Erard piano similar to Liszt’s favourite instrument and now lovingly restored by its proud owner.
Jacopo Feresin chose to play a Brahms Rhapsody that just happened to be composed in the same year as this Erard piano.
An Erard piano that Gershwin would certainly not have known was matched with a modern day Pleyel as these two pianos took centre stage in a programme ranging from Bach to Kurtag. Culminating in the evergreen Blue of Gershwin’s Rhapsody where there is no business like show business .

It was the scintillating bravura of both players who had us rocking in the aisles and a little old lady in front of me was conducting with her hands unable to keep them still with such electricity being generated by these two virtuosi.
Virtuosi they certainly are but above all masterly musicians as they demonstrated throughout a long and varied programme.

Grieg played with delicacy and beauty and once one had got attuned to the mellow sound of the Erard one began to appreciate the beauty without percusiveness of these early instruments. ‘Morgenstemning’ – ‘ Morning Mood’ from Act IV of Ibsen’s Peer Gynt was beautifully stylish with subtle rubato and a kaleidoscope of colour where even the bird calls provided on the Pleyel by Francesco were wonderfully evocative of this pastoral landscape.’The Death of Aase’ was suitably sombre with chords of poignant portent from both pianists where the lack of a gripping inner energy was replaced with a subtle pastel colouring and perfect coordination with these slow moving chords.

Francesco Grano chose two aria’s from Bach Cantatas in transcriptions by Harold Bauer and Egon Petri. ‘Die Seele ruht in Jesu Handen’ from the Cantata BWV 127 was played with ravishing colour as the melodic line was whispered with heart rending simplicity. The gentle pulsating of it’s heart beat was richly enhanced by the mellifluous beauty of this Erard ,much praised by the Scottish pianist Harold Bauer ( see below) , where this beautiful instrument could offer a ravishing beauty to the counterpoints with their seemingly infinite meanderings into Paradise.

The famous Aria ‘Schafe konnen sicher weiden’ in this transcription from the Cantata BWV 208 by Egon Petri.He was a disciple of Busoni whose centenary had also been celebrated by Ivan Donchev just a month ago on this very stage.Busoni,of course,was famous for his transcriptions of Bach – his wife was once introduced at a party as Mrs Bach- Busoni! I had never thought that Egon Petri was Dutch of original until informed by Ing Tammaro reading his very informative programme brochure . However ‘Sheep may safely graze’ has been transcribed by many great pianists not least Percy Grainger who liked to call his transcriptions a ‘ramble’ which in this case is very apt.Petri’s transcription has the same pure magic as his master with it’s gentle pastoral beauty where the purity of the melodic line is allowed to sing gloriously embellished by such peace and well- being.

Jacopo Feresin chose to play the Brahms Rhapsody in G minor op 79 n. 2 written in the same year that this Erard was made ! A performance that was at once bold and free with orchestral colours and deep bass notes sustaining the nobility of all that was placed on it. Jacopo had a great sense of freedom which I have a feeling must stem from a research of historic performance practices with a license of freedom that was of an improvised creativity.

Francesco Grano returned into the circus arena with Liszt’s transcription of Bach’s Fantasy and Fugue in G minor for Organ BWV 542.Nothing improvised about this but a grandiose opening of great portent.A masterly control of sound and balance with the innocent appearance of the fugue growing out of the final mighty chord of the fantasy. There was absolute clarity and rhythmic drive to the fugue with a continuous build up of sound until the breathtaking entry of the bass exulting the glory of ‘God on High’. The temperature was rising though and maybe Francesco’s total commitment would have been better accommodated on a modern day Steinway instead of an Erard beginning to shake in terror at such overwhelming vehemence and passionate commitment. Nevertheless it was a masterly performance of a fervent believer.

It was complimented by the ravishing beauty and delicacy the Jacopo brought to another Liszt transcription,this time of Schumann. ‘Widmung’ was one of the songs that Schumann gave to his betrothed as a wedding gift and which Jacopo played with an intensity and beautiful sense of balance.Tenor and soprano duetting with the freedom and passionate intensity of two lovers entwined.Some beautifully spread chords where Jacopo understood that the strength in these pianos is to be found horizontally not vertically.

Both players had lain their artistic credentials before us and now fully warmed up and attuned to one another and these two instruments, they were free to really relish the bright lights of Broadway. Breathtaking virtuosity went side by side with subtle colouring and mischievous rubato. Francesco was Paul Whiteman and Jacopo was George Gershwin as they joined forces in a performance that Ing.Tammaro declared better than the orchestral version.It was certainly a performance that held the audience spellbound as Jacopo raced up and down the keyboard like a ‘kitten on the keys’ and Francesco provided the sumptuous sounds of a big band of radiance with rhythms of hypnotic driving intensity.

After such high jinks our two brilliant soloists played the Bach Choral ‘Gottes Zeit ist die allebeste Zeit ‘ Actus Tragicus in Kurtag’s beautiful transcription for four hands.Stillness, beauty and peace what better way to end such a feast of ‘rhapsodies’ between the old and new worlds.

“Anche la Rhapsody in Blue fu orchestrata dall’arrangiatore fisso dell’orchestra di Whiteman, Grofé, sulla base della versione per due pianoforti che Gershwin sfornò in meno di un mese. …”

(Gianfranco Vinay: “Gli anni di Gershwin” in ‘Musica e Dossier’n.8-ed. Giunti 1987)

Riprendiamo quest’anno la consuetudine del “supplemento” alla programmazione ordinaria de “Il suono di Liszt a Villa d’Este”, anche per recuperare un concerto annullato in precedenza e soprattutto con l’intento di celebrare il centenario di questa composizione di Gershwin, che per prima ha reso popolare la musica d’oltreoceano anche nell’ambiente della musica colta europea già poche settimane dopo il suo debutto il 12 febbraio 1924 a New York. Il programma ci conduce, in modo realmente “rapsodico”, attraverso brani di grandi autori europei quali Bach, Schumann, Brahms e Grieg – ma anche Liszt, in qualità di eccelso trascrittore – per approdare infine, nella seconda parte, in America con la Rhapsody in Blue. Questa verrà eseguita nella versione a due pianoforti, che molto probabilmente è quella scritta realmente di proprio pugno dall’autore in quel febbraio del 1924, come testimonia Gianfranco Vinay nella sua monografia dedicata a George Gershwin del 1987. Alle tastiere dei nostri due pianoforti  (Erard del 1879 e Pleyel del 1998) saranno Jacopo Feresin e Francesco Grano che in tale formazione hanno già partecipato a questa XII edizione lo scorso 28 aprile, offrendoci una magnifica interpretazione del Concerto n.4 di Beethoven e del Concerto n.1 di Rachmaninov.                                    

George Gershwin rappresenta un caso particolare nella storia della musica, tanto di quella popolare, canzoni per commedie musicali e film, quanto di quella colta, quella che definiamo comunemente “musica classica”. Autore ed esecutore (quasi esclusivamente di se stesso) di grandissimo successo durante la sua breve ed intensa vita, conquistò la popolarità proprio grazie alle canzoni ed alle commedie musicali, ma la sua passione per la musica afro-americana, blues e jazz in particolare, e la sua mai sopita aspirazione alla composizione colta, sinfonica e operistica sul grande modello europeo, sono quelle che gli hanno dato la massima notorietà internazionale ed una fama duratura.Nato da genitori entrambi russi solo quattro anni dopo il loro arrivo negli Stati Uniti – il suo vero nome era Jacob Gershovitz – ha però incarnato perfettamente il personaggio tipico dell’America emergente di quegli anni: l’uomo di successo che si è fatto da sé grazie ad un abile sfruttamento del proprio talento naturale. Il piccolo George cresce, come tutti i ragazzini di famiglie di modeste condizioni, nelle strade rumorose e cosmopolite di Brooklyn e di Manhattan, dove sicuramente non gli mancava l’occasione di ascoltare musica, e canti dal vivo: canti ebraici, canzoni irlandesi, francesi, napoletane, i canti afro-americani, le prime orchestrine jazz e soprattutto le prime composizioni di quelli che furono i suoi due idoli e modelli, prima che egli stesso li raggiungesse nel firmamento della canzone d’autore americana: Jerome Kern e Irving Berlin. A quell’epoca tra l’altro cominciavano a funzionare le prime macchine sonore a gettone e anche i primi rudimentali juke-box che utilizzavano addirittura i cilindri del fonografo di Edison, e quindi il piccolo George ebbe modo di formare l’orecchio a tutti questi diversi stimoli musicali. Da questo substrato di esperienze multiculturali e dal suo innato, formidabile talento musicale deriva il fenomeno Gershwin che attraversa, purtroppo veloce come una meteora, i due decenni tra gli anni ’20 e ’40 del ’900.Eppure malgrado l’incredibile successo nel campo della musica di consumo (e a quel tempo, con l’avvento del grammofono e poi della radio, già si poteva definire così) nella quale del resto egli aveva raggiunto un altissimo livello artistico, per quanto riguarda le sue aspirazioni più profonde – quelle di compositore colto e che per di più era riuscito a nobilitare nelle forme classiche un linguaggio musicale allora ritenuto popolare e di secondo ordine come il jazz – ebbe in vita più considerazione nella vecchia Europa che non in patria. Le sue tournée europee, a Londra nel ’24 e a Parigi, Londra e Vienna nel ’28, furono trionfali, ebbe l’amicizia e la stima di grandi compositori e interpreti come Ravel, Schönberg, Milhaud, Toscanini, e addirittura pochi giorni prima della morte, tanto che la notizia non gli giunse in tempo, era stato nominato ad honorem “accademico di S.Cecilia”, il che, per un autore quasi autodidatta e di ambiente angloamericano, nell’Italia autarchica del 1937 è un segno di stima che non ammette riserve.                                                 (Giancarlo Tammaro)

 

A parziale sostegno di una non trascurabile radice “lisztiana” nella musica di Gershwin, che quindi la rende naturalmente pertinente in una rassegna intitolata a Liszt, riportiamo un paio di interessanti citazioni ricavate dal libro di Stuart Isacoff: “Storia naturale del pianoforte (lo strumento, la musica, i musicisti: da Mozart al Jazz e oltre)” pubblicato per l’edizione italiana nel 2012 da EDT- Torino : 

 

«Gershwin si trasformò in una spugna musicale, assorbendo il modernismo francese di Debussy e Ravel, il virtuosismo romantico di Franz Liszt, gli esperimenti atonali di Alban Berg e tutta una serie di popolari stili pianistici, tra cui quello tipico dei dimostratori (che impiegò nel suo primo lavoro, quello di venditore di spartiti), lo stile novelty (quello di pezzi ‘torci-dita’ come Kitten on the keysdi Zez Confrey) e lo swing di Harlem  …»

 

«Le ‘rapsodie’ musicali sono opere che sembrano risultare dall’assemblaggio e dalla cucitura di frammenti musicali e idee diverse; questa, in particolare, [la ‘Rhapsody in blue’- n.d.r.] era un pot-pourri che conteneva saggi di tutto quanto Gershwin aveva imparato. Una sezione, spiegò, era stata innescata da un viaggio in treno “con i suoi ritmi d’acciaio, il suo rumoroso sferragliare”. Altre si compiacevano di temi d’amore di sapore lisztiano, oppure alludevano a ribalde danze ebraiche di origine europea. La scrittura del pianoforte univa figurazioni virtuosistiche ispirate a Liszt e Confrey e un bouquet di melodie ispirate ai lamenti del blues, … »

Rhapsody in Blue was written in 1924 for solo piano and jazz band, which combines elements of classical with jazz influenced effects. Commissioned by bandleader Paul Whiteman , the work premiered in a concert titled “An Experiment in Modern Music” on February 12, 1924, in Aeolian Hall ,New York City.Whiteman’s band performed the rhapsody with Gershwin playing the piano.Whiteman’s arranger Ferde Grofé orchestrated the rhapsody several times including the 1924 original.

With only five weeks remaining until the premiere, Gershwin hurriedly set about composing the work.He later claimed that, while on a train journey to Boston ,the thematic seeds for Rhapsody in Blue began to germinate in his mind.

It was on the train, with its steely rhythms, its rattle-ty bang, that is so often so stimulating to a composer…. I frequently hear music in the very heart of the noise. And there I suddenly heard—and even saw on paper—the complete construction of the rhapsody, from beginning to end. No new themes came to me, but I worked on the thematic material already in my mind and tried to conceive the composition as a whole. I heard it as a sort of musical kaleidoscope of America, of our vast melting pot of our unduplicated national pep, of our metropolitan madness. By the time I reached Boston I had a definite plot of the piece, as distinguished from its actual substance.^’

Unable to be present at the Royal College for the live performance I was glad that Pedro had anticipated his performances a few days before in a private try out performance in my home.Beautiful playing from a great artist and the one or two comments that I could not make before such an important event I am glad to add now afterwards from far off Italy . All best wishes to this young artist on the crest of a wave

Mozart Sonata K.330 of refined good taste and delicate tone palette .A way of using his musically informed embellishments to enhance the grace and style of Mozart’s perfection without disturbing the simple beauty of aristocratic poise and elegance. The ornaments of the opening were enticing and beguiling whereas that of the last movement left me a little perplexed .Not the grace and beguiling charm of the movement,though, that was always full of the operatic characters that are so much part of Mozart’s world. A slow movement of refined beauty where his extraordinary sensitivity to sound for me would have been enough as the modern piano can sing in a way that Mozart’s keyboard instruments could not if not helped by improvised embellishments to add colour and emotion where touch was not yet an option. Of course it is always the human voice that is uppermost in Mozart’s mind as it is in Pedro’s and his extraordinary way of allowing the music to speak shows a musician who actually listens to himself and as I often quote Cherkassky :’je sens ,je joue ,je trasmets’. Here it could not have been more poignantly described – to ornament or not is a debatable matter but to allow the music to sing is not!

There was a searing red hot intensity to the De Falla ‘Fantasia Baetica’ with an extraordinary sense of line and architectural shape in a work that the dedicatee Artur Rubinstein complained was too long – it certainly did not seem like that in Pedro’s hands today! There was a brooding undercurrent of animal drive and in the melodic episodes a smoky decadence as they were played with a kaleidoscope of colours with mysterious passionate desires always just under the surface about to erupt. Glissandi that were mere streams of sounds like a masculine stroke of the guitar with passionate indifference. Wonderfully soulful recitativi doubled at the octave as they wailed and cried with animal longing. A pounding insistence always of a cauldron of burning emotions that was exactly a portrait of De Falla’s friend Rubinstein who actually complained that he found the work too long- perhaps he meant too lifelike!

The Chopin Sonata op 35 in B flat minor received a masterly performance but strangely the first movement seemed rather sectionalised and not the same architectural shape of searing intensity that he brought to the other three movements. An introduction that seemed rather too slow and divorced from what follows. A doppio movimento that was rather hurried instead of an internal intensity. A second subject of sublime beauty but did not seem to grow out of the organic material of this masterly constructed work.The development suddenly found all the pieces coming together with extraordinary musicianship and poignancy as the opening introduction suddenly appeared in the bass with menacing insistence. Pedro’s playing of the coda showed a masterly control with his mature passion not allowing Chopin’s accelerando indication to seemed hurried or matter of fact but on the contrary of aristocratic nobility allowing him to place the final chord with breathtaking courage.The Scherzo was played with passion and control with the ravishing beauty of the central episode played with beguiling shape and a style of great elasticity and sensitivity without disturbing it’s pulse or poignant beauty.There was a remarkable architectural shape – that had been missing in the first movement- without ever losing the passion and poignancy of this remarkable movement. Even the final two strokes in the bass over a long held chord were strokes of genius and played as such with great maturity and authority.There was an infectious rhythmic lilt to the bass of the Funeral March as the melodic line unfolded with nobility and measured beauty all of a line even at it’s most passionate with left hand trills a mere vibration of pent up emotion.There was sublime whispered beauty to the Trio played with a true bel canto and an innate flexibility almost at the limit of it’s natural emotional expanse.On the edge of our seats as we were drawn into the magic this poet was whispering in our ears and occasionally underlining such sublime beauty with jewels that glittered in the left hand as the light from his magic prism just shone so unexpectedly with these breathtaking glimpses of a paradise found. The last movement were just washes of sound – wailing indeed and it was with a stream of agitated sounds rising and falling almost imperceptibly until suddenly on the horizon a deep pulsating line could be felt throbbing in it’s midst in this wailing cauldron of obsessive insistence . A transcendental control and poetic sensibility were united as they were brought to a close with nobility and aristocratic authority.This was undoubtedly one of the finest performances I have ever heard of Chopin’s greatest masterpiece.

Pedro Lopez Salas at the National Liberal Club with aristocratic style and artistry

What a marvel this streaming is ! I was not expecting to be invited into such an intimate atmosphere where there was just a magnificent pianist playing Chopin’s piano ( an Erard of 1838 ) in the house where Chopin was born. An ideal situation for a historic instrument , which is lost when brought into the modern day concert hall, but in this intimate atmosphere becomes the very voice of Chopin. Sounds that he would have known and loved as he pioneered a completely new way of using a keyboard instrument with a pedals .It was Anton Rubinstein who had said that the pedals were the soul of the piano and it was the genius of Chopin who could create such a revolutionary new world on the evolving keyboard instruments of his time.Schumann was the first to notice when an eighteen year old pole presented himself in Paris with his own composition op 2 :”Hats off Gentlemen,a Genius !”.

I have heard Martin play before in Cremona when he was invited to give an equally short recital in the Fazioli Concert Hall that transfers to Cremona for three days every year.Very fine performances of Chopin there too,including the Chopin 3rd Sonata op 58, but I was not prepared for what I was to hear today as I watched and listened to this live stream and realised that we were in the presence a great interpreter.

Cremona the city of dreams – a global network where dreams become reality

A director of photography too with a rather more refined fantasy than Walt Disney who chose just the right moments to give us glimpses of the marvels that surrounded Chopin in his youth and which was to torment him all his short life exiled from such simplicity and beauty.

Martin looking ever more like his mentor Jerome Rose who I had heard in London when I was a schoolboy .Jerome was winner of the Busoni Competition in Bolzano and invited to play the Tchaikowsky Concerto in the Sunday evenings dedicated by Victor Hochauser to the violin and piano concerti and Romeo and Juliet overture. It would invariably finish with the 1812 overture with the canon effects reverberating around the vast space of the Royal Albert Hall .Little could I have imagined that I would invite Jerome to play in my own Euromusica concert season in Rome in 2002 and invite him to dine with us at home with my Italian actress wife Ileana Ghione.I still remember his performance of the great A major Sonata by Schubert ,and the reason I mention it is because of the same limpet type fingers that I saw today from the superb close ups on Martin’s hands.

Martin’s performances were with just the shadow of Chopin looking on ( and of course the recording crew one of whom gallantly applauded at the end) .This was a pianist creating,in such intimacy, the same magic that Chopin himself would have created in the noble salons he was to frequent as a teenager in Paris.But today it was just a piano that Chopin would have known ( I do not know if it had actually belonged to Chopin) and a pianist who allowed himself to be totally immersed in the music without any care of personal appearances with grimacing, grunting and singing alla Glenn Gould. It was we that were trespassing on such intimate confessions – if only Chopin had had the same technology as today ! Here taking away the pressure of performance before an audience we were treated to performances of some of the greatest masterworks of Chopin that were some of the finest I have ever heard.A total dedication to the music with an aristocratic sense of style and taste that did not preclude a hypnotic personal interpretation of overwhelming authority and beauty.

The Polonaise op 44 opened this short concert and immediately we were immersed into a sound world with a very particular soul, like looking at a Daguerreotype photo ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daguerreotype) of which just one famously was taken of Chopin.But there was nothing dated or brown around the edges about this performance as it was very expressive and beautifully rhapsodic with restrained passion. Martin’s limpet like fingers could make the octaves sing with such beauty of legato and shape with a supreme sense of style.He brought an extraordinary architectural shape to the central transition dissolving so naturally into the beautiful central Mazurka.The final eruptions that lead back into the polonaise were like thunderbolts played with fearless abandon .The final coda I always have Stefan Askenase in my mind but today there was the same nobility and delicacy but also an extraordinary clarity .This was the performance of a true artist who had seen this work as a great tone poem and had lived every moment of it with mastery and poetic vision.

The Barcarolle is one of the greatest of works for the piano where there is a continual outpouring of mellifluous beauty reaching heights of the sublime. There was a beautiful fluidity from the very first notes and it is hardly surprising that the director of photography discreetly showed us the brook that bubbles through Chopin’s garden.There was even a frog looking on with such marvels in his eyes with leaves being reflected in the water.Nothing could deflect from the refined beauty and poetry of the playing though.The overhead camera allowed us to appreciated the delicate continuous circular movement of his left hand as the barcarolle continued on it’s way with ravishing beauty.Sublime heights were reached with Chopin’s indication ‘dolce sfogato’ revealed with playing of rare sensitivy in a passage that Perlemuter would exclaim ‘we have arrived in heaven’. Martin picking up the tempo towards the end that gave great shape of joy and exultation and a point of arrival from which he could dissolve as the music gradually disintegrates with veiled beauty before our astonished eyes.

Four Preludes from op 28 were played with such beguiling mastery that I look forward in the future to hearing all 24 from such a master.

Op 28 n. 13 is one of the most beautiful of this box of jewels and it was the left hand that was played unusually expressively revealing the ravishing beauty of the melody that sits above this weaving wave of notes.

Op 28 n. 3 was a wash of sounds flooding the melodic line that was played with simplicity and clarity.

Digging deep into the sombre bass notes of n. 2 with the imperious melody played with just one finger projecting sounds of aristocratic, chiselled nobility.

There was a dark brooding to n. 14 which prepared us for the extraordinary last movement of the sonata that was to follow.

A masterly performance of the B flat minor Sonata op 35 which must truly be one of the greatest masterpieces of all time.Aristocratic nobility and clarity were mixed with luminosity and poetic mastery. A scrupulous attention to Chopin’s very precise markings had me scurrying to the score too see if the two chords before the second subject were indeed staccato! Adding the much debated repeat by going back to the ‘Grave’ introduction and not just the ‘Doppio movimento’ as tradition has dictated ,showed a true thinking musician at the service of the composer.A beautifully artistic scherzo ,not the usual rhythmic exercise but shaped with the same wonderful sound that was to pervade the whole of this recital.The ‘più lento’ I never thought I would hear as beautifully played as I remember from Rubinstein – today in Martin’s hands I was reminded of the sentiment without sentimentality of Rubinstein as was the frog linked in the same frame as the pianist in this live stream by a director of photography equally blessed by the Gods today. There was a gentle but relentless throbbing to the funeral march with the poignancy of the melodic line floated above it as it preceded with heart rending inevitability.I had never noticed the deep bass just before the entry of the Trio until today and again went scurrying to the score as I usually only do with artists of the calibre of Murray Perahia who like Martin really look deeply into the score to find the real meaning of the composer ,transmitting it with humility,intelligence and poetic sensibility.The last movement was exactly as it has been described as the wind wailing over the graves.No pointing of melody but again scrupulous attention to Chopin’s wishes.

The sound of a single soul clapping at the end of such marvels seemed rather hollow but by some miracle these performances were recorded and will go down in history side by side with the greatest interpreters of the Genius of Chopin

Party time in Perivale but not before two very serious interpretations of Beethoven’s ‘Waldstein’ and ‘Appassionata’ Sonatas.
Playing from both pianists of great integrity where Beethoven’s precise indications were scrupulously noted .Daria with impeccable playing of intelligence and clarity , a luminosity of sound and no rearranging of Beethoven’s irascible cascades of notes also following his pedal indications with impeccable musicianship and technical prowess.
Florian too with his limpet like fingers that seem to belong to the keys and with his personal vision of the more pastoral ‘Waldstein’ compared to the ‘Appassionata’s’ ‘ river of energy and anger’ . Equally scrupulous in their respect for Beethoven and both with a technical mastery that allowed them to interpret the composers precise indications without being tainted by tradition.It was this scrupulous attention to detail that brought a ravishing sense of colour and animal excitement to their interpretation of Ravel’s early Spanish Rhapsody.

Daria beginning with the ‘Appassionata’ that Florian thought was a more suitable start being ‘ a river of energy and anger’ before his image of a more pastoral ‘Waldstein’.I think too it was the impeccable gentleman who wanted to allow his colleague to play for the first time on a stage that he knows already well. It was a performance of great intelligence and integrity with the opening kept tightly under control, the trills with spring like precision and the rests scrupulously observed.There was menace too in the four note motive that is to pervade much of Beethoven’s work in this period ,played with great precision.As was the opening cascade of notes that she played as written by Beethoven with one continual movement (many ‘pianists’ rearrange the distribution between the hands like in op 111 to avoid any risk ) where she was not afraid to accept the challenge of the composer from the very first notes.There was also a luminosity of sound and rhythmic drive behind the notes allied to absolute precision and clarity.Some beautiful shading in the mellifluous second subject before the explosion of the irascible Beethoven of this period. No nicely pointed top notes on these outbursts but just torrents of notes played with dynamic rhythmic drive.A coda that almost came unstuck but was called immediately to arms with the ‘sang froid’ of a great professional keeping the tempo right to its final resting place with a relentless forward movement.Some beautiful playing in the ‘Andante con moto’ that has been likened to a funeral procession such is its sombre string quartet quality.Here we missed the limpet fingers of her colleague who would have delved much deeper into the keys than Daria who slightly missed the solidity of one of the themes that Beethoven uses in many of his sonatas as a basis for a series of variations (Op.109 and 111) .The variations unwound beautifully from Daria’s sensitive fingers taking us to Beethoven’s alarm call before the perpetuum mobile of the ‘Allegro ma non troppo’.Here one could really perceive Florian’s description of ‘a flood of energy and anger’ and Daria played with impeccable precision and style with a coda of breathtaking dynamic drive.

Florian perceives the ‘Waldstein’ as more pastoral but it actually fits Delius’s flippant description of Beethoven as being all scales and arpeggios ( Bach he also dismissed as knotty twine!).Florian is a stylist with his limpet like fingers that seem to belong to the keys.A perfect tempo was set that allowed the second subject to be part of an architectural whole and was played with impeccable musicianship but sometimes turning corners too beautifully for Beethoven in this sonata where he leaves lots of ragged edges on purpose.There was a beautiful depth of sound to the ‘Adagio molto’ which Beethoven describes as an ‘introduzione’ as the original slow movement he discarded ( later published as the Andante Favori) .Beethoven obviously wanted the second and third movements to be joined in an atmosphere of pastoral simplicity but Florian in my opinion chose a tempo in six instead of two which divorced the two elements one from the other instead of linking them.Beautifully played with real feeling but surely the staccato is more portamento especially at the tempo he chose.However it lead beautifully into the Rondo even if the final ‘g’ sounded like a call to arms instead of a gentle link to the same note that floats on a sea of undulating sounds at the beginning of the Rondo. Beauty, dynamic control and technical mastery united in a movement that is really a great technical trial for pianists.Following Beethoven’s instructions with impeccable musicianship and style he even managed to play the treacherous glissandi on a modern piano .It is no mean feat on a piano with a weight that Beethoven’s pianos would not have had.(Serkin used to lick his fingers before attempting the glissandi others tend to slow the pace to be able to play the octave glissandi surreptitiously with two hands).Perfectly placed trills were played with great clarity and brought this very stylish performance to a brilliant end.

I could not help thinking what perfection there would be if Daria shared her impeccable precision with Florian and he shared his supreme stylism with her.

My wish was granted ,or course,as they joined forces for a performance of Ravel for four hands at one piano.Florian in the bass with the pedals and Daria in the treble leading the way.Their combined mastery and complimentary musicianship gave a performance of dynamic drive especially in the final exhilarating pages of the ‘Feria’.But there was also great beauty as in the ‘Habanera ‘ that Ravel was very wary to point out was written long before other of his French colleagues had strayed into the Spanish territory.

Winner of the Best Young Artist of the Year Award at the 2019 Cincinnati Art of the Piano International Festival, Pianist Daria Tudor debuted at the age of 9 with the Romanian Radio Chamber Orchestra. She rapidly went from being a child prodigy, appearing in concert halls across her native Romania, to performing in programmes of institutions such as the Berliner Philharmoniker and Deustchlandfunk Kultur, in international festivals including the Mozartfest in Würzburg and the Encuentro de Musica in Santander, and as soloist with orchestras in Belgium and Italy. She has partnered Patricia Kopantschinskaja, Andrei Ioni?a, and Zakhar Bron, and her concerts portfolio stretches from the Werner Hall, USA and St Martin-in-the-fields, London, to Akishino Hall – Kyoto. Currently a scholarship student at the UdK in Berlin, Daria has been recommended by eminent pianist Elisabeth Leonskaja and has studied with Maria João Pires at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel, Belgium. 

Described by Martha Argerich as ‘an outstanding young pianist’, British-Romanian pianist Florian Mitrea was a double-laureate at the Glasgow, Hamamatsu, and Munich-ARD International Piano Competitions. He won the piano section of the Royal Overseas League Music Competition and was a major prize winner at the Harbin – China, St Priest, and James Mottram-Manchester International Piano Competitions. His prize at the 2018 New York International Piano Festival led to his debut performance at Carnegie Hall. Florian has performed as a soloist with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the Philharmonia in London, Elbland Philharmonie in Dresden, Collegium Musicum in Basel, the Romanian National Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the George Enescu Philharmonic. A recitalist and concerto soloist at festivals such as Lucerne and Enescu – Bucharest, Florian has also performed at the Bozar Centre in Brussels, the Bunka Kaikan Hall in Tokyo and the Sonic Concert Hall in Oomiya City, the Seoul Arts Centre, the Harbin Concert Hall, and in the UK at the Usher Hall – Edinburgh, Royal Concert Hall – Glasgow, Bridgewater Hall – Manchester, King’s Place and St Martin in the Fields in London.

Florian Mitrea – born free at St Mary’s

Piano Sonata No. 21 in C major Op. 53, known as the Waldstein, is one of the three most notable sonatas of Beethoven’s middle period ( the other two being the Appassionata op 57 and Les Adieux op 81) Completed in summer 1804 and surpassing Beethoven’s previous piano sonatas in its scope, the Waldstein is a key early work of Beethoven’s “Heroic” decade (1803–1812) and set a standard for piano composition in the grand manner.

The sonata’s name derives from Beethoven’s dedication to his close friend and patron Count Ferdinand Ernst Gabriel von Waldstein member of Bohemian  noble Waldstein family (Valdštejn) and is the only work that Beethoven dedicated to him.It is also known as L’Aurora (The Dawn) in Italian, for the sonority of the opening chords of the third movement, thought to conjure an image of daybreak.

Piano Sonata No. 23 in F minor, op.57 Appassionata,was composed during 1804 and 1805, and perhaps 1806, and was dedicated to Count Franz von Brunswick.

Appassionata was not named during the composer’s lifetime, but was labelled in 1838 by the publisher of a four =- hand arrangement of the work. Instead, Beethoven’s autograph manuscript of the sonata has “La Pasionata” written on the cover, in Beethoven’s hand.

One of his greatest and most technically challenging sonatas , the Appassionata was considered by Beethoven to be his most tempestuous piano sonata until the 29th known as the Hammerklavier op 106 .1803 was the year Beethoven came to grips with the irreversibility of his progressive hearing loss.

Composed between 1907 and 1908, the Rapsodie is one of Ravel’s first major works for orchestra. It was first performed in Paris in 1908 and quickly entered the international repertoire. The piece draws on the composer’s Spanish heritage and is one of several of his works set in or reflecting Spain.The genesis of the Rapsodie was a Habanera, for two pianos, which Ravel wrote in 1895. It was not published as a separate piece, and in 1907 he composed three companion pieces. A two-piano version was completed by October of that year, and the suite was fully orchestrated the following February.At about this time there was a distinctly Spanish tone to Ravel’s output, perhaps reflecting his own Spanish ancestry.To counter any accusations of plagiarism, Ravel made certain that the date 1895 was clearly printed for his Habanera in the published score of the Rapsodie.

The Rapsodie has four movements; Prélude à la nuit ;Malagueña ;Habanera;Feria

Wonderful to able to appreciate from afar the beautiful artistry of Mengyang Pan .The elegance of a ballet dancer and the intelligence and artistry of the finest of musicians.I had noticed Mengyang some years ago in the Monza Competition in 2008 where she was a top prize winner and I still have her very fine Emperor Concerto recorded at the final.I have since heard Mengyang many times and it is refreshing to know that she is a now a Professor at the Royal College of Music in London able to share her exquisite artistry with the next generation .An extraordinary elegance and flexibility in all that she does with her arms like great bird ready to pounce on the keys with refined delicacy and ravishing beauty.

From the opening Prélude that she played with such nobility but with a fluidity and elegance that gave it a kaleidoscopic sense of colour and a beautiful sense of timelessness.

The Menuet had a subtle and beguiling sense of rhythm and was deliciously capricious but flowering into a glorious melodic outpourings like a cloud opening as radiant sunlight is let in.It was played with ever more passionate intensity and dying away to a whisper of crystalline clarity and purity with an impish glissando and a final delicate pizzicato.

Claire de lune was where beauty and simplicity combined to bring fresh life to such a well known work.The gently whispered chords with top notes that gleamed like silver were sustained by deep bass notes placed with aristocratic timing. ‘ Un poco mosso’ was beautifully fluid like a breeze gently blowing in this magical atmosphere enveloped by a warm sumptuous harmonic glow from within.The final whispered chord that traversed the entire keyboard was played with refined timing of great artistry.

Gentle refreshing elegance to the Passepied where glimpses of beauty are seen as the gentle patter of the bass is momentarily stilled.

The five pieces that make up Albeniz’ s Cantos de Espana op 232 were played with driving rhythms and seductive plaintive cries of passionate intensity .The Preludia started with a whispered drive of clockwork precision and delicacy as the excitement gradually mounted.A cry of disarming simplicity interrupted this flow with the plaintive beauty of beseeching cries of a melody doubled at the octave .

A sense of freedom in Oriental as she discovered such beauty behind every corner of this unmistakeable Spanish landscape with a rubato of hypnotic persuasion.

An insinuation melodic outpouring in Bajo la palmera and deep mediation of Cordoba was followed by the frenzied dance of Seguidillas breaking into the glorious passionate melodic outpourings of this torrid landscape .

The three works by Liszt were quite remarkable not only for their technical mastery but above all for the architectural shape and refined brilliance she brought to this much maligned composer.Liszt restored to its greatness where empty virtuosity and note spinning of the so called Liszt tradition were substituted for real musicianship and scrupulous attention to the detail that the genius Liszt had left for posterity.

‘Funerailles’ that became the great tone poem of a pianistic genius.The nobility that she brought to the opening was quite extraordinary as the deep bass funeral march was barely whispered until it was gradually passed to the treble almost unnoticed.Such was the refined delicacy from Mengyang that one hardly noticed that the tension was increasing as the sumptuous sounds became richer and richer.The entry of the cavalry was first seen from a distance on which one could hear so clearly the bugle call and as the cavalry gradually increased in numbers the tension rose and the single notes in the left hand imperceptibly became octaves of richness and power.The overwhelming declamation of the little opening bass melody lead to a climax of symphonic proportions and extraordinary technical power and control.The gentle rumour of the retreating cavalry was played with heart rending artistry as it brought this great tone poem to a sumptuous end.

Liebestod was played with a refined sense of colour and a dynamic drive that allowed the music to unfold with passionate intensity but with an architectural sense that gave great shape to this great outpouring of love.

The Rigoletto Paraphrase was played with refined elegance and extraordinary technical mastery that allowed her to bring these operatic characters vividly to life.I have not heard such refined artistry since Cherkassky who shape these paraphrases with such sumptuous beauty and mastery. Mengyang too has a sense of balance that whatever she does there is always the ravishing beauty of sound even when streams of notes are like rays of gold and silver over the sumptuous beauty of the tenor melodic line.Repeated octaves that were mere vibrations of sound of exhilarating excitements and beauty .

An extraordinary recital from an artist where the beauty of what she does on the keyboard is shadowed by the elegance and beauty of the movements as she hovers above the keyboard.Ready to convince us that this is not just a box of hammers and strings but a Pandora’s box full of jewels that only a supreme illusionist can find.It is called great artistry.

Mengyang Pan at St Mary’s Beauty and control – passionate intensity and intelligence

Mengyang Pan at Cranleigh Arts Centre Beethoven birthday concert

Kerry Waller at St Mary’s Perivale with an eclectic programme that was played with simplicity and intelligence .
Three preludes by Respighi played with crystal clarity, purity and the grace and ease that he brought to all he did .Mozart was beautifully shaped with simple elegance and brilliance and well oiled fingers that shaped all they touched with eloquent musicianship.If the Liszt Ballade lacked a great architectural shape it gained from being played with such clarity and beauty A fearless technical mastery as the tempest of Hero and Leander played itself out in Liszt’s great tone poem of such a sad tale.Bacewicz I have only once heard before and it is a work as Kerry said touched by the period of war with desolation ,isolation and dynamic drive.

A charming little pieces by Poulenc were played as an encore :Villageoises – six petites pièces enfantines :Valse tyrolienne,Staccato,Rustique,Polka,Petite ronde Coda and dedicated to Jean Giradoux and they showed off his simple innocence and clarity and yet again the eclectic choices of this remarkably inquisitive musician .

Kerry Waller began his piano studies at the age of five under Wolfram Linnebach. He later pursued his studies under Jacques Després at the University of Alberta, Paul Stewart at the University of Montreal and Katya Apekisheva and Ronan O’Hora at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Summer programmes attended include Encuentro de Santander, Meadowmount School of Music and the International Summer Academy of the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. He has played in masterclasses with Piers Lane, Victor Rosenbaum, Boris Berman, Idil Biret, Claudio Mehner-Martinez, Dennis Lee, Ann Schein, Christiane Karajeva, David Jalbert and Eric Larsen, among others. 

Kerry has performed concertos with the University of Alberta Symphony Orchestra, Montreal Sinfonia and Quebec Symphony Orchestra and has worked with conductors such as Petar Dundjerski, Louis Lavigueur, Gilles Auger, Simon Wills and Michael Tilson Thomas. Kerry has collaborated with the cellist Ivan Monighetti and the horn player Richard Watkins and recent engagements include recitals in the London Symphony Orchestra lunchtime recital series, the Blüthner recital series, the London City Music Society concert series, the Sarah Walker Festival and the Guildhall Chamber Festival.

Her father, Wincenty Bacewicz, gave Grażyna her first piano and violin lessons.In 1928 she began studying at the Warsaw Conservatory where she studied violin with Józef Jarzębski and piano with Josef Turczynski, and composition with Kazimierz Sikorski graduating in 1932 as a violinist and composer.She continued her education in Paris having been granted a stipend by Paderewski  to attend the Ecole Normale de Musique and studied there in 1932–33 with Nadia Boulanger  (composition) and André Touret (violin). She returned briefly to Poland to teach in Łódź, but returned to Paris in 1934 in order to study with the Hungarian violinist Carl Flesch After completing her studies, Bacewicz took part in numerous events as a soloist, composer, and jury member. From 1936 to 1938 she was the principal violinist of the Polish Radio Orchestra, which was directed then by Grzegorz Fitelberg .This position gave her the chance to hear much of her own music. During World War 11,Grażyna Bacewicz lived in Warsaw .She continued to compose and gave secret underground concerts, where she premiered her Suite for Two Violins.Bacewicz also dedicated time to family life. She was married in 1936, and in 1942 gave birth to a daughter, Alina Biernacka who became a recognized painter.Following the Warsaw uprising they escaped the destroyed city and temporarily settled in Lublin.After the war, she took up the position of professor at the State Conservatoire of Music in Łódź . At this time she was shifting her musical activity towards composition, drawn by her many awards and commissions. Composition finally became her only occupation from 1954, the year in which she suffered serious injuries in a car accident.She died of a heart attack in 1969 in Warsaw.

Grażyna Bacewicz (1909-1969) is one of the most significant composers of the mid-20th century, and yet her music remains largely unknown. In the period be- tween the two world wars, she studied in Paris with Nadia Boulanger, like so many American, British, and Polish composers, but during her lifetime her reputation rarely translated itself into frequent performances outside her native Poland. Bacewicz had a distinctive creative personality and an intuitive approach to form that rewards close study. Her experience as an orchestral leader and concert violinist informed and enriched the string writing in the string quartets, violin concerts and sonatas which have received some attention on record. However, distinguished pianists such as Krystian Zimerman have recently begun to make a persuasive case for Bacewicz’s piano writing, which may be appreciated at its freest and most demanding in the Second Piano Sonata.

Bacewicz declared that she did not see herself as an innovator but as a progressive composer: ‘Each work completed today becomes the past yesterday.’ Her two sets of etudes tackle different techniques of pianism within clear, often ternary forms, but the imaginative ideas within them hint at her larger works in a similar way to the etudes and mazurkas of her compatriots Chopin and Szymanowski, highlighting her seemingly endless capacity for reinvention.Grażyna Bacewicz (1909-1969) was one of the foremost and influential Polish composers of the 20th century. Her multi-faceted talent forged a path for female composers in a predominantly male and conservative musical era and climate. After studying in Warsaw she went to Paris to study composition with Nadia Boulanger and violin with Carl Flesch. She became a successful soloist, concertmaster of the Polish Radio Orchestra and, after WWII, a teacher at Łódź Conservatory.

Tre Preludi sopra Melodie Gregoriane, a masterwork of Respighi’s small catalogue of solo piano music and Italy’s piano literature in general, should be appreciated here not only as a most appropriate “filler” but also as the composer’s first homage to his beloved Gregorian modes. Respighi owed his acquaintance with Gregorian chant to his wife and former pupil Elsa, holder of a degree in Gregorian chant and a gifted singer and composer in her own right. During their honeymoon in the hills of Anacapri, Elsa would sing daily as her wedding gift to Respighi the themes of the Graduale Romanum. Under this spell Respighi became more and more enamoured of the ancient melodies, and he composed the Tre Preludi. They were apparently written in 1919, thought the manuscript bears the final date of 1921 along with an unexpected dedication to Alfredo Casella.

The first prelude in G-sharp minor is a nocturnal piece with passionate, hymn-like crescendos. Its motif reappears metamorphosed as a bass figuration in the second prelude, a tempestuous piece in C-sharp minor with a short, visionary episode of cadenza-like character. The final F-sharp minor prelude in 5/4 meter is a lament over a bell-like ostinato accompaniment. Descending arpeggios in the bass create an effect perhaps more evocative of an Oriental caravan than of a sacral procession.

Later Respighi made rare exception to his notorious refusal to rework his earlier compositions, and he followed Elsa’s suggestion to orchestrate the pieces. With the addition of a fourth movement, they became his Vetrate di Chiesa. The origin as absolute music of the four “symphonic impressions” of 1927 is generally ignored, and it would be out of place here to quote the aptly conceived titles and programmatic texts which were inscribed on the score. Since gramophone recordings of Vetrate have long been available, the Respighi connoisseur may not find it easy to forget the descriptions and the luxuriant orchestral sound when discovering the original.