ChristopherAxworthy-MusicCommentary

PIANO

Mozart

Adagio in B Minor, K 540

Schubert

Piano Sonata in B-flat, D 960

Molto moderato – Andante sostenuto – Scherzo : Allegro vivace con delicatezza – Trio – Allegro ma non troppo

Kyle Hutchings at St John’s Smith Square with just two works both born of tragedy :The Mozart B minor Adagio written as a moment of respite from Don Giovanni having just heard of the death of his estranged father .And Schubert’s last Sonata written only months before the composers untimely death when a final outpouring of masterpieces were his way of preparing for his imminent last journey.
From the very first note it was clear that we were in for a journey from the hands of a true poet .

A timeless beauty where the music was not projected but was played with a whispered concentration that drew us in to this young man’s magic world of sounds .A chiselled beauty to the cascading ornaments that just unfolded so naturally with a subtle kaleidoscope of sounds where each note spoke with poignant eloquence.An aristocratic control of great maturity where every note was given time to speak with seemingly no extraneous intervention from the pianist .This was truly an artist in deep concentration as the music passed from the page through this medium to the public who were caught in a spell where we dared not breathe.

The silences were even more poignant than the notes .The time he took before caressing the opening notes of this last sublime creation of Schubert filled us with the anticipation of the start of a voyage of discovery with this extraordinarily sensitive young poet of the keyboard.Even the deep bass trill was a mere glow of sound less of foreboding but more of hope. There was a luscious sheen to the sound that followed where the seemless melodic invention just seemed to appear by magic.A stillness to the duet between tenor and soprano played with the sensitivity of a true poet.The whispered modulation into the development was breathtaking and as he did not play the repeat we were immediately into the development where there was always a sense of proportion even in the strenuous climaxes.This was a performance whispered rather than shouted -Beethoven was nowhere to be seen in Kyles’s magic landscape .There was a supreme control of sound that I have not heard since Richter’s first appearances in the west.An extraordinary control of tempi too and the rest before the recapitulation was truly earth shattering in its emotional impact.
Kyle hardly moving with head down as he listened to the exquisite sounds his hands were carving with such delicacy from the black and white keys laid out before him.A remarkable tour de force not only technically but above all poetically.I have not experienced this since listening to Murray Perahia with playing of such selfless intelligence and poetic significance as he drew the audience in to his secret world of sounds. Silences that spoke louder than the notes and created an electric atmosphere where people unknown to each other found themselves united as they listened collectively hardly daring to breathe .

A slow movement of such searing and heart rending poignancy with the glorious Brahmsian central section with its richness of sound that glowed like pure gold with the unbearable intensity of sublime simple beauty as the harmonies became ever more succulent.The return of the opening suddenly took on an unearthly significance with the deep whispered bass comments adding another voice of such hope just like the opening trills.The sudden change of harmony was barely whispered but became even more intense for its surprising beauty.
The Scherzo was beautifully controlled with elegance and impish charm with a constant pulse of civilised elegance.What fun he had with one voice answering another with such high spirits.The accents in the Trio were merely pointed out as they accompanied the long right hand melodic line.
There was the sedate outpouring of the last movement with the gentle insistence of the G’s a mere calling of attention as the musical chairs changed place.In the violent interruption ,the climax of the Sonata, it was the bass that Kyle made so important so the sounds never got hard or ungrateful but remained under the same sublime cloud that had hovered so magically above St John’s today in this young man’s sensitive hands .

Kyle Hutchings is a British pianist who, after just twelve months of self-taught playing, won a scholarship to study in London with internationally acclaimed pianist Richard Meyrick on the Pianoman Scholarships Scheme supported by Sir and Lady Harvey McGrath. Subsequently, he made his London debut with the Arch Sinfonia playing Beethoven’s Second Piano Concerto.

Acclaimed for the deep understanding and soulful artistry he brings to his performances, he has performed in venues such as London’s prestigious Kings Place, London’s BT Tower, The Lansdowne Club in Mayfair, as part of the Blüthner Recital Series, St James’s Piccadilly and many others up and down the country. In addition to this, he maintains an active presence on the international concert scene.  

During his studies at Trinity Laban, supported by a scholarship from Trinity College, he received the Nancy Thomas Prize for Piano as well as the Director’s Prize for Excellence; he was also nominated for the conservatoire’s coveted Gold Medal. Kyle is supported by The Keyboard Charitable Trust and has received support from The Robert Turnbull Piano Foundation as well as The Zetland Foundation.

Notable highlights of his 2022/2023 season have included a debut performance at London’s Kings Place, as well as appearances in Italy and Poland.

Mozart’s haunting Adagio in B minor is paired with Schubert’s final completed work, his great Sonata in B-flat.

Franz Schubert’s last three sonatas D 958, 959 and 960, are his last major compositions for solo piano. They were written during the last months of his life, between the spring and autumn of 1828, but were not published until about ten years after his death, in 1838–39.^[1] Like the rest of Schubert’s piano sonatas, they were mostly neglected in the 19th century.By the late 20th century, however, public and critical opinion had changed, and these sonatas are now considered among the most important of the composer’s mature masterpieces.The last year of Schubert’s life was marked by growing public acclaim for the composer’s works, but also by the gradual deterioration of his health. On March 26, 1828, together with other musicians in Vienna Schubert gave a public concert of his own works, which was a great success and earned him a considerable profit. In addition, two new German publishers took an interest in his works, leading to a short period of financial well-being. However, by the time the summer months arrived, Schubert was again short of money and had to cancel some journeys he had previously planned.Schubert had been struggling with syphilis since 1822–23, and suffered from weakness, headaches and dizziness. However, he seems to have led a relatively normal life until September 1828, when new symptoms such as effusions of blood appeared. At this stage he moved from the Vienna home of his friend Franz von Schober to his brother Ferdinand’s house in the suburbs, following the advice of his doctor; unfortunately, this may have actually worsened his condition. However, up until the last weeks of his life in November 1828, he continued to compose an extraordinary amount of music, including such masterpieces as the three last sonatas.

The final sonata was completed on September 26, and two days later, Schubert played from the sonata trilogy at an evening gathering in Vienna.In a letter to Probst (one of his publishers), dated October 2, 1828, Schubert mentioned the sonatas amongst other works he had recently completed and wished to publish.However, Probst was not interested in the sonatas,^[15] and by November 19, Schubert was dead.

In the following year, Schubert’s brother Ferdinand sold the sonatas’ autographs  to another publisher, Anton Diabelli who would only publish them about ten years later, in 1838 or 1839.^[16] Schubert had intended the sonatas to be dedicated to Johann Nepomuk Hummel , whom he greatly admired. Hummel was a leading pianist, a pupil of Mozart , and a pioneering composer of the Romantic style Romantic (like Schubert himself).However, by the time the sonatas were published in 1839, Hummel was dead, and Diabelli, the new publisher, decided to dedicate them instead to composer Robert Schumann who had praised many of Schubert’s works in his critical writings.

Autumn Piano Festival Saturday 30th September Sunday 1st October 2003

Mozart composed his Adagio in b minor K. 540 at a time when his financial situation was steadily deteriorating. The war against the Turks was constraining the Viennese people’s interest in music – works were not commissioned and concerts did not take place. It was of no matter that Mozart had shortly before (in 1787) been appointed a salaried k.k. Kammer-Kompositeur. Nevertheless in this year he composed several of his most important works: the “Coronation Concerto” K. 537, the three late symphonies as well as several piano trios. And he also composed this tender Adagio in b minor with its captivating expressiveness

Ariel Lanyi writes :

How significant is the tonality of a work of music to our perception of it as performers or listeners? Could a work in D minor have been written in B-flat minor, or is there a sort of nomenclature to keys? The treatises on key characteristics attest to the latter rather than the former, and when we look at the frequency of some keys in the outputs of various great composers, we see that the choice of keys can be greatly significant to the character of a work. 

Of the many hundreds of adagios that Mozart wrote, K. 540 is the only complete one in B minor (other than the second movement of the D major flute quartet). This already makes it a bit of an “outlier” among Mozart’s works, but when we consider how rarely it is played in comparison to, for example, the A minor Rondo, K. 511, we begin to see that it has other characteristics that put it at odds with what performers and audiences usually experience from the composer. 

For listeners and performers alike, Mozart is most commonly associated with opera. In his instrumental music, the melodies often evoke vocal music in their contour, rhythmic structure and variety. A Mozart melody is an organic unit in itself, which often evokes an unsung line of words. Most of his most commonly played works have such melodies. The B minor Adagio, however, is somewhat different. Here, we don’t get the continuous line of melodic inspiration that we hear in the G minor symphony or in the A major piano concerto, K. 488. Instead, we are confronted by a stark diminished chord in the first bar, which effectively truncates the flow of the melody. After two bars of a jagged melody, rather than have the mellifluous development we expect to hear in Mozart, we hear sharp dynamic changes, rhetorical pauses, and a string of “sigh” motifs. The music makes statements of the most powerful kind, but unlike in other instrumental works of Mozart, underlying are not unsung words, but rather un-acted gestures. Were we to connect these gestures to other works of Mozart, we would probably need to look to his vast string chamber music output (the string quintets in particular) rather than the operas. One indication of that is the unusual use of dynamics in this piece. Mozart’s dynamic markings weren’t as detailed as Beethoven’s. Mozart, of course, did not live long enough to see the many developments of the piano that Beethoven saw in his lifetime, which preoccupied him greatly when he was writing his piano works. Many Mozart concerti, even late ones, are almost devoid of dynamic markings in the piano part, leaving us pianists to rely solely on the orchestral parts and on our musical intuition. The B minor Adagio, however, is marked in great detail. Mozart took great pains to highlight the jaggedness and drama that need to be conveyed. These markings, which wouldn’t make sense in an operatic context, would make perfect sense in a string quintet. One can almost imagine the motion of the bows when the first sforzando strikes on the diminished chord of the first bar. Besides its un-operatic nature, there are other characteristics that distinguish this work from the rest of Mozart’s output. Not many works of Mozart are so centered around diminished chords, but this one is, in an almost Beethovian manner. In the short development section, the diminished chord is definitely the one that sticks out the most, as it has a disorientating effect on the listener, who meanwhile tries to locate a tonal center to “hang on” to. And does all of this resolve itself? Mozart does reach the much-desired B major at the very end of the work, but its comforting qualities are ambiguous. It comes after a somewhat torrential passage of broken octaves (also not too common for Mozart, at least not in the form heard in this work), and is by nature quite “developmental,” as it has significant dramatic motion in the inner voices. The minor-ness of the Adagio and the abundance of diminished chords may have been resolved, but not in a soothing manner. And as for the ending, the music disappears into the depths of the piano’s range, and Mozart made sure to remind us of the rhetorical pauses of the opening, which perhaps adds even more to the ambiguity of the work. 

So is the choice of key for this work coincidental, or is it in fact intertwined with both the work’s rather odd characteristics and our reception of the work? Although I don’t believe that the two are entirely linked, I do think that the choice of key cannot be coincidental. This work, on many levels, is not the Mozart we know—from its most basic features down to the smallest details. 

Jean-Efflam Bavouzet piano
Claude Debussy (1862-1918) Suite bergamasque (c.1890, rev. 1905)
I. Prélude • II. Menuet • III. Clair de lune • IV. Passepied

Franz Liszt (1811-1886) Hymne de la nuit S173a/1 (1840, rev. 1847)
Schlaflos! Frage und Antwort S203 (1883)
En rêve S207 (1885)

Claude Debussy La plus que lente (1910)

Franz Liszt Valse-impromptu S213 (1850-2)

Jules Massenet (1842-1912) Valse folle (1898)

Interval

Claude Debussy Masques (1903-4)

Erik Satie (1866-1925) Gymnopédie No. 1 (1888)

Jules Massenet Papillons blancs (pub. 1907)

Claude Debussy D’un cahier d’esquisses (1904)

Franz Liszt Toccata S197a (?1879)

Jules Massenet Toccata (pub. 1892)

Claude Debussy Pour le piano (1894-1901)
I. Prélude • II. Sarabande • III. Toccata

A sold out Wigmore Hall for Bavouzet ‘s fascinating survey of some extraordinary eccentricities by Liszt, Massenet and Debussy which of course could not have excluded the openly declared eccentricity of Satie .A musical sandwich between the beauty of Debussy’s early ‘Suite Bergamasque’ and ‘Pour le Piano’.But the surprise was still to come with an extraordinarily vivid performance of ‘L’isle joyeuse’ that had the normally sedate audience on their feet cheering a musician who could communicate his love and passion for music with warmth and charm.

Jersey has never had it so good! A range of sounds of astonishing Boulezian clarity and a musical understanding of the architectural shape of all he played .The grandiose opening of the ‘Prelude’ of the ‘Suite bergamasque’ was answered by the radiance and simplicity which he brought to ‘Clair de lune’. A mellifluous outpouring of magic sounds in Liszt’s ‘Hymne de la Nuit’ was mirrored by the dramatic entrance of ‘Schlaflos!Frage und Antwort ‘. ‘En reve’, surely the sweetest and certainly the shortest of Liszt’s late works was played with ravishing sound and an ethereal ending of whispered beauty as it reached out to the beguilingly impish ‘Valse Impromptu.’ There was the deep nostalgia of ‘La plus que lente’ unwinding with beguiling lazyness as the busy meanderings of Massenet’s ‘Valse folle’ were played with brilliant insistence.

After the interval there was the frenzied dance of ‘Masques’ followed by the languid opening of Satie and the delicately etched purity of the melodic line – ‘douloureux’ – not easy on this rather ungrateful Yamaha that had been imported specially for the occasion!
It was a sign of the genius of Bavouzet that despite the rather black and white sounds of this piano he could reveal so many marvels that only a true thinking musician could do. Satie,you see was right as there is safety under the ‘umbrella’.

An enthusiasm that I have only ever experienced with Paul Tortelier who like Jean-Efflam Bavouzet would relish the contact with his public drawing them even closer into this wonderful world of sound.A musician who thinks in layers and who has always the orchestra in mind and like Boulez pointing to the marvels on a long inspired journey of discovery.

Massenet’s busy butterflies fluttered above the keys with shadowed haunting beauty contrasted with the solemnity of Debussy’s ‘Esquisses’ in an extreme resonant atmosphere.Liszt’s ‘Toccata’ ,that if we batted our eyelids we would have missed,but instead we watched astonished as Bavouzet allowed his fingers to flow with oiled perfection with this continuous stream of notes rudely interrupted only by the occasional call to arms.
Contrasting with Massenet’s ‘Toccata’ which was a much more sumptuously luxuriant escapade.
After all these fascinating morsels it was nice to be reminded of the greatness of Debussy as the meanderings of the ‘ Prélude’ of ‘Pour Le Piano’ filled the air with rarified flexibility and elegance .A favourite of Rubinstein who brought to it the same beauty as Bavouzet with its delicately moving melodic line opening up to monumental sounds of grandeur and showmanship.The delicate Sarabande was played with simplicity and disarming beauty more on the surface than Perlemuter who would dig deeper with weight and extract the essence of the beseeching cry of the appoggiaturas.But Bavouzet revealed a more subtle beauty and having got used to this black beast was able to reach deep into its soul and find exquisite delicate colours.The Toccata like that of Ravel is a masterpiece of ‘canons covered in flowers! The continuous stream of sounds that miraculously just fluttered above the ravishingly understated melodic invention that both Ravel and Debussy were masters of.

A monumental ending where the showman Bavouzet like Tortelier could bring their audience spontaneously to their feet.A true ovation that was filled with love and admiration for this genial master and brought us the greatest gift of the evening with Debussy’s rose coloured view of Jersey as seen from Eastbourne! A joyous island indeed!
Jean- Efflem Bavouzet had performed yet another miracle turning a bauble into a gem and tempering this great black beast with inspired intelligence and total mastery.
How could anyone resist?

Party time in the Green room with the New York critic and commentator Jed Distler in town by chance to meet a master.A first physical meeting although Bavouzet knew and had read Jed’s writings – even the bad reviews because it comes from someone who is also an artist and really knows !
Jed of course charmed as we all had been all evening.

And the young up and coming star Giovanni Bertolazzi flown in especially from La Chapelle to pay homage to his mentor.

William Bracken too another young rising star greeted with that irresistible French warmth by the remarkable Bavouzets.

Tonight was the living reply to ‘Is live music dead?’

Quality and communication as opposed to quantity and isolation !
Viva la France !

Jules Massenet (12 May 1842 – 13 August 1912) was a French composer best known for his operas, of which he wrote more than thirty, made him the leading composer of opera in France in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.. He also composed oratorios, ballets, orchestral works, incidental music, piano pieces, songs and other music. Massenet taught composition at the Paris Conservatoire from 1878 until 1896. Among his students were Gustave Charpentier, Ernest Chausson, Reynaldo Hahn and Gabriel Pierné. Massenet’s his operas are widely accepted as well-crafted and intelligent products of the Belle Époque.

Valse Folle was composed in 1898 (by which time Massenet had become wildly wealthy and famous from his success as an opera composer), the ‘Mad Waltz’ was dedicated to his friend Raoul Pugno (1852–1914). Pugno himself, one of the first internationally acclaimed lions of the keyboard to commit his art to disc, recorded the work in April 1903 for the Gramophone and Typewriter label.

Its innocent main theme contrasts with abrupt changes of tempo and (for Massenet) unexpected discords and harmonies, to say nothing of the violent ending, providing a brief glimpse of an unexpected side to the elegant, urbane Massenet.

In 1907, Massenet’s publisher Heugel
issued his 2 pièces pour piano with a striking pictorial
cover depicting large black and white butterflies
against a yellowish-green background. The second of
these pieces, Papillons blancs (‘White butterflies’) is
an elegant character piece, beautifully crafted, with
some attractive digressions into unexpected keys; as
the piece nears its close, these particular butterflies
become surprisingly animated. Jules Massenet was a very good pianist and he composed for his instrument from an early age (Dix Pièces de genre, 1866) before turning body and soul to orchestral and vocal forms. However, he returned to piano composition at the end of the century: after the death of Ambroise Thomas and his subsequent resignation from the Paris Conservatoire, he turned once again to the Parisian salons with his Deux impromptus (1896) and Deux Pièces pour piano (1907). These evocative pieces were presented on those occasions with the early piano works of his students, from Portraits de peintres by Reynaldo Hahn (1894) to Rêverie by Paul Hillemacher (1908), and including Xavier Leroux’sRomance and Gabriel Pierné’s Étude symphonique (1903).The Toccata was first
published in 1892, with a dedication to Marie-Aimée
Roger-Niclos, the piano virtuoso to whom Saint-
Saëns had dedicated his fantasia Africa the year
before.

Liszt’s Hymne de la nuit was originally composed
in 1840 and revised in 1847. The score is prefaced by
the first verse of the poem by Alphonse
de Lamartine from his 1830 collection Harmonies
poétiques et réligieuses , which was such a rich
source of inspiration for Liszt. The Hymne da la nuit is
a kind of pendant to the Harmonies poétiques cycle
and is a musical evocation of the sunset and starry
heavens of Tuscany as described by Lamartine. The
Valse-impromptu S213 dates from about the same
period and was first published in 1852.The other Liszt
pieces are all late works. Schlaflos! Frage und Antwort
was written in 1883 and carries the rather misleading
subtitle ‘Nocturne … after a poem by Toni Raab’. We
don’t expect nocturnes to be about insomnia, but that
is what Liszt gives us. En rêve is
another ‘night’ piece, from very late in Liszt’s career,
composed in 1885 for August Stradal (a pupil of both
Liszt and Bruckner). The Toccata dates from about 1879. Marked
prestissimo , its energy is incessant until fading away
into delicate and inconclusive chords.

Despite its title, La plus que lente was not meant to be played slowly; “lente,” in this context, refers to the valse lente genre that Debussy attempted to emulate.Typical of Debussy’s caustic approach to naming his compositions, it represented his reaction to the vast influence of the slow waltz in France’s social atmospheres.The piece was first heard at the New Carlton Hotel in Paris, where it was transcribed for strings and performed by the popular ‘gipsy’ violinist, Léoni, for whom Debussy wrote it (and who was given the manuscript by the composer).The work is marked “Molto rubato con morbidezza,” indicating Debussy’s encouragement of a flexible tempo.During the same year of its composition, an orchestration of the work was conceived, but Debussy opposed the score’s heavy use of percussion and proposed a new one, writing to his publisher:

‘Examining the brassy score of La plus que lente, it appears to me to be uselessly ornamented with trombones,kettle drums,triangles etc and thus it addresses itself to a sort of de luxe saloon that I am accustomed to ignore!—there are certain clumsinesses that one can easily avoid! So I permitted myself to try another kind of arrangement which seems more practical. And it is impossible to begin the same way in a saloon as in a salon. There absolutely must be a few preparatory measures. But let’s not limit ourselves to beer parlors. Let’s think of the numberless five-o’-clock teas where assemble the beautiful audiences I’ve dreamed of ‘Claude Debussy, 25 August 1910

Masques“, L. 105, was composed July 1904, it was premiered on 18 February 1905 by Ricardo Vines  at the Salle Pleyel  in Paris. Its sombre character reflects Debussy’s difficult separation from Lilly Texier, his first wife. The title refers to the commedia dell’arte although Debussy confided to Marguerite Long  that the piece was “not Italian comedy, but an expression of the tragedy of existence” (French: ce n’est pas la comédie italienne, mais l’expression tragique de l’existence.)

Debussy Celebrations Jean- Efflam Bavouzet at the Barbican

Vive la France …Brocal and Bavouzet in London

Miracles at the Wigmore Hall Bavouzet / Shishkin side by side as one

A memorable recital from Edward Leung who has come through all the problems at the start of a career in a foreign land and has become an artist of great stature.
Fingers that like limpets caress the keys and seem to suck sounds out of radiance and beauty without ever resorting to percussive hitting of the keys .A clarity not only of sound but also of musical thought that brought to mind Charles Rosen.

A Beethoven Sonata unjustly neglected for its ‘Moonlight ‘ twin was given a performance of Arrau like stature where the return of the Adagio con espressione in the final page was of a poignancy of aristocratic musicianship .

Even Berio’s little ‘Wasserklavier’ was played with a simplicity and luminosity of sound and brought to mind Cherkassky when playing in Empoli the town where Busoni was born and where Berio lived nearby.A visit to Berio’s home to hear his star prodigy Andrea Lucchesini a pupil of Maria Tipo play these encore pieces.Shura was very impressed and soon added the ‘Wasserklavier ‘to his repertoire.

It linked up so beautifully with the opening of Liszt’s wonderful tone poem that is his 11th Transcendental Study :’Harmonies du Soir’.A gradual opening with a kaleidoscope of sounds leading to the sumptuous full spread chords where Edward drew sounds of beauty and richness that lead to the simplicity and beauty of the ‘Più lento con intimo sentimento’.A masterly build up of intensity to the sumptuous outpouring of passionate sounds only to disappeared to a whisper with the three last chords place as only a true artist could do.

The Schumann late Fantasiestucke not as often heard as his early Fantasy pieces and that by coincidence Cherkassky used to play as a prelude to the Liszt Sonata .Edward has the perfect sound for Schumann where the melody just emerged from the rich golden sounds that swirled all around with burning intensity.The second piece was of Schubertian simplicity as the music was an outpouring of song given such architectural shape.The last of these three pieces was played dignified weight and a crystal clear melodic line and after a quixotic central section the quasi capricious ending was played with great weight and beauty.

Pour le piano closed this superb recital with a display of playing that I have only heard from the greatest of players.Rubinstein would often play just the Prelude with its poetic meanderings leading to glissandi fanfares that Edward played with the same flair and showmanship.There was a purity of sound to the Sarabande that was a complete contrast to the Prelude with it’s serenity and pleading leaning appoggiaturas.The Toccata was played with astonishing clarity and rhythmic drive.The sumptuous outpouring of melody was like rays of sun shining ever more brightly until the explosive brilliance of the final bars.
Beethoven with a little twist was the encore that Edward offered to an enthusiastic audience.Simplicity and beauty were combined with the grace and charm of the well known Fur Elise.But then unexpectedly Edward got in a twist suddenly letting his hair down as jazz style boogy- woogie suddenly took over finishing with an exhilarating flourish that had Edward on his feet.

Edward is not only a great musician with an enviable technical command of the piano but he is also a showman not afraid ,like the great pianists of the past,to let their hair down once the serious business has been concluded .

Lauded as one of ’16 Incredibly Impressive Students at Princeton University’ by Business Insider, American pianist Edward Leung has performed solo recitals and appeared with orchestras across North America, Europe, and Asia. Highlights of the 2023-2024 season include inaugurating the teatime piano concert series at HHH Concerts, recitals with Tim Posner in Nottingham and London, and appearances at Wigmore Hall, Razumovsky Academy, Musicfest Aberystwyth and Menuhin Hall. He has recently appeared at Southbank Centre, International Musicians Seminar at Prussia Cove, Bridgewater Hall, St George’s Bristol, and Cranleigh Arts. He is supported by the Keyboard Charitable Trust, MMSF Piano Fellowship and Live Music Now UK. His debut album with Usha Kapoor on Resonus Classics was released in January 2024. 

A sought-after chamber musician, Edward has collaborated with some of the most important chamber musicians of today, including members of the Artemis, Lindsay, and Elias String Quartets, as well as David Campbell, Willam Hagen, Viviane Hagner, Guy Johnston, Boris Kucharsky, Charles Neidich, and Rafal Zambrzycki-Payne. He has worked in masterclasses with Ferenc Rados, Richard Goode, Stephen Kovacevich, Joseph Kalichstein, and Nikolai Demidenko. After studies at Princeton University and the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire with Francine Kay and Pascal Nemirovski, Edward is currently the Staff Pianist at The Yehudi Menuhin School. 

Edward Leung beauty and introspection at St Mary’s

In Praise of Liszt- Annual Day and International Piano Competition of the Liszt Society

Wonderful to see Master and pupil again on stage playing the 21 Hungarian Dances by Brahms.A concert I had heard in Rome for the University Series at the Danish Academy ………..I wrote an appreciation which I am happy to print again here .

‘Ballando con le Stelle’ ‘Marcella Crudeli ed Emanuele Savron could have danced all night!’for Roma 3 Orchestra Concert Season

They have played this programme together in many parts of Italy since the time I heard them in Rome and they have now matured and refined their interpretation playing as one.A refined sense of rubato and character that can only be learnt from playing often together .Emanuele has matured enormously and through the encouragement of his teachers Marcella and now Magarius in Imola the rather lazy but talented teenager has with serious dedication and hard work become and artist able to hold his own next to an artist of the stature and experience of Marcella .

Marcella Crudeli’s very subtle shaping and breathing of the music was followed and added to by Emanuele in a fascinating voyage of discovery together .Neither knowing which way a phrase would turn or when sudden injections of energy would erupt.Real chamber music playing is like a cat on a hot tin roof with a continual flowing movement as they feel the music together and follow the way it takes them with relaxation in tension. Marcella too is a true show-woman who knows when to play to the crowds as so often Brahms demands in these pieces that he himself would have played with friends.Of course the first eight dances are the better known and if the dance in D minor was rather slow it did make an impact on the audience and was requested as an encore .

https://youtube.com/watch?v=lcTr7zruaLA&feature=shared. Marcella of course knows that a programme of this sort must finish on a high so the second encore she chose herself and it was the voluptuous and scintillating fourth dance in F minor.

An exhilarating afternoon of real ‘Hausmusik’ the sort that television has put a stop to these days when every parlour would have a piano where now stands a TV and that would unite the family in communicating and enjoying making music together,

Yisha Xue in celebrating the Chinese New Year takes the opportunity of giving a platform to the amazing number of Chinese musicians that are fast filling our concert halls.Yuanfan Yang was celebrated together with the Tiger and has gone on to win recognition worldwide and now enjoys an International career.

Yuanfan Yang in paradise

Last year was Shuntian Cheng launched in the year of the Rabbit playing Mussorgsky Pictures at an Exhibition

Together with the Keyboard Trust Yuanfan and many others have found a platform on the wonderful Steinway Concert Grand that stands in what used to be the kitchen of the National Liberal Club .Now the beautiful Lloyd George Room where this great piano has been newly acquired for the club where Rachmaninov had given his last concert performance in 1939 before leaving for America .He died in 1943 never to see the end of the catastrophic World War that had overtaken Europe .

Today was the turn of the sixteen year old Ryan Wang to be launched on the wings of the Dragon .I had heard this young man play in Florence where I was a spectator and commentator for the final of the Montecatini International Piano Competition.Organised by an indefatigable Japanese pianist Aisa Ijiri with Sofya Gulyak (the first woman winner of the Leeds International Piano Competition in 2008 ) on the jury.We were in the beautiful newly restored Niccolini Theatre – a miniature opera house where many of Handel’s operas received their first performances – Sofya was downstairs on jury duty and I was in a box just above her .We had heard some very fine performances during the day but when a very youthful Chinese boy played the first notes of the Chopin Prelude op 28 n.15 I very excitedly sent a message to Sofya :’At last an artist!’ This young man was Ryan Wang who went on to win first prize at the competition last October.He has since taken Paris by storm at the 18th Animato International Piano Competition and has been hailed as a great talent by one of the greatest pianist and teacher of our day Dong Thai Son.

Montecatini International Piano Competition Final in the historic Teatro Niccolini in Florence.

Réminiscences de Don Juan (S. 418)  A fantasy on themes from Mozart’s 1787 opera Don Giovanni .

Liszt’s opera fantasies…are much more than that: they juxtapose different parts of the opera in ways that bring out a new significance, while the original dramatic sense of the individual number and its place within the opera is never out of sight.

It begins with music sung by the Commendatore, both from the graveyard scene where he threatens Don Giovanni (“Di rider finirai pria dell’aurora! Ribaldo audace! Lascia a’ morti la pace!” — “Your laughter will not last, even till morning. Leave the dead in peace!“) and from the finale where he condemns Don Giovanni to Hell .The love duet of Don Giovanni and Zerlina follows :’ Là ci darem la mano ‘ along with two variations on this theme, then an extended fantasy on the Champagne aria ‘Fin ch’han dal vino’ and finally the work concludes with the Commendatore’s threat.

It is extremely technically demanding and considered to be among the most taxing of Liszt’s works and in the entire pianistic repertoire. For this reason, and perhaps also because of its length and dramatic intensity, it does not appear in concert programmes as often as Liszt’s lighter and more popular pieces, such as the Rigoletto Paraphrase. As Ferrucci Busoni  says in the preface to his 1918 edition of the work, the Réminiscences carries “an almost symbolic significance as the highest point of pianism.” Liszt wrote the work in 1841 and published a two-piano version (S. 656) in 1877. The two-piano version bears a structurally strong resemblance to the original.

It was the final piece for Horowitz’s graduation concert at the Kiev conservatory; at the end all the professors stood up and cheered.Horowitz on his first appearance in Paris in the 30’s was described by the critics as the ‘greatest pianist alive or dead!’

In the words of Heinrich Neuhaus ,the great Russian teacher of Richter and Gilels , “with the exception of Ginzburg , probably nobody but the pianola  played without smudges’ .This is a recording of Ginzburg : recorded in 1958 https://youtube.com/watch?v=5VU7NsF5E1E&feature=shared

Keyboard at Eight at Guildhall Milton Court
Some fine playing from three artists who I know well .Salome I had heard about but this was the first occasion to hear her live.
Her playing was at the end of this hour long showcase recital for some of the Guildhall’s star pianists.

It was not only her astonishing mastery of the keyboard but above all her musicianly sense of line in this early large scale poème by Scriabin that was so remarkable.There was a wonderful sense of balance in Liszt’s beautiful but much neglected ‘Les cloches de Genève’ and her astonishing performance of Ravel’s La Valse restored this overplayed work to its place as one of the greatest transcriptions for piano since Busoni.An amazing display of subtle colours and pulsating rhythms that was truly hypnotic.A technical command of the keyboard that could accomodate Ravels’ cruel obsession with clockwork precision and turn the notes that swept across the keyboard in all directions into a cauldron of Scriabinesque ‘satinery’.A wonderful piano and beautiful hall it was just missing the audience that they deserved but as Boris Berman once said to me :’If the don’t want to come you can’t top ‘em!’

Rose I have heard many times and know that she stood in last week at 12 hours notice to play Beethoven 4th Concerto immediately after her fathers triumphant recital at the Chopin Society in Westminster.What a remarkable family they are like the Bach dynasty of working musicianly craftsmen .She tells me she will play second piano with her brother Matthew (Gold medal holder at the RCM) when he has to rehearse Tchaikowsky’s B flat minor concerto in the next days.Today Rose shunned the scintillating and sumptuous for the classical and serious.Schuberts beautiful Impromptu n. 3 D 935 in B flat .A set of exquisite variations that in Rose’s hands were streams of poetic sounds with the same subtle inflections of Schubert’s lieder.In her sensitive hands this was indeed a ‘song without words’.There was magic in the air as her Debussy was full of seemless strands of sounds with fluidity and sumptuous luminosity.Sometimes barely touching the keys but projecting golden sounds as the moon shone down on the atmospheric temple.There was rhythmic clarity too as the ‘golden fish’ seemed to dart around in Debussy’s imagination with mischievous meanderings of subtle colouring.
A complete change of character for Shostakovich’s Prelude and Fugue in D flat with a rhythmic drive that never allowed any harsh or percussive sounds.The knotty twine of the fugue was remarkable for its precision and musicianly shaping at such a speed.

A remarkable clarity not only of sound but of musical thought was the hallmark of Jeremy too.
Jeremy Chan I have heard recently play a remarkably fine Beethoven op 110 which earned him the much coveted Beethoven Society Prize.It was a surprise to hear him enter the world of Scriabin but he brought the same musicianship and architectural line to the Fifth Sonata as he had to the penultimate sonata of Beethoven.Playing with real weight so the demonic opening was immediately linked to the sumptuous radiance of the opening without ever disturbing the great architectural line .Some remarkable playing of a mastery that never drew attention to itself but allowed him to shape the music with simplicity and musical understanding.The Scriabin Study was played with the same luminosity and sense of line and was the ideal preparation for the demonic twists of what was to follow.

Rose McLachlan inspires and performs 22 Nocturnes for Chopin by women composers

http://salomejordania.com

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/11/23/jeremy-chan-at-st-olaves-tower-hill-masterworks-played-with-intelligence-and-sensitive-artistry/
Jeremy had also taken part in Angela Hewitts masterclass in Perugia last summer.
https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/08/24/angelas-generosity-and-infectious-song-and-dance-inspires-her-illustrious-students/

Schubert Impromptu in B-flat major, D 935 No 3

Debussy Images (book II)
I. Cloches à travers les feuilles
II. Et la lune descend sur la temple qui fut
III. Poissons d’or

Shostakovich Prelude and Fugue in D-flat major, Op 87 No 15
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Rose McLachlan piano
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Scriabin Etude in F-sharp minor, Op 8 No 2
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Scriabin Piano Sonata No 5, Op 53

Jeremy Chan piano

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Scriabin Poème Satanique, Op 36

Liszt ‘Les cloches de Genève’ from Années de pèlerinage I, S 160 No 9

Ravel La valse, M 72

Salome Jordania piano

What a lot of pictures were on show tonight at the RCM !

Paul Mnatsakanov is a very young looking pianist who claims that music should always ‘ speak and convey something about the audience to the listener’.
Rushing to another concert in Milton Court I just had time to thank his teacher Vanessa Latarche.’He is a good boy ‘ she very modestly told me ……….in my opinion dear Vanessa he is a great artist and this was the finest most monumental performance that I have ever heard.

Here is the link to the performance :

The people flocking to hear the orchestral version under Hakan Hardenberger tonight will never begin to realise what they have missed.
An hors d’oeuvre that was a sumptuous dish fit for our King -who is patron of the RCM.
An extraordinary control with phrasing that did infact bring each of the pictures vividly to life.Silences that became so pregnant with meaning as they acted as a bridge between the chameleonic changes of character.What was so remarkable was the clarity not only of playing the notes but above all an architectural vision of the entire work.Rests that were scrupulously noted and gave such strength to what came before and after.Have Goldenberg or Baba Yaga ever been so terrifying as this ? The rest after the opening two notes was like a gun shot in its impact. A scrupulous attention to the pedal …..and not! The central section of Baba- Yaga – Andante mosso – I have never heard played with such clockwork precision.Above all without pedal that gave it an orchestral colour rather than pianistic mush as is so often the case.The charm and clarity he brought to the unhatched chicks was played with that tantalising charm that was Cherkassky’s ( worth remembering his performance at the Proms where he pushed so hard on the pedals that the soft pedal started to play one and a half strings with a nasal twang that Cherkassky was to blame the piano tuner for .It was broadcast live and Shura was furious with the piano tuner!) That is just to say that the pedal is the ‘soul’ of the piano – Perlemuter would often play loudly with the soft pedal down to get that extra ‘French’ colour that he was seeking.Paul today was a master of pedal because it was so unobtrusive and was used as in the Great Gate just to add to the sonority but not to cover up pianistic imperfections.

The Promenade between the lumbering fatigue of Bydlo and the charm of the chicks was played with subtle whispered sounds but always of great clarity and rhythmic precision even in pianissimo.Was it not how quietly Richter could play and project when he made his first appearances in the West – just next door actually at the RAH .It was not just the uncontrollable temperament of a Serkin but the projection of a music line at such slow tempi and quiet dynamics The ease with which Paul judged the last G sharps of the ‘old castle ‘ was of a musician who was listening to himself with artistic sensibility .The trills in ‘Gnomus’ too were enough to send a shiver down your spine and helped by the pedal they were still of remarkable clarity and never lost their rhythmic impulse at the expense of creating an atmosphere.Here of course we touch the subject of the song and the dance.Like Angela Hewitt had pointed out to Paul in his sterling account of the Bach Italian Concerto there must always be this undercurrent that carries the music forward on its long journey .

Angela’s generosity and infectious Song and dance inspires her illustrious students.

There are moments on the way where you can look and wonder without ever disturbing the essential pulse .Paul showed us today that although shaping each of the pictures with remarkable sensibility and style he never allowed this undercurrent to stop from its inevitable final goal.The cascades of notes all bathed in pedal that took us to the final monumental vision of the Great Gate was truly masterly.His control of sound where there was a sumptuous fullness but never hardness .Holding back with masterly maturity so the final ‘Grave sempre allargando’ could reverberate around the hall with the monumental grandeur and significance that this edifice still holds for us today .

Gnomus was terrifying with its sudden outbursts and the Old Castle just appeared from afar in a subtle mist of whispered sounds.The chattering children in the ‘Tuileries ‘ have never sounded so rhythmically vivid or the lumbering ‘Bydlo’ so overweighted as it lumbered into view.What character he gave the ‘unhatched chicks’ as they scampered around with such beguiling coquettish meanderings. The pause after the first appearance of ‘Goldenberg’ I had never been aware of until tonight and it just gave such overwhelming authority contrasting with the beseeching whimpering of ‘Schmuyle’ The reverberations in ‘Catacombs’ were truly monumental as we listened together with baited breath and the ‘Cum mortuis’ entered on high with delicacy and a remarkable rhythmic precision that gave a sense of infinite space.

Baba Yaga was played like a man possessed and contrasted with the middle episode so rightly played without pedal.
The Great Gate was indeed monumental and the way he built up the enormous sonorities and controlled the emergence of bells that appeared over the entire keyboard was truly masterly.

The final declaration of intent with sounds reverberating around this vast hall left our valiant guide exhausted and spent as indeed were the audience . Ready though to cheer this great young artist to the rafters for such a monumental performance ….over to you Maestro Hardenberger and Co!

Pictures at an Exhibition is based on pictures by the artist, architect, and designer Viktor Hartmann. It was probably in 1868 that Mussorgsky first met Hartmann, not long after the latter’s return to Russia from abroad. Both men were devoted to the cause of an intrinsically Russian art and quickly became friends. They met in the home of the influential critic Vladimir Stasov, who followed both of their careers with interest. According to Stasov’s testimony, in 1868, Hartmann gave Mussorgsky two of the pictures that later formed the basis of Pictures at an Exhibition.

PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION Promenade l
The Gnomes
Promenade ll
The Old Castle
Promenade lll
The Tuileries: Children’s dispute
after play
Bydlo
Promenade IV
Ballet of the unhatched chicks
Two Polish Jews: Rich and poor
Promenade V
The market at Limoges
Roman Catacombs – With the dead
in a dead language
Baba Yaga: The Witch
The Heroes Gate at Kiev

Hartmann’s sudden death on 4 August 1873 from an aneurysm shook Mussorgsky along with others in Russia’s art world. The loss of the artist, aged only 39, plunged the composer into deep despair. Stasov helped to organize a memorial exhibition of over 400 Hartmann works in the Imperial Academy of Arts in Saint Petersburg in February and March 1874. Mussorgsky lent the exhibition the two pictures Hartmann had given him, and viewed the show in person, inspired to compose Pictures at an Exhibition, quickly completing the score in three weeks (2–22 June 1874).Five days after finishing the composition, he wrote on the title page of the manuscript a tribute to Vladimir Stasov, to whom the work is dedicated.The music depicts his tour of the exhibition, with each of the ten numbers of the suite serving as a musical illustration of an individual work by Hartmann.Although composed very rapidly, during June 1874, the work did not appear in print until 1886, five years after the composer’s death, when a not very accurate edition by the composer’s friend and colleague Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov was published.

Mussorgsky suffered personally from alcoholism, it was also a behavior pattern considered typical for those of Mussorgsky’s generation who wanted to oppose the establishment and protest through extreme forms of behavior.One contemporary notes, “an intense worship of Bacchus was considered to be almost obligatory for a writer of that period.”Mussorgsky spent day and night in a Saint Petersburg tavern of low repute, the Maly Yaroslavets, accompanied by other bohemian dropouts. He and his fellow drinkers idealized their alcoholism, perhaps seeing it as ethical and aesthetic opposition. This bravado, however, led to little more than isolation and eventual self-destruction.

Angela Hewitt at the RCM a light of radiance and simplicity

A rough diamond appeared at the Steinway Hall last night for the Keyboard Trust and astonished and seduced us with playing of innocent passion and musicianship of such uncontaminated mastery .
Forli is a little town in Reggio Emilia known more for its gastronomy than its artistry.

Giuliano Tuccia did not know that in his home town was buried one of the legendary pupils of Busoni, one of the greatest musicians of our day.The musical world flocked to his studio in Siena for over 30 years to be inspired by a musician of refined musicianship.For Agosti the written score was the Bible and the pianist merely a servant of the composer’s wishes.This was in a period where the so called piano virtuosi reigned and would take the notes of the composer and use them as a juggling act to show off their scintillating and titivating wares.
Busoni had shown Agosti differently as he himself had learned from Liszt,who was the greatest advocate of following the details in the original scores of the great masters.His own works too are very precisely notated ,if very rarely adhered to,as Liszt became the symbol as the greatest virtuoso of all time overlooking his real value as a visionary composer of great modernity.

Guido Agosti was born in Forlì but soon spread his wings that took him to nearby Bologna and then Berlin.He and Giuliano have one thing in common – a burning passion for music that denies all worldly problems as it is a vision that must find it’s outlet on the piano.
I had told Giuliano about Agosti and he immediately went to the town hall to search for funding to celebrate this great figure in the town where they were both born.Giuliano and his faithful companion Chiara became impresarios and a first ‘Guido Agosti Festival’ was the result.
https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2024/01/03/forli-pays-homage-to-guido-agosti/

I of course was there and we spent some time searching for the tomb of Agosti in the local cemetery.What a joy for me to see that his adored wife Lydia Stix Agosti was buried with him .My own wife Ileana Ghione had been introduced to me by Lydia in Siena in 1978 and mirrored the same passion that had been ingnited for us all in the magical atmosphere of Siena .It had been a great love story as Lady Weidenfeld knew – she was present tonight too – from when the Agosti’s were on the jury of the very first Rubinstein Competition presided over by Rubinstein himself.

Emanuel Ax was the winner but it was Janina Fialkowska who stole Rubinstein’s heart with a most moving performance of the Liszt Sonata (that is now on you tube) and he helped her in the last decade of his long life to take her place on the concert stage where she so rightly belonged.
Agosti had been my teacher and more importantly Leslie Howard’s who had in fact invited Giuliano to perform for the Keyboard Trust tonight.It was Leslie as Artistic Director of the Keyboard Trust who presented the concert tonight and also had a brief public conversation with the artist after his marathon performance of some of the most difficult pieces ever written for the piano.

Schumann’s Kreisleriana and Rachmaninov’s six Moments Musicaux were on a programme which is an invitation from the Keyboard Trust for young aspiring pianists to demonstrate their artistry publically after having been selected via video recordings.

Nicolò Giuliano Tuccia ‘A true musician with something important to say’ from the city of the legendary Guido Agosti

After this audition concert the Trust chooses a select few to play for them in various parts of the world to gain experience of concertising in order to make the first step in the long ladder that may lead to a career on the concert stage.
Kreisleriana immediately showed the passionate commitment and innocent originality of Giuliano’s playing .Like a bull in a china shop but what an extraordinary bull and what a ravishingly original china shop.
The refined perfection of Agosti is not yet part of Giuliano’s genes but there was the same burning intensity and dedication which united the souls of these two Forlese .
Could it be something in the air that blows in these parts? Certainly there is the nearby International Music Academy in Imola which has inspired generations of young musicians who have gone on to celebrated careers.Giuliano is now under the wing of three previous artists from the KT :André Gallo vice director of Imola

(https://youtube.com/watch?v=1TTxiaFESH0&feature=shared),

Alessandro Taverna also in Imola and shortly will also join the class of Roberto Prosseda in Rovigo where he will learn to refine his playing and listen more intently .

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2021/01/13/roberto-prosseda-pays-tribute-to-the-genius-of-chopin-and-the-inspirational-figure-of-fou-tsong/
Lady Weidenfeld pointed out that Menahem Pressler was the only pianist who actually listened to every note he played and could modulate his sound to suit the piano ,the hall and the acoustic.Pressler of course was the founder of the Beaux Arts Trio – one of the greatest formations of our day.Shura Cherkassky used to say that he did not think the younger generation listened to themselves.

A magnificent Steinway Concert Grand generously shared with us by Wiebke Greinus of Steinways.It is a piano fit for a hall of a thousand not the actual fifty capacity where the artist has to learn to adapt to the size and listen even more carefully to the sounds .Giuliano did as well as most but there was only one Pressler as Lady Weidenfeld pointed out !
A Kreisleriana that was a continual stream of surprises as Giuliano’s vision was so immediate and overwhelming that one was caught up in his same passionate commitment.Details and finesse can be taught but this passionate dedication is something that is of the chosen few.There were moments of sublime inspiration as well as dramatic dynamism.An irritating lack of detail too that was of no real importance in performances that were shouted from the rooftops with such dedication and overwhelming conviction .An ovation greeted the fourth Moments Musicaux and Giuliano rather embarrassed acknowledged the spontaneous applause and some of us thought that was the end .There were another two – the heartrenching Adagio sostenuto elegie and the even more tumultuous Maestoso.

A drink very generously offered to distinguished guests that included Tony Palmer ,the film director of so many memorable films about composers.

Aisa Ijiri,the distinguished Swedish – Japanese pianist.

Deniz Arman Gelenbe a disciple of Gyorgy Sandor and a magnificent chamber musician who shares her experience so generously at Trinity Laban Conservatory where she was Head of Keyboard before moving to Paris to be with her much celebrated businessman husband.

Lady Weidenfeld who has so generously helped so many musicians reach their goal – Kissin and Trifonov in particular.

Leslie Howard despite some health problems was very much present and infact it was Leslie who sat at the extraordinary Spiro piano and gave us the most beautiful performance of the entire evening .A Liszt arrangement of a Chopin song.Lost in music with the same dedication as his disciple he was not aware that we had been reduced to silence to enjoy the same artistry that we had experienced all those years ago in Siena.

Pity the amazing Spiro piano was not turned on to record all that touched it magnificent keys.But as Mitsuko Uchida says a beautiful memory grows and lasts much more in one’s soul than a printed photo.

A young lad from Manchester who has been transformed into a poet of the piano ……..one of the remarkable Mc Lachlan family .
I remember turning to the head of the clan and remarking how proud he should be of this member of the clan that could play the theme of Schumann Etudes Symphoniques with such a ravishing range of sumptuous colours .

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2019/12/19/the-joy-of-music-for-christmas/
That was almost five years ago and now after studies in Salzburg and Cologne I am lost for words by the sheer intelligence and beauty of this young man’s playing.
A young lad from the north who has turned into a great artist….Billy Elliot eat your heart out !

From the very first notes of the Bach Choral prelude one could feel that there was a sensibility to sound with slight rhythmic inflections that were deeply felt .Shaping this sublime creation with the same inflections of a singer with a flexibility and sense of breathing of someone truly in awe of the sounds that were being caressed out of the black and white keys before him.

With the superb streaming in Perivale we could see his search as he was more listening than watching.Scarlatti just shot from his agile fingers with great agility and a bucolic rhythmic drive.There was a beautiful preparation of that atmosphere needed for the entry of Greensleeves in Busoni’s rather pompously announced Elegie n.4 Turandot Frauengemach.In fact the technician in charge of the captions got completely lost .Callum on the other hand played the rhythmic perpetuum mobile with a scintillating display of bravura and style .Greensleeves has never had such a ride before. Of course Busoni has the last laugh with a surprise final chord that just puts a question mark over the whole adventure.The Barber Sonata has long been a work only for the most fearless virtuosi. Written for Horowitz and taken up by Van Cliburn and John Browning it is a remarkable work that needs not only a virtuoso technique but a sense of colour and architecture that can build this long work into the magnificent monument that it is.Callum rose to the challenge with these two movements full of remarkable changes of character.A second movement that was a continuous stream of notes played with luminosity and fluidity. Only four not five of the nine pieces from Waldszenen after this made one realise how Schubertian Schumann could be choosing the most poignantly beautiful from this wonderful collection This late work just poured from Callum’s fingers with a style and shape that made the music speak as indeed it was written to do.From the heart to the heart indeed.An ‘entry’ with a deeply nostalgic outpouring only to disappear into the distance at the end on a cloud of ravishing beauty.Have flowers ever seemed so lonely as these that this young poet allowed to flow so delicately from his soul to his fingers.Shaped like a great bel canto singer with an ease and naturalness of an artist of great aristocratic maturity.An ever elusive and coquettish Prophet Bird just searching with such timeless ease for the direction to take.To end with the sublime beauty of one of Schumann’s most poignant creations.An outpouring of searing nostalgia and enveloped in a warmth of heartfelt sentiment.Wonderful how he just slightly pointed to the bass at crucial moments that gave depth and direction to this poignant farewell of searing beauty.A remarkably mature performance for such a young musician and I look forward to hearing his complete performance of which he gave us such an enticing taster today.

Soirée de Vienne was played with great style and tantalising teasing rubato that made for a ravishing interlude between the two major works by Schumann and Chopin. Chopin Barcarolle I have heard Callum play before but today he had refined his performance into a stream of endless beauty .One of the finest performances I have ever heard and it was enough to see how he played the opening bass C sharp to know that we were in the hands of a true poet of the piano.

The Intermezzo op 118 n.2 by Brahms was a continuous stream of poetic beauty. There is no stopping this young lad from the north who will fill peoples hearts with his artistry for long to come.

A finalist of The 18th International Robert Schumann Competition Zwickau and Semi-Finalist of the XX Santander International Piano Competition Paloma O’ Shea, Callum Mclachlan, 24, has been described as ‘A born Schumann player’ with a ‘magical sense of colour and extraordinary technical prowess’ (July 2019, London recital). Born into a family of musicians, he first started piano lessons with his father at the age of 7, and entered Chetham’s School of Music at age 11, where he studied with Russian pianist and pedagogue Dina Parakhina. He was awarded the highest diploma from Trinity College – the FTCL, in his final year. He studied under Professor Claudius Tanski for Bachelors at the Universität Mozarteum Salzburg. He is now studying for Masters with Professor Jacques Rouvier in the Universität Mozarteum Salzburg and Professor Claudio Martinez Mehner in Cologne. In 2023 he was named as the only pianist selected for the renowned ‘Deutschen Stiftung Musikleben mit dem Dinorah VarsiStipendium, which supports him with his musical solo career. In the 22/23 season he made his recital debuts in the Klavier Festival Ruhr, Menton International Music Festival, Wasserburg Klavier Sommer, Busoni International Piano Competiton and gave the Swiss premiere of Eric Tanguy’s Piano Quartet in Aubonne, Switzerland for ‘Classeek’. Most recently he was a finalist of the Royal Over Seas League Piano Competition in London, and was nominated for International Classical Music Classeek Award. He has performed at many of the most important concert venues throughout the UK, Europe, and USA, including Laeiszhalle Hamburg, Wien Konzerthaus, Pereda Hall Santander, London’s Steinway Hall and Manchester’s Bridgewater and Stoller Hall. Recently he performed with the renowned ensemble Casals Quartet and made his Japanese recital debut in Ginza Hall Tokyo.

Callum McLachlan the troubadour of the piano at St Mary’s

Louis Lortie made his debut with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra at the age of thirteen, and in 1984 won the first prize of the Busoni competition and the fourth prize of the Leeds Competition. He studied with Yvonne Hubert (herself a student of the legendary Alfred Cortot ) and with Dieter Weber in Vienna, and then with Leon Fleisher. He was honoured with the title of “Officer of the Order of Canada” in 1992, and “Chevalier Ordre national du Québec” in 1997, and received an honorary doctorate from the University of Laval the same year.

Louis Lortie’s very personal Hommage à Fauré on the 100th anniversary of his death .
A Bosendorfer proudly standing where once stood Bechstein and nowadays Steinway or Fazioli .Bechstein reborn will soon be the Wigmore’s next door neighbour! Home from home indeed.

It was the very resonant fluidity of this magnificent instrument that immediately found in Louis Lortie the ideal interpreter where notes just disappeared as clouds of harmony and streams of golden sounds glistened and gleamed in a way we so rarely hear these days. Fauré’ s illusive late preludes were immediately luminous and radiant with every so often the clouds of sound parting to reveal jewels gleaming in a sultry luxuriant atmosphere .Pungent gently dissonant harmonies that must have been so revolutionary to Faure’s contemporaries.

Louis very interestingly allowed us to hear what six of the seven composers had penned with their own short homage to their genial master who had opened an important gate for them to walk through and pursue new paths.

The Preludes immediately set the scene once our ears had got attuned to a very resonant piano that gave opulant radiance and luminosity.There was the aristocratic French nasal sound – that was so typical of Perlemuter when he would often play with great projection but with the ‘soft ‘pedal down that gave this very particular colour to the sound.Perlemuter was brought up also to never leave the keys and infact my scores are covered in fingerings sometimes on the same note so as never to loose the ‘weight’ that is such an essential part of sucking the sound out of the keys .The very opposite of the so called ‘Russian’ percussive school.Louis is master of this creation of sound and it gave a very particular sheen to the sound that pervaded the whole recital.It was as though we were in a bubble of sound within which everything was so clear and precise but we were not aware of single notes .A jeux perlé that had me thinking of De Pachmann or Moiseiwitch both artists whose shadow looms large in this very intimate of halls.There was the prelude that was a a weaving web of magical spider like tracery gradually transformed into a sumptuous outpouring of almost Spanish idiom.The simplicity of the long seemingly inconclusive melodic lines that only Fauré can weave were with a contrapuntal harmonic complicity reminding us that Fauré was above all an organist.There were virtuosistic outbursts too but always with the streams of notes shaped into moving harmonic blocks of sound.Suddenly in the final prelude there was a disarming clarity like a ray of sunlight with a melodic line etched in gold with refined simplicity and intensity.It was also the final variation of the Theme and Variations later in the programme where Louis had played with the searing burning inner intensity of a man possessed .Louis Lortie is an artist who has delved deeply into the soul of this seemingly elusive composer.There is an inner message of a very deep introverted man that can be very elusive but that Louis Lortie seemed to have found the key to in this long overdue homage.

The six short pieces dedicated to Fauré by his students were a fascinating interlude in this homage to a composer who seemed always to be avoiding a conclusive perfect cadence.

Only six out of seven because the piece by Roger- Ducasse is for two pianos.There was the unmistakable sound world of Ravel with a melodic line etched with typical clarity .Enescu was with Scriabinesque sounds of sumptuous colour.A passionate outpouring of radiance from Aubert contrasted with Schmitt’s dramatic outpouring with swirl of notes in the longest and most complex of these short pieces.A reflective chorale of great beauty was Koechlin’s contribution and Ladmirault’s bucolic dance brought this short homage to a brilliant end.

The second half was dedicated to just three very substantial and unjustly neglected masterpieces .

The Pavane we often hear in it’s orchestral guise but this is the first time I have heard it in the recital hall.Louis brought to it a subtle grace with some magical colouring .It was above all the legato that was of another age where Louis like Kempff or Lupu in their final years were able to find a legato which belies the very fact that a piano is made of hammers that hit strings.It is a very subtle illusion that a rare breed of pianist are searching for. Bar lines and sharp edges disappear as the piano is made to sing and breathe every bit as magically as a Schwarzkopf or Lehmann.Of course a masterly and courageous use of the pedals is demanded and it was Anton Rubinstein who had declared that the pedal was the soul of the piano! Never more so than tonight!

There was magic in the air as without a break the ravishing beauty of the Ballade could be heard in the distance.I fell in love with this piece when I heard the recording of Casadesus with Bernstein .My first teacher Sidney Harrison ( piano daddy of Norma Fisher too) had played it with our local orchestra as it is for a relatively small orchestra of 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, strings

Jean Marie Darré’s historic performance was also recorded :

Strangely enough Perlemuter never played it to my knowledge and certainly did not record it .When he played Fauré in my Euromusica series in Rome ( Nocturnes and Theme and Variations) he wanted me to tell the audience before he played that the works were written by Fauré and given to the young student Perlemuter to try out whilst the ink was still wet on the page .I have his copy of the first nocturne where the notes can hardly be seen for the fingering – He and Curzon had much in common !

Louis tonight showed us what great works the Ballade and the Theme and Variations are.The same luminosity and fluidity of sound in the Ballade ,drawing us into his sound world rather than projecting to a lazy audience.Magical duets between soprano and mezzo with the gentle pulsating wave of undulating sounds that sustained the whole piece.Pianississimo chords that were Messianic in their broken glass like transparency just interrupted the etherial beauty of the innocent melodic line.Radiance like rays of sun on the keys and notes that spun from Louis hands like a web of legatissimo sounds and showed an astonishing mastery of the keyboard but above all a masterly musical mind.

An almost religious solemnity to the great opening Theme was played with the same aristocratic authority that I remember from Perlemuter.Using much more pedal though Louis managed to show us the subtle colouring of the theme in the left hand in the first variation with the delicate accompaniment of a continuously flowing right hand weaving its way wondrously above.The second variation – piu mosso was played with great elan and quite considerable command leading to the impishly capricious declamations of the third.I will never forget the 80 year old Perlemuter throwing himself into the fourth variations as notes covered the entire keyboard with terrifying impetus .Louis of course played it with enormous mastery and control as he did all the following variations.But it was the final variation that Louis played with intensity and passion that was quite overwhelming as this great work was brought to rest with such disarming simple beauty and poignancy.

Last but not least was the finest performance of the evening : the Fourth Nocturne in E flat offered as an encore.The subtle elusive world of Fauré that Louis had so generously shared with us all evening was suddenly united into one architectural whole of refined beauty,passion and simplicity. A great artist and above all an interpreter at the height of his powers.

Louis Lortie has earned an international reputation as a versatile musician critically acclaimed for the fresh perspective and individuality he brings to the grand masters of the piano repertoire. In demand on five continents for more than thirty years, Louis Lortie performs with the most prestigious orchestras and in major concert halls around the world. A prolific artist, he has produced more than 45 recordings for Chandos Records featuring the pillars of piano literature. He is followed by more than 300,000 listeners monthly on streaming platforms and generated more than 6 million streams in 2022.

In Great Britain, his long-standing relationship with the BBC, the BBC Symphony and BBC Philharmonic orchestras have resulted in numerous recordings and concerts as well than more than ten invitations at the BBC Proms. In his native Canada, for half a century, he has regularly played with all the major orchestras: Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa and Calgary. Close collaborator of Kurt Masur, he was a regular soloist with the Orchestre National de France and the Gewandhaus orchestra during his tenure as Music Director. He has also collaborated with the Deutsche Sinfonieorchester Berlin, the Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra, the Leipzig MDR Orchestra in Germany and the United States, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Dallas Symphony , San Diego Symphony, St. Louis Symphony, and New Jersey Symphony. Further afield, his collaborations include the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra where he was Artist in Residence, the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra and the National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan, as well as the Adelaide and Sydney Symphony Orchestras and the Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo in Brazil. Regular partnerships with conductors include, among others, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Edward Gardner, Sir Andrew Davis, Jaap Van Zweden, Simone Young, Antoni Wit and Thierry Fischer.

In recital and in chamber music, Louis Lortie regularly performs at Wigmore Hall in London, the Philharmonie de Paris, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Carnegie Hall, the Chicago Symphony Hall, the Beethovenfest Bonn and the Liszt Festival Raiding. He is particularly sought after for his integral of the Years of Pilgrimage of Liszt in one evening, the Etudes of Chopins (complete) in one evening, or his cycles of Beethoven sonatas; the latest one was filmed at the Salle Bourgie in Montreal and broadcast on Medici TV in 2021. For more than twenty years, with Hélène Mercier, the Lortie-Mercier duo has brought new perspectives on the repertoire for four hands and two pianos in concert as well as their numerous recordings.

His discography, exclusively for Chandos records, includes, in the solo piano repertoire, 7 volumes of works by Chopin, Beethoven’s 32 sonatas, the complete works of Ravel, Liszt’s Years of Pilgrimage and two volumes of works by Faure. With Edward Gardner he recorded Lutoslawksi’s Concerto and Variations on a Theme of Paganini with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, particularly praised by critics, as well as the complete concertos of Saint-Saens with the BBC Philharmonic or the Vaughan Williams concerto with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and Peter Oundjian.

Louis Lortie is co-founder and Artistic Director of the LacMus Festival, which has been held yearly since 2017 on Lake Como. He was master in residence at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel in Brussels from 2017 to 2022; he continues to mentor pianists of exceptional talent by introducing the new generation through concert cycles, recently a cycle of Beethoven/Liszt symphonies at Wigmore Hall and the Dresden International Festival as well as the Scriabin Marathon at the LacMus and Bolzano Bozen Festivals .

Louis Lortie takes Wimbledon by storm Exultation of the prelude ‘cradling the soul in golden dreams’

Beethoven La Chapelle offers an Ode to Joy

The nine Préludes are among the least known of Fauré’s major piano compositions. They were written while the composer was struggling to come to terms with the onset of deafness in his mid-sixties. By Fauré’s standards this was a time of unusually prolific output. The préludes were composed in 1909 and 1910, in the middle of the period in which he wrote the opera Pénélope, the barcarolles nos. 8–11 and nocturnes nos. 9–11. In Koechlin’s view, “Apart from the Préludes of Chopin, it is hard to think of a collection of similar pieces that are so important”. The critic Michael Oliver wrote, “Fauré’s Préludes are among the subtlest and most elusive piano pieces in existence; they express deep but mingled emotions, sometimes with intense directness … more often with the utmost economy and restraint and with mysteriously complex simplicity.” Jessica Duchen calls them “unusual slivers of magical inventiveness.” The complete set takes between 20 and 25 minutes to play. The shortest of the set, No 8, lasts barely more than a minute; the longest, No 3, takes between four and five minutes.

Hommage à Gabriel Fauré is a collective work to which seven students of Fauré at the Paris Conservatore contributed : Maurice Ravel,Georges Enescu ,Louis Aubert,Florent Schmitt ,Charles Koechlin,Paul Ladmirault and Jean Roger-Ducasse.

From his arrival in Fauré’s class until that composer’s death in 1924, Ravel remained on friendly terms with his teacher, even though his music shows barely any Fauréan influence other than a distaste for loquacity. When the journalist Henry Prunières was planning a Fauré number of his Revue musicale in October 1922, Ravel joined six other pupils in providing a musical homage. Fauré had been let in on the idea and had suggested a theme drawn from his music to Prométhée, but in the end his pupils chose a musical transliteration of the name Gabriel Fauré: GABDBEE FAGDE. Ravel’s Berceuse has an unassuming grace worthy of its dedicatee, and its contrasts, as in the early Sonata movement, are largely between modal and chromatic harmonies. The score is marked semplice and the violin is muted throughout.the piano reduction is by Lucien Garban.

The seven pieces were created together on December 13th 1922 the 88th SMI concert with Hélène Jourdan- Morhange on violin for the Berceuse by Ravel , and Madeleine Grovlez for the piano pieces, with the assistance of Daniel Éricourt for the piece for two pianos by Roger- Ducasse.

La Berceuse by Ravel was created, alone, in Milan on October 18th 1922 and played by Ravel with Remy Principe on violin.

Enesco’s contribution, Hommage , is a short piano piece in , molto moderato e cantabile , composed from the five notes given on Fauré’s name: fa – a – sol – d – mi a score that is ‘impalpable, indecisive, with the fog of its arpeggio accompaniment (“harmonious and veiled”) and the vagueness of its perpetual modulation recalls the style of Scriabin’.

Louis Aubert’s piece, Esquisse sur le nom de Fauré , is the composer’s last work for solo piano. It consists of two pages of music moderato , which according to Guy Sacre are strange, “both melancholic and serene, detached from their very subject”

Schmitt’s piano homage is Sur le nom de Gabriel Fauré , op. 72 In the score, the composer dissociates the notes corresponding to “Gabriel” from those associated with “Fauré” . The master’s name provides a scherzo theme as well as a waltz theme while the first name gives a “caressing, whispered phrase, bathed in arpeggios” a bit like Fauré, “bringing to the effervescence of the first subject an unexpected expressive contrast”, in the words of Alfred Cortot , who underlines the “living dialogue [which] is established between these two themes”

Koechlin’s contribution is the Chorale sur le nom de Fauré , op.73 .

Ladmirault ‘s Hommage à Fauré is based on the notes corresponding to Fauré’s name ( fa – la – sol – ré – mi ), first in the form of a kind of popular song, , allegro moderato , “with melancholic inflections, with modal cadences , which could have been born on the bagpipe of a Breton shepherd” , then in a more elaborate form, a Trio , espressivo e poco rubato , “with supple lines, with undulating arpeggios , with refined modulations”.

Pavane, Op. 50

Originally conceived for orchestra, it is heard tonight as Fauré himself often performed it, for solo piano: it evokes a
bygone age, in the early 18th-century tradition of the
fête galante (the courtly festivities depicted in the
paintings of Antoine Watteau). The Pavane (1887) was conceived and originally written as an orchestral piece but Fauré published the version for piano in 1889.In the form of an ancient dance, the piece was written to be played more briskly than it has generally come to be performed in its familiar orchestral guise. The conductor Sir Adrian Boult heard Fauré play the piano version several times and noted that he took it at a tempo no slower than crochet = 100 and commented that the composer’s sprightly tempo emphasised that the Pavane was not a piece of German romanticism.

Ballade in F♯ major, Op. 19

The Ballade, dedicated to Camille Saint – Saens dates from 1877, and is considered one of the three masterpieces of his youth, along with the first violin sonata and the first piano quartet .It is one of Fauré’s most substantial works for solo piano, but is better known in a version for piano and orchestra that he made in 1881 at Liszt’s suggestion.Playing for a little over 14 minutes, it is second in length only to the Thème et variations.Fauré first conceived the music as a set of individual pieces, but then decided to make them into a single work by carrying the main theme of each section over into the following section as a secondary theme.The work opens with the F♯ major theme, an andante cantabile, which is followed by a faster section, marked allegro moderato, in E♭ minor. The third section is an andante introducing a third theme. In the last section, an allegro, a return of the second theme brings the work to a conclusion where the treble sings with particular delicacy.

Fauré appears to have first conceived his Ballade in
the late 1870s as a series of related short pieces, rather
in the tradition of Schumann. But in a letter of
September 1879, he explained that the central B-major
allegro had become ‘a kind of alliance between [piano
pieces] nos. 2 and 3. That is to say, by using new but
old methods I have found a way of developing the
phrase of no. 2 [the E-flat minor allegro moderato] into
a sort of interlude, and at the same time stating the
premises of no. 3 [the concluding allegro moderato,
with its bird-call trills] in such a way that the three
pieces become one. It has thus turned into a Fantasy
rather out of the usual way.’

Marcel Proust knew Fauré, and the Ballade is thought to have been the inspiration for the sonata by Proust’s character Vinteuil that haunts Swann in In Search of Lost Time .Debussy reviewing an early performance of the Ballade, compared the music with the attractive soloist, straightening her shoulder-straps during the performance: “I don’t know why, but I somehow associated the charm of these gestures with the music of Fauré himself. The play of fleeting curves that is its essence can be compared to the movements of a beautiful woman without either suffering from the comparison.” Bryce Morrison describes the Ballade as “a reminder of halcyon, half-remembered summer days and bird-haunted forests”^.

Fauré was a chronic doodler, and many of his
manuscripts show patterns and even portraits
scribbled in margins. The coda of the Pavane suggests
the same sort of creative impulse: the arching melody
contracts to oscillating F sharps and G sharps, above a quasi-improvisatory sequence of chromatic harmonies.
Curiously, that same ‘doodling’ motif can be heard in
the Ballade Fauré composed a decade earlier, where it
assumes a structural importance that far outweighs its
seeming simplicity.

Thème et variations in C♯ minor, Op. 73

Fauré’s Thème et variations Cortot deemed his ‘most
significant’ work for piano, ‘thanks not just to its
proportions, but to its character and beauty.’ Fauré’s
stately but energetic theme is followed by 11 variations
that span the gamut of 19th-century pianism, the
increasingly virtuoso figurations culminating in the
flying scherzo of the tenth variation. The serenely
passionate eleventh suggests a closing homage to
Schumann (whose Etudes symphoniques, in the same
key of C-sharp minor, surely served as one of Fauré’s
models). ‘I don’t know if the piece is good but I’m sure
I’m not surprising you by saying it’s very difficult!’ wrote
Fauré to a friend in September 1895.

Written in 1895, when he was 50, this is among Fauré’s most extended compositions for piano. Although it has many passages that reflect the influence of Schumann’s Symphonic etudes. As in the earlier Romances sans paroles, Op. 17, Fauré does not follow the conventional course of ending with the loudest and most extrovert variation; the variation nearest to that description is placed next to last, and is followed by a gentle conclusion, “a typically Faurean understated finish.”Copland wrote of the work:Certainly it is one of Fauré’s most approachable works. Even at first hearing it leaves an indelible impression. The “Theme” itself has the same fateful, march-like tread, the same atmosphere of tragedy and heroism, that we find in the introduction of Brahms’s First Symphony . And the variety and spontaneity of the eleven variations which follow bring to mind nothing less than the Symphonic Etudes . Fauré disdained the easy triumph of closing on the brilliant, dashing tenth variation and turned the page and play that last, enigmatic (and most beautiful) ^.

The first time and maybe the only time I have heard this work until tonight was in the inimitable performances of my teacher Vlado Perlemuter.Vlado was 81 when I invited him to play in my Euromusica concert series in Rome and he wanted me to tell the public that many of the works of Fauré that were on the various programmes that he played every year until his 90th year were sent down to the young student to try out when the ink was still wet on the page .He was proud to tell us that he had lived in the same house as Fauré when he was a teenage prodigy of Alfred Cortot at the Paris Conservatoire ( Fauré had become director).Here is Vlado in a recording for Nimbus that he made in the ballroom of Wyanston Keys in Wales .https://youtube.com/watch?v=GDvKP0tuoHM&feature=shared

P.S.

It was the 80th Birthday of Ruggiero Ricci who was being feted a few years ago by Jack and Linn Rothstein .After having met Ruggiero in my house in Rome decided to give an after concert party for Ruggiero with all the major violinist present to salute their idol.
Ruggiero and Julia had gone out to his favorite Chinese restaurant the night before and poor Ruggiero got food poisoning .He could not cancel such a heartfelt celebration but he could play his solo violin recital at the Wigmore hall seated.’I may be ill but the Bach Chaconne I refuse to play seated’.
After the concert instead of going to the party organised by Jack and Linn I took Ruggiero to the nearby London clinic where he stayed over night on a diet of liver sausage sandwiches.
One and a half thousand pounds was the cost of that night – ‘You know Chris’ Ruggiero said in his inimitable American accent with his dry sense of humour ( or should I say humor) ;’That was the most expensive Chinese meal I have ever had’ .
It reminded me yesterday as I flew in for Louis’ Fauré homage at the Wigmore Hall.A Eurowings flight to Heathrow from Rome – an expensive flight but time was of essence – and I did not want to miss such an extraordinary event or to see Louis again.
Stop over in Düsseldorf assured that the flights were guaranteed by E dreams to connect.It turned out that there was not enough time allowed for the connecting flight.Slight delays and security which in the German airports is very thorough and oh so slow .A flight that arrives late at two and the next one that leaves on time at two thirty was an impossibility and Eurowings refused to wait even though I had booked in at the airport .
What to do ?- I was sent to the ticket counter and there was only one flight to London in time to get to the concert.
British Airways – 460 euros please……you will be reimbursed with compensation by Eurowings if you send them an E mail ………..well the money flew out of my bank account and I am very doubtful that it will fly back in again without a lot of discussion even if Euro has wings.
So this was the most expensive concert I have ever been to which includes flying over from Rome to hear Horowitz in London many years ago!
Some things cannot be measured in money and although compensation would please my bank manager I was more than compensated by the magic that Louis spun last night …………some things are priceless and last night was one of them …..so rare these days where quantity takes precedence over quality .Where communication is done with fists and arms rather than with poetry and artistry ………….thank you Louis money well spent may you always fly higher and higher