ChristopherAxworthy-MusicCommentary

Saturday 25 November 2023 

THE LISZT SOCIETY ANNUAL DAY 2023

William Bracken ,winner of the 2022 Liszt Competition revealed only a year on to be a musician of mastery and remarkably committed artistry.I have heard this young artist over the past few years as his studies progressed at the Guildhall and was astonished and delighted today to hear how he has developed into a mature artist of stature .With a kaleidoscope of sounds he brought a fluidity and luminosity to the ‘bells’ as portrayed by Liszt and Debussy.It was a very interesting juxtaposition to hear Liszt’s rarely played ‘Les Cloches de Genèvre’ with Debussy’s bells from Images Bk 2 and as William very eloquently said they were both at different times in history painting pictures through music.Liszt in a more formal way whereas Debussy was more fragmented and improvisatory.

The two Liszt opening pieces were revelations of simplicity and beauty. ‘Au Bord d’une source’ is a miniature masterpiece and obviously was the inspiration for Ravel’s ‘Jeux d’eau’, but has been neglected in the concert hall since the famous recording of Horowitz .It is a perfect miniature tone poem and a continuous flow of jewels glistening over a constant stream of gentle sounds like water flowing over a mountain stream.Williams sound world was of a clarity and cleanliness never hard but always luminous even in the gently exciting climax.It was a sound that reminded me of Tamas Vasary and the very fluid Hungarian school of playing of Anda ,Kocsis or Ranki.

William has some strange rather eccentric ways though of taking his hands off the keys and leaving the sounds to finish the piece with the pedal still on or throwing his hands in the air like a cat on a hot tin roof ( better than last time I heard him but wonder if they are really necessary).He would do good to take Brendel’s own advice to himself as he said he did not sing or moan like Gould but he did make grimaces that he too was aware of and tried to cure by having a mirror next to the piano in the practice studio. A small point when a young artist actually listens to himself with sensitivity and intelligence and at times great passionate involvement.His passionate vehemence was especially noticeable in ‘Les Cloche de Genèvre’ where his magical embellishments and sense of balance also allowed the melodic line to shine with purity and beauty.The ending of this remarkable work was pure magic as he had endowed this tone poem with beauty combined with architectural shape.

The three Debussy Images were played with a luminosity and bathed in pedal but still managing to keep the utmost clarity with a wondrous sense of balance and superb use of the pedals .The moon shone as never before as it illuminated so magically the remains of the distant temple and it was a true jewel box of sounds as William’s touch was so varied with gong like precision as he struck the keys with such sensitivity.The ‘Poissons d’or’ were allowed to flitter fleetingly in absolutely clear waters unimpeded and at ease ,at times in very suave French style.

In the Chopin Fourth Scherzo he brought a sense of discovery and living a story to every strand.The quicksilver changes of character were revealed with virtuosity and passion – some strange pianistic jiggery pokery in fast passages but always with the musical meaning uppermost in mind.The mellifluous central episode unwound with simplicity and aristocratic fluidity and contrasted with the subtle refined virtuosity that surrounds it.The grandeur and nobility he brought to the final pages was quite breathtaking.

‘En rève’’ a late piece by Liszt that ends on a question mark pointing into the distance with such optimistic uncertainty .It was a piece that my old teacher Gordon Green used to enthuse about and insist that we all play – it is only a page long and is of the same simplicity of Mozart such had Liszt distilled his musical thoughts into a few essential notes of such poignant meaning.

The Variations on ‘Weinen,Klagen,Sorgen,Zagen’ were given a monumental performance where Williams mastery both technical and musical were exposed to the full as this work unfolded with its beseeching descending chromaticism .His astonishing virtuosity contrasted with the simplicity of the chorale melody before the triumphant ending in the blaze of glory of a fervent believer.

 

Liszt is alive and well and today in Perivale

1. Cheuk Kin Neo Hung (China, b 2003) 3rd Prize

‘Les jeux d’eaux à la Villa d’Este’
from Années de pèlerinage – Troisième Année – Italie, S163

Variations on a theme from Bach’s ‘Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen’ S180

2. Spencer Klymyshyn (Canada, b.1999) 2nd Prize

Petrarch sonnet no 104
from Années de pèlerinage – Deuxième Année – Italie, S161

‘Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude’
from Harmonies poétiques et religieuses, S173

3. Hedong Li (Hong Kong, China, b.2004) Highly Commended

Rigoletto concert paraphrase S434

‘Après une lecture de Dante – Fantasia quasi sonata’
from Années de pèlerinage – Deuxième Année – Italie, S161

 

4. Fang-Lin Liu (Taiwan, b. 2001) Highly Commended

La lugubre gondola (I) S200/1

‘Chasse-neige’
from 12 Études d’exécution transcendente, S139

Hungarian Rhapsody no 12 in C sharp minor S244

5. Letian Yu (China, b.2008). First Prize

Valses oubliées, S215
No. 1 in F sharp major
No. 2 in A flat major
No. 3 in D flat major

‘La Campanella’
from Études d’exécution transcendante d’après Paganini, S140

‘Danse macabre’ – transcription of Saint-Saëns Op 40 S555

Performances will be followed by Jury Deliberation and Winner Announcement
Jury:
Melvyn Cooper, Leslie Howard, Minkyu Kim and Mark Viner.

It was a unanimous decision to award first prize to the fifteen year old Letian Yu

Minkyu Kim – mastery exults to the glory of Liszt

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.wordpress.com/2019/12/01/liszt-comes-to-perivale/

I had heard this young artist in the remarkable masterclasses of Angela Hewitt that she holds near her home by Lake Trasimeno in Perugia https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/08/24/angelas-generosity-and-infectious-song-and-dance-inspires-her-illustrious-students/

Some musicianly playing from Jeremy Chan with a programme of two of the pinnacles of the keyboard repertoire.The Liszt B minor Sonata and Beethoven’s op 110. In both he allowed the music to unfold naturally with an architectural sense of shape and a scrupulous attention to the detailed indications of both composers.It was fascinating to hear the opening of Beethoven immediately after the visionary final pages of the Liszt Sonata. Liszt had been kissed by the master when he was a pupil of Czerny who had been a pupil of Beethoven.Of course the last three Beethoven Sonatas are visionary as the composer had at last found peace at the end of a tumultuous life. Now completely deaf he could hear the celestial sounds that awaited just around the corner ,very similar to Schubert who found solace in the most mercurial outpouring of song in his final months on this earth.

In the Liszt Sonata it was Jeremy’s musicianship that allowed the music to unfold naturally without any rhetoric or unnecessary showmanship.There was a rhythmic energy and nobility and above all a sense of balance that allowed the musical line to shine out so clearly even in the most transcendentally difficult passages.The single movement unfolded naturally from the opening three motifs that are then developed and incorporated into a quasi sonata form but in which the three characters from Faust are clearly defined and developed.Liszt was searching like Schubert in his Wanderer Fantasy for a new less classical form that eventually would be transformed into the Symphonic poem or by Wagner into the leit motif of the Ring cycle.

Jeremy at key moments would add deep bass notes that obviously opened up the sound of the piano and just showed his versatility and musicianship as he looked for the sounds that are not always easy to find on some difficult instruments.But they are there for those that seek! It created an atmosphere of serenity and religious fervour that was to build into a passionate outpouring beautifully balanced and shaped ,incorporated as it was into the entire overall form of this monumental work.Bass notes added too at the end of the Sonata as the visionary final pages opened up new vistas for music .Liszt himself had realised this and crossed out with the same vehemence as Beethoven his original ending in flaming virtuosistic glory.The knotty twine of the fugato was kept beautifully under control as the music moves inexorably to the climax and the recapitulation.Not sure that his rearranging between the hands of fast passage work is a good musical idea but it was done discreetly and in any case there was no way of cheating with the tumultuous final octave passages that he played with virtuosity and wonderfully controlled passion.

There were so many beautiful things in his Beethoven performance with a deeply felt sensitivity to the mellifluous sound world of the masters last thoughts.The magical change from the E flat to the D flat for the development was beautifully played and if the left hand was sometimes in muddy waters it was because the melodic line was uppermost in Jeremy’s sensitive fingers .There was a rhythmic energy to the Scherzo and the treacherous trio held no terror fo such a musician who endowed the whole movement with the same mellifluous sound of the entire sonata.The Adagio just floated on the long held chordal link between the movements and the Arioso dolente was shaped with poignant beauty as the pulsating left hand was merely a heart beating from within.There was a gossamer glow to the fugue that returns in inversion as it leads to the glorious affirmation of hope that Beethoven declares with passionate conviction.

And it was with this passionate conviction that Jeremy ended a memorable hour of masterworks played with great intelligence and sensitive artistry .

Liszt noted on the sonata’s manuscript that it was completed on 2 February 1853,but he had composed an earlier version by 1849.The Sonata was dedicated to Robert Schumann in return for Schumann’s dedication of his Fantasie in C op 17 (published 1839) to Liszt.A copy of the work arrived at Schumann’s house in May 1854, after he had entered Endenich sanatorium. Pianist and composer Clara Schumann did not perform the Sonata despite her marriage to Robert Schumann as she found it “merely a blind noise”.The original loud ending crossed out by Liszt and replaced with the visionary afterthought of a genius

The Sonata was published by Breitkopf & Härtel in 1854and first performed on 27 January 1857 in Berlinby Hans von Bulow.It was attacked by Eduard Hanslick who said “anyone who has heard it and finds it beautiful is beyond help”.Brahms reputedly fell asleep when Liszt performed the work in 1853,and it was also criticized by the pianist and composer Anton Rubinstein .However, the Sonata drew enthusiasm from Richard Wagner following a private performance of the piece by Karl Klindworth on April 5, 1855.Otto Gumprecht of the German newspaper Nationalzeitung referred to it as “an invitation to hissing and stomping”.It took a long time for the Sonata to become commonplace in concert repertoire, because of its technical difficulty and negative initial reception due to its status as “new” music.

No other work of Liszt’s has attracted anywhere near the amount of scholarly attention paid to the Sonata in B minor. It has provoked a wide range of divergent theories from those of its admirers who feel compelled to search for hidden meanings. The one generally recognised is :

• The Sonata is a musical portrait of the Faust legend, with “Faust,” “Gretchen,” and “Mephistopheles” themes symbolizing the main characters.

The Liszt Sonata and the Chopin fourth Ballade are together with the Schumann Fantasie pinnacles of the Romantic piano repertoire

Beethoven’s A flat major Sonata, Op 110, was his penultimate sonata, written in 1821, 

The outward gentleness of the opening movement belies its tautness of form, and the contrast with the brief second, a scherzo marked Allegro molto – capricious, gruffly humorous, even violent – is extreme. Beethoven subversively sneaks in references to two street songs popular at the time: Unsa Kätz häd Katzln ghabt (‘Our cat has had kittens’) and Ich bin lüderlich, du bist lüderlich (‘I’m dissolute, you’re dissolute’)!

But it’s in the finale that the weight of the sonata lies, and it begins with a declamatory, recitative-like passage that starts in the minor, moving to an emotionally pained aria-like section.Beethoven introduces a quietly authoritative fugue, based on a theme reminiscent of the one that opened the sonata. Its progress interrupted by the aria once more, its line now disjunct and almost sobbing for breath. The way in which the composer moves into the major via a sequence of G major chords is a passage of pure radiance, that Edwin Fischer described as ‘like a reawakening heartbeat’. This leads to a second appearance of the fugue in inversion culminating in a magnificently triumphant conclusion.

In the summer of 1819, Adolf Martin Schlesinger from the Schlesinger firm of music publishers based in Berlin sent his son Maurice to meet Beethoven to form business relations with the composer.The two met in Modling,where Maurice left a favourable impression on the composer.After some negotiation by letter, the elder Schlesinger offered to purchase three piano sonatas for 90 ducats in April 1820, though Beethoven had originally asked for 120 ducats. In May 1820, Beethoven agreed, and he undertook to deliver the sonatas within three months. These three sonatas are the ones now known as Op. 109,110, and 111 the last of Beethoven’s piano

The composer was prevented from completing the promised sonatas on schedule by several factors, including his work on the Missa solemnis (Op. 123),rheumatic attacks in the winter of 1820, and a bout of jaundice in the summer of 1821.Op. 110 “did not begin to take shape” until the latter half of 1821.Although Op. 109 was published by Schlesinger in November 1821, correspondence shows that Op. 110 was still not ready by the middle of December 1821. The sonata’s completed autograph score bears the date 25 December 1821, but Beethoven continued to revise the last movement and did not finish until early 1822.The copyist’s score was presumably delivered to Schlesinger around this time, since Beethoven received a payment of 30 ducats for the sonata in January 1822.

Wednesday 15 November 2023, 6.30pm

Ayane Nakajima

Bach Prelude & Fugue in F minor, BWV 881
Beethoven Piano Sonata No. 32 in C minor, Op. 111
Chopin Andante Spianato et Grand Polonaise Brillante in E flat major, Op. 22

‘A performance of noble grace and clarity combined with emotional warmth and celestial lyricism. Bach Prelude and Fugue in F minor- the Prelude was flowing with natural agogics, embellished with passing notes and trills, a gentle rendering with beautiful colouring of parts. A brisk start to the fugue, dry and clear articulation contrasted to the more smoothly sustained prelude. Characterful voice leading and precise articulation together with a fast tempo created a driven character. Beethoven Sonata op 111- the monumental scope of this monolith sonata was evident from the grand opening gestured by Ayane. Powerful virtuosic passages interchanged with atmospheric and well judged pauses and lyrical episodes. Rhythmic drive and clarity of the playing, once again, brought the character to the surface but more appropriately to the style, waves of emotional charge streamed through the playing. The Adagio was as beautifully paced, full of rich well-voiced sonorities with inner voices creating perfect harmony. Noble expression unveiled the rolling narrative passing through moments of perfect celestial stillness and contemplation and through moments of utter determination and emotional intensity. One felt that the sonata was too short in the hands of Ayane- so emotionally harmonious and balanced was her interpretation of this gigantic masterwork. The Chopin Andante Spianato and Grand Polonaise Brillante confirmed Ayane as a brilliant virtuoso as well as stylistically aware interpreter. Flawless passages intermingled with seductive micro rubato and Polonaise pacing to make the audience wish they were able to dance. The great dynamic contrasts threw light and shade onto the piece from powerful octave runs to gentlest harp-like arpeggios of the Andante Spianato.’

It was a most enjoyable recital, which left the audience mesmerised, excited and clear that they had witnessed a real artist at work.Elena Vorotko C/O Artistic Director Keyboard Trust

Japanese-American pianist Ayane Nakajima is the prize winner of several international competitions including Young Texas Artists, the International Keyboard Odyssiad and Festival, and YoungArts.

Ayane was born in New York and began studying the piano at the age of three at the Kaufman Music Center. From the age of six until she was eighteen, she studied privately with Dr. Hiromi Fukuda.

Ayane is currently a Royal College of Music Scholar and is studying for her Master’s degree with Danny Driver. She received her Bachelor of Music degree from Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music in Houston, Texas where she studied with Dr. Jon Kimura Parker.

Ayane has given performances at prestigious venues across the United States such as Steinway Hall New York, Scandinavia House, Alice Tully Hall, Rose Studio at the Lincoln Center, Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall and the New World Center. She also participates in summer festivals, most recently at the Académie Internationale d’Eté de Nice, where she studied with pianist Akiko Ebi.

Alongside many top honours, Ayane was selected as a recipient of the 2023 Louis Sudler Prize in the Arts by the Dean of Undergraduates at Rice University, awarded since 1983 to a graduating senior who exhibits ‘promise in the arts’. She was also nominated as a semi-finalist for the 2019 United States Presidential Scholar in the Arts. In 2018, she had her concerto debut performing Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with Eugene Muneyoshi Takahashi and the Lucidity Chamberistas.

As a chamber musician, Ayane has won multiple chamber music competitions including the 2019 Young Musicians Competition at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, performing Faure’s Piano Quartet No. 1 at Alice Tully Hall. She was also invited by euphonist Demondrae Thurman, Chair of the Department of Brass at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music, to perform alongside him and other brass musicians in Port Washington, NY. She has worked closely with notable chamber coaches such as Paul Kantor, Desmond Hoebig and Kathleen Winkler, and has participated in masterclasses with distinguished teachers and performers such as Roberto Plano, Jeremy Denk, Logan Skelton, Nina Lelchuk, Akiko Ebi and Marina Lomazov.

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)Etude in E flat minor Op. 10 No. 6 (1830-2) Etude in E Op. 10 No. 3 (1832)
Fantasy in F minor Op. 49 (1841)

Modest Mussorgsky (1839-1881)Pictures from an Exhibition (1874)
Promenade 1 • The Gnome • Promenade 2 •
The Old Castle • Promenade 3 • Tuileries • Bydlo • Promenade 4 • Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks • “Samuel” Goldenberg und “Schmuÿle” • Promenade 5 • The Market Place at Limoges • Catacombs (Sepulchrum Romanum) •
Cum mortuis in lingua mortua •
The Hut on Fowl’s Legs (Baba-Yaga) •
The Great Gate of Kiev

An ovation for Alexander Gavrylyuk after performances that recall Cherkassky for their refined multicoloured tone palette.
An exquisite Haydn B minor with such refined phrasing and delicacy of sound.A rare sensibility as he shaped the music with loving beauty allowing it to speak so simply and eloquently.Ravishing beauty of the Minuet where even the contrasting Trio was played with a rare sensibility .The Finale was played with scintillating character and spirit. Chopin’s two most lyrical studies from op 10 were played with the same aristocratic style of Cherkassky (who used to play Godowsky’s left hand version of n.6 in E flat minor too ).A chiselled beauty even rather monumental at times but a whole world in so few pages that was of an inspired artist sharing his thoughts with us.A Fantasy op 49 of dramatic contrasts and the same impetuosity as his temperament was occasionally unleashed by his red hot temperament
But it is Mussorgsky ‘Pictures’ that will resound around these walls for long to come with a breathtaking recreation of an old war horse given miraculous new life. The opening promenade I have never heard phrased so beautifully with a wondrous legato and a quite unique sensibility to balance .At times like a cat on a hot tin roof with the astonishing character that he brought to each picture but also harmonies and inner counterpoints that only a magician could find.I doubt ‘Gnomus’ or ‘Bydlo’ have ever been so terrifyingly portrayed as he seemed to wade through the mire like a monster in some devilish quicksand .The frenzy of “Baba Yaga’ that was attacked so violently but then astonished us with sudden changes of colour that took us by surprise.There was the sedate nobility of Goldenberg and the luminosity of Schmuyle and a Limoges Market Place of breathtaking activity .Chicks that just vanished into thin air with a chuckle and Catacombs that would give you nightmares .If the ‘Great Gate’ was rather too fast for the majesty and significance that it especially holds for us today the layers of sound and sense of balance I have only ever heard from Cherkassky.A true master of balance and colour and truly a Cherkassky look alike in so many memorable ways.I remember Shura playing ‘Pictures’ in the vast space of the Albert Hall and playing with such vehemence that he dislodged the soft pedal that made such an unearthly twang but just added another colour to his kaleidoscopic palette.
But it was the two encores by enormous insistence that showed his great artistry with a ravishing sense of balance that could allow the ‘Vocalise’ to sing as never before .It was this that I had heard on the radio a few years ago that stopped me in my tracks for its crystalline velvet beauty.The Scriabin Study op 2 was played with the beguiling sense of insinuation and aristocratic nobility of another age when pianist were magicians who could conjure up sounds that shone like jewels glistening on a sumptuous velvet plate .

A plate fit for a King and it was indeed a Prince who had enchanted,seduced and entranced us today as rarely before.

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.

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? 

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. 

This cross-over period between harpsichord and fortepiano plays out in the nature of the first movement’s two contrasting themes. 

In place of a lyrical slow movement, Haydn offers us a minuet and trio which features 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 

The trio 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.

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.

Alexander Gavrylyuk (born 19 August 1984) is a Ukrainian-born Australian pianist whose first concert performance was at the age of nine. He moved to Australia at the age of 13.A stunningly virtuosic pianist, Alexander is internationally recognised for his electrifying and poetic performances. His performance of Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No.3 at the BBC Proms was described as “revelatory” by the Times and “electrifying” by Limelight. For the 23/24 season, Alexander will be Artist in Residence at Wigmore Hall, performing three recitals across the season.

Highlights of the 2023-24 season include debuts with NDR Hannover, Bochum Symphoniker and Amsterdam Sinfonietta, as well as return visits to Sydney Symphony, Adelaide Symphony, Bournemouth Symphony, Aarhus Symphony & Rheinische Philharmonie. Recent highlights also include Detroit Symphony, Dallas Symphony, Polish Baltic Philharmonic, Sao Paolo Symphony & Rhode Island Philharmonic.

Born in Ukraine in 1984 and holding Australian citizenship, Alexander began his piano studies at the age of seven and gave his first concerto performance when he was nine years old. At the age of 13, Alexander moved to Sydney where he lived until 2006. He won First Prize and Gold Medal at the Horowitz International Piano Competition (1999), First Prize at the Hamamatsu International Piano Competition (2000), and Gold Medal at the Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Masters Competition (2005).

He has since gone on to perform with many of the world’s leading orchestras, including: New York, Los Angeles, Czech, Warsaw, Moscow, Seoul, Israel and Rotterdam Philharmonics; NHK, Chicago, Cincinnati and City of Birmingham Symphony orchestras; Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Philharmonia, Wiener Symphoniker, Orchestre National de Lille and the Stuttgarter Philharmoniker; collaborating with conductors such as Vladimir Ashkenazy, Alexandre Bloch, Herbert Blomstedt, Andrey Boreyko, Thomas Dausgaard, Valery Gergiev, Neeme Järvi, Vladimir Jurowski, Sebastian Lang-Lessing, Kirill Karabits, Louis Langrée, Cornelius Meister, Vassily Petrenko, Rafael Payare, Alexander Shelley, Yuri Simonov, Vladimir Spivakov, Markus Stenz, Sir Mark Elder, Thomas Søndergård, Gergely Madaras, Mario Venzago, Enrique Mazzola and Osmo Vänska.

Gavrylyuk has appeared at many of the world’s foremost festivals, including the Hollywood Bowl, Bravo! Vail Colorado, Mostly Mozart, the Ruhr Festival, the Kissinger Sommer International Music Festival, the Gergiev Festival in Rotterdam.

As a recitalist Alexander has performed at the Musikverein in Vienna, Tonhalle Zurich, Victoria Hall Geneva, Southbank Centre’s International Piano Series, Wigmore Hall, Concertgebouw Master Pianists Series, Suntory Hall, Tokyo Opera City Hall, Great Hall of Moscow Conservatory, Cologne Philharmonie, Tokyo City Concert Hall, San Francisco, Sydney Recital Hall and Melbourne Recital Centre. Alexander also performs regularly with his recital partner Janine Jansens throughout Europe.

Alexander is Artist in Residence at Chautauqua Institution where he leads the piano program as an artistic advisor. He supports a number of charities including Theme and Variations Foundation which aims to provide support and encouragement to young, aspiring Australian pianists as well as Opportunity Cambodia, which has built a residential educational facility for Cambodian children.

Alexander Gavrylyuk is a Steinway Artist.

Tuesday 21 November 2.00 pm

  

It was the minutes of silence at the end of this momentous journey that said it all.A quite remarkable performance because Milosz did nothing and in so doing allowed Bach’s wondrous work to speak for itself Keeping the tempo constant like a great wave on which these monumental variations could float with authority and purity.

This is Bach’s Monument written in stone.This was the authority of Rosalyn Tureck who was known as the High Priestess of Bach.There are others that play it with the song and the dance in mind like Tatyana Nikolaeva or Angela Hewitt. The wonder of Bach’s Universal Genius is that it can be played in so many different ways and on so many different instruments but the message is always the same.Bach the glorification of the spirit.

There was poignant purity to the long slow 25th variation and Milosz did not fall into the rather conventional habit of adding ornaments but just let the music speak for itself .With the possibility of the piano to sustain notes it makes the performing practices of the harpsichord superfluous.It was the chiselled perfection of Milosz that was like Tureck so extraordinary.Tureck had more variation of sounds as her sense of touch was quite unique and even a speck of dust on the keys could unbalance her. Often she would come on stage and see the lid of the keyboard had been left open and with a smile would take out her handkerchief to clear away any specks of dust that might have appeared while she had been in the green room.

The only evident sense of personal participation from Milosz was actually at the end of this 25th variation when the final notes he played with a pointed finger that gave a just weight to each of the final notes.There was a wonderful rhythmic control to the 29th where so often ( even with Tureck) the virtuoso notes can be like a cat and mouse chasing each others up and down the keyboard .The Quodlibet was played with weight and seriousness that belied the actual words that Bach had set to music:’I have not been with you for so long’ and ‘Cabbages and turnips have driven me away’! The long wait before the return of the aria was beautifully judged by Milosz – it was here that André Tchaikowsky used to hold the final G of the Quodlibet and magically float the aria on it as if suspended in space.

A remarkable performance from this young musician not surprisingly from the class of Norma Fischer I am pleased to note.

I had heard Rosalyn Tureck play the Goldberg Variations in London in the RFH at 6.45 on the harpsichord and at 9 on the piano.I had never forgotten it when I invited her to play in Rome and she decided that she would come out of her enforced retirement to once more take centre stage in her Indian Summer .She became the diva of Italy at the age of 80!I had also invited Tatyana Nikolaeva to play the Goldbergs a month later and got greatly criticised for not varying the programmes in my Euromusica Concert Series.Now the programmes that I promoted are looked at in disbelief that all those great musicians could play in the same hall in the same season .

Milosz Sroczynski is a Polish pianist based in Zurich, Switzerland. He completed his education in Hannover, Geneva with Cédric Pescia, Zurich with Konstantin Scherbakov and Christoph Berner, and London, where he obtained the Artist Diploma at the Royal College of Music, as a scholar and student of a legendary British pianist and distinguished teacher Prof. Norma Fisher. Additionally he has worked with Janina Fialkowska, Pierre-Laurent Aimard to name a few. Milosz performed giving solo and chamber music recitals in Switzerland and in many European countries – in Germany, Poland, Sweden, the Netherlands, UK, Italy, France, Spain. His performances had been broadcasted live on Polish Radio where he also made archival recordings. He frequently appeared performing a high-demanding Goldberg Variations by J.S.Bach across Europe in London, Berlin, Hamburg, Gothenburg, Zurich and Warsaw. He is a versatile pianist with a wide-ranging classical repertoire, encompassing Bach, the Viennese Classics, German Romanticism, and Chopin, as well as the works of French modernists. With an enthusiastic embrace of contemporary pieces, he creates interesting crossover concert programs that seamlessly blend classical and modern compositions, captivating audiences with his innovative and dynamic performances. Milosz is a prizewinner of several piano competitions and was awarded prestigious Swiss, Polish, British and Israeli scholarships. He teaches at the Conservatory of Zurich.

Goldberg -Ferrucci to be or not to be

Angela Hewitt for the glory of Bach.The pinnacle of pianistic perfection

Some remarkable playing from Leonardo Pierdomenico who after a week of concerts in London solo and with the distinguished ‘cellist Erica Piccotti was able to produce such a memorable final recital in Perivale.From the very first notes of Respighi’s atmospheric ‘Notturno’ there was a dynamic range of sounds with a wondrous sense of balance.A way of caressing the keys that no matter how intricate or tumultuous ,the sound was never hard but always luminous and fluid .A kaleidoscope of sounds that allowed his remarkable musicianship to delve deep into the scores and reveal secrets that are rarely shared with others.A musicianship that allowed him to make a piano transcription of one of Respighi’s best known works for full orchestra which has never been attempted on the piano before.Respighi was very precise about the multicoloured sounds he wanted from the orchestra and to bring this to a single instrument was a tour de force of musicianly craftsmanship .Just as Agosti in 1928 had miraculously been able to transcribe Stravinsky’s ‘Firebird’ to a single instrument .It has become an important part of the piano repertoire just as this transcription will become for all those that can attempt the gargantuan technical difficulties as Leonardo could with such masterly ease.The ‘Firebird’ too is a showpiece only for the greatest of pianists requiring not only a technical mastery of the instrument but above all a range of sounds and sense of architectural shape that is only for the greatest musicians to contemplate.The build up of sonority in the final piece of the ‘Appian Way’ was done with the same mastery that Agosti brings to his transcription.It is done with a masterly use of pedal and a sense of balance allied to the superhuman dexterity of someone who is a true illusionist and can turn this box of hammers and strings into an orchestra of such overwhelming power.The build up to the final few bars was truly masterly both as transcriber and as performer.

It was an interesting combination with Liszt’s rarely heard ‘A la Chapelle Sixtine’ and ‘Les Jeux d’eau a la Villa d’Este.’Obviously Leonardo had in mind a voyage to Rome with Respighi and Liszt.Rachmaninov was not just a filler as the composer had begun working on the sonata whilst living for a brief period in Rome.A tour de force of playing of transcendental technical mastery allied to a sense of colour and architectural form that was quite remarkable .The clarity he brought to all he played gave a luminosity and glow to the sound whether in the whispered seductive intricacies or passionate outbursts.It was less hysterical than Horowitz but the technical mastery was the same.Like Horowitz ,Leonardo barely moved but was listening carefully to the sounds he was producing as we were able to watch his hands that seemed to squeeze every ounce of sound out of the keys in such a natural way that made it all look so easy.But behind the notes there was also a great artist with a heart that beat with passionate commitment and dynamic energy.Rachmaninov too used to appear on stage as though he had just swallowed a knife but the sounds he made at the piano ,according to Vlado Perlemuter, were the most ravishingly romantic sounds he had ever heard!

Having ravished and seduced us with his multicoloured playing,as an encore he chose a Scarlatti Sonata of refined purity and simplicity.Ornaments that unwound like springs with playing of a clarity and buoyancy of infectious good humour .A driving rhythmic energy that was like rays of light shooting in all directions from a prism.An exhilarating performance that was a breath of fresh air after the sumptuous seductive sounds of Rachmaninov.

Leonardo Pierdomenico A master at St Mary’s A memorable recital by a great artist

Fun and games on and off stage last night ……but what music !
Thanks again to Hugh Mather and his team Leonardo can still be heard in every corner of the globe via St Mary’s superb streaming Impeccable,dynamic,astonishing were just some of the comments from various parts of the world but above all it was the intelligence and beauty of a complete artist that he shared with us that was so remarkable.
E pure semplice e simpatico ……che non guasta!

Winner of the “Raymond E. Buck” Jury Discretionary Award at the 2017 Van Cliburn international piano competition , Leonardo Pierdomenico is described by the critics as “a pianist where highly developed technique and cultivated sound are combined with imagination and thoroughgoing, scrupulous musicality”. He is also the first prize winner, aged 18, of the “Premio Venezia” piano competition, held in Teatro La Fenice: hence the collaboration with orchestras such as the Fort Worth Symphony , Orchestre Royal De Chambre de Wallonie, Teatro La Fenice Symphony Orchestra, LaVerdi Orchestra in Milan, Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie, Wuhan Philharmonic Orchestra, North Czech Philharmonic and with conductor like Yves Abel, Diego Matheuz and Nicholas McGegan , among the others. In the 2022 season he makes his debut in the chamber music season of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, with the italian premiere of Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms in Shostakovic’s arrangement for piano duo and choir. He has already released three albums with the label Piano Classics : his debut album, dedicated to works by Liszt, earned him an Editor’s Choice from Gramophone UK magazine and a nomination for recording of the year at the Preis der DeutschenSchallplattenkritik. Born in Abruzzo, Italy, Leonardo completed the piano master’s degree with honors at the Accademia di S. Cecilia in Rome in the class of M° Benedetto Lupo and then continued his studies at the Foggia Conservatory, under the guidance of M° Alessandro Deljavan . Leonardo is currently a student of William Grant Nabore’ at the Lake Como International Piano Academy

All week in London with Leonardo Pierdomenico – Friday 17th streamed live from Perivale with Fidelio cafe on 14 ;St Mary’s Ywickenham on 15 ; Bob Boas 16;Dukes Hall RAM 19.

Rachmaninov worked on his Second Sonata over several months in 1913, commenced whilst in Rome and later completing it in Russia and including it in his concerts that Autumn prior to its publication the following Spring.Although conceived in three movements (Allegro agitato, non allegro, Allegro molto), the Second Sonata flows as one astonishing piece, its bravura technical demands matched by that dark emotional intensity which runs through so much of Rachmaninov’s music. The movements are bound together by thematic cross-references and transformation; in particular, the opening descending passage pervades all three movements in different guises.The original version is not without its problems however; not only is the scale of the work daunting, so too some of the passage-work makes very significant demands on the performer.

Rachmaninov’s own thoughts were expressed when he himself later wrote:”I look at some of my earlier works and see how much there is that is superfluous. Even in this Sonata so many voices are moving simultaneously, and it is so long. It was no doubt to address these points that Rachmaninov set about revising the Sonata in the summer of 1931, just as he was also composing his final solo piano work, the Corelli Variations.In this revised version Rachmaninov makes significant changes to the piano writing throughout, both giving the piece a cleaner, more transparent texture and at the same time making the piece easier to play. In addition to these changes, he reduced the overall length of the Sonata by some 120 bars, tightening the structure considerably.

The question of whether Rachmaninov really altered the Sonata to its advantage is disputed to the present day among pianists and music critics. While many authors consider the significant cuts as a successful tightening up and elimination of unnecessary virtuoso ballast, the opposing faction criticises this intervention as a mutilation that upsets the Sonata’s formal balance and thematic conception.While the revised version is the one frequently heard, some such as Zoltán Kocsis have advocated a return to the unaltered first version, while many others (notably Horowitz and Van Cliburn) have produced their own composite versions, based on their preferred elements from both.

Années de pèlerinage ( Years of Pilgrimage) (S.160/161/162/163) is a set of three suites for solo piano by Franz Liszt .Much of it derives from his earlier work, Album d’un voyageur, his first major published piano cycle, which was composed between 1835 and 1838 and published in 1842.The title Années de pèlerinage refers to Goethe’s famous novel of self-realization, Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship, and especially its sequel Wilhelm Meister’s Journeyman Years.Liszt writes: ‘Having recently travelled to many new countries, through different settings and places consecrated by history and poetry; having felt that the phenomena of nature and their attendant sights did not pass before my eyes as pointless images but stirred deep emotions in my soul, and that between us a vague but immediate relationship had established itself, an undefined but real rapport, an inexplicable but undeniable communication, I have tried to portray in music a few of my strongest sensations and most lively impressions.’

“Troisième année” (“Third Year”), S.163, was published 1883; Nos. 1–4 and 7 composed in 1877; No. 5, 1872; No. 6, 1867.Les jeux d’eaux à la Villa d’Este (The Fountains of the Villa d’Este) in F♯ major – Over the music, Liszt placed the inscription, “Sed aqua quam ego dabo ei, fiet in eo fons aquae salientis in vitam aeternam” (“But the water that I shall give him shall become in him a well of water springing up into eternal life,” from the Gospel of John ). This piece, with its advanced harmonies and shimmering textures, is in many ways a precursor of musical Impressionism

Leslie Howard the renowned Liszt expert writes :”A la Chapelle Sixtine is a very unusual work, inspired by Liszt’s hearing two very different motets in the Sistine Chapel: the famous Miserere mei Deus by Gregorio Allegri (1582–1652), and Mozart’s last work of this kind—the Ave verum corpus, K618, of 1791. The story of Allegri’s work is well-known: composed for the papal choir at the time of Urban VIII, the work was not permitted to be published, and it circulated for centuries in a handful of written copies. The fourteen-year-old Mozart copied the piece from memory. Although the original piece is famous for its antiphonal chorus with high Cs, Liszt concentrates on the marvellous harmonies of its beginning, and uses them to generate a passacaglia in G minor whose variations come to a stormy climax before the Mozart piece is revealed in the simplest transcription in B major. By way of one of Liszt’s finest modulatory passages, the variations return, much shortened, before the Mozart reappears, this time in F sharp—incidentally, it is this passage which Tchaikovsky used as the basis for the slow movement of his fourth orchestral Suite, opus 61, ‘Mozartiana’. Liszt extends Mozart’s music to allow a gentle modulation to G major, and the piece finishes with distant hints of the Allegri in the bass. Liszt made an orchestral version of the piece which has, at the time of writing, never been published or performed, a version for piano duet, and a rather more frequently performed version for organ—with the title improved by the adding of the initial word ‘Évocation’.”

The Sei pezzi per pianoforte (“Six pieces for piano”), P.044, is a set of six pieces written between 1903 and 1905. These predominantly salonesque pieces are eclectic drawing influence from music of earlier periods, and demonstrate Respighi’s neoclassical compositional style. A more mature compositional technique brought on from studying abroad with the composers Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Max Bruch is also seen.The set contains various musical forms: waltz,canon,nocturne,minuet,etude and intermezzo and were composed separately between 1903 and 1905, and then published together between 1905 and 1907 in a set under the same title. Although they were published together, Respighi had not composed them as a suite , and therefore did not intend to have uniformity among the pieces; thus, publishing them together was merely an editorial decision

1. “Valse Caressante” – (“Tempo lento di Valzer.”)
2. “Canone” – (“Andantino”)
3. “Notturno” – (“Lento. (. = 50)”)
4. “Minuetto” – (No tempo marking)
5. “Studio” – (“Presto”)
6. “Intermezzo-Serenata” – (“Andante calmo”)

Pines of Rome P. 141, is a tone poem in four movements for orchestra completed in 1924 by Ottorino Respighi . It is the second of his three tone poems about Rome , following Fontane di Roma (1916) and preceding Feste Romane (1928). Each movement depicts a setting in the city with pine trees , specifically those in the Villa Borghese , near a catacomb on the Gianicolo , and along the Appian Way . The premiere was held at the Teatro Augusteo ( cruelly pulled down by Mussolini in the name of archaeologial excavations) in Rome on 14 December 1924, with Bernardino Molinari conducting the Augusteo Orchestra (later renamed S.Cecilia Orchestra ), and the piece was published by Casa Ricordi in 1925.The four movements are :

1. I pini di Villa Borghese” (“The Pines of the Villa Borghese”) –
2. “Pini presso una catacomba” (“Pines Near a Catacomb”) – Lento
3. “I pini del Gianicolo” (“The Pines of the Janiculum”) – Lento
4. “I pini della via Appia” (“The Pines of the Appian Way”) – Tempo di marcia

I pini di Villa Borghese”

This movement portrays children playing by the pine trees in the Villa Borghese , dancing the Italian equivalent of the nursery rhyme “Ring a Ring o’Roses”and “mimicking marching soldiers and battles; twittering and shrieking like swallows”.The Villa Borghese , a villa located within the grounds, is a monument to the Borghese family , who dominated the city in the early seventeenth century. Respighi’s wife Elsa recalled a moment in late 1920, when Respighi asked her to sing the melodies of songs that she sang while playing in the gardens as a child as he transcribed them, and found he had incorporated the tunes in the first movement.

“Pini presso una catacomba”

In the second movement, the children suddenly disappear and shadows of pine trees that overhang the entrance of a Roman catacomb dominate.It is a majestic dirge, conjuring up the picture of a solitary chapel in the deserted Campagna ; open land, with a few pine trees silhouetted against the sky. A hymn is heard (specifically the Kyrie ad libitum 1, Clemens Rector; and the Sanctus from Mass IX, Cum jubilo), the sound rising and sinking again into some sort of catacomb, the cavern in which the dead are immured. An offstage trumpet plays the Sanctus hymn. Lower orchestral instruments, plus the organ pedal at 16′ and 32′ pitch, suggest the subterranean nature of the catacombs, while the trombones and horns represent priests chanting

I pini del Gianicolo”

The end of the third movement features this recording of the song of a nightingale which Respighi incorporated into the score.

It is a nocturne set on the Janiculum Hill and a full moon shining on the pines that grow on it. Respighi called for the clarinet solo at the beginning to be played “come in sogno” (“As if in a dream”).

The movement is known for the sound of a nightingale that Respighi requested to be played on a phonograph during its ending, which was considered innovative for its time and the first such instance in music. In the original score, Respighi calls for a specific gramophone record to be played–“Il canto dell’Usignolo” (“Song of a Nightingale, No. 2”) from disc No. R. 6105, the Italian pressing of the disc released across Europe by the Gramophone Record label between 1911 and 1913.The original pressing was released in Germany in 1910, and was recorded by Karl Reich and Franz Hampe. It is the first ever commercial recording of a live bird.Respighi also called for the disc to be played on a Brunswick Panatrope record player. There are incorrect claims that Respighi recorded the nightingale himself, or that the nightingale was recorded in the yard of the McKim Building of the American Academy in Rome , (The Medici Palace where Liszt also performed ) also situated on Janiculum hill.

I pini della via Appia”

Respighi recalls the past glories of the Roman empire in a representation of dawn on the great military road leading into Rome. The final movement portrays pine trees along the Appian Way in the misty dawn, as a triumphant legion advances along the road in the brilliance of the newly-rising sun. Respighi wanted the ground to tremble under the footsteps of his army and he instructs the organ to play bottom B♭ on the 8′, 16′ and 32′ organ pedals. The score calls for six buccine – ancient circular trumpets that are usually represented by modern flugelhorns, and which are sometimes partially played offstage. Trumpets peal and the consular army rises in triumph to the Capitoline Hill . One day prior to the final rehearsal, Respighi revealed to Elsa that the crescendo of “I Pini della Via Appia” made him feel “‘an I-don’t-know-what’ in the pit of his stomach”, and the first time that a work he had imagined turned out how he wanted it.

Some superb playing from Bridget Yee as one would expect from the class of Christopher Elton at the RAM where she is multi prize scholarship holder.

A concert organised by the indomitable Bobby Chen for his Music Lessons Marylebone Series (www.musiclessonsmarylebone.co.uk).

With her relaxed Malaysian freedom of movement allied to an intellectual control she gave superb performances of Beethoven ,Chopin and Liszt .And just to demonstrate how relaxed she really is Gershwin’s ‘I Got Rhythm’ just shot from her well oiled fingers in a scintillating display of Earl Wildian virtuosity and charm …….Chopin Mazurkas that just flowed from her fingers with elegance and beguiling flexibility as beautifully as any native of Chopin’s homeland.

A Dante Sonata demonically imperious but also heart rendingly seductive where her command of the keyboard was at times breathtaking in its audacity.
But it was the Beethoven Sonata op 109 that was played with such understanding of these last thoughts of a Universal genius.The improvised changes in the first movement were held together with real architectural understanding with a controlled freedom that was always with the undercurrent of rhythmic energy present.
The ‘Prestissimo’ was played with great clarity and impeccable musicianship always with the larger shape of three movements in mind.The simplicity and beauty she brought to the theme and variations showed her understanding and authority.The weight she brought to this most profound theme was of string quartet quality where every strand had such poignant meaning. Variations that flowed so masterly from her sensitive fingers.I have rarely heard the staccato of the second variation given such an ethereal magic sheen as it dissolved so naturally into a legato that seemed to glow with such ravishing sounds.The third variation was played with the same dynamically controlled drive as the ‘Scherzo Prestissimo’ . The counterpoints of the fourth were of poignant beauty as they lead the way forward to the miraculous fifth variation.Vibrations of sound on which floats the theme transformed as it reaches into the heights with the ‘star’ that is already in view for Beethoven at the end of a tormented existence.Played with great intensity by this young Malaysian pianist who had seen so clearly this great journey that Beethoven had described with such serenity and intensity.

International Piano Recital:

Sofya Gulyak

Clara Schumann: Variations, op.20
Schumann: Fantasie-stücke op.111; Allegro op.8
Brahms: Klavierstücke op.119
Rachmaninoff: Corelli variations op.42
Scriabin: ‘Vers la flamme’ op.72
Stravinsky: ‘The Firebird’

Russian pianist Sofya Gulyak, has been hailed as “La Grande Dame du Piano” by La Scène. Sofya was the 1st prize-winner of the celebrated Leeds International Piano Competition in 2009, the first woman in the history of the competition to do so.

Since then Sofya has garnered international praise:

‘A Rach Star is Born…’ Washington Post
‘Phenomenal Sofya Gulyak’ Ruck Muzychny
‘Formidable Artist’ The Guardian

Sofya Gulyak the mastery and poetic vision of a great artist

Sofya Gulyak Sofya at the Wimbledon festival with playing of a poetic mastery that was a lesson for all.Not only to hear but to see and it is no coincidence that many of her students from the RCM were present today -‘see it,say it sorted ‘ takes on a different meaning now !
Following on from that eclectic master Louis Lortie who played last season in the International piano recital that is reserved each year for the greatest of musicians .

A month long festival organised by Anthony Wilkinson which shows his musicianly intent inviting two of the most refined and intelligent musicians on the International scene.Joining an eclectic group of musicians amongst whom this year the Juilliard Quartet.The opening concert had been Handel’s Israel in Egypt which takes on a new and harrowing significance in these troubled times!Wilkinson is obviously a man for all season -Chapeau indeed for his courage in bringing already 15 seasons of great music to Wimbledon…………..

It was interesting to watch Sofya as she played an eclectic programme of rarely played works by great composers -and their wives!A Guinness book of records number of notes if one was to count the black dots on the page but the marvel was that in Sofya’s hands these became streams of sounds of varying intensity.From the seemless ease with which Clara embroiders her husband’s theme that he claimed had been send by the angels.The same theme that Brahms was to use too and it creates a question mark over that triangle of human relationships.Schumann’s Fantasie-stuck op.111 ( that I have not heard since Cherkassky used to play them as an opener to the Liszt Sonata.)A stream of sounds that weave their way to the Schubertian second piece that was played with delicacy and luminosity.

But it was in the Allegro op 8 that one could appreciate the true mastery of Sofya as she literally waded through the enormous amount of notes with an ease and naturalness like someone swimming.She was swimming in a stream of sounds where her natural movements were as beautiful as the sounds she was squeezing out of the keys.Agosti a disciple of Busoni always told his students that you must have fingers of steel but wrists of rubber.Pletnev recently likened the art of touch as if squeezing a strawberry extracting the juice out of every key.Because it is such a natural movement the shape of the arm and hand is the same shape of the music on the page so in a sense it seems as though the music is leading the pianist taking her by the hand into the direction she should go.It all become so natural and seemingly effortless but I know that to arrive at this state there are many many hours of practice needed each day.In this rarely played Allegro there was a scintillating display of jeux perlé as cascades of notes seemed to swarm over they keys that then miraculously would turn into melody.

Her control of sound in the four Brahms pieces op 119 was quite extraordinary with her delicacy and purity of sound with infinite inflections that allowed these intimate confessions to seem as though improvised .The nobility and grandeur of the Rhapsody contrasted with the etherial beauty of the grazioso central episode.

After the interval we had three works by Russian composers in which Sofya made the piano sound like a full orchestra .An extraodinary range of sound in the twenty Corelli variations where beauty and virtuosity combine in a wonderful magic box of colour and imagination .There was a Streichian insistence to the obsessive motif of ‘ Vers la flame’ that Sofya played with enormous control as the music built up in intensity to its final explosion where it burns itself out.

Agosti’s famous transcription of the ‘Firebird’ entered so quietly as it built to a tumultuous climax.There were moments of breathtalking virtuosity mingled with moments of ravishingly whispered sounds.The build up to the end was a tour de force of control and passionate involvement and earned her a spontaneous standing ovation.

Many of her students present covered their adored Professor with flowers.The heartrending ‘Melodie’ from Rachmaninov’s ‘ 5 moreceaux de fantaisie op 3 ‘ was her way of thanking the audience with an even more ravishing kaleidoscopic range of sounds.

A curiosity was the Variations on a Theme of Robert Schumann op 20 by Clara Wieck Schumann. A work from around 1854 and one of the few of her own compositions that she would love to play in her recitals.It is based on the theme from Schumann’s ‘Bunte Blatter’ op 99 n 4.
It was dedicated to her husband and was one of the very few compositions that she wrote before Robert was committed to an asylum where he died .Leaving Clara to bring up alone their eight children when in order to survive financially she had to maintain her concert activity to the exclusion of composition.
Robert Schumann suffered from a mental disorder that first was manifested in 1833 as severe depression,recurring several times alternating with phases of “exaltation” and increasingly also delusional ideas of being poisoned .After a suicide attempt in 1854, Schumann was admitted at his own request to a mental asylum in Endenich (now Bonn ).Diagnosed with psychotic melancholia he died of pneumonia two years later at the age of 46, without recovering from his mental illness.The Variations on a theme of Schumann op 20 were dedicated to her already sick husband and were completed just in time for his 43 birthday with a dedication :’For my dear husband a renewed and weak attempt to compose from your dear old Clara ‘.It was infact completed just in time as in 1854 Robert attempted suicide and was admitted to an asylum.
The theme is from Robert’s own ‘Bunte Blatter’ and it is the same theme that Brahms ,a close family friend ,was to use for his own Variations on a Theme of Schumann op 9.Seven variations from Clara where Brahms had written sixteen that he had dedicated to Clara.
There was a great fluidity to Clara’s variations and there was the chordal simplicity of the second alternating with the slow harmonically varied third.Sumptuous beauty in the fourth with the theme in the tenor register surrounded by exquisite embellishments.The great drama in the octave variation with the pompous chordal declamation of the theme dissolved so beautifully into the delicately shadowed mellifluous theme.A ending of arpeggiando chords was spread over the keyboard with ravishing beauty.
It was fascinating to hear this rarely performed work.Apparently Brahms had studied Clara’s unpublished score and on his own manuscript he wrote, “Little variations on a theme by him dedicated to her”.

Three Fantasiestücke for piano, Op. 111, composed in 1851, is one of four works by Schumann entitled Fantasiestücke.

Schumann composed the Op. 111 in 1851, a few months after his appointment as Generalmusikdirektor of the Düsseldorf Orchestra Orchestra and Clara Schumann wrote in her diary: “Robert has composed three piano pieces of a grave and passionate character which I like very much.^”They reveal “the composer’s ardour, impetuosity and inner youth, followed by a contemplative and peaceful atmosphere” ,and he is said to have written them as a tribute to Beethoven’s Opus 111, because of his admiration for the last of his 32 Sonatas.In three movements: Sehr rasch, mit leidenschaftlichem Vortrag [Very quickly, with passionate expression] ( Molto vivace et appassionatamente),Ziemlich langsam (Quite slow) (Piuttosto lento);Kräftig und sehr markirt [Powerful and very marked] (Con forza, assai marcato).

Schumann’s Allegro op 8 where a contemporary critic said:’Everywhere only confused combinations of figures, dissonances, passages in short, for us torture’ He only published the opening movement “Allegro di bravura” of what was originally meant to be a sonata the other parts were apparently destroyed. Clara, who was otherwise rather reserved as far as Schumann’s early works were concerned, soon incorporate this piece into her repertoire. Ernestine von Fricken, the dedicatee with whom Schumann was still engaged at its time of composition, often played it after their separation, even if ‘with quite curious expression.’

The Four Pieces for Piano Op. 119, were composed in 1893 .The collection is the last composition for solo piano by Brahms. Together with the six pieces op 118 ,Op. 119 was premiered in London in January 1894.

N 1 Intermezzo in B minor
n.2 Intermezzo in E minor
N.3 Intermezzo in C major (the key is mistakenly identified as A minor)
N.4 Rhapsodie in E-flat major

In a letter from May 1893 to Clara Schumann ,Brahms wrote: I am tempted to copy out a small piano piece for you, because I would like to know how you agree with it. It is teeming with dissonances! These may [well] be correct and [can] be explained—but maybe they won’t please your palate, and now I wished, they would be less correct, but more appetizing and agreeable to your taste. The little piece is exceptionally melancholic and ‘to be played very slowly’ is not an understatement. Every bar and every note must sound like a ritard[ando], as if one wanted to suck melancholy out of each and every one, lustily and with pleasure out of these very dissonances! Good Lord, this description will [surely] awaken your desire!

Clara Schumann was enthusiastic and asked him to send the remaining pieces of his new work.

Variations on a Theme of Corelli op.42, was written in 1931 by the Russian they were composed the variations at his holiday home in Switzerland.

The theme is La Folia , which was not in fact composed by Arcangelo Corelli , but was used by him in 1700 as the basis for 23 variations in his Sonata for violin and continuo in D minor, Op. 5, No. 12. La Folia was popularly used as the basis for variations in Baroque music.Liszt used the same theme in his Spanish Rhapsodie .

Rachmaninoff dedicated the work to his friend, the violinist Fritz Kreisler and he wrote to the composer Nikolai Medtner , on 21 December 1931:

I’ve played the Variations about fifteen times, but of these fifteen performances only one was good. The others were sloppy. I can’t play my own compositions! And it’s so boring! Not once have I played these all in continuity. I was guided by the coughing of the audience. Whenever the coughing would increase, I would skip the next variation. Whenever there was no coughing, I would play them in proper order. In one concert, I don’t remember where – some small town – the coughing was so violent that I played only ten variations (out of 20). My best record was set in New York, where I played 18 variations. However, I hope that you will play all of them, and won’t “cough”.

Rachmaninoff recorded many of his own works, but this piece wasn’t one of them.

The Theme is followed by 20 variations, an Intermezzo between variations 13 and 14, and a Coda to finish. All variations are in D minor except where noted.

• Theme. Andante
• Variation 1. Poco piu mosso
• Variation 2. L’istesso tempo
• Variation 3. Tempo di Minuetto
• Variation 4. Andante
• Variation 5. Allegro (ma non tanto)
• Variation 6. L’istesso tempo
• Variation 7. Vivace
• Variation 8. Adagio misterioso
• Variation 9. Un poco piu mosso
• Variation 10. Allegro scherzando
• Variation 11. Allegro vivace
• Variation 12. L’istesso tempo
• Variation 13. Agitato
• Intermezzo
• Variation 14. Andante (come prima) (D♭ major)
• Variation 15. L’istesso tempo (D♭ major)
• Variation 16. Allegro vivace
• Variation 17. Meno mosso
• Variation 18. Allegro con brio
• Variation 19. Piu mosso. Agitato
• Variation 20. Piu mosso
• Coda. Andante

Vers la flamme (Toward the flame), Op. 72, is one of Scriabin’s last pieces for piano, written in 1914.

The main motif of the piece consists of descending half steps or whole steps interspersed with impressionistic representations of fire. The piece was originally intended to be Scriabin’s eleventh sonata;however, he had to publish it early because of financial concerns, and hence he labelled it a poem rather than a sonata . Like many of Scriabin’s late works, the piece does not conform to classical harmony and is instead built on the mystic chord and modal transpositions of its tone center. It is notorious for its difficulty, in particular the enormous leaps and long, unusual double-note trills in the final pages.

Horowitz said the piece was inspired by Scriabin’s eccentric conviction that a constant accumulation of heat would ultimately cause the destruction of the world.The piece’s title reflects the earth’s fiery destruction, and the constant emotional buildup and crescendo throughout the piece lead, ultimately, “toward the flame”.It was premiered on 14 March 1915 in Kharkiv , with Scriabin himself at the piano

Stravinsky’s score for The Firebird was written for Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes dance company, which premiered the work in Paris in 1910. Based on ancient Russian folk tales, it tells the story of the young Prince Ivan’s quest to find a legendary magic bird with fiery multi-coloured plumage. In the course of his adventures, he falls in love with a beautiful princess but has to fight off the evil sorcerer Katschei to eventually marry her. The suite presents the culminating scenes of the ballet in a piano transcription by the Italian pianist and pedagogue Guido Agosti (1901-1989), who studied with Ferruccio Busoni.

The Danse infernale depicts the brutal swarming and capture of Prince Ivan by Katschei’s monstrous underlings until Prince Ivan uses the magic feather given to him by the Firebird to cast a spell on his captors, making them dance until they drop from exhaustion. The Berceuse is a lullaby depicting the eerie scene of the slumbering assailants, leading to the Finale, a wedding celebration for Prince Ivan and his princess bride.Agosti’s piano transcription, completed in 1928, is a daunting technical challenge for the pianist. Most of the piano writing is laid out on on three staves in order to cover the multi-octave range of the keyboard that the pianist must patrol. The piano comes into its own in this transcription as a percussion instrument, to be played with the wild abandon with which a betrayed lover throws her ex-partner’s possessions off the balcony onto the street below.Judging from the shocking 7-octave-wide chord crash that opens the Dance infernale, Agosti captures well the bruising pace of the action, with off-beat rhythmic jabs standing out from a succession of punchy left-hand ostinati constantly nipping at the heels of the melody line. The accelerating pace as the sorcerer’s ghouls are made to dance ever more frantically is a major aerobic test for the pianist.

Relief comes in the Berceuse, which presents its own pianistic challenges, mainly those of finely sifting the overtones of vast chord structures surrounding the lonely tune singing out from the middle of the keyboard.The wedding celebration depicted in the Finale presents Stravinsky’s trademark habit of cycling hypnotically round the pitches enclosed within the interval of a perfect 5th. Just such a melody, swaddled in hushed tremolos, opens this final movement. It is a major challenge for the pianist to imitate the shimmering timbre of the orchestra’s brightest instruments as this theme is given its apotheosis to end the suite in a blaze of sonority that extends across the entire range of the keyboard.

Guido Agosti (11 August 1901 – 2 June 1989) was an Italian pianist and renowned for his yearly summer course in Siena frequented by all the major musicians of the age.It was on the express wish of Alfredo Casella that Agosti took over his class which he did for the next thirty years.Sounds heard in his studio have never been forgotten.

Agosti was born in Forli 1901. He studied piano with Ferruccio Busoni Bruno Mugellini and Filippo Ivaldiand earning his diploma at age 13. He studied counterpoint under Benvenuti and literature at Bologna University. He commenced his professional career as a pianist in 1921. Although he never entirely abandoned concert-giving, nerves made it difficult for him to appear on stage,and he concentrated on teaching. He taught piano at the Venice Conservatoire and at the Santa Cecilia Academy in Rome.In 1947 he was appointed Professor of piano at the Accademia Chigiana Siena .He also taught at Weimar and the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki.

His notable students include Maria Tipo,Yonty Solomon Leslie Howard,Hamish Milne,Martin Jones,Ian Munro,Dag Achat,Raymond Lewenthal,Ursula Oppens,Kun- Woo Paik,Peter Bithell.He made very few recordings; there is a recording of op 110 from the Ghione theatre in Rome together with his recording on his 80th birthday concert in Siena of Debussy preludes .

Haydn – Sonata in C major Hob.XVI:50

I.Allegro. II.Adagio. III. Allegro molto

Brahms – Sonata No.2 Op.2 in F sharp minor

I.Allegro non troppo ma energico

II. Andante con espressione

III. Scherzo. IV. Finale

Nicolas Ventura played at St Mary Le Strand, this beautiful church now let out to pasture as the roundabout of roads that until recently encircled it have been trasformed into a pedestrian paradise.
Now we can relish the beauty of this church as it echoes to the sounds of great music .
A gleaming Steinway piano at the foot of the gold and white cupola is where wondrous sounds can now reverberate freely.
And what sounds we heard today!

A young Tuscan pianist who was born in Massa the place that provided Michelangelo with the marble that he transformed into eternal masterpieces.
But this young man had come to study music at the Royal Academy and Royal College with two Russian master trainers of great pianists.Tatyana Sarkissova for his Masters at the RAM and Dina Parakhina for his Artists Diploma at the RCM .
They have bequeathed him a technical mastery and authority that was evident from the very first notes of Haydn’s ebullient English sonata in C .
A rhythmic drive and subtle contrast in dynamics with ornaments that unwound with jewel like precision as they added sparkle to Haydn’s joyously playful Sonata.A real interpreter as he translated Haydn’s music box pedal markings into a magic box of glistening sounds.
An Adagio that was grandiloquent as the melodic line was allowed to unfold with purity and simplicity.Elegance and beauty combined with intelligence and charm.And what fun he had as he gave irresistible character to Haydn in truly jocular mood.

This was just a curtain raiser for a masterly performance of Brahms’s epic second sonata.An opening that had revealed the remarkable gifts of this sensitive musician.
A work of both orchestral and virtuosistic form with so many changes of character that it is difficult to find a cohesive architectural shape.I have often found these early sonatas rather longwinded and episodic as indeed I had until recently Rachmaninov’s first Sonata.
Kantarow was the one who unlocked the mysterious form of Rachmaninov as he had also the First Brahms Sonata – both op.1 of the respective composers.It was this young Tuscan pianist who unlocked today the elusive Sonata op 2 of Brahms.Grandeur and exhilarating virtuosity combined with orchestral colours.The secret of course comes from thinlking always from the bass upwards with a rhythmic drive like riding on a great wave.Moments of subtle ravishing sounds combine with the enormous sonorities of symphonic proportions.All linked together with an overall sound palette that no matter how passionate or exciting was alway sumptuous and full and never hard or brittle.The excitement of the ‘Più mosso’ coda was immediately defused by the two quiet closing chords that opened the gate for the ‘Andante con espressione’.A movement that in this young artists hands was poignant and deeply moving with a wondrous sense of colour as the tenor melodic line became ever more intense with merely whispered comments from on high.The ‘Scherzo’ too entering on the last note of the ‘Andante’. With dynamic contrasts and rhythmic drive very similar but more grandiose that the rarely heard scherzo in E flat minor op 4.The Trio was bathed in pedal as Brahms asks and contrasted so beautifully with the rhythmic precision of the ‘Scherzo’.A beautiful sense of improvisation as Brahms searches for the last movement ‘Allegro non troppo e rubato’.A simple melodic line continually interrupted by ever more dynamic episodes until the final page that is cadenza like and that was played with filigree care and beauty.A sense of improvised freedom but always with the overall view of a true musician.A masterly performance of youthful passion and control that held the audience in his hands as he took them on a wondrous musical journey .

He extensively played throughout Italy, Belgium, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, Poland, Hungary, Spain and the UK. His last appearances include such halls as the Jacqueline Du Pré Music Building in Oxford, Duke’s Hall and the Brazilian Embassy in London, Palau de la Music Catalana in Barcelona, Fazioli Concert Hall, Teatro Manzoni in Pistoia, Teatro la Fenice in Venice, the Castle of Kalmar, Florianka Concert Hall in Kraków and Danube Palace in Budapest among many others.

In recent years he received many awards among which the “Sir Reginald Thatchers Prize”, “Franz Simmons Prize”, as well as the “Goetze Bequest Award” and the Diploma of the Royal Academy of Music for and outstanding performance in his final recital. Nicolas regularly performs as soloist and with orchestra, recently he performed works by Beethoven, Liszt and Rachmaninov collaborating with the Orchestra Sinfonica di Chioggia, the Philharmonic Orchestra of Bacau and the Danube Symphony Orchestra. Nicolas is an active chamber musician and transcriber, among his latest activities are his original piano transcription of Prokofiev’s “Scythian Suite” and Copland’s “Lincoln Portrait”.

Nicolas is supported by the Oleg Prokofiev Trust and the following months will see him involved in the production and publication of his first commercial recording entirely devoted to Prokofiev and in a series of recitals in halls including the Impavidi Theatre, the Austrian Cultural Forum, Southwark Cathedral and Wigmore Hall in London.

Born in Tuscany, Nicolas studied with Konstantin Bogino and Tatiana Sarkissova. He is an alumnus of the Conservatorio “Cesare Pollini” of Padua, where he graduated with the highest honours and a special mention, and the Royal Academy of Music in London, graduating with First Class. He has just obtained his Artist Diploma at the Royal College of Music under the guidance of Dina Parakhina. He participated in masterclasses and had important musical influences from such artists as Boris Berman, Benedetto Lupo, Anna Malikova, Håkon Autsbo, Imogen Cooper, Dmitri Alexeev, Marios Papadopoulos, Peter Donohoe, Vanessa Latarche and Federico Colli.

Nicolas is an avid reader and writer about classic literature and philosophy.

I have heard Misha play many times over the past two years since his mentor and teacher at the Royal College of Music Ian Jones asked me to listen to his performance in Cadogan Hall of the Rachmaninov First Piano Concerto.Misha who had recently left his homeland as Ukraine was being invaded and sought refuge in the UK .Ian has become his mentor and in these two years since first listening to him he has grown in stature and is fast becoming a master.His Beethoven op 110 and the Godowsky ‘Fledermaus’ I have written about just a month ago when he played them in the Autumn Festival in Perivale for the Keyboard Trust.

Misha Kaploukhii at St Mary’s Perivale The Keyboard Trust Autumn Festival 2023

They were remarkable performances then but now even in this short space of time his Beethoven has grown in weight and authority.The simplicity and maturity he brought to op 110 was masterly.An important statement where he had understood the real meaning of an interpreter to transmit the wishes as written in the score to the listener.Beethoven was completely deaf when he wrote these last sonatas but he could obviously hear them in his head and miraculously was able to write down meticulously the sounds that he wanted.Of course it is not only the notes but the meaning behind the notes too that depends on the personality and technical mastery of the performer.So it was quite remarkable how this 21 year old could have played with such mature mastery today.

Godowsky ‘Fledermaus’ too was thrown off with the ease of the great virtuosi of the golden age of piano playing.The age when Godowsky,Lhevine,Rosenthal,Levitski could ravish and seduce their listeners with a range of sounds that only Tobias Matthay could explain.Every note has an infinite number of sounds in it and the real virtuoso is the pianist who can seek out the most sounds ,not he who plays fastest and loudest but he who can play the quietest with what is known as jeux perlé.Encore pieces could be used to excite and seduce their audiences as we have in our time experienced only with Horowitz or Rubinstein.As Joan Chissell remarked in a review of Rubinstein playing Villa Lobos :”Mr Rubinstein turned baubles into gems’.

It was exactly this that Misha did today too.After the intelligence and faithfulness to a masterwork by Beethoven he was able to seduce,beguile,enchant and excite with a piece by Godowsky written especially as a crowd pleaser.Busoni was a pupil of Liszt – the greatest showman after Paganini who ever lived.Noble ladies would be turned into a screaming mob trying to grab any souvenir they could when Liszt played in the aristocratic salons of the day.But Busoni like Liszt was a musical genius too with a mind always pointed to the future.He was able to continue the sound world of late Liszt and bring it to its ultimate conclusion as explained so magnificently by Kirill Gerstein in a recent lecture recital at the Wigmore Hall .

Kirill Gerstein – Busoni is alive and well and returned to the Wigmore Hall

The Elegie that Misha played took me by surprise as I had not heard it since Ogdon used to play it in his recitals.It is a fantasy on Greensleeves just as Busoni had written a Sonatina sopra Carmen better known as the Carmen Fantasy.They are showpieces too but written by an intellectual not a showman.

Misha brought a ravishing beauty to the arpeggiated opening bars of intermingled harmonic changes before bursting into bucolic rhythmic chords out of which emerged the melody that we know as Greensleeves.The melodic line embellished as Liszt or Thalberg might have done and played with a nonchalant ease and old world style. Busoni always ending with a question mark as if to say where are we going to now? A remarkable performance of intelligence and virtuosity added to a sense of style that was absolutely enticing.The Liszt del Petrarca Sonnetto 123 was played in grand style with golden sounds of great beauty.Passion and beauty combined with ravishing glistening sounds and a remarkable sense of elasticity to the melodic line without ever losing the architectural thread that weaves it all together into a sumptuous whole.The Bartok Study op 18 n.2 was a tour de force of virtuosity which again showed Misha’s remarkable musicianship as he managed to find the musical line within the enormous technical demands that Bartok requests from the performer.

An ovation as rarely heard at St James’s greeted this young artist headed for the heights.

Kaploukhii – Matthews at St James’s Piccadilly – Two stars of Talent Unlimited shining brightly